Evergence: The Prodigal Sun

by Sean Williams

  "The prodigal son returns," Chase muttered.

  Absenger leaned forward. "Yet Cane actually helped the Box?"

  "And Roche, too," Haid said, turning from Roche to face the liaison officer. "Particularly Roche, for whatever reason."

  "That does seem unlikely," mused Absenger. "Perhaps Cane and the Palasian Wunderkind aren't exactly the same thing, after all. You said that Cane's capsule was broadcasting some sort of beacon, whereas the first — "

  "That's not what I said," Haid interrupted. "I said that a beacon had led the Midnight to it."

  De Bruyn's brow creased. "The same thing, surely?"

  "Not quite," said Haid. "You see, the beacon was faked."

  De Bruyn's frown deepened. "By whom?"

  Haid smiled. "Before I answer that, why don't you explain to Roche why you were so surprised to receive that message we sent you yesterday?"

  The sudden change in direction took the three Armada officers off guard. Roche noted the tightening of De Bruyn's jaw muscles as she fumbled for the words.

  "I — " Her face flushed as she glanced from Absenger to Chase. "Her method of arrival was somewhat unorthodox, and — "

  Haid laughed at her discomfort. "You people really have a problem with the truth, don't you?" he said, settling back into his chair and resting his one arm across his lap. "Perhaps I can shed some light on things, then, by way of explaining about the attack on the Midnight."

  Whatever game he was playing, Roche thought, he was clearly enjoying himself immensely.

  "I'll omit the details of the ambush, if you like. No doubt you can imagine them for yourselves, seeing it went pretty much as you hoped it would when you leaked the Midnight's course to the Dato Espionage Corps. Everything went according to plan, except of course that Roche and the Box managed to escape the destruction of the Midnight, and made it as far as the surface of the planet before — "

  "Wait a second!" Roche gasped, rising to her feet as his words sunk in. "They did what?"

  Haid's eye met hers through the shimmering viewtank. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, Morgan, but they obviously weren't going to. They sold you out. Your mission wasn't, as you thought, to bring the Box back to HQ for installation. Instead, it was to be captured by the Dato and taken to the Military Presidium. That's why they were so surprised to see you here: you weren't supposed to return."

  Roche stared from Chase to De Bruyn, then to Absenger. Only the last met her gaze, and he seemed almost amused by her outrage.

  "Is this true?" she asked him, fearing the answer even as she said the words.

  "Of course it isn't," he said quickly — almost too quickly.

  said a familiar voice in her mind. Not the Box, but Maii.

  Roche closed her eyes; any other time, she might have been glad to hear from the young Surin, but not now. "I know," she whispered irritably.

  "Good," said Absenger. "Then you will also know that the man is clearly paranoid. Quite perceptive in some ways, I'll admit, but — "

  "I wasn't talking to you, you sonofabitch!"

  Absenger flinched perceptibly. His voice was cold when he spoke. "Commander Roche, must I remind you — ?"

  "If you're going to tell me that I should show some respect to senior officers, then save your breath." All the frustration she'd felt on Sciacca's World, all the lengths she'd gone to to complete her mission — every action she'd taken on COE Intelligence's behalf boiled within her, perverted and twisted into a hideous farce. "Save it for telling me why you did it."

  "If you think I'm going to explain myself to — "

  "The Box," Haid cut in, "was designed to infiltrate the Dato from within, as Page said earlier." He leaned forward to emphasise every word, peering through the hologram at Roche. "I was hoping you'd guess, and save me having to spell it out for you. The Box was no use at all to COE Intelligence back here. So they chose a disposable old frigate with a disposable captain, and put a disposable agent in charge of the mission."

  "This is ridiculous!" blurted out Chase as he stood. "This man is lying!"

  "I won't tell you again, Auberon." De Bruyn's voice was even and quiet.

  Chase stared down at her. "Why should we listen to the slander of criminals?"

  "I said be quiet!" De Bruyn's icy and unflinching glare held the man for a full ten seconds until he finally looked away and sat back in his chair.

  "Is it true?" asked Roche a second time.

  "Yes," said De Bruyn, facing Roche. "Of course it's true. We sent you to Sciacca's World knowing you'd be ambushed. We thought the local government was corrupt enough to handle any extra work the Dato required to finish the job, if things didn't go smoothly. That's the main reason we chose the planet."

  "But that's the trouble with traitors," said Haid. "They're unreliable — aren't they, Absenger?"

  The liaison officer shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't comment on this."

  "No?" said Roche. "You're denying that you had anything to do with it?"

  "Don't be pathetic, Burne," snapped De Bruyn. "Put your guilt aside and stand up to these people." Then, to Haid: "Delcasalle is his little puppet. Sciacca's World was chosen on his recommendation."

  "You sent me in there to die!" Roche snapped.

  De Bruyn's eyes flashed. "Yes. And I'd have no hesitation in doing so again. It was a good plan. The Box needed to be in position before it would be effective, and this was the best way to get it there without arousing the Presidium's suspicions. It should have worked." She cast a disparaging eye in Roche's direction. "And I'm still at a loss to understand why it didn't."

  "I've heard enough," Roche said.

  "No, you haven't," said Haid. "Not quite. You also need to know why their plan fell apart as badly as it did, and what this means to all of us."

  Feeling empty and tired, Roche sagged and sat back down. She had spent her entire adult life in the service of the Commonwealth of Empires, in return for which she had been betrayed. Whatever Haid had left to reveal, she doubted it could match what she'd already heard; she felt numb, beyond all further surprise. "Go ahead," she said.

  Haid stood. In the viewtank, the hologram of Cane disappeared and was replaced by an orbital view of Sciacca's World; the belt of the Soul sparkled majestically.

  "The plan to infiltrate the Dato Presidium with an AI was quite clever, I have to admit," said Haid. "But it's flawed at a basic level. For the Box to be effective, it had to be able to operate independently of COE Intelligence for long periods of time; it had to follow its own judgment in times of possible crisis; it had to be able to choose between several different possible courses of action; it had to be able to plan in detail, and to conspire to see those plans come to fruition. To do all of this, it had to be far more intelligent than the AIs the Armada normally uses." Haid paused, then said, "In short, it had to be self-aware — as self-aware as we are."

  "That's impossible," said Roche, remembering her years tormenting the AIs in the Armada.

  "Do you really believe that?" Haid met her stare firmly. "After everything it's done?"

  She lowered her eyes, focusing upon the image in the viewtank. "I don't know."

  "The Box is self-aware, Morgan, as conscious as you or I. Trinity is owned and run by High Humans, don't forget, not mundanes, so we shouldn't ascribe to it our own limitations. It's always been able to make such minds. The process takes as many years as it would take to produce an intelligent Human being, or so the Box has led me to believe, but it is possible." He shrugged. "Trinity normally doesn't release them, because they tend to be expensive, and a little unreliable, if you like. They're too intelligent — everything people are, and more. Controllable to a point, yes, but beyond that is anyone's guess. It's a double-edged sword: on the one hand you have a machine independent enough to do everything you want, but too independent to trust. The Commonwealth isn't ready for minds like these, and may not be for many years to come. Until it's ready to Transcend, perhaps."

  Haid stared in t
urn at the COE Intelligence officers, then settled again upon Roche. "But that's ultimately why your real mission failed, Morgan — because the Box didn't want it to succeed. It saw through the intentions of these three almost immediately, and decided it didn't want to be a pawn in a game beneath its potential; it wanted to be a major player, at the very least."

  Roche glanced at the valise still dangling from the cord at her side. It didn't look like some sort of super-AI at all, just a battered case dragged from one end of the COE to the other. "A player in what?"

  "I don't know," said Haid. "It won't talk to me about that."

  "Or perhaps," said De Bruyn, "you're just being paranoid, seeing plots and conspiracies where in fact none exist."

  Roche ignored De Bruyn's jibe, not allowing Haid to be distracted. "What did you mean about the Box not wanting to be involved in anything 'beneath its potential'?"

  "Think about it," he said. "The Box has the ability to infiltrate intelligent networks and to bend them to its will. The larger its opponents, the stronger it becomes, by using their processing power to boost its own capacity. Given enough power, it can do almost anything it sets its mind to. Why should it want to play Intelligence's petty games? Don't you think it would have its own agenda?"

  He gestured at the viewtank, which reverted to the previous rotating display. "For instance, there's Cane."

  Roche nodded. "The way it set him free from the brig to help me?"

  "More than that, Morgan," said Haid. "The Box knew about his life capsule and its trajectory before it boarded the Midnight. It faked the distress call that led directly to Cane's discovery."

  De Bruyn's eyes widened. "It knew about the Sol conspiracy?"

  "Maybe, maybe not," said Haid. "I don't know for sure. Certainly it knew about the capsule, if not its contents. Maybe it was simply curious, at first, then became more involved when it lifted the findings of the Midnight's surgeons from the ship's datapool and realised what, exactly, Cane was. When it recruited him, it did so partly to improve its chances of survival, and partly to study a Sol Wunderkind firsthand."

  "But the risk!" said De Bruyn with an obvious mix of admiration and horrified amazement. "Didn't it realise what could have happened if Cane had proven to be uncontainable?"

  "I'm sure it did," said Haid. "I'm also sure that it did what it felt best. Remember — Trinity makes military AIs so tough they could weather a supernova with an even chance of surviving. The Box would have come to no harm, no matter what Cane did."

  Roche felt her fists clench involuntarily. "And what about me?" she asked. "All that stuff about saving me from the ambush, all the effort it spent to help us survive the crash — that was all an act?"

  "No, Morgan." Haid smiled at her through the hologram. "That I can tell you for certain. You see, Trinity knew what the Armada was up to as well, and they didn't like it either. So they programmed one small bug into the Box to give you a reasonable chance: whatever you tell it to do, provided only that it falls within its powers and doesn't conflict with its higher programming, it will do."

  It was Roche's turn to snort derisively.

  "I'm serious," said Haid. "I also found it hard to believe at first, given what happened at the landing field. But it insists it's telling the truth, and now I believe it."

  Roche regarded him carefully. "Why?"

  "Well, for instance, ten days ago you told it to 'do whatever it takes to get us out of here'."

  Roche nodded, remembering. "During the ambush."

  "That's right," said Haid. "And you attributed the Midnight's self-destruction to Captain Klose. But you were wrong."

  Roche stared at him for what felt like eternity as the revelation unfolded in her mind. If Klose hadn't scuttled the antimatter reserves, then — the Box had. To ensure her survival, it had sacrificed the entire crew of the Midnight — saving only Cane. And as an added bonus, the destruction of the ship had covered up its deception in that regard.

  Roche felt nausea rising in her throat. She could hardly comprehend such a coldly calculated action. So much for no more surprises.

  Haid went on. "Then, while you were preparing the plan to attack the landing field with Emmerik and Neva, you specifically instructed the Box to forget about taking over DAOC's transmitter station. Although its idea might have been useful as a backup, it wasn't able to consider the possibility after that point. That's why we decided to go for the Ana Vereine instead, which we knew you'd approve even less — "

  "Wait, wait," said Roche, waving Haid to silence. "You're going too fast. What's the Ana Vereine?"

  "You're standing in it," said Haid. "The Dato Marauder that ambushed you."

  "And when you say 'we'," said Roche, "you're talking about the Box and yourself?"

  "We talked over the datalink for some time after it 'cracked' me. The Box was in a real bind, because although your plan was good, it was also a little naive. There was no way we were going to hold the landing field indefinitely — especially considering the Box's confirmation of what I'd already guessed, that the Armada probably wasn't going to rescue you. That meant we had to have a backup plan, one the Box could play a role in. You'd frozen it out of the satellite, so the Ana Vereine was the only alternative. And to avoid you ordering the Box out again, we had to make sure you didn't find out about it."

  Haid at least looked sheepish for a moment as he said, "The Box, Cane, and myself — I guess we betrayed you too, Morgan. Cane made sure you were unconscious when we boarded the shuttle; that way there was no chance you'd interfere. Then we took the shuttle to orbit and docked with its mother ship."

  "That easy, huh?" Chase, silent for so long, rolled his eyes.

  "Haven't you been listening to me?" snapped back Haid. "All we had to do was open a channel to the Ana Vereine's main processors, let the Box do its thing, and we were practically home free. The Box changed the ship's course from Szubetka Base to Intelligence HQ without anyone knowing. During the three-day journey out here, we stayed in the lower decks, with the Box covering for us — making sure security didn't see us, and making it look like the crew of the shuttle were aboard upstairs. Maii helped, too; she smoothed the way with the captain and the senior crew as they began to suspect, giving us just enough time to reach Intelligence HQ, where we were finally safe to openly take over the ship." Haid smiled. "Even that was fairly easy. Maii dampened their aggression to a manageable level, and the Box threatened to cut off their air if they didn't do what it said. Anyone who tried to break free was dealt with by Cane." He raised his hands. "And there you have it. I've never kidnapped a ship with so little loss of life before."

  "Risky, though," mused Absenger. "Almost too complicated, in places."

  "It had to be, if we were going to keep Roche out of the way — which is how the Box wanted it. Just because it's programmed to obey her, that doesn't mean it has to like it."

  "Still, you were gambling a lot on the fact that the Box would be able to infiltrate the Marauder," said Absenger. "The difference in scale and complexity alone — "

  "Once the Box demonstrated that it was able to take over the MiCom installation on Sciacca's World, I no longer had any doubts about its capabilities."

  "MiCom?" Absenger frowned. "But that's a Commonwealth network, not Dato."

  "Intelligent systems differ only minutely throughout this region of the galaxy, except on Trinity. Which means that the Box can not only take over Dato networks, but any network at all. COE, Eckandar Trade Axis, Mbatan, MiCom, whatever — it's all the same on the inside."

  Absenger was about to say something else, but stopped when he saw De Bruyn rise to her feet, her lips pursed with anger.

  "You fool!" she spat at Haid. "Don't you understand what you've done?"

  "Come on, Page," soothed Absenger, half rising to take her arm. "This isn't helping matters — "

  "Don't patronise me, you idiot," she growled, pulling free. "Can't you see what they're doing? Open your eyes, for God's sake!"

  Absenger's brow k
nitted in confusion. "I don't understand."

  "When you've finished squabbling — " started Haid.

  "Shut up, Haid!" De Bruyn snapped viciously, suddenly producing a handgun from the folds of her free-flowing jacket. "I should execute you right now for what you've done."

  Haid sat frozen in position, staring down the barrel of the weapon. Clearly, he had thought she was unarmed.

  "What's she talking about?" asked Chase, just as obviously surprised by the sudden turn of events.

  "I see it," said Roche. The implication had been in Haid's explanation of how easily the Box had taken control of the Ana Vereine, and of MiCom, the DAOC flyers over Houghton's Cross, and Midnight's self-destruct systems, and now —

  "HQ," she said softly.

  "Now the innocent begins to notice what's going on around her," said De Bruyn, although she kept her attention fixed upon Haid. "Or was the innocence just another act? Part of the distraction, perhaps?"

  "I still don't get it," said Chase.

  "Think about it, Auberon." Holding the gun on Haid, she crossed the room until she was as far away from Roche's escort as possible. "Why do you think we're here? For an honest and open discussion? Forget it. We're here to give that infernal machine time to complete its mission!"

  Chase half rose as realisation struck him. "Are you suggesting ... ?"

  De Bruyn nodded. "I suspected they were up to something when we were asked over here, though I had no idea what that something would be. The only way to find out was to play their game."

  "You can't be serious," said Chase.

  "Oh, I am," said De Bruyn. "And I have no intention of just sitting back and letting it happen."

  Absenger shook his head slowly. "Now it's you sounding paranoid."

  "Enough, Burne," De Bruyn said. "The time for negotiation is past. If the Box hasn't already infiltrated the Intelligence HQ command core, then we may still have a chance to do something to stop it."

  De Bruyn turned to cover the room with the pistol, her eyes filled with a self-confidence that Roche found strangely disquieting. Despite the head of strategy's present advantage over them, she was still a long way from the security of Intelligence HQ. The situation could easily be reversed — especially with the presence of Cane and the Box — yet her eyes betrayed not the slightest suggestion of fear or uncertainty.