“Let me counter that in two ways. First, I can absolutely ignore what’s going on. At least for long enough to run this race. Second, it isn’t like there’s a day that goes by that there isn’t someone out there plotting my demise. ‘In the middle of a life-or-death plot’ is sort of my status quo, and I’ve gotten to the point where if I’m going to have a life at all, I’m going to have to live with periodically dodging assassination attempts or corporate sabotage. So long as it’s focusing on me and not everyone around me, I’m willing to take the chance.”
“That’s…” Michella fumbled for her words, but she failed to find anything likely to change his mind. “Would you at least remain as accessible as possible? I may still need information from you.”
“All the more reason for me to get my butt to Operlo fast. So let’s go.” Lex brought up the star chart. “Seven hours to the first major hub. Let’s get moving.”
Chapter 5
The nearest official hub they were able to reach was, if Lex was being honest, one of the nicer ones he’d encountered. They probably wouldn’t have been pleased to discover they were conveniently located next to the last lingering cell of a techno cult, but they had a clean promenade, free hand sanitizer, and pretty decent taste in music while Lex was stretching his legs and giving Squee some much-needed exercise on their dog run.
Michella had installed her hands-free and was in full journalism mode, dictating orders to Jon, summarizing findings to Lou, and creating a lengthy list of contacts she’d need to drill for information. Lex’s agenda for the stop was considerably shorter. He bought the first thing he spotted that wasn’t shelf-stable and thus the furthest thing from his in-ship supplies as he could manage. It turned out to be something called a garden wrap, which was at least eighty-five percent baby spinach. As he chomped away on it and wrangled Squee on her retractable leash, he thumbed at his slidepad to check his messages.
“No fresh spam. That’s a good start,” Lex said. “Got some requests for press contact. Racing feeds and the like. I’ll get back to them on Operlo. Oh! And here’s one from Preethy.”
He scrolled up to the autogenerated summary.
Lex, please contact me. We have received a message, which, while not threatening on its face, may have a connection to your current predicament.
The message was only a few hours old. With a bit of quick mental math, he determined Preethy was probably still awake. While Squee inspected the hindquarters of a Doberman that seemed to be handling the rigors of space travel with a degree less grace and aplomb, he tapped the message. Lacking his own hands-free, he resorted to pinning his slidepad to his ear with his shoulder.
“Lex, I’m pleased you were able to contact me so quickly. I know, by the nature of your travel arrangements, communication is not always possible for days at a time.”
“Yeah, Mitch decided she needed a more conventional means of transport, so she’s going to hop on a high-speed spaceliner to finish her trip.”
“Did your investigation turn up anything you can discuss?”
“Nothing useful. We were afraid it was the Neo-Luddites, and it isn’t. Not all of them, anyway. I think it’s less a matter of them being after me and more a matter of someone being after one of them and me. But no one tried to kill me… I mean, except for a couple of missiles, but really, the way these things usually go, that was me getting off easy.”
“As long as you are not hurt. I assume you saw my message.”
“Yeah. Did another of those spam avalanches happen?”
“No. Not this time. In this case it was a single message forwarded from the management firm that runs your Golana apartment building.”
“What did it say?”
“It is a curious string of numbers and a single sentence. ‘In order to adhere to Temporal Contingency Protocol, please aid in utilizing this data.’ There was no additional information. No audio, no video, no executable code to suggest an attempt at hacking. I had our network people attempt to trace the address, but the requests to the local communications experts returned the claim that the message originated in one of the communication nodes one link past the Golana global network. As I very much doubt an uncrewed communications relay sent this message to your previous address, this seemed like it might be related to the recent network attack.”
Lex’s eyes had been shut and his shoulders had been tense from the moment he’d heard a certain phrase.
“Just to make sure. You did say Temporal Contingency Protocol just now.”
“Yes. It struck me as an odd turn of phrase as well. Have you heard it before?”
“I know of only two people who have ever used it. And they don’t use it lightly.”
“It sounds as though you should contact them.”
“I tried. I tried calling. I got no answer. I tried visiting and got most of the way there before I got a message that basically said ‘stay away.’”
“So how would you like to proceed?”
“I don’t know… I mean. I know how I’d like to proceed. I’d like to just show up, run the race, get my trophy, and then spend a couple weeks taking a victory lap before helping you guys figure out how to make the next race season more successful. But Temporal Contingency…”
“Would you like my advice?”
“Have you got advice? This is kind of a unique quandary I’m having.”
“There are perhaps a dozen people in the galaxy who have had as varied and absurd a life as you. I suspect you’ve attempted to contact all of them and reached none. That means your intuition, in addition to being your first indicator of what should be done, is also your last. So what do you think needs to be done?”
“I just said, I want to—”
“What you just said is what you want to do. I asked what you think needs to be done.”
Squee finished her thorough investigation into the new scents and waggled her butt in preparation for a jump. Lex managed to shift the slidepad into the leash hand just before she burst from the ground. Now that he had a spare hand, he switched to video. Somehow, seeing the calm, patient look on Preethy’s face was profoundly refreshing. She had a way of seeming to be the only one in the world who had all the answers, even when she didn’t. Maybe it was part and parcel to being a CEO. Maybe it was just who she was. But she could look the premier expert in the galaxy in the eye and seem to be gently encouraging them to find their way to an answer that she already knew.
“What I need to do is find a way to get in contact with Ma. And that means face-to-face, so to speak, because it’s not like she’s the kind of person who would be too busy to answer a call. But that basically guarantees that I’ll be missing this race.”
“Do you intend to retire from racing after this season?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you anticipate your skills eroding after this season?”
“I anticipate getting better. This season has been me knocking the rust off, and my times prove it.”
“Do you anticipate dying in the pursuit of whatever you’re after?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Then do what needs to be done. There will be other seasons. There will be other races. Maybe you’ve been living on the edge for too long to remember it, but you have a career here. Not a few scattered races. A career. You have a life here. So you need to do what you must to keep it safe. And only you know what needs to be done. I’ll handle the business side. There will still be an exciting race. I’ll keep the audience entertained. You handle whatever this is. We’ll all be here waiting for you.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you have the most astonishing ability to simultaneously take charge and relinquish responsibility?”
“When one begins as an administrative assistant, one learns the value of both sides of delegating a task. And watching someone like my uncle assign potentially lethal tasks to those he knows can handle them puts one in a very particular state of mind. Call me when you c
an. I have some preparations to make. And do me a favor. Don’t get killed. I have plans for you.”
The final sentence had a smolder behind it that dispelled any suggestion that she was talking about their business relationship. She didn’t wait around for him to formulate a witty rejoinder. The connection ended and he was left feeling empowered, confident, and a cocktail of other emotions that would need some time to settle. He pocketed his slidepad and cleared his throat.
“Mitch!” he called.
Like most of the better-maintained deep-space stations, this place simulated gravity with a rotating wheel, and thus the concourse was curved upward. Michella was barely visible at the horizon of this curve, already on the way to her terminal to prepare for her departure. She paused and turned, raising a finger to place him in a conversational holding pattern while she finished her call. He hurried toward her rather than having her retrace her steps.
“—No… No, not an assistant, not a spokesperson. The actual officer in question. Trust me, we’re not going to want this filtered through any other people. The chance for confusion is too high,” she said. “Yes. That’ll work perfectly. I’ll be waiting.”
Michella ended the call and turned to Lex. “Make it fast, I’ve got two more calls coming in the next few minutes.”
“There was another message. It went to my old house and got forwarded to Preethy. It references Temporal Contingency Protocol, which means whoever this is must have gotten in contact with Karter and Ma somehow.”
“And they’re out of contact,” Michella said.
“I don’t think I can ignore this anymore. I’ve got to find them.”
Her jaw tightened briefly. “I wish you would have made this decision a few hours ago so I wouldn’t have booked the next seventy-two hours with my own personal correspondences. For that I would have sacrificed network connectivity.”
“I learned about it three minutes ago.”
“How are you going to get to them?”
“I’m going to pay a visit to Big Sigma, even though they don’t want me to.”
“I thought there was that cloud of trash protecting it.”
“I’ve gotten through it without help once before. It’s how Betsy became Son of Betsy.”
“… So you destroyed a ship.”
“I wouldn’t say destroyed. Let’s call it ‘accidentally converted to raw material for a new ship.’”
“Lex, are you sure about this?”
“Nope! But it’s what’s gonna happen. But, uh… would you mind taking Squee with you?”
He pulled Squee from his shoulders. She looked at him quizzically as Lex placed her like a stole around Michella’s neck and clipped the leash to her belt.
“You really aren’t sure about this.”
“I’ve come to measure the stupidity of my actions by how large a circle around myself I’m willing to tolerate inflicting my decisions upon. This particular circle’s only got room for me and Coal,” he said. “I’m going to survive it. No doubt about that. But there’s going to be collateral damage, and I’d rather limit that to people who have backup copies.”
“Doesn’t Squee have backup copies?”
“Yeah, but I’m particularly attached to this one.” He tousled Squee’s fur. “You be good for Michella. No zoomies on-ship. I’ll see you after.”
Squee blinked slowly and lowered her head, tail wrapped snuggly around Michella’s neck and eyes locked on Lex’s.
“So this means you’re going to miss the race,” she said.
“Unless nothing at all goes wrong, and really, what are the chances of that?”
Her slidepad chimed and she started to back away.
“I’ll let you back in the circle once there’s enough slack,” he said.
“Right. Right. Good luck.”
Michella seemed unsteady. She fumbled with her slidepad without looking away from Lex. This was a moment that, not so long ago, would have been filled with a hug and a kiss. That neither he nor she motioned for one made the gesture feel all the more glaring in its absence. Fortunately, Squee was able to read the room and made a scrambling, clumsy stretch to reach far enough to lick his ear.
“See you real soon. I promise.” He turned to leave.
“Trev,” she said.
He turned back.
“You better keep that promise.”
“I always keep my promises.”
#
Lex slid back into the seat of the SOB and tapped out the commands for departure.
“I can do that for you, Lex,” Coal said.
“I know. I’m… feeling a little hands-on right now,” he said.
“Where is Squee?”
“I sent her with Michella for a while.”
“That is disappointing. I like Squee.”
“Me too. But this might not the best time for her to be around.”
“Why is that?”
“Because we’re going to pay Big Sigma a visit, and things might get exciting.”
“The fun sort of exciting?”
“I sure hope so.”
“Then I look forward to it!”
The doors to the docking bay slid open, and automated navigation eased them out of the berth. Lex stared through the cockpit hatch at the black void before him.
“Coal, could you do that visualization? The flight paths?”
“Certainly, Lex.”
Gleaming silver and gold threads wove themselves out of the assorted berths. It was still beautiful, in its own way, but this was a rather small station and the threads made for a very sparse tapestry.
“Not as pretty as Golana.”
“No. Golana is something special in that regard. To see the beauty here you need to open your eyes a bit wider. Look from farther away and farther back in their flight history.”
One of the holographic displays flicked on and revealed a view of the station from a position several light-years away. Far enough to include the next two closest nodes in the network. The threads became more complex.
“You can see the subtle gravitational variations that cause the transit corridors to wander. Still not as impressive as Golana. But interesting.”
“Yeah…” Lex gazed at the visualization for a second or two, then took manual control and started angling for the appropriate FTL sprint. “We’re headed to Big Sigma. Hopefully we’ll be able to see Ma and Karter.”
“You won’t be able to see Ma unless you are particularly interested in visiting one of the server rooms, and even then you’ll only be seeing the storage and execution of part of her distributed—”
“Figure of speech, Coal.”
He tapped the appropriate controls and watched the view outside the window begin its blue shift to nothingness. Coal kept the visualization up on the display. Once he was content the FTL run was going to execute as expected, he looked it over again. One thread was peeling off from the network and tracing its own arrow-straight line. That was him. Going his own way.
“Is this what you do, Coal? Just spend your time looking for beauty? It doesn’t seem like that would be a worthwhile activity for an AI.”
“I spend my time looking for patterns. It is what I was designed to do. It is what you were designed to do as well. You by iteration and me by imitation. Sometimes those patterns are beautiful. But seeking beauty is always a worthwhile activity for an intelligence of any origin.”
“Fair enough.” He drummed on the currently inactive controls. “Patterns… Boy, oh boy. I have been noticing some patterns in my life.”
“It would be more impressive if you failed to notice any patterns. Which are you presently fixated on?”
“How every time I start getting close to something I’ve been striving for, the sum total of existence seems dedicated to derailing it.”
“That must be very nice.”
“It is the opposite of nice, Coal.”
“The greatest source of interest i
s a divergence from the norm. When things turn out as anticipated or desired, knowledge is reinforced. When things defy expectation, knowledge is discovered.”
“Mostly I’ve just discovered that it sucks when that stuff happens to me.”
“I submit that you have a flawed definition of the word ‘sucks.’ You are one of only a handful of humans who has traveled through time. And survived, thus qualifying as fun. You have become the keeper of one of the only funks to leave its native habitat. Anything that increases the number of adorable fuzzy creatures in your life is good. Through your interactions, you have repeatedly secured the safety of whole planets. Again, fulfilling the qualifications of fun. Most importantly, from my limited perspective, a side effect of your adventures was the creation of a wholly distinct subset of the Altruistic Artificial Intelligence, which has subsequently taken the designation ‘Coal.’”
“Yeah but—”
“Lex, I am not currently interested in plumbing the depths of your present mental status. I am comfortable with my prior assessment that you are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from such varied sources as repeated exposure to galactic-level threats and the knowledge that the accuracy of the multiverse theory of existence means your every action is without meaning thanks to the opposing action existing in an alternate universe. Instead, let’s talk about pie.”
“… Pie?”
“People like pie, and I don’t know why. Tell me about pie.”
He scratched his head and leaned back. “Well, I mean, it’s a big topic. Are we including quiche and pizza?”
#
Michella hauled her bags into the economy booth on the first of a seven-leg journey back to Golana. As spoiled as she’d gotten with the extremely fast, extremely direct flights Lex could provide, even the absolute cheapest private room on a proper transport ship provided creature comforts Lex’s ship couldn’t dream of offering. Things like room for her legs and a bathroom that wasn’t attached to a hose. Right now, though, the most important luxury was unbroken network access.
Her slidepad chirped just as Squee laid claim to her lap. The screen illuminated with the name Mavis (VectorCorp). She scrambled to answer the call.
Nova Igniter Page 9
