by Alex Lamb
Nelson shook his head. ‘I think Sam’s up to something. He’s trying to give you a graceful way out of this. The moment Yunus puts himself at risk, you’ll have control and he’ll thank you for it. If Yunus wants to expose himself, that’s his problem. We just have to stay professional and let this game play itself out, crazy though it is. And after all, he might even be right.’
Will nodded grimly. ‘So be it,’ he said. ‘Fire up the suntaps and get ready for action. Instinct tells me we’re out of our depth.’
Nelson nodded. ‘Already on it.’
6.4: ANN
Ann watched the dialogue unfolding between the Gulliver and the Nem swarm with mounting alarm. A long reflection phase, she could accept. The fact that the clean-up phase had, if anything, gone into reverse, she could also just about handle. They’d seen elements of those behaviours before. But this conversation was freaking her out.
Nems didn’t do conversation. They pinpointed threats and responded to them – ruthlessly. The Gulliver’s interaction window at Tiwanaku was supposed to have been measured in minutes, not the hours it had taken for the ship to reach the colony itself. The machines were being way too nice.
Why hadn’t they fired? And why in Gal’s name did they even want to talk at all? She couldn’t imagine how much stress Sam must be under at that moment. Without a violent response from Will, all they had on their hands was a nest of dangerously over-informed Nems and a massive security problem. The way this was going, they’d be lucky to fire a single shot.
Kuril spoke up. ‘Ma’am, are we off mission plan already? What do we do? Do you want me to warm the boser? Are we going to have to make the shot ourselves?’
‘Not necessary,’ said Jaco, calmly. ‘This is just a manifestation of reflection-phase crosstalk. Those Nems aren’t distinguishing between our ships and the pseudo-human activity they’ve created for themselves. For them, this is all play.’
‘But the reply format—’ began Kuril.
‘Is within model tolerances, Mr Najoma. During reflection, the Nems always mimic the incoming format from a peer bounce, and that’s exactly what they’ve done here. The fact that the format was ours rather than theirs doesn’t matter.’
‘Unfortunately, Kuril has a point,’ said Ann. ‘Jaco, I agree with your analysis that this is down to the long reflection. But it’s our job to be paranoid and this swarm is already at the edge of our modelling envelope. We might be able to explain this response but we still didn’t expect it. So move us in a little closer, please. I want to be able to get a clear shot at the Nems, or at Ariel Two, whichever becomes necessary.’
Jaco paused, his frustration palpable. ‘On it, ma’am,’ he said eventually. ‘Though I must point out that the closer we get, the more likely we are to be spotted.’
‘Point taken, Mr Brinsen. However, we still have Nem-cloaking. If it comes down to it, we’ll have to rely on that.’
Her job was to make sure that the plan went off without a hitch. Personal risk didn’t factor into it. Much more of this chatting and everything was likely to unravel.
7: CONTACT
7.1: YUNUS
The salmon-coloured mountains of Tiwanaku Four loomed large in Yunus’s view-field as they descended. On that dusty, frozen world, mankind’s greatest adventure lay waiting to start. He was sure of it. He had butterflies in his stomach, though of course that could have been down to the violent lurching of the shuttle.
Side windows in his display showed him views of the seats in front of him where his two Spatials were hard at work, piloting the shuttle and surveying the local airspace. The names of his escorts were marked at the bottom of the displays: Nico Ratan and Lisa Markus. Neither of them looked particularly fazed by being woken up at the eleventh hour for a shuttle drop to an alien world. They behaved as if this was the sort of thing they did every week.
On the other hand, he reflected, both soldiers had been sourced from the Fleet’s Covert Ops Division. Who knew what they did every week? It didn’t bear thinking about.
‘I’ll be using the telepresence rig,’ he reminded them to break the silence. ‘The secure set-up. As soon as we hit the ground, one of you will be on shuttle defence, the other will be manning the cut-out and will double as a human pilot if we need one. Does that work?’
Both Spatials nodded.
‘Textbook operating practice, Boss,’ said Nico. ‘We’re on it.’
‘I want to thank you for your bravery,’ said Yunus. ‘What we’re about to do is momentous. It’s a first in human history. Nothing like this has ever been done before.’
He wanted to touch them somehow. To make them understand the significance of what they were walking into. However, they accepted his remarks with nods and blank faces.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Nico. ‘That’s why we volunteered. Not every day you get a job like this.’
‘We’ll have you in and out in no time,’ said Lisa. ‘Safe as houses.’
Fast and safe was hardly the point, Yunus thought. But both soldiers had probably been extensively briefed on protecting the diplomats and weren’t thinking far beyond that. They both looked to be the classic military type. No sense of awe. No interest in the unknown. Bodies lousy with killtech, no doubt. Nobody should be carrying that amount of artificial augmentation. It was against nature.
He blamed the Galatean influence. Between augs and genetic modifications they were reducing the human race to specialised pieces of machinery. It would have been better for everyone if that particular genie had never escaped the bottle. The Truists had tried, of course. They’d fought the war to keep mankind human, and they had lost. The old-style Truist Spatials would have at least been humbled by the gravity of their task.
Colonials were so self-righteous in their assumptions, changing everything they came across and throwing out their moral compass along the way. His colleagues on this mission were perfect examples of that smugness. They all imagined they were so smart, yet their vision was so narrow. Everyone on the Gulliver had been applauding themselves for their caution. Yet they didn’t appear to realise that all human reasoning came from assumptions.
For all they knew, they’d be incurring a risk for mankind by not trying to communicate. What mattered in life was the assumptions you chose to work from and your willingness to adapt, not how far you got from the set of faulty axioms you’d started out with. Yunus had lived his whole life by that logic. And he’d been waiting all his life for a moment like this one. He’d known that one day, it would happen.
Meanwhile, the others on the Gulliver just sounded keen for the Photurians to not be real, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It was the only way they could keep their blinkered understanding of the world alive, he suspected. Should they be surprised that the Photurians used a machine to communicate? Of course not. Should they be surprised that they couldn’t understand what they were looking at? He didn’t think so. Monet and the others regarded him as some kind of fool. He was aware of the risks. He was simply ready to face them, that was all.
The Spatials brought him down at the carefully selected point he’d chosen near the planet’s equator. It was close enough to Photurian activity sites to make communication easy, but far enough away that they wouldn’t be able to impede his exit if something went wrong. Outside lay a bland expanse of pinkish desert under a dirty orange sky. It looked like half the worlds he’d visited.
‘Okay,’ said Nico. ‘Ground checks complete.’
Yunus unclipped from his couch and clambered down the narrow access tube on his left that led to the telepresence tank. The tank was one of the more impressive pieces of kit the Vartian Institute had installed. It enabled him to link with a biodroid perfectly shaped in his likeness, specifically designed for missions such as this. While his real body remained secure inside the shuttle, all his physical sensations would come from the remote bot.
The bottom
of the tube opened into the access ring for the body-sleeve below. It looked like a wet, green rubberised sock large enough for a person to slide into – quite revolting, really. Yunus removed his ship-suit and stashed it in the small locker in the wall. Then he sat on the edge of the ring, dipped his feet into the unpleasant aperture and slithered after them. He pushed himself down, testing his body against the simulant gel surrounding it as darkness swallowed him. It was, surprisingly, like floating in a bath of warm nothing. The tank linked to his retinal implants, showing him green status lights all across the board. He was ready.
The comms between the biodroid and Yunus were highly secure. Once inside the telepresence tank, he had only a one-way link to the shuttle – they could hear him, but he couldn’t hear them. That way, the mission could still collect data about his experiences while preventing the kind of feedback hacking that had notoriously co-opted the original Ariel. It also meant he’d be on his own. Yunus wasn’t that fussed. He’d just have to spend less time listening to the witterings of his colleagues. His droid also came equipped with sensors for all manner of dangerous technology. They could detect the presence of everything from enzymes to nanobots to radiation. Yunus suspected he wouldn’t need any of them.
His view showed the shuttle bay opening and the contact rover heading out across the sand. It travelled five hundred metres, stopped and deployed the inflatable neutral-zone habitat-bubble it carried. The invitation beacon atop the habitat started winking its message to the Photurians nearby.
Yunus felt a brief stab of regret. The Photurians had asked to meet him, not some artificial substitute. On the other hand, the biodroid would, in effect, be a part of him – if the Institute scientists were to be believed. To an observer, it would look like him, smell like him and even scan like him. And the light-lag on the line-of-sight comms was effectively zero. Besides, if he took any more risks than this, Citra might never forgive him.
The countdown in his view clicked from five to one. Then the droid came online and Yunus’s concerns instantly vanished. He felt as if he was actually standing alone inside a small transparent dome on the surface of a barren world. He patted his chest, looking down at the crisp ambassadorial uniform his double wore, and then out across the rosy dunes. He suddenly felt profoundly exposed. He could hear the squeak of the dome shifting in the planet’s feeble breeze, and the hiss of the air recyclers. The canned atmosphere felt dry and chilled his skin. Were it not for the status icons winking at the corners of his vision, he’d have had no way to tell that he wasn’t really there.
Yunus looked around at the empty, sterile pocket of habitability and felt like a figurine in an antique snow globe. Typical, he reflected. The Vartian Institute had thought of everything except proper furniture. And without a feed from the shuttle, he had no idea when the Photurians would send their envoy. He sat down on the rubberised floor of the bubble to wait.
He shifted on the uncomfortable plating and wondered what the crew aboard the Gulliver would be saying. Not much of value, he suspected. A few snide remarks. More pointless panicking. In any case, Citra would fill him in as soon as he got back.
In the meantime, God had given him his chance. Just five minutes with the aliens might be enough to establish himself as the trusted point of contact. If he could manage that, power would follow. With an interspecies relationship to manage, the Earth would regain its rightful primacy and all this foolish talk of war would be over at last. If anything was worth the wait and the risk, it was surely that.
As it was, the Photurians didn’t take long to arrive. Just fifteen minutes later, a very ordinary-looking rover appeared on the horizon and headed straight towards him. Yunus felt a twinge of disappointment. He’d hoped that the contact vehicle would be somewhat more exotic. But given the extent to which the Photurians were reusing human material, it was hardly surprising.
As the rover neared, his heart began to race in anticipation. Yunus got to his feet as the rover drove up and docked with the bubble. The airlock opened. Yunus held his breath, peering into the shadows beyond.
Out of the rover limped a teenage boy. He had no hands. His arms ended in damp orange sacs. A Sanchez clone head had been rather clumsily glued into his neck, along with a complicated system of rubber tubing. Pouches of organic machinery stuck out of his skin at irregular intervals. He wore a torn ship-suit that looked and smelled like he hadn’t changed it in weeks. He was clearly terrified. The boy scratched his stomach mournfully with one elbow. The ripped flaps of his ship-suit parted briefly to reveal a piece of a coffee machine that appeared to have been inserted there.
Yunus shivered in disgust. This wasn’t what he’d hoped for. Still, maybe he could salvage things. He should trust his own protocol and not put too much stock in appearances.
‘Who are you?’ he said carefully.
Everyone back on the Gulliver would be watching through his eyes. He had to play this out with dignity, whatever the consequences.
‘Ryan,’ said the boy sheepishly. He looked away.
‘We are Punishment,’ said the horrible clone head under his chin. ‘You only have one person? Where are the rest of your persons?’
Yunus chose not to reply to that one. ‘What happened here?’ he asked.
‘They changed me,’ said Ryan. He started to cry.
‘The pest site was claimed and integrated,’ said the Sanchez head primly. ‘Pattern dictates that we remain at pest site to destroy stragglers. However, integration is behind schedule as we do not understand the human components. They have no clearly defined function. Their system protocols are strange wrong with many level. They are challenging!’
Yunus tried to keep the revulsion off his face and struggled to understand what he was looking at. If this was a straight physical subversion, it was terrible job. Human surgeons had developed more impressive puppet-hacks decades ago. What had been done to Ryan resembled a cliché of alien control as executed by halfwits. Even the most botched alien fake made by a sect group would look more plausible than this.
‘Please kill me,’ Ryan blubbed. ‘I hurt so much. I don’t want to be like this any more.’
The Sanchez head talked over him. ‘You will help us understand,’ it said enthusiastically.
‘We will do what we can to facilitate peaceful coexistence,’ said Yunus. ‘We will provide you with knowledge and tools for trade. However, we will need our human components back.’
‘The components are integrated,’ said the head. ‘We do not need for trades. You will supply further instance of person to enable us derive more harmonious interface.’
‘What happens if we don’t want to do that?’ said Yunus.
He hoped the Spatials were watching this closely. He was counting on their instincts as to when to pull the plug.
‘Integration is preferable to destruction,’ said the head. ‘Through integration, pest species may serve the body and become useful. Integration is good! Enjoyment of integration will be inserted. Enjoyment will be applied to all persons.’
Yunus started to see contagion alerts in his display.
‘We’ll have to consider your offer,’ he said hurriedly.
‘You delay,’ said the Sanchez head. ‘Do not delay. There is not need of delay.’
Ryan screamed. Abruptly, the bulbs on the ends of his arms burst, filling the air with a fine orange mist. He collapsed sideways.
At the same time, Yunus’s control over the android started to deteriorate. Contagion warnings piled in his view and he watched in horror as his hands started to dissolve.
Nico pulled the plug. Yunus gasped with relief to be back in the shuttle. He started desperately clambering out of the pod as the sleeve retracted, his lungs labouring for air.
‘Let’s get the hell out of here!’ he yelled.
‘Already on it, Boss,’ said Lisa. ‘We’ll have you out of here in no time. Safe as houses.’ The shuttle�
��s engines started to whine even while Yunus was clawing his way up to the hatch. He had never heard so lovely a sound.
7.2: MARK
As Mark watched the feed from Yunus’s android, his unease about the man’s departure melted into outright horror. The Ryan-thing had been both pathetic and hideous. He no longer had any doubt that Will was right. Their adversaries were machines, and not very smart ones.
Citra Chesterford pinged him from the lounge.
‘Captain Ruiz, is there anything we can do to get closer to that shuttle?’
‘Not yet,’ he told her. ‘They need to hit the stratopause before I can compute a decent intercept vector. There’s too much drone traffic in low orbit. I can’t risk it until I know where they’re going to be.’
‘Please let me know as soon as you can,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to leave him out there a second longer than we have to.’
‘I’m on it, Professor,’ said Mark. ‘Don’t worry.’
He powered up a trajectory computation SAP and set it racing over the vector options while he watched the shuttle creep up through the atmosphere.
‘If a drone so much as twitches near them, they’ve had it,’ said Will over the comms. ‘I have low orbit on lockdown.’
Then, as they watched, the inconceivable happened. One of the huge, misshapen drones parked in low orbit abruptly suicided. It blew its antimatter containment out sideways, punching a mass of white-hot shrapnel towards Tiwanaku Four. That close to the surface, the effect on the planet’s atmosphere was instant and catastrophic. Huge shock waves of ionised gas ballooned outwards and surged around the globe.
‘What the fuck?’ Will yelled.
Mark froze in horror. Downing a shuttle that way was like using a rail gun to crack an egg.
‘Jesus,’ said Ash. ‘This is where it gets real.’
Even with seconds to react as the air-tsunami tore around the planet, there was nothing Mark or anyone else could do about it. The wave hit, picking up the shuttle and spinning it like a leaf in a hurricane.
