Scardown

by Elizabeth Bear

  Thirty years is a long time to remember that kind of a detail. If it was, he's a lot better now.

  “The faster healing is nanotech, too?” Relentless.

  “Yes. It takes somebody like us to fly one of those things, and even we mess it up.”

  She's looking at me, studying me with her head cocked to one side. I wonder if she sees a weapon, or a tool, or a commodity. Or maybe—maybe—if Constance Riel is a statesman rather than a politician, she sees what the machines in my blood could mean for the whole stinking, fevered planet. “Master Warrant. How do you guarantee the safety of the crew?”

  “You can't.” I wish I could pace back and forth while I talk to her. I force myself not to kick my other foot like a sulky child. “But I'm good, despite my limitations. And while flying the ship, I have an artificial intelligence assisting.”

  “The A-life personas? How smart are they?”

  “No.” I finish the last of the water. “A sentient computer.”

  Richard interrupts. “Technically, I'm software, not hardware, Jen.”

  Shut up, Richard. Knowing he can hear the grin in what I say. As easily as I sense his as he withdraws a half-step.

  “Jen, is this smart?”

  Is anything I've done in the last fifty years smart?

  “Touché.”

  Riel's still chewing that over. She closes her eyes and I hear joints crack when she raises her shoulders and lets them drop. A voice in the hallway distracts me, but I can't make out the words. “Okay,” she says without opening her eyes. “So Dunsany's program has produced something that isn't just fool-the-eye smart? Convince me.”

  “Trust me. The ship itself is smart.”

  She's not used to an answer like that, but she bites her lip and takes it like a boxer soaking up one on the chin. “Okay. Granted. How the hell does that help me deal with a future involving millions of starving Canadians?”

  Well, hell. As long as I'm coming clean, I may as well come clean. “It's not just the Canadians who're going to be starving. It's going to be thirty years ago all over again. Only worse. World War IV.” The graze on my shoulder has almost stopped hurting. I roll my head experimentally to the other direction and feel the tug across the muscles and the skin. Ah, there's the pain: just gone a little deeper is all. “Constance, I'm coming to you because there was an attempt on the Montreal by somebody on board her—I'm guessing a Chinese agent—which was foiled by the ship's AI. And I'm guessing nobody bothered to tell you that either. And I'm coming to you because Holmes is going to jail. If there's any justice on this planet, she will be executed for her crimes.”

  “You think the Americans have enough to hang her.”

  “I think the Canadians have enough to hang her, or I could give it to them. The Americans still use lethal injection, as far as I know.”

  “Why do I give a rat's ass? Pardon my English, Casey—”

  “Hold it. If you're Constance, then I'm Jen.”

  “Jen—but Alberta Holmes is a wart on the toad's ass of society. And if you're going after her . . . well, forgive my vote of nonconfidence. But that's a bit like the mouse crawling up the elephant's leg with rape on its mind.”

  “You've got a subpoena on your desk with her name on it, don't you?”

  “And one with yours, too.”

  “Congratulations, Prime Minister. You just told me why I need you.”

  “Huh.” Sunlight catches in her hair as she plays with the curtain, highlighting strands suddenly more chestnut than dark. I squint into the glare until she steps away from the wall and paces the floor the way I ache to. I have always sucked at sitting still. “So the starflight program will continue if the Americans take down Holmes.”

  “And Valens. And me. And the whole fucking Unitek power system, as in the dark heart of my heart I hope to God they will. Except for maybe the factory that makes prosthetics for gunshot eagles, but even Hitler made the trains run on time.”

  “That's actually a fairy tale.” Riel drops the white muslin curtain that she had drawn aside and turns to face me. “Although he did have only one testicle.”

  “Explains a lot.”

  “Doesn't it just?” She grins, reminding me of Elspeth Dunsany for a second, and shrugs. “So convince me getting to the stars is more important than feeding my people and getting ready to meet the barbarian hordes with something more effective in the long term than Nero's fiddle.”

  “The AI's senses are focused through the nanotech—the little robots in me and the other pilots, woven through the ships, and left over on the ships on Mars. You know the provenance of those ships, right?”

  “Abandoned by person or persons unknown.”

  “Dr. Forster, the project's chief xenobiologist, thinks they were a gift from some alien intelligence. My suspicious nature tells me that intelligence wants something. And Richard—the AI—can do something else. He can sense the ships of the aliens who left us that technology.”

  “And?”

  “And they're coming here. More than one kind of them.”

  “And you believe it? Him? How do we know he's not behind the sabotage he supposedly prevented?” She's looking at me, though—good eye contact, and these are challenging questions, not aggressive ones.

  “I don't think he could have managed to get a knife into my copilot. And I know who he's modeled on. A scientist. A decent guy with a taste for practical jokes and the kind of mind that never lets go if there's a possibility the truth is out there somewhere. The highest price you could offer him, frankly, is what you've already given him: a chance at a trip to the stars.”

  “Jen, that's sweet.”

  Shut up shutting up, Dick. I miss the first words of Riel's answer. “. . . still sounds like a fairy tale.”

  “If this were a fairy tale, you'd grant me a boon.”

  “Funny, I thought that's what you were asking for.”

  “Ma'am—”

  She shakes her head, long and slow, and pulls her hands out of her pockets while she studies me. “You want a big gamble for a pot we can't count beforehand.”

  “I've always said you've got a better shot with the devil you don't know. Not that I'm always right—” I say in haste, because I see her mouth begin to open. “I'm just saying.”

  “Huh.” She nods again, hair brushing her forehead, dark again now that she's crossed out of the sun. She starts to open the door, pauses with the edge still resting on the jamb. “Hungry people, Jen. Famine, war. Disease.”

  I tip my head and can't quite believe what I'm saying. “Try to think two hundred years ahead.”

  She opens the door the rest of the way. “I'd love to,” she says. “But I find it's hard to think of tomorrow when the rats are gnawing your ankles now.”

  4:15 PM

  Friday 15 December, 2062

  Allen-Shipman Research Facility

  Toronto, Ontario

  Genie squirmed in the carpeted corner of the study room and kicked the leg of Leah's chair again, drawing an exasperated look. Patty kept her head down, eyes closed as she concentrated on the data feed through her contact, and so did one of the two boys in the room. The other one grinned at Leah, and looked quickly away again. Genie sighed and keyed into her HCD, slipping her ear cuff on with her other hand so she could amuse herself with a game while she waited. Her homework was done, and what she really wanted was to go home. Or maybe get something to eat and then go home.

  The heads-up in the corner of her contact said 4:15 p.m., and she knew her father wouldn't be ready to leave until at least five-thirty. She could go distract Elspeth . . .

  She snuck a glance at her sister. Leah's fingers moved nimbly through her holographic interface, but Genie saw her stealing sidelong looks at the dark-haired boy across the table and suspected she wasn't working on precalc. She also suspected that, even though Papa had asked Leah to keep an eye on Genie, Leah was probably distracted enough not to notice if she slipped out . . .

  Leah looked down at her interface aga
in and closed her eyes, imaging something on her contact. Genie stood up silently and sidled to the door.

  Five minutes later, she leaned around the doorframe into Elspeth's office and peeked into the room. “Ellie?”

  Ellie wasn't there.

  But her workstation was on. Which was probably a breach of security, because Papa usually locked his even when he got up to go to the bathroom, but he tended to be more fussy about things like that than Ellie. Genie walked into the office and sat down in Ellie's chair, stretching her fingers to reach holoplates on the interface panel that were set up for larger hands. Not that much larger, though. Genie grinned, squirming down into a soft dark green chair that reminded her of a car's bucket seat, and began to poke things at random.

  Leah wasn't going to let Bryan know she thought he was cute. Even if he did keep sending her instant messages and peeking out from behind his dark bangs at her with eyes the color of chocolate cake. Instead, she ducked her head and tapped out another message on her interface—I have to study!—before calling up one more page of equations.

  She stole a glance at Patty's screen. The dark-haired girl was almost at the end of the page, wincing as she absently bit her cuticle. Leah rolled her head back and stared at the ceiling as she thought. Numbers and symbols swam in front of her eyes, a slow trickle of information scrolling across her contact. Richard, why can't you just do the math for me?

  “The math isn't important,” he answered absently. “What's important is training the critical skills into your brain. So if you were about to ask me to help you cheat on the test on Wednesday—”

  I would never cheat! And then she looked down at the desk. Okay, once or twice.

  “Here's a bit of advice.” He pictured himself for her, leaning back in his chair with his expressive hands laced behind his head, imagined sunlight a halo in his hair. “Cheat all you want to when it comes to games and social issues and politics. All that stuff is just rankings and scoring points. When it comes to things that you need to know to do your job, though—those, you need to have cold.”

  Whatever. She deleted an IM from Bryan without answering it. Worry resurfaced, as it did whenever distractions failed. Richard, is Aunt Jenny really going to be okay?

  “She'll be fine,” Richard answered. “She'll be just fine. Homework now.”

  Leah didn't think Richard would ever lie to her. But she worried he might talk around the truth. She pursed her lips and leaned over to Patty, putting her hand on the older girl's arm incautiously.

  Patty jerked back so hard she knocked her interface into her lap. “Leah!” Voice startlingly loud in the quiet room.

  “I was—” just going to ask for help on number fourteen. “Where's Genie gone?”

  Elspeth had meant to be away from her desk for a few minutes—which, due to a chance encounter with Holmes in the break room, had stretched into very nearly two hours. She almost spilled hot tea across the front of her shirt when she came around the corner and saw Genie behind her desk, Leah and Patty leaning over her shoulders, all three girls thoroughly engrossed in the A-life displays hanging over the interface. They glanced up at Elspeth's exclamation. Patty looked shamefaced, Leah met her eyes boldly, and Genie ducked. “I'm sorry—”

  “You girls—” She sighed and set the tea on the corner of the desk, looking for a napkin to dry her hand and wipe up the ring. “You shouldn't be in here.”

  “I know.” Genie, surprisingly. Leah was usually the spokesperson. “We were playing with your A-life programs.”

  “I saved to a separate file.” Patty, of course. She stepped away from the other two, and Elspeth considered her for a moment, trying to decide if she was trying to draw the adult fire away from the other girls, or avoid it.

  “Ellie,” Leah interrupted. She had leaned forward over Genie's skinny shoulders, both hands on the interface. “I think you should look at this.”

  “What?” Despite herself, she came around the desk, loafers scuffing the plush green carpet. “If you girls broke my artificial persona—well, Holmes is gonna have my head anyway. I suppose you know this is all recorded.”

  “Oh.” Genie, who jumped out of Elspeth's chair and scooted out of the way. “I was just talking to him.”

  “Him?”

  “I named him Alan,” Genie said. “After Grand-père's dog.”

  “I'm not sure it's sufficiently different—”

  “Hello, Dr. Dunsany,” a smooth voice interrupted. Ellie looked up, into a swirl of colors hanging over her interface pad. They swayed and pulsated in time to the words, and Elspeth shot Leah a sharp glance.

  “If this is your idea of a joke—”

  “No joke, Dr. Dunsany. I understand I have you to thank for my existence.”

  They hadn't had time to set up anything that complicated. “I was just talking to him,” Genie said again. Elspeth's knees folded under her and her butt landed more by luck than by planning in her chair.

  Leah leaned over Elspeth's shoulder and pressed her lips against Elspeth's ear. “Richard says to tell you ‘Society,'” she whispered, and Elspeth covered her open mouth with her hand.

  Idiot. She and her former coresearcher had spent hours, days in virtual reality playing with the artificial personas they'd constructed so many years ago. One of those personas had grown up to become Richard. But she'd left the newer models to develop in simulations while she tried wilder and wilder combinations of memories and traits, trying to duplicate whatever it was that made Richard, Richard. Operating on the theory that intelligence had something to do with the analogous synaptic connections within a sufficiently high-capacity network—

  Like making a cake, and forgetting the salt because you couldn't taste it in the finished product. “Alan,” she said through her fingers, and pulled her hand away from her lips. “I've neglected you shamefully. I'm sorry.”

  Friday 15 December, 2062

  Sol-system wide area nanonetwork

  17:01:05:23–17:15:26:03

  Richard focused as much attention as he dared on Wainwright, subprocessing conversations with Jenny, Leah, and Min-xue with a fraction of his awareness. His primary consciousness stayed tuned to the ship and its safety. He didn't like how completely he'd been blocked when Koske was hurt, and he didn't mean to let it happen again—but watching both ends of the solar system and a dozen points between taxed even his resources.

  And now there was Wainwright.

  Richard watched her pace the confines of her office, wall to wall and back again, and tried not to let her human slowness lull him into false security. Or irritation. Either of which could be fatal.

  It was long seconds before she looked up and spoke. “As I see it, you're essentially a stowaway on my ship. I think I'm well within my rights to completely wipe this system and start over from backup.”

  “You'd be better off to accept that our destinies are linked and treat me as a member of the crew,” he replied. “If I haven't proved my goodwill—”

  “You've proved that if I unseal the manual overrides, you can destroy that crew in a matter of instants.”

  “And float undisturbed between the stars forever. Or until some helpful nation lobs a missile at the Montreal. That wouldn't be a logical course of action, Captain. I can't fly the ship. You built it that way.” And until I reprogram its nanotech to lay some additional wiring to my specs, it will have to stay that way.

  She laced her fingers together and pushed both hands out from her chest, stretching her shoulders. “You mean that you can't access the drive.”

  “Only the human pilot can do that. I think if I haven't proved myself in the last twenty hours, Captain, then I never will earn your trust. And if it comforts you, keep it that way. The fact of the matter is that I can do what I was intended to do—process information, make critical decisions, handle a higher data load than the human pilot, and communicate with him fast enough to make a difference in the safety of the ship. And you can't replace me if you kill me.” He tried to read her gaze, the
way she ran her eyes along the walls and stopped at the various sensor points. Her face stayed impassive, but he detected a rise in her heart rate; her skin conductivity spiked, revealing a light sweat, and her pupils dilated.

  “I'm not promising—” Her desk beeped. She turned away. Richard had been firewalled out of the communications protocols, too. “Well,” she said when she had scanned the message. “You get a reprieve.”

  Richard would have blinked. “What?”

  “It seems Prime Minister Constance Riel wants you protected and used to the fullest extent of your abilities. Under my judgment, of course. Do you have somebody on the ground playing advocate for you, Richard? Dr. Dunsany and Mr. Castaign, perhaps? Colonel Valens?”

  Jenny was sleeping, but Richard smiled over her anyway. Good girl, Jenny. Very good girl indeed.

  6:15 AM

  Saturday 16 December, 2062

  Somewhere in Québec

  The longest twenty hours of my life. Indigo threw her backpack onto sawdust-strewn planks and bolted the cabin's door behind her, shutting the predawn outside. The last time she had been here there had been birdsong. The last time she'd been here it had been spring, and she'd been twelve years old.

  The cabin that had belonged to her mother was cold, and little light filtered through the windows. Toronto lay a thousand kilometers and three stolen vehicles behind. She'd discarded her HCD, cut her hair, and changed the line of cheeks and jaw with a smart putty manufactured for stage actors.

  She prayed to the ghosts of her ancestors that it would be enough.

  She could have killed me. Indigo put her back against the door and slid down it, grunting as her butt hit the floor. When the sun rose, she'd have to go outside to fire up the generator and see if the pump was frozen, or if she would have water. She'd scrubbed Farley's spattered blood off her face and hands, changed her coat, dumped everything she could afford to dump and driven through the night. Well, she thought, as she laid her assault rifle across her knees and folded her arms over it like a sleeping soldier would, that one went pear-shaped in an absolutely spectacular fashion.