“No,” I said grimly, remembering endless humiliations at the Guilder’s hands when I was poor and friendless in the off-port and worse, the times I’d done his dirty work.
“Yet you let him live on your ship.”
I looked her in the eye. “There are some things that I don’t want Maauro to learn, at least not from me. She’s a killer, as you may find out, but she is not a murderer. That particular sin stays with us.”
She smiled with a touch of condescension. “Ah, an idealist.”
“Not always.”
“It seems that maybe this Maauro has been good for you as well.”
I looked back at the stalking monsters behind their wall of piped plaststeel and changed the subject. It might be useful to conceal what I knew of the lab and the Infestor brain there. “They’d be dangerous to an unarmed man but…”
“Don’t judge them just by muscle and teeth, or even technology. There is more to them. The Infestors have a form of mental power that draws on the impression of others. When we first grew them in the black ops lab I set up for that purpose, one of them was enjoying the sensation of a guard eating his lunch, so the guard continued eating until he choked.
“More amusing was a couple enjoying themselves in a closet. The Infestor kept them at it until they were sore and bloody. We realized that they were influencing sentient minds and found a way to dampen the particular brain waves that they used for it. In here we use a dampening field run through those bars. Outside the ship, we use a special lining in helmets.
“It is my hope that they will be the keys to a great lock that circles a dead star far from here.”
“The Artifact you mentioned earlier,” I replied.
“Of course.”
“What happens to me?” I asked. “You going to throw me to the Infestors?”
Ferlan looked surprised. “Why would I do such a horrible thing? True, I’ve killed before, but that is barbaric. No, hopefully nothing will happen to you. You are quite valuable to me.”
“As a check on Maauro.”
“Just so, young man. Oh, how lucky you are to have befriended such a being. I can only imagine what it would be like. The things she must have told you—”
“Less than you think,” I replied grimly. “She mostly wouldn’t discuss the past, still bound by security protocols. But yes, I am very lucky to have known her. You are right about that.”
“I envy you such a friend. Well now, I shall see you for dinner. Marcel, return him to his room. Get some rest, young Wrik. We jump again tomorrow and after that things will get interesting.”
It was tempting for a second, but for only a second, to believe that she meant anything of what she said.
I found a surprise waiting for me in my cabin. There, stretched out in a chair, his feet up on a footstool, was Dusko. The Dua-Denlenn looked leaner and a bit worn, but the bruises and cuts were gone.
“So they let you out of steerage?” I said.
“Good to see you too. I’m sure my improved circumstances are due to your influence.”
“They could toss you out the airlock for all I care. You’re here to ingratiate yourself with Ferlan by pumping me for information she wants.”
Dusko sighed. “We’ve both told her everything we know, and yes, they drugged me again too so they could check your information. I have nothing I can add. No, it seems that for better or for worse, we are now part of this expedition to God knows where.”
Bells began to sound in the corridor outside. “Commence preparations for hyperspace transit,” Marcel’s voice came over the speakers. “Jump clock is running at eight hours and twelve minutes.”
“Guess so,” I said. “Don’t know about you, but I am going to get some sleep. It may be hard to come by on the other side of jump.”
He nodded and stretched, then his eyes fell shut. The Dua-Denlenn dropped off to sleep like an innocent child.
As promised, we jumped in the early morning hours. Dusko and I were up and dressed. No one wanted to sleep through jump unless tranked; it made the disorientation far worse. We rode it out in silence and it was grindingly unpleasant, the sure sign of a long jump. I wondered how long we were out of the universe and where Jaelle and Maauro were, if they were both alive and well.
‘That was a long one,” Dusko said.
“Felt like it.”
The door to our cabin slid open. The Guildsmen outside gestured with a weapon and we followed them to the bridge of the Hummel. On the bridge, we found Marcel helming the starship and Ferlan seated on a plush and ornate seat obviously placed there for her exclusive use.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” she said. “I trust you slept well.”
“My new accommodations are a noticeable improvement, thank you,” Dusko said.
“Good that you appreciate my generosity and forgiveness. Qualities I am hardly known for, but we are committed to the venture now and your interests lie in my successful completion of it. As otherwise, we are unlikely to return.”
“Is that a brown dwarf star?” I asked, looking over the instruments.
“Yes,” Ferlan said. “We do seem to have beaten your friend Maauro here.”
“Why would she come?” I asked.
“In answer to my invitation of course,” she replied, smiling. “I did make it clear that you are attending the party. I am quite sure she will show.”
“I hope not,” I said, but feared it would be the case. “If she does then you may learn the meaning of an old saying, “Watch out, you may get what you’re after.”
Chapter 24
We emerge from hyperspace in the system of the promised brown dwarf. It is disconcertingly like emerging in deep space as the brown-dwarf star is merely a lighter patch of darkness, a funerary marker for something that once glowed fierce and bright.
I hear a groan and know Jaelle is stirring. Biologicals barely experience hyperspace; for them no time elapses. For AI’s like myself, it is a different experience, a long null place not unlike my 50,000-year sojourn on the asteroid, only with even less stimulation. Something like the sensory deprivation used on biologicals in interrogation. So I am glad to see the stars outside our ship again, even the tired old brown one.
I have prepared the restoratives my companion needs. From the sounds and expression on her face this has been a particularly rough transit for her. I gently hold her head and pour the drinks into her. Her eyes focus and she grimaces. “Look like we made it again.”
“So far.”
“Comforting,” she replies, taking her place at the controls beside me.
“We move at full speed,” I add. “I am grateful for the extra power of this Guildrunner. We cannot know where the Collector’s ship is, only that it preceded us here. Our overjump and full speed acceleration should protect us from a direct attack.”
“Good,” Jaelle grunts, adjusting environmental controls.
“I will scan space around us, augmenting the ship’s equipment with my own systems.”
“Anything?” Jaelle asks, her ears twitching with anxiety
“Nothing in short scan. No, wait. There is a sentry buoy a light minute away. As we have detected it, so it must have just registered us. Even if Stardust had onboard weaponry I could not prevent it from alerting the Collector. As a precaution, I will randomly vector our course as soon as we leave what I estimate is its likely range.”
“They know we are here,” Jaelle says.
“Yes,” I reply. “Battle is now joined.”
***
Marcel appeared at the door to Ferlan’s sumptuous room. I was playing chess with the Collector on a set that dated from a thousand years ago.
“Madam, the sentry satellite sends a signal,” Marcel said. “A small vessel entered the system at high speed. A positive ID was not possible but there seems little doubt that it is Maauro’s ship.�
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Ferlan smiled. “Ah, enter the Stardust. That is what you named her, is it not?”
“I voted for SS Misadventure, but Jaelle felt it would be bad for business.”
“Sensible girl,” Ferlan mused. “Perhaps I should talk to her.”
“She won’t be on that ship,” I said, hoping it was true. “You’re dealing with Maauro. Something no enemy has profited by yet.”
“We are not necessarily enemies,” Ferlan returned, “perhaps merely fellow travelers. Though I do take your point and hence your presence here.”
“Don’t count on that overly,” I said. “When she is provoked by anything Infestor, she reverts to what she used to be, an anti-Infestor weapon.”
“Still,” Ferlan said. “She has a high regard for you and your welfare. More than it seems you do for yourself. You really should not feel quite so bad about your past, you know.”
I stared at her, blood rushing to my head.
Marcel stepped quickly into the room, but Ferlan raised a hand. “Interrogation under drugs can be rather general and we, or rather only I, since it was done by machine, learned some of what you have spent so much time foolishly fleeing. You refused to have yourself used up like a mere rifle cartridge in a spiteful cause, nothing to be so ashamed of, rather a sign of intelligence.”
“Don’t patronize me,” I managed. “I didn’t do it out of conviction or even self-interest. I just broke and ran, leaving friends behind. No thought. Just running like a blind, terrified animal. It was cowardice.”
“Men,” she shook her head. “You are all little boys in a great schoolyard. You run one day and are a coward. You came back for Maauro on the asteroid or she would have been destroyed then. Did that make you a hero? Or is it merely a different day?”
“I’ve spent my life,” I said slowly, wondering why I was even answering her, “trying to answer those questions.”
She sipped her tea. “Made any progress?”
I met her eyes. “I’ll die before I betray Maauro or Jaelle.”
She laughed but quickly smothered it. “I am sorry. I should not have laughed. You have become a brave boy, I think. I like you, Wrik. Perhaps if my own son had lived…well, no matter. I will try not to put you in such a position, because I think you might well do that and I do not want to kill you. I am not a butcher, or one who enjoys pain for its own sake, but rather a collector and a preserver of precious things. So behave and do what I ask and we may all come though this alive. You may even decide that service with me is preferable to striking out on your own.”
She turned to Marcel. “Continue the search grid. I will come up and prepare a message for the delightful Maauro.”
“Do we not pursue?” he asked.
“Oh, loosen your beret and let your brain work,” she replied. “She would have altered course and speed as soon as she was out of range of the buoy. We will not need to look for her; rather, we must make sure she does not sneak up on us.”
***
“So what do we do now?” Jaelle asks. “We’ve made it here, but we can’t fight her ship. Stardust has only a single laser and that’s for signaling.”
I consider. “A frontal assault will clearly fail. Our best course is to search for the Artifact that brought her here. If we can get there first, our tactical options increase dramatically.”
Jaelle gestures at the instrument panels before her. “We’re not a survey ship. Even a proper exploration vessel might take months to find anything here. We don’t even know what the Artifact is or anything more than that name.”
“It is something found by a vessel a century ago that was not a surveyor either. It must be huge, or how would they have found it? I suspect from some hints that Bavara left in her computer that it is accompanied by a gravitic distortion. I can serve as the necessary instruments. While my range is not that of a proper surveying vessel, I have special instruments and programs in me for detecting gravitic anomalies. We used certain gravity-based weapons in the latter part of the war.”
“Good Gods,” Jaelle said. “Maybe that is why there is so little trace of either of your civilizations. Maybe the remnants disappeared down gravity gradients to be crushed out of sight.”
“Possibly,” I concur.
“Then how do we do this? Do I fly around the system with you perched on the nosecone like an aircar hood ornament?”
“Essentially, yes.”
Jaelle’s face is a study in astonishment.
“I will take no harm from temperature and radiation,” I add. “I can magnetize myself to the hull. Remember, I did spend 50,000 years in a vacuum. I was literally made to do this. Once exposed to space, I will spin out a sensor array to amplify my onboard sensors.”
“Spin?” Jaelle asks, her eyes wide.
I raise a lock of the silky, black hair from where it rests on my shoulders. “It has many uses, antenna, cooling, sensor array—”
Jaelle bursts out laughing. I let it run its course, recognizing in it a release from stress that she badly needs. “Why am I surprised by anything that you can do? Maauro, you make our best machines look like children’s toys.”
“Thank you, though credit belongs to my Creators.”
Jaelle frowns as she studies her instruments. “We still have all our momentum from entry; we bled off very little with the evasive moves. With just me aboard, the supplies will last for more than a year. Still, searching a solar system is an immense task. Is there any way to narrow it down?”
“I believe so. There are places that this Artifact will not be. It will not be in the inner system. Even a brown dwarf generates enough light and radiation for occlusion and refraction to be issues. So they will not have hid it where it could be so easily detected. Similarly, it will not be in the outer system near the entry and exit points for hyperdrive. Space is emptier there and gravimetric distortions more easily detected.”
Jaelle snaps her fingers. “We can eliminate the system’s asteroid belt. A visible ship might hide among all those sensor contacts, but an invisible one simply risks a collision.”
“True, especially as this one has been here ages and must yet be operating, or the gravity and light-bending field would collapse. Another reason it will be in close, likely it had passive solar arrays for collecting even the weak light of this star.”
“It will not be where it was before,” Jaelle adds. “So we can eliminate that. I think we can eliminate the planetary orbits. So we are looking for a sweet spot, not too far or too close.”
“Still a fantastic volume to search,” I admit.
“You have left out one factor,” Jaelle says, “The Collector’s vessel. She has far more information than we. She’ll have the best idea where to search.”
“Logically,” I say, “she would try to deceive us and get there first, knowing that if I do, she will face ambush.”
Jaelle shook her mane of thick hair. “She isn’t thinking that way. This is not a young woman. She does not have time to waste in months of cat and mouse with us. Nor is she timid. She likely feels she has forces enough to deal with you. No, she is confident, but driven by her desire to see this Artifact and plumb its secrets. Remember also that she wanted you here for whatever affinity you have to the Infestors. She is hunting as hard as she can. If we stay near her ship, we can use each other’s search capability. Then if her vessel acts in a peculiar fashion, we can swoop in and beat her to the prize.
“It’s not much of a plan,” she concludes, “but it’s the best we can do.”
I nod. “I defer to your knowledge of biological motivations. We shall proceed as you suggest. Let us begin immediately.”
I depart for the airlock. Once there I carefully remove the yellow, silk ribbon Wrik bought me and place it safely in a container beside the airlock. In moments I exit into the vacuum of space. I step onto the green and gold hull of Stardust and walk f
orward, my feet clinging to the ship’s hull. I come up to the bridge; Jaelle has left the blast shields down and waves to me from inside. I wave back. I then walk a little farther to the nose and take a position. It amuses me to lean forward as if I am in fact the hood ornament Jaelle referred to.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, I pause to appreciate the moment. There is something wonderful about standing on the hull of my own ship racing through space. Starlight falls gloriously on me. The solar wind of the dying star is in my face, something Wrik or Jaelle can never experience. I feel in this precious moment at one with the universe.
But there is work to be done. My compulsion to destroy the Infestors rages just beneath the surface. Beyond that, I must find the Artifact to save my friends. I put aside the intoxication of the moment and begin my work. My long, black hair floats into a nimbus around my head. It extends out farther and farther, meter after meter. In half an hour my hair has thinned out to molecular thickness and I begin to search. The quantum computer that is my CPU brings every scanning device I have online. I embrace the glory of the sky in a way no organic being can.
***
The days fell into a pattern. Prisoners though we were, we were treated well. Dusko and I passed the hours in the ship’s gym. To my surprise, Ferlan continued to take her evening meals with me. I had to fight hard against liking her. There was no subject she did not seem to know about. I struggled to remember that this was a senior Guildmaster. That meant thievery, blackmail, and murder. Hadn’t she tried to have us killed? God knew what other crimes were laid at her door.
One night as we sipped coffee, she seemed to divine my thoughts.
“Do you see me in the role of the villain?” she asked.
“Is there some other part for you?”
Something flared behind her eyes. “And what of yourself? How many people did you betray to Dusko? How many ended up dead, their pockets emptied? Their lifeblood leaking from severed veins?”
“Too many,” I confessed. “I told you I was a worthless coward.”
Her face softened. “Well then, we are well-matched: villain and coward. Or perhaps, Wrik, we are just people who had fewer choices than they wanted and less power to make those choices. I shall not tire your ears with my own tales of woe, nor excuse any action of my own. I played the cards I was dealt as best I could. I both won and I lost, lost some things very precious to me.”
My Outcast State (The Maauro Chronicles Book 1) Page 25
