This Alien Shore

by C. S. Friedman

  Then: there it was. Straight ahead. A place where two of the ainniq converged, providing a sure landmark in this chaotic realm. He could feel the ship surge forward suddenly and he had to scream that no, no, there were sana waiting there, they couldn’t come in straight! The sudden burst of speed threw off the one that had been following them. There, see that pack of hunters? Go around them. More speed. Put the grav web back on, it’ll confuse them. Come around, straight into the intersection of space-black lines, the node—

  He could hear the dragons screaming as they broke through into safespace. Rage, hot rage, followed them out through the fault, licking at their heels as they dove into the black night of safety. He had escaped them. This time. But they’d be waiting. They’d learn.

  Now he had to escape the others.

  The two men were watching him. They wore human bodies, but they were no less alien to him than the sana were. And no less dangerous. They’d want him to go back into the darkness again, the suffocating darkness where fears lurked hidden and unseen monsters crawled through his veins. He wasn’t going back. He wasn’t ever going back....

  One of the men began to approach him. He screamed for him to get back. Two other men were coming into the chamber now with weapons drawn, so you see, he’d been right, he’d been right! They’d just used him to get past the dragons, and now they were going to get rid of him ... and they came at him and he struggled and fought for his life, gouging and clawing and struggling to get free ... but a medgun hissed against his neck and suddenly his strength was failing. “Bastards!” he screamed. “Bastards! I saved you! Bastards . . .”

  Then the anger faded into darkness, and the fear into sleep. A drugged sleep, but it was a kind of peace. More than he had ever known before.

  Masada stared down at the girl’s body, now spotted with blood and foaming spittle from her wild struggle against her Gueran guards. The men backed off when they were sure she was out cold, leaving her as she had fallen.

  Slowly, carefully, he reached down and gathered her up. She was slender, and so very light. How could anyone so frail-looking put up the kind of fight she did? The terror must have been great in her, to have lent her such unexpected strength.

  “Where are we?” he asked the pilot.

  “Harmony Node. I’m making contact with the waystation now.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a shaking hand. “Jesus, that was some ride.”

  “Not one I would like to repeat,” he agreed.

  He’d make sure the girl stayed asleep until Gueran meds could deal with her. They knew the science of the Syndrome and could keep it from swallowing her alive. Until then ... sleep would be a mercy.

  He wondered if the Guild would kill her. Probably so. Whatever Earth had done to give her an outpilot’s capacity, it was a secret that had to be buried forever. Poor girl. To come through the ainniq intact and then be destroyed for doing so ... it wasn’t justice, but it was political necessity, and he was a wise enough man to know that sometimes one had to give way for the other.

  When he was sure that the girl was safely asleep and resting peacefully, he gave her into the arms of one of the guards. “Put her in the pilot’s cabin,” he ordered. If the inpilot had any protest to voice he didn’t want to hear it. She had saved all their lives, and until her own life was terminated by the Guild, she had a right to be treated well. “Clean her up.” The guard started to say something—probably that it wasn’t his job to do so—but a scowl from Masada quieted him. The professor didn’t want to hear that either.

  The truth was that his own nerves were hanging by a thread. If the problem with the navigational programs hadn’t been so engrossing, he might have actually paid attention to what was going on in the ainniq, and that would have been disastrous. His iru nature had a hard enough time dealing with mundane environments that were new to him; he knew he had no coping mechanism whatsoever for a trip through hell.

  I’ll be very glad to go home, he thought. I’ll write a book or two about the ainniq and the outworlds, and be happy to never set eyes on either of them again.

  He felt exhausted and wanted to lie down and rest, but he knew that first he should check the ship and just make sure everything was all right. The sabotage which had taken out their pilot and their navigational system had been a hellishly efficient piece of work, and he just didn’t want to discover there were any more surprises waiting for him. His nerves couldn’t take another ride like that last one.

  But the ship looked sound enough, and Ra’s guards were restless but uninjured. The inpilot told him that all the programs he’d cleaned up were checking out okay. He went last to the pilot’s cabin to see how the girl was doing. Just to check. She wasn’t awake to answer his questions, of course. But it reassured him to see her with the blood cleaned off her face, and her torn clothes arranged in some semblance of decency.

  Phoenix was with her, but not by her side. He was sitting at the pilot’s auxiliary console controls, deeply engrossed in some bit of programming. Masada took that in stride for a moment—and then realized just what it meant. They had shut him out of the bridge for security reasons, and he had used the time to hack into the ship’s system.

  The words exploded out of him in anger, venting all the tension of the past few hours. “You fool!”

  Phoenix looked up. His expression was strange, not at all the defiance Masada would have expected. Not apology either. You would think that upon being caught breaking into the outship’s databank he would evince one response or the other, either defensive hostility or a humbling attempt at self-preservation. Masada walked angrily over to the console, flashing it an override message that would keep Phoenix from shutting it down before he could see what he’d been working on. But the hacker didn’t even try. He seemed more stunned than anything; perhaps this was the first time he’d given thought to what the consequences would be if he were caught.

  Death, if the offense was great enough. Or at the very least a brainwipe. The Guild wouldn’t stand for a hacker having seen their code, least of all one who was already involved in Guild business. Masada could protect him for minor offenses, but this ... this might be beyond any fixing.

  He looked down at the screen and saw a segment of the outship’s security code. Bad, very bad. Stupid boy. There were times you didn’t play games with the Guild, and this was one of them.

  Then Phoenix looked up at him and said, very quietly, “Who wrote this code?”

  The question took him aback. “What?”

  “Who wrote the code?” He pointed to the segment on the screen, then fed it some mental command that made it scroll upward. There was a strange intensity to his manner, that Masada couldn’t read. “Who designed it?”

  He took a closer look. It was a familiar program, one he’d helped edit in his more active days. He tried to remember who had designed it. “Why?”

  For a moment Phoenix said nothing. He stared at the bed where Jamisia lay. Then he said: “It’s the same guy.”

  “Who?”

  “Lucifer. The same programmer.”

  He said sharply: “Are you sure?”

  “It’s the same use of memory. The same . . . I don’t know, I guess rhythm is the best word. The way it’s arranged. Trust me, I’ve spent so long staring at Lucifer’s code I’d recognize it anywhere.” He laughed shortly, a sound without humor. “I’ll bet if you chart this fucker out, it even makes a pretty picture.”

  Masada stared at Phoenix for a few seconds in silence. Then he leaned over to enter the commands which would copy the program for him. Phoenix stopped him and handed him a small black chip. “Already did. Thought you’d want it. ”

  He started to say something—and then he remembered whose program that was. And he could no longer get the words out. Or any words.

  Something of that revelation must have showed, for Phoenix said quietly, “You know him.”

  “I know his code. I’d have to see more than one sample of it to be sure.”

  Devlin Ga
za.

  And yes, the Director fit the parameters. Right down to the one condition Masada had always insisted upon . . . that Lucifer’s designer would have made arrangements to collect and study the virus. What better collection facility than the whole of the Guild’s security network? What better way to study the virus than to be ordered to do so by the Prima?

  If he is to be questioned, it will have to be done most carefully. He’s very good . . . and the Prima won’t want to believe that he’s guilty. The proof must be undeniable.

  “But you think you know who it is,” Phoenix pressed.

  Masada said nothing. Thoughts were a storm in his brain, and he was struggling to sort them out.

  “Hey, if I helped in this, I want to know what happens.”

  He put up a finger in front of Phoenix’s mouth, a warning to silence. “You will, in time. You can be the one who announces to the moddie world that Lucifer’s maker went down in flames. You can even take credit for it, if you like. But not now. Now ... I need your silence. Not a quality you’re accustomed to, but consider it a challenge.”

  Had Devlin Gaza been the one to sabotage the ship? He’d have had the access . . . and the motivation.

  If so, he would think they were dead now.

  Masada had to stop the inpilot from informing anyone otherwise.

  He reached out suddenly and grabbed hold of Phoenix’s headset. The motion was so unexpected that the hacker actually yelped as he pulled it off.

  “You’re offline for the duration,” he said. “Consider it the price of fame.” Phoenix started to protest angrily, but he hushed him. “You want to be part of this? Then you have to be dead to the world for a few days. Your choice.”

  It took a few seconds. There was no choice, really. Masada knew it.

  That taken care of, he went off to talk to the inpilot.

  The manner in which a man lies can sometimes reveal more of his nature than the truth.

  C. J. AMBERLEIGH,

  The Art of Inquisition

  GUERA NODE TIANANMEN STATION

  “AH, DEVLIN, come in.”

  He entered the interview room, saw no one else was about, came over to the Prima, and kissed her on the cheek. Did she seem cold? She hoped not. As yet, she had no reason to be cold to him. One did not damn one’s lovers without proof.

  On the other hand, when proof was promised . . . one had to be prepared.

  “Business?” he asked.

  “Yes. A few questions. Please, have a seat.”

  He took a position precisely opposite her across the conference-sized table and poured a glass of water from the pitcher before him. He offered it gallantly to her, and when she turned it down, set it down in front of himself, perfectly centered.

  “Devlin, I ... need to ask you some things about your work.”

  “Ask away.”

  “I need it to be on the record.” She paused. “Verified.”

  His expression darkened. Was that guilt? Or only the valid concern of a man whose mistress had just asked him to submit to a proof of his honesty?

  If he is innocent, truly innocent, I may be wounding our relationship in a way that will never heal.

  She had no choice. It was her duty.

  She hoped he was innocent. She prayed he would forgive her.

  “May I ask what this is about?” he said.

  She hesitated. “I would rather that be under verification. Please, Dev.” She smiled, and hoped it looked genuine. “Indulge me.”

  He looked as if he might protest, but then spread his hands wide in a gesture of acceptance. “You are my Prima. Your word is law.”

  She flashed an icon to call in the technician. He was a quiet and efficient man who quickly set up the equipment needed to establish a verification link and record the results. Devlin seemed to be cooperating . . . though she had been warned this would be the case. If he were innocent, she’d been told, this process would prove it. If he were guilty, then he was skilled enough to manipulate the verification process so that it still proved him innocent.

  The process is all, Masada had told her.

  I’m sorry, Dev. So sorry.

  Within a few minutes the link had been established, and the feed from Devlin’s wellseeker was visible on the technician’s screen. Theoretically it was a direct link, with data being outloaded before the subject had access to it. Theoretically.

  She began by asking him simple questions to which she already knew the answers. He understood the process and showed no impatience. It was a procedure they used often with Guild personnel, whenever security was in question. Devlin was used to being on the other side of the monitor, true, but at least he knew what it was about.

  He didn’t know that all the data was being shunted to Masada, who was watching the proceedings through the room’s cams. He didn’t know that the Paradise hacker was there helping him, because, in Masada’s words, “Gaza knows my style and how to guard against it.” He didn’t know that the Prima was connected to them both, and that she flashed Masada ARE YOU READY? and waited for confirmation before moving on to more serious questions.

  “Baseline established,” the technician said. No doubt it was being compared to previous readings as well, to provide a biological portrait of Devlin Gaza that was as close to normal as possible.

  They also knew what his stress patterns looked like, of course. All Guild employees had to test for that when they were first hired, and Devlin Gaza was no exception.

  Finally she said, “I have some questions to ask you about Lucifer.”

  LIGHT STRESS, the technician sent. Well, Devlin was surprised by the question. That was reasonable.

  “Had you ever seen the virus prior to when it was reported to me?”

  “No,” he said. There was a pause, and then VERIFIED appeared in her field of vision.

  As expected.

  “Do you have any knowledge of Lucifer that you haven’t reported to me?”

  He hesitated, then smiled faintly. “Probably a few tidbits of data theory I didn’t bother you with, but if you mean, am I hiding anything, then the answer is no.”

  VERIFIED.

  He said, “May I ask what this is about now?”

  She held up a hand to ward off the question. “Later. When we’re done.” She looked into his eyes and felt a sudden clenching in her heart. Is this the last time I will ever look at you as a lover? Will you be a criminal to me after today?

  Please be innocent. Please.

  “Tell me about your thoughts, when Lucifer was first described to you.”

  He was silent for a moment, trying to remember. That was fine. The purpose of the question was to give Masada time, so that he and his protégé could use the verification gateway to hack into Devlin’s own internal programs. Searching for something which, if found, would be an all but certain statement of guilt.

  She asked other questions, similarly intended. The minutes passed. She watched his face as he spoke, tracing with her eyes the features she had grown to love.

  Then those features were suddenly overlaid with words.

  WE’RE IN.

  How strange, to talk to a man while others rummaged around inside his head. How ... violating.

  She waited until he had finished answering her last question, then drew in a breath as she gathered herself for the true test. “Devlin . . . do you have connections to anyone in the Hausman League?”

  He looked her straight in the eye and said: “No.”

  The technician flashed to her: VERIFIED.

  And a second later Masada’s message followed: HE’S OVERRIDING IT.

  She felt her own heart miss a beat at that news. Thank God she wasn’t hooked up to that thing herself. Evidence of stress in any form was as good as damnation in her position.

  And he showed no stress, none at all. Of course. Masada had said it would be so.

  No man who designed such a virus would ever trust himself to a verification program, he had said. There’ll be an override somewher
e, a special program that makes sure the readings are exactly what he wants them to be. Question him long enough, and I can search for it.

  Implied guilt, in a neat little data package. Not enough to convict him—that would take more—but enough to call for a trial. Enough to tell her that the time had come to remove this man from her life, this man who had won her heart and then betrayed her most sacred trust.

  Why? she wanted to beg him. Why have you done this to me—to your Guild—to your people? I thought you believed in the same things that I did. I thought that you shared my dreams.

  “Have you ever deliberately taken action to put Earth’s status at risk?”

  She thought she saw a flicker in his eye then. A hint of recognition. Had the pattern of her questioning given away the game? If so, it was intended to.

  “No,” he said firmly.

  VERIFIED, the technician sent.

  Oh, my love, my love, you slip farther through my fingers with each word, each thought....

  NO QUESTION ABOUT IT, Masada sent. I DOUBT THE VERIFICATION PROGRAM IS EVEN CONNECTED WITH HIS REAL WELLSEEKER. HE’S FEEDING YOUR TECHNICIAN PREPACKAGED RESPONSES. I’M COPYING THE EVIDENCE OF IT NOW.

  She asked a few more questions, these more innocent than the last. She was biding her time now, waiting for Masada’s next signal. When Devlin paused to take a drink of water, she graciously didn’t rush him. There was one test left, which would absolutely reveal whether or not Devlin was running programs to fool the verification process. A simple test, traditional in form, one might even say primitive. Sometimes she liked those the best.

  Then the signal came. DONE, Masada sent. Devlin’s defensive programs had been copied. They could be gone over later at leisure in the search for evidence of wrongdoing.

  She waited a few minutes more, then said, “I have someone else who would like to ask you a few questions.”

  The door behind her opened, admitting Masada. She watched Devlin’s face.

  It paled.

  No change in expression, beyond the twitching of a brow. No real sign of tension, save the tensing of the muscles at the comer of his mouth. But Devlin was nantana through and through, and understood social interaction well enough to hide his emotions.