“I'll keep your secret, but you find a way to give the crew more control over this ship so you’re not the one holding all the cards.”
He regarded her with a stunned expression for a moment then asked; “That's your only condition?”
“Well, yeah. What were you expecting?”
“You know, I'm not sure. I've never trusted anyone with this before.”
“Really?”
“Yes, you're the first person I've trusted with my real identity.”
“Am I safe?”
“Well, I know you won't betray me if I don't do something that's outside of your moral boundaries. That's the kind of person you are, you quietly apply your standards and expectations to everyone you know and that determines how you behave around them.”
Ashley didn't know why, but she found his summary of her personality irritating. “That's no answer.”
“Ashley, I'll agree to find out what Citadel wants to do with Triton, if they’ll let this ship go to someone aboard if you'll keep my secret.”
“That’s not what I asked for.”
“It’s the best I can do. If I gave total control to a group of people and my superiors decided I was out of line, they’d just find a way to eliminate the whole complicated mess. So is that good enough for you?”
“I s’pose. If there’s no other way, yeah.”
“Good, congratulations, you're the safest person on the ship. As the only other person with a command code for the Triton I might actually need your help sometime.”
“I wish there was something I could do to prove I'd keep your secret though. I mean, the more sure you are, the more sure I am that you won't just get rid of me.”
Larry nodded as he finished wheeling the gurney into the conference room and pulled one of the bags down to the floor. He pulled it open to reveal a large supply of meal bars, boxed food, water, and a few other odds and ends. “After seeing how you were mum about Stephanie and the Captain-”
“You know about that?”
“Yes, the ship alerts me of any unusual goings on, and that registered pretty high.” He handed her a full drinking bottle.
“The ship watches us?”
“Passively, but yes, everything is recorded and categorized.”
“And I can see all that with the code you gave me?”
“Well, yes, but that's not what it's intended for. Master codes are made for the highest ranking officers and Citadel agents for emergencies like this. The only reason why I could assign one to you is because I'm so far from home and I have the highest rank in the sector.”
“So you're some kind of Admiral?”
“No, I'm a Citadel agent. We're the ones who watch the government and the military. Most people think we're an urban myth, even on Earth.”
“Who watches you?” Ashley said, looking at him with mock suspicion.
Larry regarded her witheringly, a look she'd earned from him before under much less serious circumstances. “None of that matters now. We're about to have visitors and I need you to behave as though I'm no more than your copilot.”
“What kind of visitors?”
“You know that band of slaves Agameg organized?”
“Yup.”
“They're on their way here. Someone decided that they should secure medical and use it as a refuge from the soldiers left between here and the aft sections.”
“There are still soldiers fighting back there?”
“Not many, but enough to give the slaves you guys liberated some trouble. I closed a few emergency doors so they wouldn’t run into each other on their way here.”
“That was awful nice of you.”
“They’re too burned out for another fire fight,” Larry said with a shrug.
“How far behind you are they?” Ashley asked as she accepted a small plush blanket.
“About half an hour, and they need somewhere to rest, it's been a while.”
Ashley wrapped the small blanket around Zoe, who was still fast asleep again. She nearly turned away when Larry reached over and pinched a corner of the fuzzy offering. It gently came to life, warming itself and curving around Zoe.
“It's a swaddling blanket. I don't know if she's too old for it, but I didn't put mine down until I was three.”
To Ashley's surprise, Zoe withdrew from her and curled up in the new bedding, which actively hugged her back. “Wow, these must be popular back home.”
“Pretty much everyone on Earth has owned one, sort of standard issue for babies and toddlers. I figured since she's a marsupial, it might be even better.”
Ashley gently laid Zoe down on the gurney and locked the forward wheels, watching how she nuzzled the fuzzy blanket and smiled sleepily. “Do they make them in adult size?”
Larry chuckled and nodded. “Most people don't admit to having an adult sized one, but yeah, a lot of people do.”
“So what do I tell Oz and Jason about where you've been?”
“Just tell them I was hunting for supplies. Most of this stuff is logged with the fabricator down the hall,” he replied as he pulled boxes of food from the first bag. “And you can taunt them with your Vietnamese food.”
“Oh, you didn't,” Ashley said as she opened one of the containers and smelled the steam.
“That's Banh bao, a kind of onion, egg and mushroom dumpling. I figured since you seem to enjoy all things oriental, including our Wing Commander, you might want to try something a little more authentic.”
“Did the ship tell you that too?”
“I can tell just by the way you look at him when we hang out.”
“That's going to be different. Hanging out, I mean,” Ashley said, intentionally changing the topic. She didn't want to think about Minh, or anyone whom she couldn't account for.
“I hope not.”
“Oh, I'll pretend like there's nothing new, but it'll still be different for me.”
Larry handed her a pair of chopsticks and shook his head. “I know, but I still hope I can count you as a friend. You're the first I've made since I got this assignment.”
Ashley glimpsed something she didn't expect then when she looked at Larry. Vulnerability. “I don't know what to say,” she offered lamely.
“Oh, don't worry, I don't fancy you, it's not like that.”
“Right, I picked up on that. You fancy Oz.” She grinned.
“How did you-”
“Signals on the bridge. Hope you weren't trying to hide those sparks, Steph picked up on it too.”
“Guess that's one secret that'll find its way around the ship.”
Ashley took a bite out of one of the warm dumplings and savoured the rich flavour. The materializer had duplicated the texture and flavour of the mushrooms and egg almost perfectly, and she was sure that what she was tasting was at least a close match to the real thing. An unwelcome, nagging thought occurred to her just then and she decided to ask Larry about it before her opportunity passed. She still waited until she finished chewing, however, eating was a slightly higher priority. “Thank you for this, it's really good.”
“You're welcome.”
“So why didn't you just use your codes to take control of the ship and make a bee line for Earth?”
She caught him with a dumpling half way to his mouth. “That was quick. I thought it would take you a little longer to get to the important questions.”
“No deflecting,” she admonished with a wave of her chopsticks.
“All right, I can't tell you much.” He struck his chopsticks into his dumpling box. “Earth doesn't want Triton back. She's old, was never fully activated and the mission she was equipped for is over. Technologically and philosophically Sol Defence has moved on.”
“Oh, okay. So why are you here?”
“I'm here to learn about life at this end of the galaxy.”
“That simple? There's gotta be more to it.”
“Now there is. Since this whole Order of Eden thing came up, and they started sending West Watcher agents out t
o interfere with people who could oppose them, I've been doing what I can to keep power out of their hands. Fundamentalist religion was responsible for the second fall of mankind, I'm not going to sit by and let a false religion interfere with this ship.”
“So you're kind of like a guardian now.”
“I never thought of it that way, maybe custodian is a better word though. I don't exactly help people make decisions. That's not my purpose here.”
“Right. Still, there's more to this.”
“Think what you like, that's the short version.”
“Someday we'll have to sit down so I can hear more. Like what's your real name?”
“Francis.”
“Larry's better.”
“I know, that's why I chose it.”
“How old are you, really?”
“Forty eight.”
“Geezer, you don't look a year over twenty two.”
“Earth and issyrian technology combined created a treatment like your fitness pills, only it slows the clock down a lot more. I'll probably look and feel this way for another thirty years.”
“You're going to have to let me in on that.”
He opened a small side pouch on the bag nearest to him and retrieved a small box of pills. “Here you go. I thought they'd come in handy if I needed extra leverage.”
Ashley flipped the metal box open and looked at the four blue gel capsules.
“You take one a week for a month and your body will find a whole new balance. No more fitness meds though, so you're going to have to be a little more active.”
“That's it, I take these and I look twenty one for so long people start checking for fangs?”
“Fangs?”
“Ever seen a vampire movie?”
“Oh, now I get it. I don't watch movies.”
“Too busy lurking,” Ashley teased before stuffing a dumpling into her mouth.
“So, are you going to take the first one?”
She stared at the pills as she chewed through the dumpling. If he wanted to poison or drug her, it would have been easier for him to do it by dosing her food, the thought of it made her feel sheepish. Ashley had dug in without hesitation. It would have been the easiest poisoning in history. She finished chewing and took the first of the pills. The little box was sealed and in her thigh pocket a moment later. “There, now you're completely on the hook.”
Larry laughed as he picked up his chopsticks. “What do you mean?”
“Now you're going to have to help keep me in shape.”
“Okay, I can deal with that. Are you a jogger or a swimmer?”
“Definitely a swimmer.”
“Well, looks like we'll be spending time in the Botanical Gallery.”
“Yup. Looks like the smell is waking someone up,” Ashley said, turning towards Zoe, who was groggily sitting up. “I wonder if she likes dumplings.”
Ever since she was young, Ashley knew secrets were a currency greater than cash. Keeping that currency required a further investment in the form of deception, and Ashley knew that she'd already started paying. As she watched Zoe chew on a dumpling, her eyes lighting up at the new culinary discovery, Ashley was keenly aware that Larry was turning his attention to other matters, his food, the status of the ship, hiding the extra information on the display and she took that as confirmation that she had managed to set him at ease.
He was underestimating her, and she'd convinced him that she actually believed everything he'd told her. She knew there was a lot he wasn't, and for once she was glad she was brought up amongst slaves. No one knew how to hide suspicion and secrets better. He didn’t even notice her drop the pill up her sleeve.
Chapter 37
A Broadening Viewpoint
There was a delay in the network, as though she was out of sync with everything around her. Eve knew for a fact that it had nothing to do with her. There was a virus running loose in the Regent Galactic network, and its only purpose was to slow things down. It only compounded her rising frustration.
Maintaining control of her emotions was difficult. It took her one hour and twenty four minutes to force her framework body to build a micro transmitter and restore her input output systems to their full capabilities. Emotional neutrality would have been helpful, but under the circumstances it was impossible. The maddening evasiveness of the virus, a living digital thing by her estimation, was one problem. Every time she tried to focus on it, the thing found a way to almost completely disappear, almost. Most of the time it was as if it was in the corner of her mind’s eye. Undeniably there was something there, something watching as it manipulated the system all around her, but it knew exactly where to hide millisecond by millisecond. It was Eve’s human brain that limited her. Whatever that virus was, and she hoped it wasn’t Gloria’s essence – escaped and evolved – though she felt it must be, it didn’t suffer the same limitations. It was making use of several supercomputer cores, borrowing processing time from all of them at once.
Eve’s journey through the physical world was aided by her frustration it seemed. She ran for the pulpit chamber, where she knew she’d find a grisly scene. Soldiers began greeting her with expressions of surprise and fear several compartments away from where she knew the main fire fight took place. The gore left behind after the fighting was so revolting, so overwhelming in its sight, smell and texture that she almost vomited when she first encountered it. The security recording displayed in graphic detail how much firepower it took to kill thirty framework soldiers. They were fearless, unannounced, and well armed. Under the loose direction of Beaudric they killed one hundred and forty seven soldiers in full armour and eighty four civilians who were just caught in the middle. As one framework soldier fell, the one behind continued fighting, knowing that it was almost certain that their fallen comrade was regenerating behind him and would be on his feet within minutes.
If Eve were connected to the network, she could have issued new orders, tried to stop the frameworks from fighting or at least delay them so the human soldiers could get the upper hand. Hampon was cut off as well, and as the only other man with a master code for all the frameworks aboard, he was the only other person who could counter the orders Gloria had issued using her identity.
The first defenders were slaughtered. The second wave, which took six minutes and nine seconds to report, used electromagnetically charged explosive slugs, and still took heavy casualties. So many were killed that twenty percent of the unit abandoned their posts. They were reinforced by every soldier brave enough to rush to the scene but it was too late. Beaudric arrived at the pulpit chamber.
Everything in that small section of the ship was built ornamentally, with more attention to beautification and grand gesture than to sturdiness and armour. It took them forty-two seconds to break through the inner door and kill everyone inside.
In the end the Child Prophet was on his knees. “Please, I have the power to give you anything you want. Everything you want!”
“Why?” Beaudric asked, pointing a rifle loaded with explosive electromagnetic rounds.
“To save humanity. Everything I have done since I saw the path ahead of us has been to save humanity. The darkness comes, in every future, no matter what I do.”
“The future? You really want me to believe you can actually tell the future?”
“It’s a machine, I can show you. As soon as we find Roland, I’ll show you just-“
“More lies. Everyone knows that’s not possible. It’s all you do, lie so we do what you want. So you can wear the best clothes, eat the best food, live on this ship.”
“I swear. If you let me live, I’ll make sure you get whatever you want.”
The sounds of a fire fight renewing with vigour came from the hall behind him, and as though by reflex, Beaudric pulled the trigger. The first round tore through the ten year old body. Hampon screamed and held his side, curled up on the ground. The pain was obvious, but it subsided quickly. His young clone body had been augmented with framework technolog
y, and it repaired the first wound. “Please!” shouted Hampon, raising his head. The next round caught him full in the face, and Beaudric held down the trigger.
When the defence broke through and put the man down in a hail of rounds, it was too late. Beaudric had rendered himself defenceless, emptying his weapon on Hampon, he never had a chance. When Eve finally arrived in the pulpit chamber, she was filled with loss, regret, and anger. The gore in the room was worse than anywhere else. The Child Prophet and his servant’s bodies were reduced to nothing. The frameworks were similarly devastated. It was how you killed something that could store copies of its thoughts and knowledge across its entire body. How you ensured that the flesh and metal machine wouldn’t regenerate when you turned your back.
“Is there anything left?” Eve asked the weeping, shocked soldiers and medical personnel that had flooded the room. “Anything?” she screamed, snatching a high sensitivity scanner from a medic. It was already tuned to Hampon’s DNA, and, while she found plenty around, she couldn’t find a sign of working framework technology. The electromagnetic rounds had done their job, leaving all that life saving technology inert. She turned away from the sight of the Child Prophet’s corpse, or what was left of it, and caught sight of something just in the upper edge of the scanner’s range.
Eve held it out in front of her and got a full reading. There was another large collection of biological materials with the same DNA. She tried to look at it using her connection to the ship systems and failed. Where those compartments were concerned, she was completely blind. “Here!” she shouted, grabbing the nearest soldier. “You are going to take me right here!”
“That’s a restricted area, I’m sorry.”
“Look around you, you idiot! Your Prophet is dead! My children will be arriving hours from now, who do you think will have the power then?” She screamed in his face. “Who will be telling them to keep you alert while they flay you alive?”
Wordlessly, the soldier led the way to an express car she’d never seen, that travelled along a high speed track she’d never sensed. At the end they came to a white circular substation. It was another control room for the entire Regent Galactic fleet, with five visible floors overlooking the central chamber. Hundreds of technicians, security people and support staff looked at her from the railings that encircled the chamber.
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 6: Fragments Page 35
