In the holosphere the aerogel approached Lock-Door Fourteen, pausing to emit its decryption signal.
Gases flooded the aerogel globe.
A white ball dropped toward the hallway deck plates, threatening to shatter its icy coating.
“Mata Hari!”
“Got it!” The white globe steadied. “Did you really think I wouldn’t use a tractor beam?”
Matt’s heart thudded to adrenaline overload. “Big joke! Don’t worry me like that. Is it frozen solid?”
“Yes. According to the sonogram I just took.” Mata Hari sounded very confident. “I’ll route it through the exhaust duct system to the outer hull and expel it—after coating it with a self-igniting polymer explosive. The polymer is time-set and will explode twenty seconds after it feels vacuum. Satisfactory?”
“Sounds good.” Matt watched as Mata Hari deftly ejected the bioweapon into the vacuum lying within the Alcubierre Space-Time Bubble. The aerogel disappeared from the holosphere and was replaced by an image of Eliana. This time she lay on her back, one arm across her stomach, the other underneath her head, the soft mounds of her breasts rising as she breathed slowly, eyelids shut as she dreamed. Her lustrous hair spread over the bed like black satin cloth, framing her fine-boned face. She was beauty allied to a puzzle. Why did she hate machines, and computers in particular?
“What do you wish done with her?” Mata Hari asked.
He sighed. “Do you think she was aware of being a mule?”
“No.”
“Does she carry any other bioweapons?”
“No,” Mata Hari said in a soft, reassuring voice. “After isolating her room and pouching it out through the external ship skin, so it could be pinched off in case the probe awoke other bioweapons, I active-scanned her. There are no other bioweapons within or attached to her.”
Except for her mind, he thought, admiring Eliana’s strong intelligence and stoic courage in accepting a very dangerous assignment for her people. “Recommendations?”
“I am curious about human females,” Mata Hari said. “And she cannot harm me. Keep her. She is, after all, your only Patron.”
And also a woman—like you pretend to be. “So be it.”
Matt turned and laid back down on his bed, his mind far too active for sleep. Too many questions plagued him.
Who had seeded Eliana with a bioweapon?
Why did Mata Hari wish to keep a dangerous Patron, rather than toss her into the vacuum of space? Did she really want to observe a live human woman in action, thinking and doing as women do? As Helen did, his pain-memory reminded him. And when would Translation end?
Most of all, Matt wondered why his mind still recycled images of a seductively nude Eliana. The images aroused him. They brought forth hormonal responses that he barely repressed. Worst of all, they evoked erotic memories of Helen. Of the yellow-haired Asian woman he’d once loved, but who had left him. Left him alone with only the memory of her love.
Love.
Such could never be possible with Eliana.
He had realized after her departure from the Bridge what she must think of him. One machine now ravaged her planet. Another machine had made her a crossbreed, an outcast to both peoples. And after seeing him crouched within the Interlock pit, interwoven with the lifeweb of a machine intelligence, Matt must seem to Eliana the worst of all worlds.
A cyborg. Neither fully human, nor fully machine. An abomination, an atrocity—something that willingly bonded with an intelligent computer, that was not people. Through choice, a human machine allied to a computer machine--failing to see the
To her, he must seem only a tool. One she would use, then discard. He was sure of that, even as his emotions hoped otherwise.
So be it.
Through all the lonely hours of Translation, Matt ignored forbidden memories. Ignored his long-suppressed hopes. Ignored even the prospect of meeting other humans, the pure-strain Greeks of Sigma Puppis. For years he had felt safest when apart from other humans. And Eliana was unlikely to change that, or change his Promise to Helen, the core reason why he’d chosen to be a Vigilante in the first place. Eliana was not the only one with secrets . . . .
CHAPTER THREE
Mata Hari the starship hung just outside Sigma Puppis binary star system, veiled within its Kuiper Belt of proto-cometary objects, and stealth-shielded against all detectors. After the two attacks and the bioweapon, the AI had insisted on such a cautious approach. Just as she now insisted on filling the forward holosphere with endless astronomical and historical readouts on Eliana’s home system. Once again Matt sat in the Interlock Pit, bare skin soaking in the cold of interstellar space, lightbeams invading his inner core. Behind him sat Eliana, watching the display from her accel-couch. She appeared somber and not fully rested, as if her night had been as disturbed as his. But she’d taken the time to brush out her waist-long black hair, apply rose-colored lipstick and change into a Vietnamese cheongsam style dress. During their shared breakfast, she’d been friendly enough, though she had talked only of minor things.
Enough.
Avoiding the strain of ocean-time, Matt went to gestalt perception as he took in the holosphere, absorbed real-time readouts on local space, catalogued ship system checkouts, and tracked Mata Hari ’s holo display of Sigma Puppis.
Located about 194 light years from Earth, the double star system looked fairly straightforward. It consisted of a K5-III orange-red giant, with a G5-V yellow star orbiting it about 1,200 AU out. Eleven planets danced around the G5 main sequence star, in the standard pattern of iron-silicate inner ones and gas-giant outer ones, while only a broad disk of asteroidal debris circled the K5 giant. Like two ships passing in the night, each star had little to do with the other, except for gravity tides that ebbed and flowed between them.
The tides elongated slightly the orbits of the G5’s outer planets, but did not affect the inner planets. The native Derindl species shared the fourth planet, Halcyon, with the Third Wave human colony. Theirs was a Venus-sized world of water and warmth that basked under the yellow star. It possessed two oceans, three continents, a few deserts, two ice caps, a stormy atmosphere and . . . a very rare, very unusual planet-wide forest. Within that forest grew the ‘tree cities’ of the Derindl aliens. Taking biotechnology and genetic engineering to a fantastic level, the Derindl had long lived in symbiosis with their giant Mother Trees, and in return, the Trees provided nearly everything needed by a biology-based culture. Fuels. Food. Water. Waste recycling. Home habitats. Temperature control. And a playground.
Before the coming of the Anarchate the Derindl had lived peacefully, despite severe caste disputes, in a world culture at least twelve thousand years old. Only the arrival three hundred years ago of Anarchate diplomats, and Trade entrepreneurs, had added anything new to Derindl society. And most of that was limited to a Trade station that orbited high above Halcyon. But all that had been changed by the recent arrival of Third Wave humans.
The human colony lay in the northern continent, on a high plateau called Tharsis. The settlement’s name was Olympus. And most of the colonists were expatriate Greeks from the Peloponnesus and southern Attica, who dominated interspecies Trade between the Derindl and the aliens of Zeus Station. The Greeks’ role had generated jealousy among some Derindl Clan groups, but the Union had challenged them to create crossbreed people filled with the best talents of both species. Ties of blood usually kept commercial jealousy in bounds. Low numbers also helped. The Greeks were but thirty thousand strong, and the crossbreeds numbered just eight thousand, while the Derindl had been static at nine hundred million for millennia.
All in all, things worked.
Then came the disaster of Halicene Conglomerate.
At a distance of four light hours from Halcyon, Matt could not see the massive strip mine scar created by the mining combine in Halcyon’s southern continent, which Eliana
said already measured ninety kilometers wide by six hundred long. But it would grow, and fast. The Stripper itself measured six by six kilometers square. It would not be long before the ecodamage became irreversible.
Matt turned in his glass seat, catching Eliana’s attention. “Where is the Halicene MotherShip?”
Eliana stood up from the accel-couch, taking his query for an invitation to join him in observing the holosphere. Perhaps she too desired human company. “In orbit about the K5 giant,” she said, squatting beside the Pit’s rim, unaware that an edge of her dress dangled down into his lightbeam outputs.
“Why there?” he asked, ignoring the minor datafeed interruption. Despite her bias against computers, Matt hungered for the simple beauty of her chalk-white face, long black hair, and the sea-green eyes that now fixed on him.
“Greed,” she said dryly. “While the Stripper harvests our minerals, the Halicene Despot mines the K5’s asteroidal disk for useful ores.”
“Good.” Matt felt relieved that his opponent’s main strength was not yet in-system. “By the way, you haven’t told me—whatever made the Derindl Autarch accept a Stripper on his planet? I would think a forest-dependent species like the Derindl would never allow extensive surface mining.”
Eliana winced. “They wouldn’t. Normally. But . . . the human Trade group Clan Karamanlis was handling mineral trades at the time and they signed the contract on behalf of the Derindl.” She paused, her expression growing more pained. “They had a writ of mandamus from the Derindl Autarch to do anything needed to secure the neonatal placental units we needed to birth crossbreed children, like myself. And the leader of Clan Karamanlis had no son to carry on his lineage.”
Matt wondered if Eliana’s schooling included the story of Faust. “Does the Karamanlis Despot still handle interspecies Trade?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Just curious. It’s worth knowing whether the idiot who created the need for a Vigilante is likely to give me repeat business.”
She smiled wryly. “An idiot he is, but he no longer runs things. His Clan has been replaced by Trade Clan Themistocles.”
Ahhh. “Any relation to you?”
Eliana nodded. “As I said earlier, my older half-brother is the Clan Despot in charge of the family business. And the colony. If that’s what you mean.” She looked away to the holosphere, as if their eye-to-eye intimacy had unsettled her.
“That is exactly what he meant,” commented Mata Hari from an overhead membrane. “And the Derindl Autarch—is it still in power?”
Eliana looked up, her distaste clear. “No! There has been a new Derindl Autarch, a female, for the past two Halcyon years. Of the caste Aggressors.”
Aggressors? Once more, the knowledge-dam broke. Once more, oceans of data engulfed Matt as the databyte nanocubes flooded his frontal cortex with a library of data. Time stretched out . . . .
Two hundred milliseconds.
There were five major Derindl castes—Aggressors, Conciliators, Mothers, Lifewebs, and Nurturers—along with thousands of minor ones. The method of Autarch selection was consensus among the nine thousand Nest leaders, each responsible for around 100,000 Derindl. For a decentralized power system, it had worked well over the millennia. But with the arrival of Anarchate diplomats and merchants, the need had arisen for aggressive, focused societal action by the Derindl. And their meritocracy-based system had been slow to respond. Enter the humans. With their Clan Despots, humans could undertake quick, decisive action. And then avoid living with the consequences of hasty judgment.
Mata Hari hovered dimly in the backwaters of Matt’s brain. The knowledge flood continued.
The pioneering human Waves usually found that democracy had to be sacrificed for the centralized decision-making capacity embodied in a Despot. Or similar oligarch. Of course, such assumptions had long ago resulted in the Despots of the Anarchate, who set forth the Anarchate’s First Rule—there is no interstellar Justice, and no Law, except that no planet interferes with the affairs of another. A neat update of the old divide-and-conquer strategy. Matt tasted sourness as he wondered if here, in Sigma Puppis, his species had begun a miniature Anarchate.
Three-quarters of a second.
Swimming to the surface of the data-feed ocean, Matt slowed his inputs and focused on the crouching figure of Eliana. His mind reached for her as for a lifepod. “Are we expected by Clan Themistocles?”
“They expect me,” she said, frowning as she caught the look on his face. “It was not certain that I would secure a Vigilante.”
“Who rules Zeus Station now?” he said, turning to practical matters.
“Clan Themistocles!” Eliana said firmly.
“Are you sure, dear girl?” Mata Hari said softly, making herself visible in a side holosphere, dressed in her white lace, full-length skirt with low-cut bodice, a late Victorian style sometimes worn by her spy namesake. “Or could there be remnants of Clan Karamanlis still about, folks who would be happy to see Clan Themistocles fall into the mud of failure?”
Eliana looked startled by the three-dimensional image of his AI partner, then glared at him. “Can’t you shut off that infernal computer!”
Matt crossed arms in the Pit, ignoring the back of the neck ache that came from the coax cable attachment point. “Patron, that ‘infernal computer’ saved your life back at Hagonar Station. She does as she pleases.”
Eliana grimaced. She looked rearward at the crystalline pillars of the AI’s Core memory, across at Mata Hari ’s holosphere, then down at him. “At home, Humans control their AIs—not the reverse!”
Sadness filled him. “And you think I am controlled by Mata Hari ?”
“You are what you are.” Pity showed on Eliana’s face. “You . . . you chose to bond with it.”
“Madam, you asked for my help, not the reverse. What is the problem?”
She struggled visibly with her emotions, her revulsion barely restrained as she looked from his neck cable to the cone-tiers and back to him. Finally, she fixed on his eyes, his human eyes. “I’m sorry, Matt. Really, I am. I was raised better than to show unkindness.” She sat down at the edge of the Pit, legs folded under her. Ignoring Mata Hari’s watchful holo-image, she gestured apologetically. “My problem is that on Halcyon we have never had cyborgs—machine people—among us. Our society considers them . . . unnatural.”
Matt laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Unnatural? What do you call mating with aliens? What of your symbiosis with the Trees? Some humans would call both unnatural.”
Eliana looked honestly bewildered. “But, but—it’s not the same at all! They are both organic, natural lifeforms.”
He could have written a book on the human ability to delude oneself in order to avoid facing reality. He hadn’t. Instead, Matt kept his distance from most human groups, preferring the clear logic of AIs like Mata Hari. Arguing was pointless, but he had to ask one more question. “Patron, I must rely upon you for many things. Can you hold in check your reactions to me? Can you deal with me as a Greek man, rather than as a cyborg?”
“I . . . I.” Eliana averted her eyes from the Interlock Pit, looked back, averted again, then forced herself to look at him, her face paler than usual. “I’ll try. I promise I’ll try. When you’re just yourself, like at breakfast this morning, it’s different. You’re quite nice. But that neck cable, your communion with that computer, with her!” She gestured to the side holosphere. “Well, it’s enough to . . . . “ She closed her eyes tight, breathed deep, and opened them again. Dark eyelashes blinked. “Frankly, plugged into that machine, there is nothing natural or normal about you.”
“You’re wrong. And can’t you see how alike we are? We are both outcasts from normal society.”
“Alike?” Eliana looked shocked. “Impossible!” The squeamishness reappeared and she turned away from him, from the cable, from what he had changed into—in order to survive.
“But you’ll try?”
Slowly, very slowly, she turned a
nd met his eyes, jaw muscles clenching tight. “Yes. I’ll try. I owe you that, for agreeing to help us.”
“I get paid. And very well.” Matt turned away from Eliana and pushed aside vain hopes. “We will visit your Zeus Station, converse with your brother Ioannis, and consider Options.” He looked deep into the forward holosphere, seeking the truth behind a rainbow tracery of vectors and readouts, pushing his hopes for her out of his mind. To the side, Mata Hari’s holo-image disappeared. Perhaps she too was tired of illogical rationalizations.
“Options?” said Eliana, sounding frustrated. “Why don’t you just go directly to Halcyon and destroy the Stripper from orbit? This ship has the weapons. Do you lack the courage?”
Matt did not look up. “Eliana, what if the Stripper contains mutant retroviruses genetically tailored to block the photosynthetic action of your Mother Trees? What if an obvious attack on the Stripper yields only the total despoliation of your planet?”
“Oh!” she said with surprise. “I hadn’t considered that. Matt, I’m sorry—”
“No more apologies,” he said firmly, turning around in his glass chair to meet her face to face. “You know nothing of this ship, of its capabilities, of my link with Mata Hari, or my personal ethics. Now please, be quiet. I have work to do.” He turned back.
Ocean-time flowed over him with almost a gentle caress.
Three hundred milliseconds.
Leaning forward, his skin rippled autonomically, sending off signals to all parts of the ship. Time to work. Time to move in-system, to launch Remote probes, and to Dock with Zeus Station. Data flooded into him. Dimensions enfolded him. Strange senses caressed him.
But far, far away in a closed part of his mind, Matt considered Eliana. Deep inside, at the memory pain level, something whispered that maybe this beautiful, well-educated albino woman knew something he didn’t. Knew how to be a real human, knew how to feel like a human ought to feel . . . even if she were half-alien.
Star Vigilante (Vigilante Series) Page 5
