Mirage

by Mark W. Tiedemann

  Rana looked up from her console, one eyebrow cocking critically. From behind Ariel, Derec patted the air to let Rana know it was all right.

  Ariel did a more careful survey of this chamber. Derec could almost imagine the way she assessed each piece of equipment, sorted out the way in which the lab worked, and judged it...

  “I’m impressed,” she said. “You could do some excellent work here.” She turned to him. “What do you do with it?”

  “Till lately,” Rana said, “we’ve done a lot of theoretical work, plotting positronic vectors under stress situations and the like, and we can play some really high level strategy games on it. For the most part, though, we spend our time answering questions from resident Spacers who can’t understand why their robots won’t anticipate their wants and desires the way they do back home and explaining to others why they shouldn’t have a positronic robot outside embassy confines.”

  Derec glared at her. “Rana, this is Ariel Burgess. Ariel, Verana Duvan, my chief roboticist.”

  “Burgess,” Rana said, rising. “Calvin Institute.” She stopped a pace away from Ariel. “I read your brief on ‘Cross-Inference Deduction in the Field. ’ Good work.”

  Ariel hesitated, then slowly nodded. “Thank you. I’m afraid I can’t say I’ve seen any of your work.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’m Terran. We don’t get to publish in Spacer journals.”

  “How...?”

  “How did I get involved with robotics?” Rana grinned. “My degree is in Industrial Automation, with a minor in AI. I got sidetracked into positronics. We aren’t all rabidly antirobot.”

  “That must have been difficult.”

  “Tracking down the material was a challenge. Frankly, if Derec hadn’t come along with his offer to work here I was going to apply for emigration. I was preparing my application to the Calvin Institute. Futile gesture, maybe, but you never know till you try.”

  “Why futile? If Derec wanted you, you must be good.”

  “Calvin doesn’t take very many Earthers. I checked.

  There’s a very old saying about a snowball’s chance...?” Rana started to go back to her console, then looked at Ariel. “And I am good.”

  “Modest, too,” Derec said.

  “So with all this talent, why do you need me?” Ariel asked.

  “Because we didn’t install the RI at Union Station, we only watched from a distance,” Rana said. “And it has some peculiarities we can’t explain.”

  “What did they tell you at the Institute?”

  “They didn’t,” Derec said. “We... aren’t really supposed to be looking at it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Special Service assumed jurisdiction over the entire investigation. Threw us out.”

  “Special Service doesn’t have any positronic experts.”

  “Maybe they’re talking to your people at the Institute,”

  Derec said.

  Ariel’s mouth compressed tightly. She looked troubled. “So what are you doing with it?”

  “We set up surrogate function through our RI and transferred a complete copy of Union Station ‘s here before we were shut out. They don’t know we have it.”

  “And you don’t want to go through normal channels to ask... I see.” Ariel nodded. “You think I’ll act as go-between for you? Believe me, the last thing I need now is a problem with Special Service. I’ve already got panicked Aurorans ready to leave Earth at a heartbeat. Any kind of problem with Earth authorities that might lead to--”

  “Ariel,” Derec said, cutting her off. “No. I want you to look at what we have and give me your opinion.”

  She gave him a dubious look. “That’s all?”

  “We’ll see. First, I want to know what you think.”

  Her eyes narrowed. He knew she understood what he was doing. He hoped she would acknowledge a stake in this, that perhaps she already had found inconsistencies in the situation, that her involvement would outweigh her resentments. He watched her work through all of that and more he could not guess.

  “All right,” she said finally. “Show me what you have.”

  “It’s been a while since I’ve seen a collapse this thorough,” Ariel said, staring at the screen. “Did anything function?”

  “Nothing,” Derec said. “According to the staff, everything had to be switched to manual. Fortunately, some of the systems had their own parallel processing units, so it wasn’t a complete loss, but...”

  Ariel pointed at one of the spirals. “What is that? It looks like a paradox loop, but I don’t see a resolution point.”

  “Neither do we,” Rana said, “and I’ve been looking. I started an excavation, but it looks like the loops resolve somewhere outside the positronic matrix.”

  “That’s absurd, there is no ‘outside’ a positronic matrix,” Ariel said. “Not like this. Unless it’s a connection with another positronic matrix.”

  “A comlink,” Derec said.

  “Basically, yes. You know this stuff, Derec. This is freshman-level pathway schema.”

  “But in this case,” he said patiently, “it doesn’t go through any comlinks. We traced a good number of the comlinks, mostly the supervisory connections with the mobile staff. None of them match these sites. These loops are leaving the matrix and going somewhere else through a channel we can’t determine.”

  “Just what sectors are they in?”

  “It’s too damaged to tell about all of them,” Derec said. “Once it began collapsing, everything randomized.”

  “At some point it should lock up. The whole thing shouldn’t devolve into chaos.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Rana said. “Basic salvage protocol, ever since the stasis modifications went in--what? Twenty years ago? But this did exactly the opposite and became more fluid.”

  Ariel started tapping the keyboard before her. “You said too damaged to tell about all of them. Does that mean you could tell for some of them? What about a scan for mirror sites... where do these sectors link to the station systems?”

  “Maintenance,” Rana said.

  Ariel waited, then glanced at the other woman. “All of them?”

  “So far.”

  “Hm. How did you determine that?”

  “Like I said, I’m running an excavation. Layer by layer, sector by sector, and matching it to design specs from our RI, which, for the time being, is running Union Station.”

  Ariel blinked at her. “I admire your ambition.”

  Rana shrugged. “No option. But...” She waved at the screen.

  “Maintenance...” Ariel mused. “What about the reference template? Did you check it?”

  “Can’t find it,” Rana said. “Everything is so random--”

  Ariel leaned forward and worked the keyboard. She entered a few more commands, then sat back. Two of the peripheral screens began to display new patterns.

  Rana stared. “How did--?” she began, but Derec gave her a minute shake of the head.

  “Every positronic brain has a reference template,” Ariel said quietly, more to herself than to them. “A basic pattern of behavior and attributes against which the working brain can refer...” She frowned. “I don’t understand this. They’re randomized, too.” She tapped more commands. The screens changed.

  Ariel touched one of the screens. “This comline isn’t right. It’s one-to-one, no buffer to shield the matrix. Same with this one. What kind of accessory systems were installed on this?”

  “Don’t know,” Derec said.

  She scowled at him impatiently. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Didn’t you do an on-site inspection?”

  “We didn’t get a chance to before we were taken off the job and barred from the site.”

  “What about before this? Are you telling me you only looked at the system during the install and not since?”

  “We went back in once, a few months after the installation. After that it was supposed to be on an as-needed basis and we never received a call. Now
that we need to get in there, we’re blocked.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Who issued that order?”

  “It came from the director’s office of Special Service,” Derec replied. “Their authorization was legal.”

  “But Phylaxis--”

  “We were removed, Ariel. Period.”

  She stared at the screens before her, but Derec was sure she saw nothing on them. She absently scratched her chin once.

  “I see. And you think I--we--had something to do with that?”

  “The thought had occurred to me,” Derec said drily.

  Ariel nodded slowly, still looking at the screens. “You said no one knows you have this copy?”

  “No one has shown up yet to take it away from us.” That elicited a grin.

  “Do you have any theories about what this is?” She pointed at the screen.

  “The staff told me that just before the assault, the RI took itself off-line to play a game. It was completely unaware of what was happening in the gallery until it came back online and witnessed the aftermath.”

  “And that’s when the collapse began.”

  “Exactly,” Derec said. “Now, the paradox loops and the mirror sites suggest that something was physically attached to the RI network. When I asked about problems with the RI before this, I was told that a few glitches had occurred, but they were minor and they’d been told that ‘adjustment errors’ were to be expected, to contact the Calvin Institute about them before contacting us. Most were dismissed.”

  “Adjustment errors...” Ariel stood and walked slowly around the lab. After one full circuit she stopped directly in front of Derec. “What do you want from me?”

  “To Start with, I’d like to know who issued that maintenance directive.”

  “You want my help.”

  “Just--” Derec began.

  “You want me to pry into the operations of my own people to see if any of them are somehow culpable.” Her voice was growing edged, caustic.

  “Ariel--”

  “You want me to help you figure out why the RI went insane.”

  “Well”

  “You want me to forget about everything else, drop my responsibilities, and be a spy for you.” Ariel folded her arms across her chest and grunted derisively. “I have to credit you, Derec--you have nerve.”

  Derec could feel his own irritation grow. He feared a repeat of their last fight. “Are you going to tell me you’re not interested in this?”

  Ariel glared at him briefly. “Damn you, yes. You knew that would happen, once I saw this.” She slapped the top of the console. “You relied on that. You used it.”

  “And you hate being used. “

  “Damn it--!”

  “Then help us,” Derec said softly. “Whoever did this is using you in a much worse way. Whoever did this did it to kill Galiel Humadros and Clar Eliton. They also killed the two surviving members of Eliton’s security team. It will get worse. At the very least, this completely discredits positronics on Earth. This undoes everything Eliton hoped to do. Even if the conference goes on now, without finding the people responsible nothing will be accomplished. Tell me this doesn’t concern you.”

  Ariel caught herself, face red, mouth open to respond. “I need to know more.”

  Derec felt a moment of hope, a brief twinge of success. He ran the tip of his tongue over his lips, folded his arms, and, in as calm a voice as he could manage, told her what he had learned. All the while he watched her, hoping he could still trust what he saw in her expression.

  Rana kept glancing over the top of her console at Ariel, who sat on the opposite side of the lab, arms folded, staring at the floor.

  “What are you wondering?” Derec asked finally.

  Rana gave him an annoyed look. “She enters a couple of commands and in half a second gets to where it took me hours to fail to reach.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure if I’m wondering or just resenting.”

  “Ariel’s one of the best.”

  “Along with you?”

  “Sometimes I think she’s better.”

  “How long will she take to make up her mind?”

  Derec looked at Ariel. “I don’t know. It will take as long as it takes.”

  Rana shook her head. “I was really excited when I found out you knew Ariel Burgess. It was a major disappointment when it turned out you weren’t on speaking terms anymore.” She glanced at him. “I knew there was a problem between you two, but...”

  “Philosophical differences. “

  “You said that before.”

  “You didn’t believe me?”

  “People don’t usually display that much heat over philosophy.”

  “Not the abstract kind, no. But when it relates directly to what you do, who you are...” Derec frowned. “She believes I betrayed her trust. We... it sounds like a cliché, but we really had everything together for a while.”

  “Until?”

  “Until I started playing around with the ideas that became Bogard.” He looked at Rana. “You can be damn nosy.”

  Rana shrugged. She began to say more, then nodded toward Ariel. “Decision time?”

  Ariel was walking toward them.

  “We’ll see,” Derec whispered.

  Ariel leaned on the console. “What do you think is going on?”

  “Obviously, someone had a stake in seeing the conference stopped or at least rendered useless. I don’t think anything constructive can come of it now.”

  “Do you believe what the news nets are saying? That it was the Managins?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “They don’t have the resources,” Derec replied. “The will, yes, but the ability to subvert the Resident Intelligence of a facility like Union Station? Get several armed people inside? And then escape?” He shook his head. “I gather no other arrests have been made?”.

  “None that I’m aware of.”

  “Someone used the Managins, maybe.”

  “Who?”

  Derec shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think the Calvin Institute is involved?” Ariel asked.

  “Someone issued that maintenance directive. Someone who understood the nature of positronics and knew what I might find.”

  Ariel’s mouth was a thin, hard line. “I can’t disagree. Not entirely. But I have another problem.”

  “Which is?”

  “That robot of yours. The bodyguard unit. Why did it fail?”

  Derec felt himself stiffen. “I don’t know. “

  “You admit that it did?”

  “It... something went wrong.”

  “It was designed to defend a primary subject, correct? In this case, Senator Eliton. It didn’t. Eliton died. Why?”

  “I wish I knew. It’s more complicated than that, even. From what I saw, it was defending Eliton. Then, for some reason, it abandoned him.”

  “Perhaps your design was faulty?”

  Derec hesitated. “Perhaps.” He had not wanted to admit that possibility--especially not to Ariel--but he could not reject it.

  “Or was it subverted the same way the RI was?” Ariel asked.

  That surprised him. “I can’t see how. But I don’t know how the RI was subverted, so your guess is as good as anyone else’s. There’s no way to tell. If I had Bogard here, I might be able to determine what went wrong, but it’s gone. Destroyed.”

  Ariel tapped a finger absently while she regarded Derec. Suddenly, she slapped both hands on the top of the console. “All right, I’ll help you. I’ve got unanswered questions myself. But I want to know what we’re supposed to do if we find something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like what we both suspect--that this is more than the actions of a group of disaffected bigots. Unless those bigots have members in the government.”

  “I suppose that depends on just who it is we find. If it’s the authorities, we can’t very well go to them, can we?”

  “It’s not likely
to be all of them.”

  “No, but--”

  “The problem, Derec, is that whoever is behind this, the consequences of uncovering it could be worse than leaving it alone.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Perfectly,” Ariel replied. “Right now, as much as I hate to admit it, we have a diplomatic crisis. We’re left with a shattered program and we have to start allover. What we do not have is a war. Push this and that’s exactly what we might have.”

  “War? You’re overstating a bit, aren’t you?” Rana asked.

  “I already told you: I’m perfectly serious. If it becomes clear that the Terran government, or a part of it, engineered an assassination of an Auroran ambassador, the only conclusion Aurora and the Fifty Worlds can make is that Earth cannot be trusted. They could decide that the only way to deal with it then is containment. No more Settlers will be permitted out. No more trade. No more anything. Isolation.”

  “Is that doable?” Derec asked.

  Ariel shook her head. “No, not entirely. We can’t even get rid of the pirates that have been raiding the lanes. But it doesn’t matter. It’s enough to set off a war.”

  “So who would benefit from that?”

  “I don’t know. Someone always benefits from a war. But that’s one possible outcome of this.” Ariel paused. “So. I’ll ask again. What do we do when we find out?”

  “We may not be able to do anything. I think we need to find out what we can first, then decide.”

  “No going off on your own. We decide.”

  Derec nodded. “Agreed.”

  “All right. Where do you want to start?”

  “Well... getting inside Union Station would be good. I need to do a physical inspection to see what’s been done to the matrix.”

  “I may be able to help with that.”

  “Good. That will do for a start.”

  Ariel gave him a curious smile. “It would really help if you could talk to Bogard?”

  “Of course it would! But--”

  Ariel’s smile broadened. “Why don’t you come with me. I have something to show you.”

  _

  FOURTEEN

  In light of recent revelations,” the newscaster declared from the subetheric, “the death of Special Service Agent Mia Daventri and the destruction of the experimental robot assigned to guard Senator Clar Eliton have taken on new significance. The entire team of agents charged with the security of Eliton and his staff during the Union Station meeting with Spacer legations has now been killed. Special Service is conducting an internal investigation on which they refuse to comment, except to suggest that certain irregularities are at the heart of the tragedy. The utter failure of a trained team of agents to protect one of Earth’s most prominent politicians cannot be explained unless that failure was part of a larger movement. Sources inside the Terran Bureau of Investigation have let it be known that flies have been opened on the agents involved, and their affiliations with various organizations--ostensibly in the line of duty--are being questioned. Nevertheless, the question no one seems willing to either answer or deny is the Spacer connection.”