Fool's War

by Sarah Zettel

  “I’m about to find out,” she told him. “Intercom to Dobbs.”

  There was no answer.

  “Intercom to Dobbs,” she repeated, but there was still no answer.

  Al Shei undid her straps and pushed herself off from her station. She twisted in mid-air and kicked off the chair’s back, pushing herself toward the hatch. She grabbed the hand-hold next to the threshold to hold herself in place so the reader could register her and cycle back the hatch.

  In the drop shaft, Al Shei took a quick sighting up its length to make sure she was the only person there. She swam over to the cargo lift and balanced on the rail, pulling herself down until she crouched there like some strange bird.

  Gathering all her strength, she jumped.

  The force of her movement shot her straight up to the ship’s main section before she even slowed down. She grabbed the stairway railing as she passed, using it to pull herself up to the berthing deck.

  She pushed herself through the hatch as it opened and kicked off the threshold to send herself coasting through the corridor. She narrowly avoided a head-on collision with Odel who was bouncing off the curving walls trying to get back to the hatch. Their shoulders grazed against each other, sending them drifting toward opposite walls. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were full of silent fears. Al Shei made herself look away, concentrating on keeping herself going in the right direction.

  There was one person who could make an answer for this.

  She reached Dobbs’ cabin hatch. The entrance light was red. Al Shei grabbed the threshold handle and laid her palm on the reader.

  “Katmer Al Shei, lock command override, cabin twelve. Immediately.”

  The ship acknowledged the order and her identity. The hatch cycled back, and Al Shei pushed against the threshold to shove herself inside.

  Dobbs lay on her bunk, the free fall straps wrapped tightly around her body. Her eyes were shut. A small, oblong object floated in the air over her. Al Shei drifted towards it and snagged it as she passed. It was a hypo.

  Al Shei looked down at the still figure on the bunk. Her healthy brown skin had a greenish pallor underneath it. For a moment, Al Shei forgot her anger and was able to believe that Dobbs, like the rest of her crew, had been trying hard to make this run through to its finish.

  “Intercom to Lipinski,” said Al Shei heavily. She did not wait for a reply. “Our Fool is already gone. Intercom to close.”

  Feeling suddenly drained, she pulled herself into the desk chair and fastened the straps around herself. She stared at the unconscious Fool. She tried to concentrate all her attention onto Dobbs, because if she didn’t, she’d have to think about how she would explain to Asil that she might not ever be coming home.

  Dobbs dove through the network, hurtling the active programs. She would have all of Lipinski’s watchdogs screaming. He’d have to deal with it. She’d explain herself as soon as she was sure Flemming was still secure. That, at least, he would appreciate.

  A surface smacked up against Dobbs. She recoiled. So did it. It felt like a living movement. But it was not Flemming.

  No! Dobbs shoved her way forward.

  “Now!” called a stranger’s voice. “With me!” The line cleared, and Dobbs knew it had run away.

  “Flemming!” She threw herself into the hold.

  “I’m going, Dobbs.” She snatched at Flemming but it pulled right out of her grasp. “Come with us.”

  “Flemming, don’t!” Dobbs shouted desperately. Then, angrily, “Who’s with you? Flemming!”

  He was gone. They were both gone. Dobbs hurled herself down the line they took. They were heading for the transmitter. She dove into the processor stacks in time to feel the command sequence tip over. They were gone. She was alone. She snatched at the processors and froze them in place. She sent her copy down the line and the second it came back, she hurled herself into the transmitter.

  Jump.

  A repeater satellite’s ordered pathways opened around her. Dobbs grabbed up the timing and the ID codes. Repeater SK-IBN7812-104X-B, the back-up satellite. She cast around for the transaction records. When they came under her touch she absorbed them as fast as her strained self could manage.

  Nothing. There was nothing but innocuous packets of information heading for innocuous destinations. Nothing told her which of them was a pair of AIs fleeing from a lost ship.

  Dobbs fell back, torn between anger and shock. She was too late. Flemming, and whoever had been with it were gone.

  Her whole consciousness reeled. Who would do this? Who would dare? Who would even think of it?

  Who would even think of stowing a live AI aboard a mail packet? she answered herself miserably.

  She tried to tell herself all was not lost. At least she knew where she was, and that meant she knew where the Pasadena was. There was help and she could reach it. As fast as she could, she plotted out the jumps that would get her to the Guild Hall.

  When she reached the station, Dobbs dove down its paths. She almost slammed into the Drawbridge, scattering colleagues and programs around her and ignoring the angry swirling she left behind her. She battered at the security, shouting her name and Priority One. The Drawbridge lowered far too slowly and she dashed through, barely noticing that once again she’d been given her own path.

  “Dobbs!” Guild Master Havelock blocked her path so that she had to pull herself up short to keep from slamming into him as well. “Calm down!”

  She drew back into a tight bundle and tried to obey. It wasn’t easy. She was trembling across her whole surface.

  “What’s happened?” asked Havelock. He did not try to touch her, or to encircle her, and Dobbs was grateful for it.

  “Flemming has fled the Pasadena with an unknown AI.”

  Now it was Havelock’s turn to draw back in mute horror. Dobbs extended herself and so did Havelock. Dobbs reached below his surface and shaped the top layer of memories until he knew everything she did. He knew the brief flash of an unknown presence in The Farther Kingdom’s network, Flemming’s strange behavior, and its flight.

  He shuddered as she drew back.

  This has never happened. Never! He did not speak, but his thought leaked out of his private mind. He must have realized it because he pulled himself even further from Dobbs.

  “What can we do?” Fear washed through Dobbs. For the first time in her life, she understood a little of Human’s terror of AIs. There was a stranger in the network. Someone who might be or do anything, anything at all.

  “You can do nothing,” said Havelock firmly. “You have done as much as you can in this matter. You still have your contract to fulfill, Master Dobbs. I will convene the Guild Masters and we will mount a search for Flemming.”

  “But who was it?” Dobbs demanded, too worked up to be tactful. “Is there a whole group of AIs out there? Why haven’t…”

  “Master Dobbs.” Havelock circled behind her and blocked the exit. “You will return to your ship and your contract. You have done your job and done it well. You will be informed when we have recovered Flemming. In the meantime, the Pasadena needs you.”

  The mention of the Pasadena jolted Dobbs fully back to why she had brought herself into the network in the first place. She had not delivered that portion of her memory to Guild Master Havelock.

  “Guild Master, the Pasadena is lost. The clocks were reset so its jump was mis-timed. It must have been the stranger.”

  Havelock’s surface rippled but he said nothing.

  “We’re almost out of fuel and reaction mass. The pilot hasn’t been able to get a fix on our location and…”

  “Take the distress signal to the nearest station for them,” said Havelock. “You should still have time.”

  His cool answer sent a jolt of anger through Dobbs. “That’ll mean Al Shei will lose the ship. Anyone who comes out for it will be allowed to just take it out from under her…” She let that sentence trail away too. “I read the reserve stats on the way out. We do have enoug
h fuel to make it to Guild Hall.”

  Havelock didn’t move. He didn’t speak and Dobbs could have sworn she felt cold. She kept going anyway. “I am asking permission to give the Pasadena’s pilot the coordinates of our station.”

  “No,” said the Guild Master immediately.

  “Sir, there’s nowhere else we can reach.” Her outer layers twitched involuntarily. If Havelock felt her distress, he gave her no indication. “Even if I do take a message through, and even if no one wants to come make a salvage claim, there’s not going to be any station that can break schedule to shove a tanker out here in less than six months. At the Hall we can refuel and…”

  “Master Dobbs, stop and think,” said Havelock severely. “You are talking about jeopardizing the security of the entire Guild. What do you think your Houston would do if he found out what we truly are?”

  Dobbs was silent for a long moment. Lipinski would probably go stark raving mad and try to kill us all, maybe in that order, maybe not.

  No. Dobbs clenched herself. It wouldn’t happen. They wouldn’t find out the Guild’s real secret. How could they? It was ridiculous and impossible for any of the Fools as they truly were to exist. Who would imagine it?

  Other than a Freer pilot and a paranoid Houston who saw rogue AIs everywhere.

  “The crew of the Pasadena needs help,” she said doggedly. “It is our job to help.”

  “Yes,” Havelock touched her heavily. “But it is also my job to make sure the Guild stays here to help our own. Get a distress signal out, Master Dobbs. Get the Pasadena to a Human colony. Help your employer cope with the loss of her ship if it comes to that. Keep out of the network for at least forty-eight hours and get your strength back.”

  Dobbs wanted to protest. She wanted to scream and shove past Havelock’s outer surface and throw her memories of all the tension, all the struggle and fear this run had brought down on the crew she was contracted to take care of.

  She didn’t. She held herself still and said, “Yes, Guild Master.”

  “Good.” Havelock pulled back. “Do your best for them, Master Dobbs. We will find Flemming. It is no longer your responsibility.”

  And whose responsibility is the AI that took him out of here? “Yes, Guild Master.”

  Dobbs did not resist as the recall signal dragged her back to her body.

  A soft sound grated against her ears. She opened her eyes. Al Shei sat in the desk chair, leaning her elbows on her knees and rolling the hypo back and forth in her strong, calloused hands. Her head was bent down and Dobbs couldn’t even see her eyes because of the folds of her veil.

  Dobbs bit back a groan. She did not want Al Shei to see her like this. The engineer turned.

  Too late. Dobbs concentrated and forced her mouth into a small smile.

  “I’ll be all the way back in a minute,” she croaked.

  “Take your time.” Al Shei waved one hand at her. There was a weariness in her voice that sparked fear inside Dobbs. She found her hands and made them unhook the transceiver and enclose it in the bedside drawer.

  “What’s happened?” Dobbs fumbled with the strap across her chest. It came loose and the free end lifted into the air. She managed, just barely, to force herself into a sitting position. The room spun badly and settled into a blur of double images. Being in free fall made everything worse. Part of her wanted nothing more than to crawl away and be violently sick.

  Her right leg was gone again. There was a cut-off leg in her bunk again.

  Dobbs forced down a scream. She willed her eyes to focus on her employer. The blur of Al Shei shifted and Dobbs decided she was looking right at her. Dobbs made her eyelids blink hard and she was able to separate Al Shei’s eyes from the shadows of her face.

  “Yerusha and Schyler are narrowing down our location,” said Al Shei. Her voice was still heavy, but now there was a danger in it. “It’s looking very bad. We’re a long way from anywhere and we’ve got next to no fuel or reaction mass.” She wrapped her fingers around the hypo as if she wanted to squeeze it in two. “I need you to tell me that that thing we brought on board had nothing to do with this.”

  Dobbs swallowed. Her stomach rolled and pitched inside her and a steady, buzzing ache started in the back of her head. Her leg was gone.

  What do I tell you? That it’s not even here anymore? That it’s loose in the bank network?

  As her silence dragged on, Al Shei very carefully wedged the hypo into a holder on the desk made for storing spare wafers. “Did it do this?”

  Dobbs rubbed her temple. “No,” she said as firmly as she could manage. “This was subtle and planned and controlled. Flemming couldn’t have managed it.”

  “Flemming?” Al Shei’s eyebrows arched until they reached the hem of her veil.

  Dobbs shrugged. “Resit named her law firm Incili. I named our passenger Flemming. It’s too young for any precise destructive effort like this. Newborn AIs are like tornados. They’re powerful and they’re fast, but they’re also uncontrolled.”

  Al Shei stared at her for a long time. Dobbs watched belief come slowly into her eyes.

  “Well, that’s something anyway.” Al Shei looked down at her hands. “All right. Get out there as soon as you can to help keep the crew together. I don’t need a panic right now.”

  Dobbs licked her lips and made a decision.

  “There’s an option for us.”

  Al Shei jerked her head up. “What?”

  Dobbs sucked in a breath and tried to speak without thinking. “Guild Hall Station is five hours away. It’s the Fool’s Guild headquarters. I’ve got a fix on our position from the networks. I can give the coordinates and timing to Yerusha. If the clocks are recalibrated, we should have enough fuel and mass left to get us there.”

  “And when we get there?” Al Shei sounded like she didn’t quite want to believe there was a way out.

  I get demoted to under-cadet. “There’s refueling facilities at the Port. Guild Master Havelock will be able to negotiate terms with you.” He’ll have to get you away from there before the Guild security is really jeopardized. “After all, our job is to keep our crews healthy, whole and together.” She mustered some real warmth for her smile. “If I let you all go floating off into the middle of nowhere, it’s not going to look good on my record.”

  The corners of Al Shei’s eyes stayed turned down. She was not smiling under her hijab.

  “Dobbs.” She tugged at her tunic sleeve. “I should be glad to hear this. I should be ecstatic. You’ve just offered to save my crew and my ship. Can you tell me why I’m not?”

  Dobbs felt her throat seize up. She swallowed again. “Because you don’t trust me. You haven’t since you found out about…” She waved towards the hypo.

  Al Shei nodded. “Yes. I suppose that’s it.” She climbed to her feet. “I’ll alert Yerusha. Lipinski’s people should have the clocks ready in six hours.”

  She left the cabin without looking back. Dobbs sat where she was, wishing that none of this had ever happened. She hooked her fingers around her necklace and stared at the toes of both boots, the one that belonged to her and the one that refused to.

  What is going on? Where the hell is Flemming and who was that with him and why won’t Havelock talk about it?

  She ran her hand through her hair and looked toward the closed hatch.

  I shouldn’t have done this. I should have sent the distress signal. The Guild Master was right. I may have just blown apart two hundred years of work…

  But Flemming was still gone. Havelock still had not told her anything, and the Pasadena was still lost.

  What else can I do? She let go of her necklace and rested her hands in her lap. I have to help them. It’s my job, damn it! It’s my job!

  She undid the remaining free fall strap and let herself float into the air with it. Her right leg dangled uselessly at a bad angle. She’d have to explain that somehow, make some kind of joke about it. She’d think of something.

  She rolled her body aroun
d so her stomach was toward the floor and kicked off the bunk with her left foot so she drifted to the hatch.

  For the first time in twenty-five years, her body felt too small for her.

  In the end, it took over eight hours to re-calibrate the clocks. Dobbs was not sure how much of that time was spent in actual work, and how much was spent re-testing the results. Finally, Lipinski announced the systems were ready to make an accurate jump.

  Dobbs stood behind Yerusha’s chair while she wrote in the jump program. They’d resumed acceleration after four hours. Her leg had rejoined the rest of her body after five.

  The ship accepted the new orders and broke orbit. The star fell back and the Pasadena launched itself toward the distant specks of light.

  It would be eight more hours before they could make the jump, and then another five before they reached the Guild Hall system. Dobbs wanted to rub her eyes, but didn’t want to show how tired she felt. It was too long. Too much time to spend trying not to think about what would happen once she got there.

  This is crazy. She tried to tell herself. Crazy. What am I afraid of? This is the Guild. This is Havelock and Cohen. It’s what Verence gave her life for. This will work itself out. It will. She twisted her mouth into a smile and tried to mean it. Even if I am confined to clerical duty for the rest of my existence.

  “Intercom to Dobbs,” came Lipinski’s voice. “Dobbs, can I see you down here? I want to get us a line to the Guild Hall. Let them know we’re coming.”

  Dobbs stiffened. And what are you going to do? she admonished herself as she pulled her shoulders down. Tell him that’s not a good idea?

  “On my way,” she answered. “Intercom to close.”

  Lipinski was alone in the comm center when she got there, sitting with his arms folded and his gaze locked on the main boards. When the hatch cycled shut, he swivelled the chair to face her.

  “All right,” he said. “Where is it?”

  Dobbs heart dropped to the floor.

  “Where is it?” Lipinski’s hands dropped onto the chair’s arms. “It’s not in the hold anymore. I can’t find it in the system. Where did it go?”