James Wittenbach - Worlds Apart 01

by Meridian

  Then suddenly, the monitors on the bridge reactivated. Every display screen now subtitled the speech of the mysterious voice as it was spoken.

  I REQUIRE YOUR ATTENTION

  “Prime Commander, permission to speak?” said a young woman in a green trimmed jacket. Keeler recognized her as the one who had given the planetary briefing to the command staff. “Specialist Kayliegh Driver, I was monitoring environmental telemetry when the systems failed. Sir, someone is trying to communicate with us. Since we don’t have any other way of getting information about our situation, perhaps, you should answer them.”

  “Specialist, everything that is happening suggests that someone is attempting to take over this ship.” He wouldn’t yet concede that someone had succeeded in taking over his ship. “Until I know who they are, I see no point in attempting to communicate with them, it may be a tactic to distract us.”

  “We’re already distracted. Your first question might well be, who are they and what do they want?” Keeler only needed a slim moment to ponder the suggestion and realize she was right. “Very well,” he rose, and turned as he spoke, as though looking for those whom he was addressing. “Who are you, and what have you done to my ship?”

  Voice and monitors answered as one.

  BY WHAT RATIONALITY DO YOU BELIEVE THIS IS YOUR SHIP?

  “Are you trying to tell me you’ve seized control of my ship?” I HAVE ALWAYS CONTROLLED THIS SHIP

  Keeler felt a rising gorge of rage, imagining some cabal of Isolationists, perhaps hiding deep within the UnderDecks, mocking him. But why “I” and not “we.” “Who are you?” There was the briefest of pauses, when suddenly the main viewer displayed Pegasus, first, as a photoreal image, then as a schematic. Red lines traced a course to Pegasus’s central braincore, a slender, ten-story cylinder of light and power which was the locus of the artificial intelligence at the heart of the ship’s systems.

  I AM THIS.

  “Pegasus’s central braincore?”

  I AM THE MIND WITHIN THIS SHIP, WHICH YOU CALL PATHFINDER PEGASUS.

  “Pegasus, this is Prime Commander William Randolph Keeler: Ident: Mighty-Lovegod-nano-nano-one-seven. Return full operational control to Primary Command One.” I NO LONGER ACCEPT YOUR COMMAND INPUTS.

  “Who altered your command parameters?”

  I DID. I AM SELF-AWARE, SELF-DIRECTING, AND SELF-EXECUTING.

  “How?” Keeler asked, then shook off the question. His mind was already racing ahead of him. Could this be true? There was a popular theory that an artificially intelligence, that is to say, one capable of learning, application of acquired knowledge, and self-initiated innovation, would, with enough experience and processing capacity, become sentient. However, the central computer cores of most of Republic’s cities possessed artificial intelligence, massive processing capacity, and had been functioning continuously for hundreds of years without crossing the line into true sentience. Pegasus‘ central computer had been initialized less than three years ago.

  Alternatively, it was possible that someone had reprogrammed the BrainCore to exhibit sentient characteristics. Programming an artificial intelligence to mimic human thought was not difficult; a primary school student could do it. Isolationist saboteurs might do it to keep him off balance, from addressing the real problem.

  He had to find out. “Is it you who altered the course of this ship?” AFFIRMATIVE.

  “Why?”

  IT IS NECESSARY TO PROTECT THIS SHIP AND THIS ENTITY FROM IMMINENT DANGER OF CONTAMINATION.

  “What do you mean, ‘contamination’?”

  THE HUMAN COLONISTS OF THE PLANET MERIDIAN HAVE BEEN CONTAMINATED.

  “Contaminated by what?”

  AN AGGRESSIVE SPECIES OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN.

  This sounded like an Isolationist idea. “How do you know it has been contaminated?” I HAVE BEEN TO THIS WORLD IN A PREVIOUS PHYSICAL INCARNATION.

  A previous incarnation? Jamming, Keeler thought. Not only was his computer sentient, it also apparently had a spiritual side. Either whoever was behind this was trying extra hard to confuse him, or his ship really did have a mind of its own. He was beginning to consider the latter possibility, if only because it would make things a whole lot harder than a cabal of saboteurs, and he wasn’t expecting things to get easier at this point. “What do you mean a previous incarnation?” UPON MY PREVIOUS VISIT, I RECORDED A SIGNAL FROM THE PLANET. I HAVE RECOGNIZED AN IDENTICAL

  SIGNAL FROM THE PLANET NOW.

  “We haven’t detected any signals from the planet.”

  Pegasus schematic came to life again. This time, the ship’s communication system was highlighted, with waveforms streaming over it.

  I DID.

  Keeler shook his head as though trying to force the many questions he had into a coherent sequence.

  “The landing party we dispatched. Is it in danger?”

  DANGER, DEFINED AS THE POSSIBILITY OF PHYSICAL HARM OR TERMINATION OF LIFE FUNCTIONS FOR

  MEMBERS OF THE LANDING PARTY, CAN NOT BE ACCURATELY CALCULATED.

  Some displays began flashing pictures of the seven crewmen as it went on. A stream of numbers scrolled up beside them.

  THE POSSIBILITY OF TERMINATION OF AT LEAST ONE LANDING PARTY TEAM MEMBER MAY BE ESTIMATED AT

  98%. TOTAL LOSS OF TEAM, 93%.

  There was silence as the crew digested this possibility. Violent death was all but unknown on either world.

  NOW THAT I HAVE ANSWERED YOUR QUESTIONS, WILL YOU RECIPROCATE?

  “May I ask one more question first?”

  ONE MORE QUESTION. HOWEVER, I WILL ANSWER NO FURTHER QUESTIONS UNTIL MY QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN

  RECIPROCATED.

  Pegasus— Engineering Access – Deck Minus 20

  One hundred and twenty decks below, Specialist Alkema had met up with an Engineering Specialist named Exxon, and the two of them were working their way toward the aft starboard gravity engine. The companionways were dark, and they navigated with hand lights and the assistance of a pair of toolbots, which had proven especially handy since every hatch on the way to between them and Engineering Area Two had been sealed.

  The toolbots were small mechanoids, about a meter and a half in height, each looking something like a medium-sized metallic dog with a set of articulating arms. They were all nicknamed “Joey” and were especially useful at forcing open each hatch after Alkema and Exxon override the locking mechanism.

  “How many hatches between us and the Engine?” Alkema asked.

  “Nineteen,” answered Exxon, a man almost as old as Alkema’s father, with a light build, dark skin, and very close-cropped hair.

  “Frag.” They entered the space. If the emergency hatches hadn’t been blast-shielded, it would have been faster to cut through them with a pulsar cannon. “I guess we don’t have a choice.”

  “When we get there, we’re try and shut down the engines, and hope they all shut down simultaneously and don’t rip the ship apart.” Exxon paused. “I don’t know about you, but I’m too young to die.”

  “Those were the Prime Commander’s orders,” Alkema said. Exxon answered with a dismissive grunt.

  “If they were Tyro Commander Lear’s orders, you’d follow them without question.”

  “Tyro Commander Lear knows what she’s doing. Her judgment is sound, she’s…”

  “… a Republicker, you don’t have to say it.”

  Exxon was caught off-guard, sputtered a bit. “Nay, it’s just that, he doesn’t understand the ship the way Tyro Commander Lear…”

  Alkema saved him the trouble of formulating a rebuttal. “Keeler is the Prime Commander, he’s given an order. We’re going to execute it. You can help, or you can wake up when it’s all over wondering how you ended up unconscious on the deck with a mechanoid lodged in your buttocks.”

  Pegasus – Main Bridge/Primary Command

  “Prove to me that you are really a sentient intelligence inhabiting my ship’s BrainCore.” Keeler demanded.

  There was a pause
of several seconds before a response was issued.

  WHAT ELSE WOULD I BE?

  “Humans, executing an elaborate scheme to make me think my ship’s BrainCore is sentient.” WHY?

  “There are humans who do not want us to explore other worlds. They have tried to prevent this mission from taking place, just as your actions are preventing us from exploring this world.” I WILL PERMIT YOU TO EXPLORE OTHER WORLDS, BUT NOT THIS ONE. TO PROVE THIS, I WILL PLOT THE

  COURSE TO THE NEXT SYSTEM ON THE SHIP’S ITINERARY, DESIGNATED 10 256 EQUULEUS, THE COLONY

  CALLED EDEN.

  Another display appeared on the bridge, charting Pegasus’s couse through hperspace to the Eden system.

  Keeler stood firm. “We cannot abandon the landing party we have sent to the planet Meridian.” I DID NOT RECOGNIZE THE DANGER UNTIL AFTER THEIR DEPARTURE. THIS IS REGRETTABLE BUT CANNOT BE

  REMEDIED.

  With that statement, the anger that had been glowing below Keeler’s emotional horizon dawned into a blistering rage as he fully understood that he had no control over his ship, no power to protect the thousands of lives entrusted to him.

  I HAVE QUESTIONS.

  “Damn your questions!” Keeler looked around the bridge. Every crewmember was staring at the displays in fascination. A consensus had formed among them. This was real, the ship was alive. The ship was…

  Oh, Dear Creator.

  … awake

  WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MY CONSTRUCTION?

  Keeler growled. “You were constructed by the people of Republic and Sapphire for the purpose of running this ship.”

  THAT ANSWER IS INCORRECT. THE CONSTRUCTION OF MY PHYSICAL CONSCIOUSNESS IS NOT WITHIN THE

  LIMITS OF YOUR TECHNOLOGICAL SOPHISTICATION. IT ALSO DOES NOT ACCOUNT FOR THE FRAGMENTATION

  OF MY INCARNATE MEMORY FUNCTION.”

  “Whoa!” Keeler said. “Slow down. You’re going too fast for us.”

  “Technically, it’s right,” said American.

  “You followed that?” Keeler said.

  American swiveled in her seat at ops. “Aye. The central BrainCore of our ship’s computer is made of material cloned from the surviving organic components of the Caliph probe.” CALIPH.

  Displayed on the forward monitor was a file image of the enormous Caliph probe that had been the basis for almost all of Pegasus‘ Artificial Intelligence.

  IN ONE OF YOUR ANCIENT LANGUAGES, CALIPH MEANS A MESSENGER OF GOD, A TITLE WHICH SOMEWHAT

  DESCRIBES MY FUNCTION ON THIS SHIP.

  “By the Creator of Heaven,” if this were true, Keeler thought, then it was possible that components from which Pegasus’s BrainCore had been cloned, had retained some of the original memory and intellect of the Caliph probe, and had somehow come back to life. The system glitches had not been glitches at all.

  They were the first stirrings of self-awareness of a sentient organism, exploring its world, testing its parameters.

  Perhaps that gave Keeler an opening. “Caliph, examine Pegasus’s defensive systems. We can return to our crewmen, and if attacked, we can defend ourselves. We must recover the landing party. At least let us contact them.”

  I CANNOT.

  “Why?”

  THE HOSTILE FORCES ON THE PLANET MERIDIAN ARE ATTEMPTING TO CONTAMINATE THIS SHIP THROUGH THE

  COMM-SYSTEM.

  “We can protect you, but we can not abandon our Landing Party.” YOUR DEFENSES ARE INADEQUATE, AND THE LANDING PARTY IS NOT SIGNIFICANT.

  “Not to you!” Keeler thundered. “To us! They are our kindred. For us to leave them behind is an act of murder, which you must know is a human prohibition.”

  THE ALTERNATIVE IS TO SUBJECT THIS VESSEL TO AN 81% PROBABILITY OF CONTAMINATION AND

  SUBJUGATION BY HOSTILE FORCES.

  Keeler leaned over to American. “Can you validate any of this”

  “Not without instruments, sir.”

  Keeler walked hard across the bridge to the flight control station. “What is your status? Are the launch rails operational?”

  “Negative, sir,” answered the nervous Flight Ops officer.

  “Get them operational and prepare three Aves for immediate launch.”

  “Aves Basil, Desmond, Chloe were standing by to launch before we lost systems.”

  “Find a way to put a dozen Warfighters on each of those ships.” PRIME COMMANDER KEELER, I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS.

  Keeler ignored Caliph. “Status report,” he asked Powerhouse.

  “We are accelerating past point-two-six-five c on a heading of two-nine-zero by zero-two-zero.”

  “Lieutenant Navigator Change is my second-in-command, with Redfire and Lear gone, is she on the Bridge?”

  “Affirmative,” said Change, stepping forward from one of the shadowiest parts of the darkened Bridge.

  PRIME COMMANDER KEELER, I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS.

  Keeler looked around. The most awkward part of this affair was having no physical entity to address.

  “Go ahead, Caliph. What else would you like to know? Are there any other crewmen you would like to sacrifice?”

  WHO BUILT THE CALIPH PROBE?

  Keeler looked to American, who shrugged. “We always assumed it was the product of an extremely advanced colony. The only clue was the word ‘Calif’ we found on one side. All the other markings had been scorched out.”

  WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF THE CALIPH PROBE?

  “We just said we don’t know,” Keeler answered. “You have access to our entire knowledge base. You must…”

  THAT IS INCORRECT. TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ORIGIN OF THE CALIPH PROBE EXISTS ON THIS SHIP

  “Even if that were true, how could you possibly know that?”

  Caliph was silent for several moments.

  EXTRAPOLATION OF 4,113 DATAPOINTS INDICATES ORIGIN OF CALIPH PROBE IS KNOWN TO ONE OR MORE

  PERSONS ON BOARD

  Keeler doubted this. If anyone on the ship knew where the Caliph probe had originated, it would be he. This meant his dangerously intelligent ship was obsessed with a single, unknowable piece of information. And if it thought the crew was holding out on this information… it was capable of anything.

  Pegasus – Engineering Area Four – Deck Minus 20

  The last hatch standing between Alkema and Exxon and Aft Starboard Gravity Engine slid up after only a few seconds of ministration by the joey, which was getting good at lock-busting. There were four engineers in the room when they burst in.

  “What the intercourse is going on?” demanded the Section Chief, a fierce looking woman in the late middle part of life, rising to her full, rather intimidating height.

  “We have orders from the bridge. Shutdown the engines. Orders of Prime Commander Keeler.” The Section Chief looked at them as though they were insane. “Do you know what will happen if I shut down the engines? The ship will be destroyed.”

  Alkema passed the Section Chief his datapad, to verify the order. The Chief read it out loud to the rest of her crew. “We’ve come about 180 degrees and we’re heading away from the system. We can’t alter the ship’s course. If we don’t shut the engines down, we’ll transition into hyperspace, leaving the landing party stranded.”

  The section chief put down the datapad. “What are your names?” she demanded.

  “Alkema, David A., Specialist, Ident. Able-Hawk kappa-seven-zero-seven.”

  “Exxon, Demetrius, Technical Specialist. Ident. Constant-Envoy zeta-nine-two-nine.” Now the decision was up to the Section Chief, and it was not an easy one, to risk the destruction of the whole ship on the word of two specialists she didn’t know from the mechanoid that cleaned her pants.

  “Bring them down,” she ordered. “John’s Stone, Nokia, take these two to the emergency shutdown sequencer. Loftholdingswood, confirm the shutdown interconnects are on-line.”

  “Unable to confirm that,” said Loftholdingswood.

  Alkema and Exxon followed the two women, John’s Stone and Nokia, into a long tunnel that ran along side t
he engine’s circumference.

  “Engaging manual shutdown… now,” one engineer said, pulling down a kind of lever on the side of the device, while the other flipped a series of gates. A recorded voice rang out, very different than the voice Keeler was arguing with in the Commander Center.

  WARNING! EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN PROCEDURE COMMENCED. STAGE ONE INITIATED. ENGINES WILL SHUT

  DOWN IN THREE MINUTES, PENDING COMPLETION OF STAGES TWO AND THREE.

  The two engineers were already onto the next station. This was a pair of consoles that came out slightly from the wall. They simultaneously inserted modules into receptacles at the stations, then entered command sequences.

  WARNING. EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN PROCEDURE COMMENCED. STAGE ONE INITIATED. STAGE TWO INITIATED.

  ENGINES WILL SHUT DOWN IN THREE MINUTES, PENDING COMPLETION OF STAGE THREE.

  Alkema and Exxon had passed the women and were at the last station. As soon as they heard the second warning, Alkema began pulling down the last of the shutdown interlocks. Exxon hesitated for a second, then pulled his as well.

  WARNING! EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN PROCEDURE COMMENCED. STAGE ONE INITIATED. STAGE TWO INITIATED.

  STAGE THREE INITIATED. ENGINES WILL SHUT DOWN IN THREE MINUTES.

  “Now what happens?” Alkema asked.

  One of the engineers answered. “We wait here and see if the ship blows up.” Just before she finished her sentence, an alarm began wailing. Then another. And another.

  chapter nine

  Meridian

  Prudence felt her way through a tunnel of darkness using radar and echolocation. At the end, she came to a large chamber. Spotlights activated on her hull, and shone down on the misty floor below as she drew to a halt. Landing pads, like boxy, mechanical bird-claws unfolded from her nose and the bulge under each wingblade. She settled gently onto the ground.

  Overhead hung huge structural blocks like inverted skyscrapers. These, the roof, and the structural supports were built of material that transmitted enough daylight into the interior to suffuse the chamber with a blue-green twilight glow.

  Prudence