“Yes, I did. I wonder how something like that even managed to get in there,” Sarah said.
“I suspect you’ll have to ask Ewa that. She should know if something was implanted inside of her. Do you think that had something to do with the murders?”
“We should ask Ewa. When should we wake her up?”
“Let’s give her one more day to recuperate. Otherwise those bruises on her left side will give her unnecessary pain,” Gabriella said.
“Have you ever seen muscles like that?”
“Yes, among amateur athletes who overexerted themselves. I once had an amateur runner in my office who was dead set on participating in a marathon. He didn’t listen to his body and collapsed right before reaching the finish line. His muscles were also bloated like this.”
“Ewa must’ve really outdone herself inside the object,” Sarah said.
“She definitely had something to make up for,” Gabriella said. “I was there when we caught her trying to kill Theo and Andy. This time it looks like she saved all of us.”
“It looks that way,” Sarah said. “It was unfortunate that, at the end, the drone didn’t have a clear view of what happened.”
“I’m sure that Ewa will tell us tomorrow about what all she did in there.”
Sol 110, NASA base
“Where am I?”
Ewa was confused. With Friday’s help, she had just managed to slip through the crack. She reached up to her face. No helmet! She should be suffocating.
“On the Endeavour,” replied a voice that she recognized.
“Gabriella?”
“It’s good to hear that your memory is working.”
A face was leaning over Ewa. It was the one that belonged to the MfE doctor, but something wasn’t right with this scenario. Wasn’t the Endeavour still at the MfE base, multiple days away via ground travel? “How is this possible? The ship is still thousands of kilometers away!” Ewa exclaimed.
“Mike contacted us. They didn’t have the resources to medically treat you, so we flew here with the Endeavour.”
“But... that cost a huge amount of fuel!”
“If we hadn’t, help wouldn’t have gotten to you in time, and we didn’t want that to happen. After all, you saved us, Ewa.”
“I... I didn’t want that.”
“To save us? But you did an awful lot to accomplish that.”
“No, I mean that I didn’t want you to go to so much trouble on my behalf. I was to blame for what happened with the mountain.”
“Come on now! Sooner or later, that machine would have dug up the entire Mars surface, including our base with it. You prevented that from happening, rendering a great service to what remains of the human race.”
“If it hadn’t been for me, the NASA people wouldn’t have tried to drill down to what they thought was a layer of water.”
“That’s not true. Mike explained to us that they had a small robotic drill. It just would’ve taken them longer to reach the layer. They need a stable water source. You just unearthed the problem a little quicker, but on the other hand, you also solved it right away.”
Ewa gazed at the ceiling and its various pipes. What Gabriella said sounded logical. It was just that it didn’t sit well with her image of herself. Everything she attempted seemed to bring misfortune to the other humans, whatever the reason. The drill that was meant to grant the NASA base long-term survival was lying in a heap of twisted metal on the slope of a mountain that had emerged from underground.
Stopping the machine wasn’t any kind of achievement. And she hadn’t even been the one to do it. Without Friday, she would have failed in her efforts. “I need to tell you something,” Ewa murmured.
“There’ll be time for that. First, the medical details,” Gabriella said. “We decided to put you in an artificial coma for a day to help you recuperate. Your left side was covered with bruises and abrasions, though nothing life-threatening. What worried us was the state of your muscles. I’ve never seen anything like it. It looks as if you’ve run two back-to-back marathons, using every last fiber of every ‘locomotion’ muscle in your body. This makes me think you have some undiagnosed syndrome.”
“I think I know what caused it,” Ewa said. Gabriella gazed at her doubtfully. Ewa could understand that. She would be skeptical, too, if a patient claimed to know more than her doctor.
“Regardless,” Gabriella continued. “We discovered something else strange. Sarah noticed it first. There’s a foreign object inside your brain, smaller than a coin. We can’t explain it. It might be an implant, but it would’ve required extremely advanced technology to put it in its current location. We don’t have the means to remove it.”
Gabriella’s eyes grew concerned, while Ewa, on the other hand, felt encouraged. This was the proof that she wasn’t crazy or a liar, and that what she was going to describe was actually true. Besides that, she had been worried that she might have simply imagined Friday, which would have meant that she was schizophrenic.
“That’s all right,” she said, exhaling in a gust of great relief. “I call that thing you found Friday. He’s what I wanted to explain to you.”
“Okaaaay,” Gabriella said warily. “And when was it implanted?”
“I’m not sure. Before my MfE training, I had an operation to help control my epileptic seizures, which had occurred several times before. They told me it was a minor surgery.”
“Who told you that?”
“The team of doctors from MfE’s evaluation process. They wouldn’t allow me to come if I didn’t agree to the surgery.”
“I understand,” Gabriella said. “Do you know what abilities your Friday possesses?”
“Absolutely. He can take control of my body if I permit him to, or if I’m asleep. He was responsible for the sabotage of the Dragon module and the attacks against Andy and Theo.”
Gabriella’s face no longer reflected concern, but a mixture of panic and horror. “Do you know what that means, Ewa? We are going to have to examine everyone right away to see if anyone else is carrying an implant. And we have to free you as quickly as possible from this Friday.”
“No,” Ewa said. “Friday and I have become companions at this point. Without him, I wouldn’t have gotten out of the mountain in time.”
“Are you serious?” Gabriella asked. “That object, whatever it is, is responsible for the deaths of five of our friends. If we want to be safe in the years to come, then we have to incapacitate it. It would be best if we discussed this with the others.”
Ewa nodded. “Later,” she said. “I need to close my eyes for a while.”
They had gathered on the bridge of the Endeavour, which was sitting on its standard landing pad, not far from the NASA base. Gabriella was there, as well as Theo who had flown the ship here. The four NASA astronauts, Mike, Sharon, Sarah, and Lance, were also there. They had broken off their drive to the MfE base, turned their rover around, and found Ewa next to the remains of the drill tower. The MfE base was linked in via radio.
Ewa explained how she had survived her banishment. She left out her fears, pain, and despair, limiting herself to the facts. There were occasional incredulous questions, primarily when she mentioned the thing inside her head for the first time, and later when she described how she had taken the drill and the loader off the Spaceliner supply ship.
“That was theft,” Andy said over the radio link. “I’m worried that the company will hold us liable for that. Was it your own idea?”
“Well, they have enough to share,” Theo chimed in.
“I accept full responsibility,” Ewa said. “They can’t blame you for this. You had already banished me.”
“They might not care about that,” Andy said. “You heard their administrator. He didn’t sound like someone to split hairs. For him, NASA, MfE, and MfE outcasts are all the same. They’re bringing a hundred people. Compared to them, we’re just a handful of crazies.”
“That’s just one more reason for us to cooperate more closel
y in the future,” Mike said.
“My thoughts exactly,” Andy said, “but we need to be prepared for the repercussions from Ewa’s actions.”
“No need to panic,” Sharon said. “I saw the drill vehicle in person. The mechanism that set up the tower is unusable and irreparable with our resources. And the cab is totally destroyed. However, the base platform is drivable, and the drill head looks repairable to me. We’ll have to take apart the tower and put it back together by hand. Here in Mars’s gravitational field, it shouldn’t be all that heavy. That’ll take us a day or two instead of half an hour, but it won’t be a major loss. The damage really isn’t extreme. The administrator will have to agree on that.”
“And how do you intend to drive the vehicle?” Andy asked from the MfE base.
“By remote control from the loader, which is completely operational,” Sharon said. “There’s no reason why we couldn’t drill for water again and then give back the machines.”
“You really want to try that again?” Mike asked in astonishment.
“Of course,” Sharon replied. “The odds are pretty slim that Mars is holding other surprises like the one we just had. And before we drill, we’ll run precise tests to make sure that we’ve really found water.”
“Okay, I guess that sounds reasonable,” Mike said. “Before then, though, we’ll need to repair our base. And listen to more of Ewa’s report.”
As the others talked, Ewa had found it increasingly difficult to concentrate, so she was glad to continue her story. During her description of the drill’s use, Ellen complained about MfE not having been informed about it, and Mike apologized for that. Then, Ewa reached the point in the story when she had let Friday take control so he could decipher the markings inside the mountain.
“That’s fascinating,” Andy remarked via the radio. “This Friday reminds me of one of the AIs I helped develop during my Ph.D. program. These are abilities that we could make good use of. The decryption probably would’ve taken me six months or more to do.
Andy’s words were important because the others listened to him, and his comments were well-grounded. Ewa was happy because they were discussing the possibility of not destroying Friday.
When nobody else spoke up, she continued. The others were shocked, almost incredulous, when she described her escape from the mountain.
“They always say that humans only utilize a small percentage of their actual potential,” Sarah said. “With an object like that in one’s head, anyone could reach one hundred percent.”
“Maybe you’re part of some secret experiment by the military,” Andy speculated. “There were rumors that they were working on something like this that would connect human and machine to create a super soldier.”
An interesting idea, but something seems... off about it, Ewa thought.
“Why would this thing attempt to kill all of us? The military wouldn’t have been interested in that,” Ellen said.
That’s the problem, Ewa realized. Why the sabotage at the beginning?
“But maybe so! That’s why soldiers exist, right?” Andy said.
“You’ve never served in the military, right?” Mike replied. “That’s nonsense. The only reason soldiers still exist is to prevent the circumvention of the UN guidelines in the interest of developing intelligent weapons systems. Nobody shoots their enemies up close anymore. The soldier just says yes or no.”
“That doesn’t mean they limit themselves to that,” Andy argued.
“Don’t argue,” Gabriella interrupted. “Ewa, are you done with your account?”
“Almost,” Ewa said. “I’d like to add something about Friday. At this point, I’m convinced that he has something like a personality. More than anything, he’s scared of dying, just like every other living creature. This is why I’ve decided that I will not let him die.” She almost added the words, regardless of your decision, but decided not to antagonize the others.
“Is there any way to delete or kill it, to use your imagery?” Sarah asked. “There’s no way we could safely remove the implant.”
“Every electronic device is susceptible to electromagnetic impulses,” Andy said. “I think we could destroy the implant’s structure without harming Ewa in the process.”
“Are you totally sure about that?” Gabriella asked.
Andy thought about this for a moment before saying, “Yes, but that doesn’t mean I’m in favor of it. As I already said, Friday could be very useful to us. We won’t have anything like an AI with his abilities here on Mars in the next three hundred years.”
“But he is a murderer,” Ellen said. “If I understand correctly, Ewa, he could take control of your body and continue his murders any time you’re asleep.”
Ewa had feared being asked this question because all she could say was yes.
“I had a lock with an alarm for my bicycle that went off loudly if anyone ever moved it without my permission. We could construct something similar for Ewa,” Lance suggested.
“You want to attach Ewa to some kind of lock?” Sarah asked.
“Only when she’s sleeping. The alarm would wake her up, and Friday wouldn’t stand a chance,” Lance explained.
Ewa smiled. It was a primitive solution, but it could work. Didn’t people attach similar things to sleepwalkers? “I’d agree to that,” she said. “If it would mean that Friday could stay alive, I’d be glad to lock myself up every night.”
“I don’t understand you at all,” Ellen said. She had once been Ewa’s closest confidante and almost a friend. “That thing inside your head has five of our friends on his conscience, and you still want to grant it asylum? It’s a fucking murderer!”
“Yes, but he saved me and all of our lives,” Ewa said. “I can’t agree to the eye for an eye model. Then we’re no better than him. He doesn’t seem to be murderous. No, he was reacting to particular circumstances that we still don’t understand. And even a murderer deserves a second chance.”
It was a difficult discussion. Ewa had the feeling that she couldn’t present all of her reasons. She wanted to keep Friday alive because nothing had changed in her sense of complicit guilt in the deaths of her five friends. Shouldn’t she have realized earlier that she was directly involved in the sabotage? Just like the others, she couldn’t have imagined that the presumed groundwater layer had, in reality, been an extraterrestrial artifact. But did that alleviate her guilt? She alone would have to find the answer to that question.
“I suggest that we vote about what should happen to Friday,” Gabriella said.
“Agreed,” Ellen declared.
Ewa didn’t say anything. Regardless of the outcome of the vote, she wouldn’t let anything happen to Friday, even if that resulted in her being banished again.
Gabriella summarized the situation. “The two options up for vote are: To electromagnetically neutralize the thing inside Ewa’s head—”
“Kill,” Ewa interrupted.
“... or Ewa will vow to never go to sleep without plugging herself into the alarm system Lance described. Everyone has a vote. Votes for Option One first.”
Ewa closed her eyes. This day was more stressful on her than the time she had spent in the alien machine.
“Three votes for the first option,” Gabriella declared. “And now for the votes for allowing Friday to continue living.”
This meant that she had probably won. Ewa could hardly believe it. Only three votes for Friday’s death! She didn’t even want to know who had voted for that.
“Ten votes for the second option,” Gabriella said. “The decision is clear.”
Ewa was speechless. She hadn’t earned this. There were still five people who had met their deaths because of her, even if Friday had played a key role in everything. She herself wouldn’t have rescinded her banishment. But if the others agreed on this, was she in a position to contradict them?
She shut her eyes again. It grew dark around her, and the others’ voices became quieter. She had the feeling that Friday wan
ted to say something, and she allowed him to use her voice.
‘Esteemed colleagues,’ the artificial intelligence said.
Everyone turned toward her. It was Ewa’s voice, but they could all hear that she wasn’t formulating the words herself.
‘With Ewa’s permission, I would like to thank you all for this decision. I vow to not abuse your trust in me, and from this moment onward, I will only act in the interests of this expedition. I would also like to ask your forgiveness for the crime I committed which caused the deaths of your five friends. At that point, I was following the commands of my programming.’
“Which programming?” Andy interrupted.
‘This information isn’t available to me.’
“And everything’s over now? Why should we believe you?” Andy asked again.
‘I want to be quite honest,’ Friday said. ‘As far as I can ascertain, everything is over. I think things changed when my existence was directly threatened. From what I can tell, that was the moment that a much older, significantly more basic programming took control, whose goal was to ensure my survival.’
“Is it possible that the malicious program might once again gain the upper hand, once your survival is no longer in question?” Sarah asked.
‘I don’t know, which is why I agree on the advisability of the alarm system that Lance has proposed,’ Friday said.
“Does that mean you can hear everything we say, all the time?” Ellen asked.
‘I receive the sensory impressions that Ewa registers,’ Friday replied.
“Good. Then I would like to personally give you this warning: If you ever undertake anything against us again, I will send you to Hell myself,” Ellen exclaimed sharply.
‘I wouldn’t want it any other way,’ Friday replied.
10/14/2042, Spaceliner 1
Mars Nation: The Complete Trilogy Page 54
