Derec did not take his eyes from the array of screens before him, and listened with only part of his attention. The shapes filling three displays shifted through geometric and polymetric configurations. He knew this, had seen it before, though not with this complexity. The Resident Intelligence on Earth had been corrupted for less than a year, but what he saw here revealed the effects of decades of invasive counter-programming and viral restructure. He wished he had Rana with him—she possessed a gift for breaking down unusual numeric structures.
The other screens showed the actual numbers. These, too, were familiar. Most of it conformed to what he had developed from the analysis of the Union Station D.C. brain, but . . .
“Ariel,” he called, “take a look. What do you think?”
Ariel came over and sat down beside him. She studied the screens. “Set point topology . . . interface iterations . . . this resembles the cyborg brain.”
“Mm-hmm. More than just misdirection was going on here.” He tapped commands into the console and waited. “Ah-ha. Look. Those points, here and here, are one cell of the Three Law programming.”
“Shit,” Ariel hissed. “If it’s not broken . . .”
“Then it’s severely impaired. It’s possible this RI was actually cooperating.”
“Not sanely.”
Derec shrugged. “Does that really matter? They found a way to co-opt it and corrupt the Three Laws.”
Ariel glanced at Bogard, standing nearby, watching the room. “If I had to choose, I’d accept your approach at once.”
Derec did not reply. He was tempted to ask her if she really understood the difference, which would be insulting. Of course she did—Bogard’s makeup, even with its flexibility, still adhered to the Three Laws, while what they saw here in this RI seemed severed from those laws. Still, he doubted Ariel would ever fully accept Bogard, but as long as she allowed that he could be depended upon, even within limits, Derec was content.
The room contained several Aurorans now, most of them security people, but quite a few from the Council. First Advisor Maliq had been shamefacedly explaining the situation to his associates since Pon Byris had brought them here. It had quickly become apparent that he had not known what Lea Talas had been doing, that she had manipulated him along with many others. Still, he was chagrined at having been gulled. But he was not allowed to see what Derec and Ariel were doing.
Derec was shutting down the corrupted RI, piece by piece. Like any Resident Intelligence, it had multiple responsibilities. Arrangements had to be made to transfer those duties to other RIs. But before anything, he had closed off its communications links—again, one by one.
Dr. Penj sat with them now and studied the screens.
“What is that?” he asked, pointing at a stable form amid the fluctuating fractalscape on one screen.
“That is a V.R. environment,” Derec said. “We have no idea what it contains—it’s encased by a very sophisticated security shell. If we just open it up we might destroy whatever’s within. Almost everything we’ve been able to identify as an illegal dataline feeds ultimately into it, so it must be very important.”
“What do you have attacking it?” Penj asked.
“I’m using my RI, Thales, to apply a sequence of algorithmic keys. Even at that speed, it could take days. Thales?”
“Still working, Derec. No progress. However, I have found something else of interest.”
“Show me.”
A new screen winked on. Numerical coordinates appeared in the left-hand corner. In the center, a routing tree scrolled up, showing a series of cross-connected links.
“Among the masked hyperwave connections we have discovered,” Thales said, “this one I thought unique. It has been operating continuously for nearly a year, and except for one short period of data exchange, one direction only with no responding traffic of any kind.”
“So something has been receiving constantly,” Ariel said, “and sending nothing back?”
“With the exception I mentioned, that is correct. The nature of that exception appears to be in the form of remote programming algorithms. I traced the signal. It has been difficult because of the complex routing. There are at least sixteen connections which switch constantly, according to an algorithm I was able to break without too much difficulty. I discovered that its endpoint is within the Nova Levis blockade.”
“To whom?” Penj demanded.
“No, sir,” Thales said. “To what. It is in continual communication with an AI system on board part of the perimeter.”
“Doing what?” Derec asked.
“It is operating a location and identification system which seems to be the main trunk feed for the entire blockade. It is, in fact, masking incoming and outgoing ships. Compromised in this way, the blockade has little way of detecting, identifying, and locating ships coming through these coordinates.”
New numbers spread across the bottom of the screen.
“That’s nearly thirty degrees of arc,” Ariel said.
“Of course, this would not affect independent sensors,” Thales continued. “A single ship would not be prevented from detecting traffic in this segment. However, there are strict protocols in place determining which ships patrol which areas.”
“Who has this area?” Penj asked.
“Earth.”
“So what would happen,” Derec asked, “if you disconnected that line?”
“I cannot say with certainty, but if my understanding of the specific AI system is correct, then the masking will simply end. Any ships in that section will become quite visible to the entire blockade.”
Derec glanced at Ariel, who turned to survey the others in the room. No one seemed to be paying much attention to them. Penj was the Calvin liaison to this operation—by his own insistence—and security was preoccupied with what was becoming a purge. Ariel gave Derec a small smile.
“Do it,” Derec said.
Mia moved to the next console.
“What’s happening?” Kru demanded. “We have to move.”
Mia shook her head. “No,” she said. “This part of the ship has been closed down. No one has been in here in years. There’s a firewall between these systems and the rest of the complex. I don’t know who built it, but it’s designed to prevent meddling from outside. We have not been detected by any systems outside these because that link could be used to get back in here. Paranoid programming. Anyway, the result is, we can do what we want here.”
“But there’s nothing here!” Kru shouted.
Mia looked at her. “What was there supposed to be?”
“This is Nova Levis. This is where they make all the sickness. This is where the reanimés came from.”
Mia nodded. From what she had seen at the first cyborg village, added to what she was learning here, the reanimés were failures, examples grown wrong. Somewhere along the lab wall was another access out of which these failures were tossed. Mia supposed they were expected to die of exposure. Many no doubt had. The lake probably contained the rotting corpses of hundreds of them, rotting and releasing who knew what kind of biophage into the ecology—exotic viruses, bionans, synthetic constructs.
But some had survived and had learned to rescue those who came after. The consequences of that process were problematic since, evidently, all the reanimés were sterile. If no more were made here, no new ones would be born.
Unless the environment itself were reworking the colonists.
Mia shook her head. Too big for the moment, too much to consider.
She activated the hyperwave console.
“You want to stop the lab?” Mia asked, studying the readouts. “Give me time and I’ll see if we can just move it.”
One of the cyborgs made a sound. Kru danced across the deck to look at another board that had lit up.
“Someone’s coming,” she said.
Mia, frowning, joined Kru. The board showed the grid of the internal communications system. Piece by piece, it was coming back
on-line.
“They are, aren’t they?” Mia asked sarcastically, and returned to the hyperwave console.
Where’s the emergency broadband signal . . . ?
There. She tested the circuit, then opened a link to whatever planetary satellite array might still exist. She found nothing local except the transponders of the blockade fleet.
That will have to do, she thought, and adjusted the frequency to match.
She touched a contact.
“Attention. This is Lt. Commander Mia Daventri, Internal Security Terran Expeditionary Task Force. Attention. This is Lt. Commander Mia Daventri, Internal Security Terran Expeditionary Task Force. Please respond.”
She repeated the phrase four more times before she received a reply.
“Watch Officer Grenn of the E.F.S. Suttermill. Please verify identity.”
Mia felt herself grin as she read off her I.D. code and security clearance.
“You are listed as missing, Lt. Commander.”
“I’m back. Please lock on these coordinates. We have a situation. I need to speak to Fleet Admiral Bhek. Pass this—”
“Hold, please.” Silence. Then: “What the—”
“Watch Officer Grenn, please respond.”
“I’m patching you through to Commander Starls, Lt. Commander. We now have a situation.”
Mia waited nearly a minute before a different voice came on the line.
“This is Commander Starls. Please identify yourself.”
Mia ran through the litany of codes again.
“You’ve been missing, Lt. Commander Daventri. Do you have an explanation?”
“I was assaulted and sent to the surface of Nova Levis. Please note the link I am using. I’m sending the automatic transponder code to you now.”
A few seconds later, Commander Starls said, “That is a Solarian ship, decommissioned twenty-eight years ago. Where did you find it?”
“It has become an on-ground research facility. I believe this is the cause of all the trouble.”
“That’s a bold claim. Can you back it up?”
“The ship needs to be examined, but I think it contains everything we need to—”
“The seals are being opened,” Kru shouted.
“Commander, I’m about to be discovered. What I want to do is lift this ship off.”
“It’s functional?”
“I can’t tell, I’m not a pilot. But my guess is, yes. It’s been kept ready. If I give you the codes for all the controls, can you operate it remotely?”
“Of course.”
Mia tapped quickly. “Then I am sending it all to you . . . now.”
Masid watched Parapoyos laboriously enter a long string of access codes into several consoles. The lower sections of the ship were open and a good part of the starboard upper section, but all the control areas had been sealed. Certainly the doors could have been blasted through, but who knew what that might bring about? At the very least, Parapoyos would have installed an auto-destruct, set to go off at any unauthorized breach.
Masid became aware of Filoo watching him. The man looked nervous now. Masid surveyed the rest and found a few others who showed the same edginess.
The big access doors lurched on their tracks noisily, and dragged themselves open. Beyond spread the bridge, all the consoles coming quickly to life after long sleep.
Parapoyos entered with obvious pride. “It was always intended that operations should be mobile. In the event, this ship was prepared to be used as our headquarters. I would have preferred to wait till a more politically unstable time, but things are pretty bad in general, so it may not be terribly premature.”
Filoo ran a hand over his mouth, looking around.
Masid drifted casually over to a hulking display board. Watching the room, he slipped the weapon from its pouch and pressed the charge stud, then held it behind his back, close to the casement.
“We can manage things here,” Parapoyos continued, “until a better location can be found, and—”
An alarm sounded, filling the bridge with a raw vibration. Masid clenched the weapon, his chest seizing. Parapoyos went to a console and worked for a time.
The alarm died. In the abrupt silence, someone coughed.
“Well, well,” Parapoyos said. “We may be leaving much sooner than I thought.” He turned and glared at the assembly. “Our supply corridor has been unmasked. Blockade ships are moving in to intercept. Now, how could that happen?”
Masid gauged the distance at about ten meters. He would have one shot. He doubted now he could close the gap without being grabbed. He looked down at the box in his hand—the firing stud glowed a bright green now, indicating a full charge—and swallowed.
He began to bring the weapon to bear.
A deafening groan filled the air and the deck tilted. People sprawled across the floor, grabbing each other or consoles. Parapoyos fell back against aboard and held on. Masid barely kept his feet.
“Traitor!”
Masid looked around. Filoo, on his knees, was pointing directly at him, his face contorted by rage and fear.
“Traitor!”
Masid aimed at him and pressed the stud. A brilliant bolt leapt from the suddenly hot box. The energy splattered against Filoo.
The deck tilted again.
In space, above Nova Levis, several ships changed course to converge on a convoy of nearly twenty ships which had been invisible to their sensors till just then. None of the captains knew why they could now see these ships, only that they could, and that it was their duty to intercept them.
The sudden rush, however, pushed anxious people to limits they could not contain. Shots were fired. At the end of ten minutes’ fighting, eight of the twenty ships had been holed, six of them tried to flee back out of the system, and the rest surrendered, while far beyond the perimeter of the blockade, more convoys were detected.
Masid pulled himself up to a sitting position. Across the bridge, he saw Parapoyos and his lieutenants working at consoles, evidently trying to regain control. Filoo’s body slid back and forth over the wildly tilting deck. The noise continued, a see-saw grinding as if the ship were trying to break free of restraints.
Abruptly, Parapoyos staggered toward another hatch and exited.
Masid crawled after him.
He climbed into a passageway that circled back into the depths of the ship.
“Hey!”
Masid turned. One of Parapoyos’s bodyguards leaned through the hatch, blaster in hand.
The ship jerked, and the bodyguard fell back. He held on to the edge of the hatch, though. Masid slid along the bulkhead to the hatch. He grabbed hold of a stanchion set in the wall. When the ship shifted again, the guard shot back into the passage. Masid caught him across the shins and he slammed against the opposite wall. Masid let go of the stanchion and dropped, feet first, into the guard’s chest.
He grabbed the blaster and lurched after Parapoyos.
Something had gone wrong. Masid puzzled why Parapoyos had been in such a hurry to get here after grounding. Perhaps this was the only place Parapoyos was likely to feel safe. If so, then right now he must be terrified. The horrific sound throughout the fabric of the ship was like a tremendous beast roaring and straining against restraint. Masid doubted this was Parapoyos’s doing.
And his comment about unmasked ships?
Masid staggered, trying to anticipate the pitch and roll of the decks, and ran when he could.
Suddenly, the ship angled sharply in a new direction, and Masid fell headlong down the corridor.
Mia held onto the edge of the console. She looked around. Kru cowered beneath another board, but the cyborgs were managing to keep their feet under them. Mia entered interrogatories in spurts, trying to stay with the board and see what might be holding the ship down. She had seen nothing about locks, but—
She remembered the schematic. Of course, idiot! The rest of the lab has been built around it!
If that was the problem, there was noth
ing to do but ride it out. Eventually, the ship would break free. But somewhere there had to be controls for the artificial gravity, internal stabilizers, something to stop all this—
“What in hell are you doing?”
Mia turned. A man stood in the hatchway leading to the forward sections. He looked vaguely familiar—short, stocky, hairless, and extremely angry.
“This is my property!” he bellowed, entering the chamber with a blaster in hand. “Get away from there!”
Before she could move, though, one of the cyborgs came behind him, seized both arms, and jerked them straight out. The man screamed in pain and the blaster fell.
Another cyborg retrieved the weapon and brought it to Kru, who stared at it blankly. After a few moments, the cyborg brought it to Mia, who took it readily.
“I’m Lt. Commander Daventri, Terran Expeditionary Force. Now who the hell are you?”
“Tell it to let me go!”
She recognized him then. “Ambassador Chassik?”
He groaned.
“I thought—”
“It’s Parapoyos!” Kru shouted.
The cyborgs suddenly converged on him.
“Wait,” Mia yelled. “This man is—”
“It’s Parapoyos!”
Mia tried to push through the group of cyborgs. One, though, lifted her up and set her back. He stared at her for several seconds, then shook his head.
“Get away from me!” Chassik cried. “I am not—let me go!”
Blaster shots cracked the air. The cyborgs began to scatter.
Chassik dropped to the deck. Behind him, another man stood in the hatch. Mia met his eyes briefly.
“Expeditionary?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Intelligence,” he said. “Masid Vorian.”
The name sounded familiar. “Agent In Place,” she recalled from a report several days old.
“This is Ambassador Chassik,” Mia said.
“He’s also Kynig Parapoyos,” Masid said.
“So that means he’s under arrest?”
He grinned.
The ship rolled.
Mia sprawled against a bulkhead. Chassik/Parapoyos clawed at the smooth deck and Vorian had disappeared from the hatch.
Isaac Asimov's Aurora Page 45
