InterstellarNet- Enigma

by Edward M. Lerner

  The way her eyes widened, she hadn’t expected to see at least one of them. She had been summoned by Glithwah, Carl supposed, this “chance” encounter captured by a hallway camera.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Corinne smiled wanly. “Considering.”

  Written notices in clan speak had been taped everywhere, sometimes, but not always, obscuring the permanent English and Mandarin wall signs. They came to a halt outside massive double doors labeled Captain’s Ready Room. It would be Glithwah’s office now.

  “Your place here,” Koban directed Carl. “Proximity with him,” she ordered one of the bots. “The rest of you,” she gestured, “with me.”

  Joshua and Corinne exchanged worried looks.

  “It’ll be fine,” Carl assured them. He hoped Joshua remembered to be discreet.

  Koban’s eyes glazed for a moment as she netted a report of their arrival. Then, with Corinne, Joshua, and Tacitus in tow, Snake and robot escorts continued down the corridor.

  “Enter,” a familiar soprano voice called from inside.

  Carl let himself in, his robot escort following. With a soft, metallic clank and the hum of electric motors, the bot assumed a watchful stance in the nearest corner.

  The Foremost stood behind a massive oaken desk, on a platform of some sort. Boxes where everywhere, whether her possessions coming in or those of the unlucky human captain going out. Bulkhead displays slowly cycled through earthly panoramas.

  “Welcome aboard Invincible,” Glithwah greeted him.

  Because Discovery was too humble a name for a Snake ship. “Hello, Foremost.”

  Glithwah took two clear drink bulbs from the refrigerated drawer in the desk. “Vodka, Warden? The man who had expected to sit at this desk had a fondness for the stuff.”

  “Sure.” Carl caught the bulb lobbed toward him, took an appreciative sip. “If ever that title fit me, the day is long past.”

  “For whatever it is worth, Warden, throughout your tenure you inconvenienced our preparations. Far more, certainly, than did your successor.”

  Was he expected to appreciate the compliment? “And yet not nearly enough, it would appear.” Carl took another swallow. “About him. How is Bruce doing? May I see him?”

  “He was healthy, though not happy, when we left him,” Glithwah said. “On Ariel.”

  “And still unhappy, I would surmise.” After being physically or psychologically abused enough to have cooperated.

  “He would have been no happier had we brought him.” Glithwah stood taller, signaling that the social niceties had come to an end. “Warden, you have traveled far for no purpose. Nothing will dissuade me from departing with this vessel. Did you somehow imagine otherwise?”

  “We should talk,” Carl said.

  CHAPTER 42

  Spacious, well-furnished, and comfortable, the suite of rooms was nonetheless a prison. Had Joshua not already realized, he would have needed only to glimpse the wary expression on Corinne’s face, or to recall the fearsome robot sentry posted outside the suite’s entrance.

  They had so much to talk about—but back aboard Hermes, before the Snakes docked, Carl had said to assume at all times that they would be bugged. If only he and Corinne could net!

  “Come here often?” Joshua improvised. He had to say something casual, something to draw attention from the warning he must give her. Soon.

  “Why not? You’ve come all this way, too.”

  He patted the server box, still wrapped in metal mesh. “Blame Tacitus.”

  “Hi,” the AI said.

  This conversation was so strained that even Snakes must soon take notice. Setting down Tacitus, Joshua gave Corinne a big hug. Lips to her ear, he whispered, “Join me on the sofa. Whisper and we can compare notes. Tacitus will talk for the three of us, synthing all our voices.”

  Tousled curls brushing his cheek, Joshua felt her nod.

  “Boy, it feels good to stretch my legs,” he said, sitting on the sofa. “That courier ship we came on was teensy.” Teensy was a codeword for Tacitus.

  “And I’m glad to have someone new to talk with.” Tacitus began on cue. “I’ve become fascinated with the Lubell case.” Corinne had first made a name for herself covering the gruesome murders, never solved. “I have a theory to bounce off you.”

  Tacitus (speaking for itself and “Corinne,” with the occasional bored aside from “Joshua,”) launched into dialogue less strained than anything the flesh-and-blood parties had managed.

  “What are you doing here?” Corinne whispered.

  “You’re in danger.” He had to choke back the inappropriate laugh that struggled to be free. “I mean besides from the Snakes. We set out from the Moon before we knew about them. From Grace DiMeara.”

  Corinne winced. “How do you even know that name? For that matter, how do you know Carl, much less how did you connect up with him?”

  “He was recalled to Earth while you were en route to Prometheus.” That innocuous was recalled subsumed a lot, but Joshua had no idea how long they would go unsupervised. “Back when you were on Ariel, recruiting Carl, you mentioned the Matthews conundrum and a disgraced historian. He put two and two together, tracked me down.”

  There was much to catch her up on. Speaking quickly, synopsizing like mad, he tried to hit the highlights: the quest for the alien lunar base. The clunky alien computers and recovery of most of their database. Glimpses in that archive of meddling with Earth history for eons before the first human. He barely touched upon Helena’s untimely arrival and their brush with disaster. The Xool heading home. Even to hit the highlights was daunting.

  “What does any of this have to do with Grace?” Corinne interrupted.

  “She’s a Xool agent. Interveners, you would call them. Surveillance vids show her visiting their lunar facility.”

  “Grace is dead,” Corinne said, the word seeming to catch in her throat. “Killed trying to escape. The Snakes blew up her shuttle. I was on the bridge when it happened. I saw it.”

  All data pointed to Grace having poisoned Corinne’s regular pilot to get herself to Discovery. In order, somehow, to stop the starship. Joshua just could not see how running away from the starship could fit into Grace’s plans. Then again, a Snake takeover would not have been in her plans, either.

  But within the Ariel settlement—to which Grace had gained entry by piloting for Corinne—Carl had uncovered another Xool mole. A Snake mole. Dolmar Banak and Grace had met on Ariel. Banak might have told Grace about the imminent clan jailbreak ….

  “And so the case can be made,” Tacitus was pontificating, “that the DNA evidence exhibited markers for post-arrest tampering by gengineering. If so, then—”

  The AI had been going on, in three distinct voices, for a while. Ten minutes was Joshua’s best guess. With his implant chemically disabled, how was a person to keep track?

  “You said the aliens went home,” Corinne whispered. “Where’s home?”

  Maybe the answer hid somewhere in the recovered database. His grandmother had hunted endlessly for it. On the grueling flight here, he and Tacitus had searched their copy, too. If the archive included a star map of any kind, it had eluded everyone.

  “No idea,” he admitted. At the next lull in Tacitus’ little drama, Joshua injected, “Whoa, partner. Enough ancient history.”

  Whoa was another cue.

  “Then what should we talk about?” Tacitus asked.

  “Something else. Anything else. Or maybe”—and Joshua stood abruptly—“nothing else. I’d like to see more of this ship.”

  “Are we allowed?” Tacitus asked.

  “Are we?” Joshua asked Corinne.

  She tipped her head, thinking. “I’ve had all but free rein. With an escort, I don’t see why not.”

  “Good,” Joshua said. “Lead on, starting with the sick bay. I have one bitch of a headache.”

  “You need nose filters.”

  “Done, but not till after I’d gotten a good whiff.” />
  “Sorry.” Corinne shrugged. “I don’t notice it anymore.”

  He hoped not to be aboard long enough to adapt. That wish begged the question how Carl fared with the Foremost ….

  “Till then …,” Joshua hinted.

  She led him (and Tacitus, his server awkward but weightless in free fall) on a serpentine route. If their path had any logic, Joshua failed to grasp it. Perhaps she was testing for limits. If so, it was a successful experiment, because their escort, thumping along behind them, raised no objections. Apart from the children, Snakes in the halls ignored them. Passing the ready room, Joshua heard nothing through the doors. It could mean effective soundproofing. It could mean that Carl and the Foremost had gone elsewhere, perhaps on their own tour. It could mean nothing. It could mean that, his head throbbing, Joshua was overlooking something.

  “About sick bay?” he prompted.

  “Almost there.”

  Sick bay turned out to be wild understatement. The medical facility, when they came to it, was more of an ER and high-tech storehouse than a pill dispensary. “What do you suggest?” he asked.

  It wasn’t Corinne who responded.

  “I am Galen,” a disembodied voice declared from an overhead speaker. “What is the nature of your medical need?”

  Of course: a medical AI. This ship must be rife with AIs.

  “Something for a headache,” Joshua said.

  He submitted to scans. Nothing in the pharmacological inventory targeted this particular headache. (Naturally. Discovery was not meant to teem with ambulatory sulfur sources.) As the AI directed a medicinal synthesizer, Joshua glanced around. Even for an ER, the range of equipment impressed him. Then again, this ship was built for decades of self-sufficiency.)

  “I came for a pill,” Joshua grumbled after a few minutes. “I don’t need you to grow me a new kidney.”

  “But it could,” Corinne said. She ran splayed fingers of both hands through her hair. “Or new legs, for that matter. Become ill enough, or have a serious enough accident, and it can upload you.”

  “Backups.” That’s why there was so much hardware. “How many of the … original crew”—Joshua almost slipped and said real crew, a label apt to irritate whatever Snakes were eavesdropping—“are Augmented?”

  “About a third.”

  “Your medication is ready,” Galen announced. On one of the synthesizers, a status lamp flashed green. “If I can be of further service, do not hesitate to ask. I can provide a full gamut of preventative and therapeutic services to all crew.”

  Two Snake children shot past the sick-bay door, bouncing off corridor walls, floor, and ceiling. High-soprano shrieks stabbed right through his head.

  One of Galen’s robotic arms reached over an operating table to offer him a drink bulb.

  Washing down his pill, Joshua thought: Galen, you may be in for bigger challenges than you anticipate.

  “Ready to continue?” Corinne asked.

  “Sure,” Joshua said. He just wished he knew if he was a tourist or an immigrant.

  The answer to that depended on Carl—and Glithwah.

  CHAPTER 43

  Carl gazed across the cluttered expanse of the captain’s ready room. “I need assurances the hostages will be freed, unharmed.”

  Glithwah licked her lips: a smile. “That is a decision for others to make. Matsushita, for one. More than most humans, you think strategically. You have some appreciation for how I reason. I expect you to provide your admiral with wise counsel.”

  “Suppose this ship is allowed to depart. Suppose the navy does not pursue. Then what?”

  “Then the hostages on Prometheus will go free, unharmed.” Licked lips. “I would advise everyone to steer clear of our rearguard as they withdraw.”

  No doubt that rearguard would be automated. Matsushita had mentioned self-destruct behavior by robots and drones. “Understood,” Carl said.

  “I thought you might.”

  “All hostages,” Carl persisted. “The leadership group you’re holding separately, too.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And the civilian pilot removed from mess hall.” Especially her. Carl had spent much of the jaunt from Earth imagining ways to capture Grace. If he could knock her out before she triggered her cranial bomb ….

  “That won’t be possible,” Glithwah said. “She foolishly attempted an escape.”

  “That’s unfortunate.” Carl kept his face expressionless—he hoped. “And it brings me to a core matter. How do we know that after you’ve withdrawn the hostages will be let go?”

  “Can you trust me?” Once more, she licked her lips. “Set aside trust, Warden. Consider the clan’s best interests. Do you suppose I would give the UP justification for a revenge pursuit?”

  More justification, she meant. Over the past several years, the investment to build and provision this starship had exceeded the annual GDP of most worlds. But Glithwah was likely correct. After this latest incident, how much of the public would consider their taxes well spent if they rid the Solar System, once and for all, of Snakes? At least if human casualties were held to a minimum.

  He said, “That’s not proof.”

  Glithwah did not deign to answer.

  “And where will you go?”

  She didn’t respond to that, either.

  “Agreed. I don’t need to know that,” Carl said. “You can’t blame me for being curious.”

  Whether from old clan rivalries or for control of the starship’s technologies, any return to the home system must kick off the war to end all Snake wars. If his many defeats at b’tok had taught him anything, it was this: a frontal assault would be Glithwah’s last choice. She wouldn’t head straight home, wouldn’t take on those rival clans, wouldn’t put her entire clan at risk—not for as long as she had other options. And plenty of fallow solar systems were within Discovery’s cruising range ….

  “But I digress,” Carl said. More than his curiosity was at stake. “To continue, facilities on Prometheus are to be left unharmed. All facilities.”

  “That is my intention. No needless casualties or damage.” Glithwah leaned over the desk, her eyes narrowed, almost staring. “We will vacate the antimatter factory last of all.”

  Leaving even freed hostages imperiled till they could be evacuated far from the moon.

  “To be clear, I’m also speaking of the hostages you hold outside the Saturn system.”

  “What do you mean?” Her eyes glittered, testing him.

  “On Ariel, to begin. And the crews, wherever you interned them, of all the ships you captured. And your unsuspecting hostages, wherever they are. I’m sure you’ve deployed drones widely, just in case you find you need the UP navy further distracted.”

  “Very perceptive, Warden. Your hours at b’tok were not entirely misspent.”

  He thought, don’t gloat, damn you. But why wouldn’t she? He was, after all, negotiating surrender terms. Matsushita would be furious. “Same conditions? No pursuit?”

  “Same conditions,” she agreed.

  Carl stood. He had yet to mention the hostage most on his mind. “That’s what I needed to know. We’ll meet with Admiral Matsushita and discuss specifics. Timelines. Ship movements. Force separations.”

  “We?”

  “We. I include Joshua Matthews, Tacitus, and Corinne Elman.”

  “You and I had not discussed the woman.” Needlelike talons slid from Glithwah’s fingertips. “She is a reporter. These events are historic. Our odyssey will be historic.”

  “All hostages go free,” Carl said. “Give me this one hostage now as a show of good faith.”

  “Ms. Elman is my guest.”

  “She is your prisoner,” Carl said flatly. “I saw it in her eyes. I know her that well.”

  “No.”

  “That’s it? Simply: no? After everything you’ve accomplished, after all the preparation”—after proving me a fool!—“you would wager the clan’s future over a single hostage?” Can you be that pisse
d off at her reporting, over the years, of the clan’s defeat?

  “And you?” Glithwah shot back. “You would wager the lives of thousands for your friend? You would see another antimatter plant, another world, blown to gravel? Perhaps you would. Admiral Matsushita will not.”

  “Think about it,” Carl said. “For everyone’s sake.”

  The robot guard clanked across the room to loom over Carl. “Come with me,” it said.

  “I will consider your suggestion,” Glithwah said. “Briefly. You should consider mine.”

  • • • •

  On Invincible’s echoing bridge, the crew attended with laser-like focus to their duties. Glithwah stood among them: studying tactical displays, gauging crew demeanor, absorbing overall status. The campaign had evolved as expected, the few deviations minor and of little consequence. All but a handful of the clan’s ships had completed offloading their passengers and cargoes. Onboard supplies had been supplemented from stockpiles on Prometheus, despite the loss of a freighter and the DiMeara woman’s treachery. The warships designated to fly escort as Invincible withdrew had completed their refueling. UP ships within sensor range had been taught to keep their distance. All proceeded within the parameters of the plan. Pimal, in short, had matters under control.

  It was the seemingly harmless anomalies that gnawed at Glithwah, chief among them Carl Rowland showing up. His arrival, here and now—like encountering Corinne on Prometheus, a bonus bit of revenge—felt too coincidental.

  Suppose Carl had suspected a clan breakout to seize the starship. Wouldn’t the local UP forces have been forewarned? Why did he care about one foolish pilot, and why had he tried so hard to disguise his interest? Why was he not negotiating harder? Why was he not negotiating at all, other than for the damned reporter’s release?

  In war, as in b’tok, defeat most often came from the attack you did not see coming.

  “All prisoners to my ready room,” she netted, storming off the bridge.

  When the robots had shepherded them all in, she said, “You have been less than honest with me.”