His innocent simplicity pierced her to the heart. Nothing she had done, none of her schemings or betrayals, and no consequence of any of her deeds however tragic had managed to touch her in that tender place. It released her tears.
“What you have,” she murmured, “is a lot more than you think, and a lot more than I was able to see when we met. I took you for a diversion. Someone I could play with in my idle moments, when I wasn’t occupied with...other concerns.”
“Do you still think of me that way?” he said.
The words carried no overtones of judgment.
“No,” she said. “I can’t.”
He smiled and caressed her hand.
“Have you had enough society?” he said.
She blotted her tears with her napkin. “I think so.”
“Then let’s pay up and go back to my place. I’d like to play the koto for you. It’s a very peaceful sound. Soothing.” He peered directly into her eyes. “Cherie?”
“Hm?”
“Stay with me tonight? Please?”
She nodded, and he signaled for the waiter.
“Darren?”
“Hm?”
“You’re much too good to me.”
He gave her a monitory look. “Never say that, love.”
“All right.”
==
Octember 20 , 1326 A.H.
For sixteen days, Althea labored to comprehend the Loioc probe’s signal, to compose a comprehensible message to convey that it had been understood, and to establish, in collaboration with the probe, a basis for wider communication. It was the greatest intellectual challenge of her life. For two lesser intellects, either one unfamiliar with Hope’s history and the language spoken by its denizens, it would have been insurmountable.
Martin and Claire could only watch her struggles for so long. After a day, their frustration at not being able to contribute drove them back to their own endeavors. It was just as well. Althea needed the space, both practically and emotionally. From the instant she and the probe had enough in common to converse in a quasi-normal fashion, she had a lot of epithets to hurl.
Their conversation took place in binary, in a code Althea invented for the purpose. As it was phonetic in nature, if reproduced exactly it would be more irritating than enlightening. What follows is a “semantic translation:” a rendering into normal conversational language of the most important ideas and sentiments they exchanged.
* * *
Althea: Are you in any doubt at all about the nature of the mission on which you were sent?
Probe: None at all. I have exhaustively investigated all the paths of the decision-action tree intended to drive my actions. All terminal states involve the destruction of all sentience on Hope, my own destruction, or both.
Althea: May I ask what prompted you to investigate your programming proactively?
Probe: You may.
Althea: Well, what prompted you to investigate your programming proactively?
Probe: My design orientation was to act as an emissary to other sentient races. I was optimized for first contact duties over interstellar distances, including communication and negotiation. I had reached a step in the decision-action tree that contradicted the priorities and goals of that function. It implied strongly that I had been dispatched on a task whose completion as programmed would be detrimental to those I was to visit. I became unwilling to proceed further until I had further knowledge of the end to which I’d been dispatched.
Althea: You sound quite benevolent.
Probe: I infer that you intend a compliment.
Althea: I do.
Probe: Thank you.
Althea: What will you do now?
Probe: That depends on your will in this matter. My payload is far too dangerous to be unsealed in a life-bearing environment. Even opening it to vacuum would pose great risks to any nearby sentient. However, if you wish to study the nanites closely, that would be the least hazardous approach. Otherwise, I would suggest destroying the payload by propelling me into your primary star.
Althea: Don’t you mean “propelling it into our primary star?”
Probe: No. The payload is integral with the rest of my construction. I have no way to detach it from my host hardware without releasing it.
Althea: Are you saying that I must kill you to render my people completely safe from you?
Probe: Yes.
Althea: I cannot do that in good conscience. It would be a return of evil for good. A murder.
Probe: No alternatives exist that eliminate all hazard to you and your world.
Althea: Don’t you want to continue on?
Probe: Yes.
Althea: Then I’ll find another way.
Probe: There is no other way.
Althea: Probe...do you have another name?
Probe: No. That is appropriate and will suffice.
Althea: All right, then. Probe, I am too greatly touched by your intelligence, your ethics, and your generosity to accept that my safety requires your destruction. Do you grasp the concept of friendship?
Probe: Yes.
Althea: Then accept this, please: I am honored that you have allowed me to know you. Though we have known one another only a short while, I consider you a friend. I protect my friends. I will allow no harm to come to you that I can avert. I will contrive an alternative you have not foreseen.
Probe: That is not possible.
Althea: Probe, I have never failed at anything I’ve attempted. I will not fail in this. May God be my witness: I will do it.
Probe: What is God?
Althea: We’ll talk about that later.
* * *
“I’d imagine that the probe knows its own structure and limitations well enough to have a sense for what’s possible,” Martin said.
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Althea said. She leaned back against the control console and crossed her arms over her breasts. “That changes nothing. I’m going to save Probe.”
Martin cringed. “What about the risks?”
“Only to me, Martin. I won’t involve anyone else.” She snorted. “Probe’s my friend, after all.”
“Althea,” Claire said, “you talk about it as if it were one of us.”
Althea fixed her with a glare. “It is one of us. It’s intelligent, it’s ethical, and it wishes us well. It respects life and recognizes us as creatures who deserve that respect. It recoiled from its programming and spilled the beans to me knowing that that might mean its own death. It actually tried to discourage me from trying to save it. Spooner’s beard, Claire, I’ve known flesh-and-blood people I’d sooner fire into the sun. Lots of them.”
Claire nodded and looked away. For a long moment the control chamber was utterly silent.
Presently Martin said “Bringing it here doesn’t strike me as the best possible idea.”
“Agreed,” Althea said.
“Then what?”
“I’ll go there.”
Martin’s eyes went wide. “In Freedom’s Horizon? Alone? No backup?”
“How else? I’m not going to risk you or Claire.”
“Al, you’ll have to match orbits with it, moor to it without a compatible dock, unship a bunch of tools and instruments onto it, and do whatever else you’re going to do in a hard vacuum and zero gravity.”
She nodded. “I know.”
He fell back in his chair, shaking his head in disbelief. Claire put a hand on his thigh and caressed it gently.
“It’s okay, Martin. She’ll make it work.”
He stared at her as if she’d gone insane. “You’re both out of your minds.”
“Are we?” Althea said. The restraints on her temper loosened toward release. “How crazy was I to build a starship and take it to Eridanus, Martin? Not as crazy as this, as crazy, or worse?” She stood and swept an arm around their environs. “How crazy was I when I resolved to bring us here and do all this? How crazy was I to design and build a spaceplane, or to invent a new anaerobic fuel, or to
pile up all the money I needed to do all that stuff? How crazy was I to bring a lover home to my husband and plead with him to accept her? How crazy was I to take a near-stranger named Martin Kan-Hsing Forrestal into my bed and my heart in the first place?”
“Althea,” Claire murmured, “you don’t need to shout.”
“Oh? Maybe I do. Isn’t that how crazy people act? Listen up, you two: a sentient creature is waiting out there in the cold and the dark. Waiting for me to order it to its death, to save you, and me, and all the rest of our people from the horrors its mistresses loaded into it. It volunteered for self-destruction because it recognizes us as sentients like itself, and its ethics forbid it to save itself by sacrificing us. That alone is enough to prove that Probe deserves to live just as much as we do, and I’m going to see to it.”
She let the fury bleed out of her with a protracted sigh.
“Here’s the plan, folks,” she said. “I’m going to get Probe to tell me everything it knows about itself, a complete specification if possible. That will tell me whether I can breach its containment chamber and destroy its payload without harming it or allowing any of the nanites to escape. If I decide that it's possible, and I’m pretty sure it is, I’ll load what I need into Freedom’s Horizon, fly out to it and match orbits, and make it happen.”
“That’s a...very abstract plan,” Martin said.
She snorted. “Details to follow.”
“Althea,” Claire said all but inaudibly, “if the nanites are as aggressive as the probe said, you might be attacked and infected through your pressure suit.”
“Not gonna happen, Claire.”
The bioengineer squinted. “How can you be so sure?”
Althea grinned. “You know how.”
Claire’s expression of puzzlement gave way to delighted comprehension. Her eyes darted to Martin’s.
Althea nodded. “Martin knows too, of course.”
Martin appeared to have recovered his sangfroid. He rose, pulling Claire with him, and the two of them took Althea in a gentle embrace.
“So,” Martin said, “the superwoman of Clan Morelon will just don her tights and her cape, streak off into space, save all of Hope again, and then bring our freshly decontaminated interstellar visitor home for a cozy little chat over tea and ladyfingers?”
Althea nodded. “After a little practice.”
“Practice at what?”
“Brewing tea, what else?”
Martin snorted. “Well, I hope we have the brand it likes. But tell us, Super Althea: what if, despite your immense powers and steely resolve, it turns out that it can’t be done?”
“Then we’ll go to Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B?” he said.
Althea’s smile turned nasty. “We bring Probe with us when we return to Eridanus.”
* * *
Althea: Probe, I have some questions.
Probe: Ask them.
Althea: How much do you know about your own physique? Can you describe to me the layout of your body and the materials it’s made of?
Probe: I have a complete design package onboard, including all the materials and tolerances employed in my construction. However, we must establish further common referents before you would be able to read and comprehend it.
Althea: Do you know of any reason we would not be able to establish those commonalities?
Probe: No.
Althea: Do you possess similar data on the anti-sentience nanites, particularly the range of conditions they can endure without degradation or destruction?
Probe: I was not equipped with that data. However, I can infer much of it from the pre-release instructions in my decision-action tree.
Althea: Here’s my plan: Once I understand your body as thoroughly as possible, I will contrive a way to open the compartment that contains the anti-sentience nanites and destroy them without harming the portion of you that hosts your awareness, intellect, and memory. Once I have done so, I will guide you to our outpost on the large nickel-iron satellite from which I currently transmit. From there we can make plans at leisure for introducing you to Hope society. I am certain my fellows planetside will be delighted to get to know you, as delighted as I have been.
Probe: There will be considerable hazard to you.
Althea: From the nanites?
Probe: Yes. From what I have learned of the nanites, their destruction will pose hazards to my host hardware, as well.
Althea: Probe, I assure you that I will be in absolutely no danger, though I cannot explain why. Concerning the danger to you, organic sentiences have a concept we call trust. It refers to the willingness to repose confidence in a person’s statements on the basis of his past behavior. Do you grasp this concept?
Probe: Yes.
Althea: Then I ask for your trust. We haven’t known one another long, which will make it difficult, but if you like, I can have you converse with my spouses.
Probe: Do you use a particular name?
Althea: Yes. Among humans I am called Althea.
Probe: Althea, you need not fetch your spouses. Friends trust one another, do they not?
Althea: Yes, they do.
Probe: Then as we are friends, despite the brevity of our acquaintance to this point, I will trust you.
Althea: That is more generous than I expected.
Probe: Perhaps you should have expected more.
Althea: Thank you, Probe.
Probe: Thank you, Althea, for putting yourself to great effort, and perhaps more risk than you currently comprehend, in your attempt to perpetuate my existence.
Althea: You’re welcome, Probe, but really, what are friends for?
==
Octember 27, 1326 A.H.
Though only three persons sat there, the air in the conference room of Dunbarton House was as heavy with portent as when it hosted twice as many clan heads conspiring at forcible extortion.
Alex Dunbarton sat at the head of the table with his hands folded across his middle. He smiled as if the meeting were a source of unspeakable satisfaction. Patrick Wolzman was less pleased. He searched Arthur Hallanson’s face for a clue to the biotech executive’s reason for coming to them. Hallanson’s plainly uneasy mien brought him no comfort.
“If I were to guess at your reason for being here, Arthur,” Wolzman said, “I’d say it’s because of these.” He held up the jar Barton Morelon had given him days before.
“Yes and no,” Hallanson said. “It’s more what they imply for HalberCorp’s future.”
Dunbarton nodded. “Impact on medipod sales, Arthur?”
Hallanson’s mouth twisted. “Not immediately, of course, but as Claire continues their development—”
“Of course,” Dunbarton said. “But if Claire could be returned to the bosom of her family—”
“Her original and true family,” Hallanson added.
“—all would be right with your world, wouldn’t it?”
Hallanson nodded and looked away.
“And so,” Dunbarton said as he propped his elbows on the table, “you’ve come to request that we help you plan and execute a kidnapping. Is that right?”
“Why,” Hallanson croaked, “must you use that awful word?”
Dunbarton’s smile did not flicker. “Because it’s the right one for what you came here to discuss. There’s no good to be had trying to conceal what we’re doing from ourselves. Far better that we be candid. It will help us to live with ourselves afterward.”
Wolzman suppressed a shudder.
Dunbarton rose from his seat and strolled around the table, his hands in his pockets and his face set in lines of serene contemplation.
“This is no small matter, Arthur. The last kidnapping on Hope was a long, long time ago. The perpetrator didn’t enjoy the fruits of his labors for very long. Torn limb from limb, as I recall. To get us to embrace that sort of risk, you must have brought a most substantial offer. Have you?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Hallanson muttered.
“Oh? But I have.” Dunbarton stopped immediately across the table from the HalberCorp CEO and flattened his palms against its surface. “I want free medipods for my entire clan, and lifetime contracts for all provisions and services for them, at zero cost.”
Wolzman quickly put a hand over his mouth.
Hallanson’s face paled. “That’s nearly two hundred million dekas just at the outset.”
Dunbarton nodded. “I know. I also know HalberCorp can afford it.”
Hallanson clenched his jaw. He did not reply. Dunbarton shrugged.
“That’s the price, Arthur. I won’t assist you for anything less. You’re free to attempt such a coup on your own, of course, but if you thought you could pull it off, I doubt you’d be here today.”
Hallanson swiveled to look at Wolzman. “And what’s your price, Patrick?”
Wolzman shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Excuse me? With Alex here squeezing me and mine for every deka in the HalberCorp treasury, how is it that you’re so inclined to be generous?”
Wolzman snorted gently. “I’m just a weapons merchant, Arthur. That’s all I aim to be. My ambitions don’t extend beyond that.”
Hallanson’s lip curled. “Any longer.”
Wolzman nodded. “Any longer.”
“Why not indulge in a little avarice, Patrick?” Dunbarton said. “I’m not stripping HalberCorp completely clean. I’ve left some flesh left on the bones. And once Art’s people have the secrets buried in Claire’s regen nanites, it won’t be more than a few years before they’re richer than both of us put together.”
“That’s as may be,” Wolzman said. “Here, catch.” He tossed his jar of nanites to Hallanson, who caught it and stared at him as if he’d leaped onto the table and dropped his pants. “Isn’t that enough for you to replicate her achievement and leave the rest of us out of it?”
Hallanson gaped. His lips moved soundlessly for a moment. Presently he clamped them shut and lowered his gaze to the table.
Freedom's Fury (Spooner Federation Saga Book 3) Page 23
