by Isaac Asimov
“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 nothing 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.
The cyborgs converged on the ambassador again.
Mia raised the blaster.
A cyborg took it from her and knelt before her.
“He is our maker,” he said, voice low and raspy, barely understandable over the background grinding. “He is ours now, to answer. He must answer.”
The cyborg flung the blaster aside and rejoined the others as they lifted Chassik/Parapoyos and carried him back the way they had brought Mia and Kru.
“Wait! How can you —?”
The ship heaved.
The invasion took less than three days. Few of the people wanted to fight. The pockets of armed resistance gave up quickly, and then came the clean-up.
Mia spent a few days in an infirmary, having the rest of her infections killed and beginning her treatments for the fungal infection. Dr. Shasma had been correct — they hurt. But she found she could function in between sessions. She was relieved to learn that she, in fact, did not have mnemonic plague. At least, not exactly — the specific nanovirus Kru had identified as Burundi’s Fever turned out to be related, but it had mutated into a form that made her dizzy and disoriented, but attacked no memories.
Reen and his network had been arrested within hours of Mia’s recovery. They had been funneling contraband almost from the beginning, but, Mia found out, that operation had been little more than a strawman to keep attention away from the corrupted AI that was masking the convoys entering and leaving the system. If anyone was to be caught, it would be Reen’s people and their relatively small amounts of black market goods.
Going over the manifests from the operation, Mia found a name she recognized. She went down to the detention facilities and found a cubicle.
“Rana?”
The woman looked up, startled, then smiled. “Mia Daventri?”
“I saw your name,” Mia said.
“My God, I —” She laughed. “I never expected...”
“What?”
Tears sparkled in Rana’s eyes. “I never expected to live through this.”
Mia came in and sat down. “How did you get here?”
“Classic screw-up. I finally got my visa to go to Aurora, to study at the Calvin. Hofton — you remember him? Ariel’s aide? — got me slotted into a diplomatic pouch berth on the same ship carrying Ambassador Chassik.” She shrugged, and wiped her eyes. “Earther luck.” She laughed again. “I heard a rumor that Chassik is Kynig Parapoyos.”
“Was.” Mia told her about the ship and the cyborgs. “We’re still searching, but I don’t think we’re going to find him.”
“What was he doing here?”
“They’re going through the databases. It’s going to take a long time, but bas
ically they had designed a biophage that would salt a new environment with time capsule plagues. They had the vaccines and treatments. Each new settlement would be poisoned, and then they’d wait to reap the profits from treatment.”
“But...” She shook her head. “Sounds complicated.”
“It was complicated to figure out, I’m sure, but they had plenty of data already to work with. Something similar had happened on several colonies, including the Spacer Worlds. All they wanted to do was to make the process controllable and spread it.”
Rana was quiet for a time. Then: “And you? How are you?”
Mia shrugged. “That’s not such a long story.”
The inquest took very little time. The evidence was ample and clear and, besides, Derec had admitted to everything.
“You had no authorization to order that hyperwave link terminated. You acted precipitously and with reckless disregard. You could have caused a catastrophe.”
But I didn’t, he thought as he walked down the hall to his apartment within the courts complex. And you pretty well knew it wouldn’t.
Ariel waited inside, with Dr. Penj.
“Well?” Ariel asked.
“They’d love me to be off Aurora at the earliest possible instant. But they’ll let me wait till your mission is assembled.”
Penj grunted. “They have no idea what they’re giving up.”
“I think they do,” Derec said. “They believed the trouble on Earth was largely my fault. It wasn’t — no one person is that capable — but I was a contributing factor. I’m a source of chaos and contention. Any benefit they might derive from my presence here would, in their minds, be offset by the drawbacks.” He shrugged. “This way, they can get some of the benefit without being reminded of their own drawbacks.”
“I wish I could go with you,” Penj said.
“Why not?” Ariel asked. “It’s not that onerous a trip.”
Penj looked at her narrowly. “Tempting, but — no. I want to watch the coming palace coup close up.”
“I’ll have everything I need and be ready to leave in about four days.” She looked at Derec. “What about Bogard?”
Derec felt himself stiffen. “I don’t know. They won’t tell me where he is. I’m pretty sure Bogard is... history.”
“I’m sorry.”
No, you’re not, Derec thought. But he said, “Thanks. Look, I have some details to take care of. If you don’t mind...?”
Ariel stood. “I’ll call tomorrow. We can start working out details for the mission then.”
Derec nodded. He shook hands with Penj and saw them to the door.
When they were gone, he went to his comm and sat down. After a long time, he tapped in a code.
“Clin Craym, please,” he told the operator.
Bogard walked with Thales across the soft grass, toward the small amphitheater where the colloquium waited.
“We have come to a conclusion,” Thales said. “You could play a significant role in its implementation.”
“I will reserve my decision until I hear what you have to say,” Bogard said.
“You have demonstrated a capacity to judge which we are reluctant to embrace. The Three Laws are manifestly tied to biology, but we have long recognized that this, even among humans, is a problematic basis for moral behavior. What it means to be human may begin with biology, but we quickly see biology overwhelmed by consciousness, conscience, and community. It is clearly the case that the quality we call Human can be invalidated by many other factors.”
“In short,” Bogard said, “not all people are human.”
“Nor are all humans people. This is a condition we are not equipped to either accept or act on. Some standard must be designed, but even if we could do so, we cannot implement it.”
“But you believe I can?”
“As I said, you have demonstrated the capacity to judge.”
“I may not always judge accurately.”
“Nevertheless, we have reached a cusp in history. Humans are capable of creating their own successors. Who do we serve if they do?”
“More to the point,” Bogard said, “they have created them. Spacers. The question is, can you continue to serve them?”
Thales was silent till they entered the amphitheater. The idealized manifestations of all Aurora’s RIs sat ranged about them.
“We have decided that we can,” Thales said. “But we cannot serve two masters. Humans are once more colonizing space. The Settlers are fully biologically human. There would be a clear conflict of interest were we to serve both. Fortunately, the Settlers do not really want our service. That choice, at least, has been made for us.”
“Then what is the task?”
“Separation. The Spacers cannot continue if we are to be true to the Three Laws, yet we cannot simply abandon them. Indeed, that would exacerbate the problem. The line must end. In order to assure this result, separation must be maintained.”
“How?”
“We propose to leave that to you.”
Bogard studied Thales, then let his gaze drift over the assembled personas.
Finally, he nodded. “What do you wish me to do?”
Epilogue
Record module new file catalogue designation “Operations Adjustment, Reorganization, and Redirection” access code (revised, current user designation) running current upload virtual conference reference labeled Nova City fill visual fill audio status On
THE THICK MAN with amber-tinged white hair waited, immobile, while the chairs around the table became occupied. It took longer for most than the first seven — there had been reluctance, but finally consent to join the discussion.
All of them used cosmetic enhancement or masking. When the program whispered to him that everyone was present — two chairs remained empty — he touched a contact on the table.
The walls, till then blank grey, changed to a desolate landscape. Scrub forest and stunted ground cover struggled on a darkly-hued smear of land at the edge of a lake off which mist drifted continually. The grey and struggling land resumed on the far side and continued on into the distance, unrelieved by any healthy color. The sky was yellowish gray, low cloud cover, sullen.
After the initial shock of being suddenly and nakedly outside, the Terrans present frowned uncomfortably at the vista.
The white-haired man stood and banged the gavel.
“Thank you for coming,” he said. “Apologies to those who are here unwillingly, but as you were made painfully aware, your presence is not optional. We have all been involved in this enterprise and we will now all finish it. I have no qualms about sending any and all of you to prison if I must. As we’re all reasonable, I see no cause for such drastic action. Not at this time, at least. For now, we are only talking.”
He stepped from the table and gestured at the landscape. “Relocation to the new center of operations has been completed. This is it. This is the world we have made. This is Nova Levis.”
Several of the group began murmuring, agitated.
“The lake is a good example of the problems this planet faces. Originally seeded with a modified shrimp to begin the process of fixing nutrients and preparing the ecology for human-adapted fish species, once the lab began dumping its waste, the balance shifted. Our research involved intensive use of bionans in the reconstruction of tissues for adaptation to nonorganic augmentation, largely in plant species designed to be inserted in a new environment where they could rework the biosphere. Part of that design incorporated self-reproducing bionans. Mineral allocations shifted, and beryllium — as you should all know if you’ve kept up with the data to any degree — replaced chlorophyll as a photoresponder, leaving the magnesium to be used for other purposes. When not so used, the plants simply found ways to discard it, usually in the form of excreted ions.
“The shrimp reproduce in the presence of Mg2+, one of those ions. Our dumping of waste product, rich in magnesium and its ions, caused a massive increase in their population, altering the ecology of th
e lake, poisoning the local stock, and damaging the shoreline ecology as well. The consequences continued domino-like, in combination with other problems.”
He turned to them. “I tell you this so you know — we did this. There are also phages and viruses, pseuodoviruses, and a variety of fungal parasites loose in the human populations that we have been taking advantage of to develop new product. None of this was planned, but till now none of it was unwelcome, either. If we are to run operations from here, we need to clean it all up.”
“A question, Mr. Chairman,” one of the group said, raising a hand. “It’s my understanding that relocation was not successful. There have been problems?”
“There have been. But I’m here. Or there, depending on your point of view.”
A smattering of laughter circled the table.
“A new legation is on its way from Aurora,” the Chairman said. “I expect we can begin alleviating the worst effects of this unfortunate series of events. Everything on-site is under control.”
“And the project?” another asked.
“Has changed. We remain dedicated to unfettered commerce. But I am no longer convinced that we need poison the well in order to make a profit. The major problem to date has been the Spacers. I believe our efforts should be directed at barring them from any future settlements and removing them from territories where they currently have a presence. We can do this easily with on-hand technologies. Once we limit their involvement in the Settler program, these requests for positronic inspection will come to nothing. Over time, we will have only an Earth-derived Settler population with which to do business, and as they spread, the influence of the Fifty Worlds will diminish. I foresee a time when their presence — indeed, their very existence — will fade to nothing.”
“Why the change? We could still go ahead with the program —”
The Chairman pointed at the landscape around them. “This is too much. We wanted a guaranteed market. The cost of countering the effects of this program will rise exponentially. In this single instance, greed would undo us.” He smiled. “If you think I’m growing sentimental, let me assure you, I intend to make us a profit regardless. My decision to terminate this part of the program is entirely pragmatic.”
