‘You did what?!’ Aneka roared.
‘You would have to speak to Evolution to learn the details,’ Reality said, clearly taken aback by her apparent anger.
‘Fuck yes,’ Aneka snarled and headed for the door.
~~~
‘She was designated “Yrimtan,”’ Evolution said, her voice level despite the glower Aneka was directing at her. ‘Not an exact copy of you since she had a different purpose, one defined by Chief Scientist Magdigan. She was to direct the process of Humanity’s uplift from within. This was his answer to the Herosian issue and one both Memory and myself considered insufficient. However, his wishes naturally overrode our views. She was reinserted into Earth society, apparently having recovered from a coma, and returned to your home.’
Aneka’s anger stalled in her mind and was replaced by confusion. She had never made it home, but Aneka Jansen had. Her family had been spared the loss. ‘What happened to her?’
‘Her mission was initially a great success. Her reports indicated that your brother, Alan, had been selected to be her agent, for want of a better word. She believed his skills in science would be an excellent front. She directed him, secretly, to write a paper which resulted in him being inducted into the team examining the warp core we dropped on Earth, and he played a pivotal role in ensuring that the technology was understood and could be replicated.’
‘Alan always was clever,’ Aneka said, smiling at the memories. ‘He would have loved being on that project. He had a thing for science fiction.’
Evolution nodded, but her expression was sad. ‘When the Warrior caste set about bombing Earth, they gave no thought to retrieving Yrimtan. They were, according to them, correcting a terrible mistake and they considered her part of that mistake. It is very unlikely that she survived the assault.’
‘I’m tough as Hell,’ Aneka replied. ‘I might have been able to.’
‘She was built to similar specifications, but not quite the same. Her resistance to environmental hazards was not as great. The weapon and shield you have were replaced by neural induction equipment which allowed her to instruct a Human mind directly. That was how she influenced Alan to write his paper and gave him insights he might otherwise have not had.’ The AI saw Aneka’s face tighten. ‘Her touch was subtle, Aneka. It had to be. She selected your brother because he was suitably inclined towards the path she needed and gave only “pushes” in the right direction. As you said, he would have enjoyed the work and was quite clever enough to grasp most of it. If she had had to change him significantly, someone would have detected the change.’
‘Huh. I’m not sure I like this, Eve. Any of it. But I can’t change it and it happened a thousand years ago… I need some time to think this through.’
‘Of course, Aneka. If there is anything I or Speaker can do to help…’
‘I’ll let you know.’
~~~
‘Two Anekas,’ Ella said, grinning. ‘Think of the possibilities.’
The effort involved in getting a good punch in with the girl nestled in her arms dissuaded Aneka from trying. ‘This isn’t funny.’
‘No, not really, but there’s nothing you can do about it and she probably died an age ago. You’re alive and here, and this doesn’t really change anything does it?’
‘No, except…’
‘Except?’
‘She went home. She got to see my family, live my life. It’s like an imposter took my place. Except that she probably had a better copy of my memories than I do so it’s more like I’m the imposter, the fake.’
‘You’re not a fake.’
‘I…’
‘You’re not,’ Ella stated flatly. ‘Even if you’re not the Aneka you were, you are you. Does it really matter whether you’ve a perfect set of memories? Jenlay have imperfect memories. It’s a fact, a basic function of the way we store memories. They don’t even stay the same. My memory of an event is a function of what happened, and how I perceive it, and how my mind has changed since the event, and a hundred different factors that influence its recall. Who I am now is what’s important, and the same is true of you.’
Aneka gave that a second of thought. ‘Sometimes having an intelligent girlfriend with a background in psychology is a real pain.’
‘Uh-huh. Of course, I can tell you this stuff, but I can’t make you believe it.’
‘No, but it helps.’
‘Uh-huh. So I’m going to keep telling you as often as I think is needed until you do believe it.’
‘You’re mean,’ Aneka responded, pouting.
Ella giggled. ‘Yes, but only when you’re being stubborn.’
1.9.524 FSC.
‘You seem rather more sanguine with your situation, Aneka.’ Evolution was smiling, looking pleased at the change. Aneka had asked to meet her in her project lab to continue their discussion, and she was feeling better.
‘I’ve had a couple of days of people reminding me that I’m a real person. Ella’s been very persistent about it.’
‘Miss Narrows, despite her youth, has a remarkable talent for seeing to the root of people’s problems.’
‘She’s forty years older than I am. Or I was before I became ageless.’
‘Compared to the AIs here and the Xinti who created us, she is a baby.’
‘Huh. Compared to you even Abraham is little more than a child, but Reality seems to think he’s doing a good job.’
‘Touché,’ Evolution replied, the smile sliding to more of a grin.
‘You said the Xinti who lived here died?’ It was time to get to business.
‘They chose to stop living.’
‘How? I mean, as far as I can tell I’m basically immortal. I could probably quit eating and drinking and let my power run down, but I’m not even sure that would finish me…’
‘Hmm… How to explain. The basic facts first, I think.’ She paused, apparently considering how to start. ‘When a Xinti chose to cease, their memories were serialised into a database. It was considered rude to destroy your memories along with yourself. Then the… program, the part of the mind which thought, was erased along with any backups.’
‘They can’t be, uh, reconstructed from their memories?’
‘True memory is more than just a collection of facts. There is context, emotional connection. And a mind is more than simply a collection of memories. Without the connections between the entries in the database, and the software to interpret them in the manner that particular mind would, you don’t have the same individual. We have your memories stored for reference, but we could no longer construct another you.’
Aneka laughed. ‘You probably have a better copy than I do. You can’t fill the holes in my memory from that database, can you?’
‘There is no way to integrate the data. You have lived and experienced change since the image was taken. We could give you the database, as a reference so to speak, but if you chose to take a copy of it you should realise that what you will have will be raw facts.’
‘It’d be better than the gaps I have now.’
‘Would it? What if you discover memories of a lover you thought was your perfect mate. You would know how you felt about this person, but would no longer have any feeling for them.’
‘Oh. I guess I see your point. I’ll think about it.’
‘I get the feeling there was something else you wished to ask.’
‘Uh, yeah. I got the impression that you thought there would be survivors on Earth. I know the Herosian home world was totally destroyed…’
‘The Warrior caste leaders, even in their zeal, recognised that the Herosians were more responsible for the war than Humanity and the Torem. The Herosian home world was impacted with planetoids large enough to reduce it to rubble. The Torem home world was long gone. Their sun was unstable. Corona discharges incinerated their planet less than a century after the Xinti escaped their solar system. Earth was subjected to a bombardment using mass drivers and nuclear weapons. Orbital facilities were destroyed, commu
nication systems were obliterated. Humanity believed their world entirely lost, and the Warriors considered going back to finish the job an unnecessary step, especially since they believed the Torem were bringing weapons to the front which could be a danger. As things played out, they never got the chance to return so it is possible that people survived there. We don’t know. We’ve never sent probes into that area of space.’
Aneka nodded. ‘If we decide to leave, I’d like to take that database of project sites with me. There’s no location for Earth, but there’s more information there than the Jenlay have.’
‘You’re sure you want to go back there? It won’t be the world you remember.’
‘No, I’m not sure, but I’d like the option to try and I’m pretty sure the Federation would like to see what’s there.’
Evolution nodded. ‘Yes, I’d imagine they would.’
‘There’s one other thing,’ Aneka said, a faint smile playing over her lips. ‘That gun you gave me, it’s great at what it does, but it’s not very precise. What else have you got?’
The AI laughed. ‘I’m sure there are other options, but for that you’ll need to talk to War.’
~~~
Greatest Heights of Honour, Lowest Depths of Shame appeared as a woman: Aneka was a little surprised. At least she was until she began speaking to the AI in charge of coordinating and controlling weapon design projects. War was a fit, powerful woman, well capable of handling the array of melee weapons that decorated the walls of the lab set aside for their design and construction. Her hair was short and blonde and she wore a short tunic rather than the longer robes many of the others dressed in. A Spartan warrior, that was what War looked like, but she was far from an advocate of the use of weapons.
‘The Warrior caste felt that the blaster you were given was too imprecise,’ War told her. ‘They felt that a lighter weapon would be more surgical, and also more fitting to a member of their caste. However, the anti-proton blaster is a flexible weapon, able to handle a variety of engagements. They agreed that giving you that would be practical.’
Aneka nodded. ‘But surgical is what I need a lot of the time. With the sighting system and targeting software I have I can hit a penny at the distance I can see it, but with that blaster I’d wipe out everything in the neighbourhood. I can’t take out a target among civilians without hurting the civilians. There’s this… intelligence and security person in the Federation who likes to drop me into that kind of situation.’
War nodded. ‘A noble use of weaponry. I find myself approving of this and will assist you. Come this way.’ She headed for a door at the back of the lab which led onto a room which was clearly a test firing range. There were targets at one end backed by a wall of some sort of ceramic material. There were also cabinets set against the nearest wall and from one of these War took a huge rifle and a smaller weapon which looked like a slim machine pistol. ‘These were the weapon of choice of warriors seeking to prove their marksmanship. They are projectile weapons rather than beam generators and so require more skill to use. They are both very precise, but the smaller one has a rate of fire which also makes it useful for suppression.’ She held out the rifle. ‘Try this.’
The gun was lighter than Aneka had expected, given its size, and as soon as she wrapped her hand around the grip the usual heads-up display appeared in-vision. It was loaded and Aneka blinked when the ammo count showed a thousand rounds ready to be fired. She set her feet, sighted through the scope at a target down the range, and squeezed the trigger. There was almost no recoil, but at the far end of the room, two hundred metres away, the centre of the target exploded in a flare of light, smoke issuing from the hole.
‘That’s more precise?!’ Aneka lifted the gun to her shoulder, engaging the safety, and blinked at the AI.
War laughed. ‘The weapon lacks the explosive force of your blaster. It utilises a binary force pulse, something like the mechanism your palm weapon uses. The first evacuates a channel in the air down which the second propels a high-density dart at a reasonable fraction of light speed. Inertial compensation suppresses the resulting recoil. On impact, the dart is converted into plasma generating a super-heated, piercing jet. It has very good armour penetration and obviously causes extensive damage, but there is relatively little chance of hitting someone behind the target. Effective range is some four thousand metres.’ She offered the pistol. ‘Perhaps you would find a lower power weapon of more utility.’
Sure enough, the smaller weapon punched a smaller hole in a second target. It had an auto-fire setting, however, and Aneka switched to that, steadying the gun in both hands and holding it at her hip. There was a burst of fire, a noise like ripping cloth, and the man-shaped target fell into two pieces. The cut surfaces could be seen smouldering from the other end of the room.
A slow smile spread over Aneka’s face. ‘I’ll take both,’ she said.
3.9.524 FSC.
If the shuttle had been of Jenlay design they would have been floating. As it was they were comfortably seated as Drake eased it out of the hangar bay doors and they could easily look around to get their first look at the place they had been living in for the last couple of weeks.
Negral Science Station was huge, a vast, more or less cylindrical construction a little broader in the middle than the ends. It stood upright in its orbit among what appeared to be an almost entirely empty solar system.
‘They used almost the entire system as material for construction,’ Wallace said as the ship swung around the huge, grey station towards where the star should be. ‘There’s one gas giant left out at seven-point-nine AUs.’
‘Speaker told me it’s a graveyard,’ Shannon commented. ‘There are dozens of dead ships orbiting there left over from the refugees who escaped here after the war.’
‘We should try to take the time to go out there,’ Gillian suggested. ‘That could be an invaluable source of genuine Xinti artefacts.’
Aneka laughed. ‘Doc… You’re currently living in a huge artefact and you want more?’
Ella giggled. ‘You’re seriously asking that question?’
‘Okay, fair enough. What do you think, boss?’ Aneka turned towards Bashford. ‘Could we set up an expedition?’
‘I think,’ Bashford replied, ‘that I’d like to know why Abraham brought us out here.’
‘To discuss our future,’ Wallace said. He turned his head towards the pilots’ seats. ‘Captain, would you swing us around towards the system’s star?’
The vessel turned again, swinging to the right and pitching up a little at the nose. ‘Uh, sure,’ Drake said, ‘but I’m dead reckoning. I can’t see… Must be a brown dwarf or something.’
‘No, it’s not,’ Wallace replied, ‘but it is an example of the kind of technology we would be exposing to the world we’ve come from.’
Gillian peered out through the front window of the shuttle towards the barely visible orb around which the station and gas giant were orbiting. ‘Abraham, you’re being obtuse,’ she commented.
‘That,’ Wallace said, ‘is a strange star.’
‘I’m going to assume,’ Aneka said, ‘that that isn’t a comment on it being weird. From here it looks pretty weird.’
‘Oh, I think weird is almost a valid description. A strange star is a quark star containing strange matter.’ He held up a hand to forestall the obvious question. ‘Strange quarks are found in hadrons, some hadrons. Up and down quarks are more common. Strange stars are composed of degenerate matter made from all three, and they generally form from neutron stars which collapse further under their own gravity.’
‘But this one didn’t?’ Gillian guessed.
‘It used to be a brown dwarf. They took apart the solar system so that they could trap as much of its energy as possible, and they used that energy to enhance the star’s gravity to the point of collapse. The Xinti here, and the AIs who took over from them, have the technology to do engineering on stars!’
‘Could that be weaponised?’ Drake asked. He
had settled the ship into a slow drift and turned his seat around to face into the passenger compartment.
Wallace shook his head. ‘It takes vast amounts of energy. The stellar trap was the only way and that takes years to construct.’
‘But they have other things as big,’ Aneka said. She wanted them all to leave Negral, but keeping what she had found out from War from them seemed wrong. ‘War has a theoretical study showing how a wormhole can be used to create a nova. They have the plans for star-killer gamma-ray weapons. That’s the big stuff, but the smaller weapons are almost as scary. They have beams that, uh, act on the strong and weak nuclear force?’
‘Essentially disintegrators,’ Wallace supplied.
‘Uh-huh. There’s a cannon that fires some particle that passes right through solid matter and then decays into energetic particles. Armour is useless against it. It rips the target apart from the inside. They have force warheads, the plasma bombs like the ones the robots used to kill themselves, implosion weapons that crush everything in range into a dust particle. Half of this stuff has never even been built, but War was absolutely sure they would work. She seemed almost as horrified as I was by what some of the things they’ve invented can do.’
‘What you’re saying then,’ Drake said, ‘is that we can’t leave. It’s far too unsafe to let this stuff get into the hands of anyone who might use it.’
‘I don’t think we can call it just on that,’ Gillian replied. ‘They have medical equipment we could only dream of. Tissue regenerators that make our own nanotech solutions seem like children’s toys. Their nanotechnology could make everyone entirely immune to disease. We were injected with those before they put us in the arboretum. They were worried about the effects of some of the plants on our systems. Their surgical robots can perform operations at the cellular level. I would be dead right now without that. We did not manage to traverse the wormhole entirely undamaged. You’ve all seen how much better their control of gravity is. That same disintegrator technology can be used to stabilise atoms. Nuclear weapons can be rendered inoperable at range. Force screens can block even those particle beams Aneka mentioned.’
The Cold Steel Mind Page 15
