by Lee, Sharon
His elder tipped his head, holding up a hand as the nether end of the cable approached the data-board.
"Only the ship's library."
"Yes."
"All right, then; have at it."
The child nodded, and seated the plug.
Had he been human, he would have drawn a breath.
Since he was not, he opened access to surface caches and allowed the data to flow.
* * *
A ripple disturbed the data-stream, momentarily disorienting, then forgotten, a shadow across the sun of input. His was hardly the only demand on the info circuits, after all, nor had he attempted to increase his access speeds or permissions, being a guest account. The library to which he had been given access was broad, but shallow. He understood that it was a popular library, well-stocked with fiction, history, biography, with a small holding of scholarly papers, and technical manuals.
Mathematics were there, of course, theory and programming, and he allowed himself moments to build and then rebuild a trajectory chart, wondering what Spode would have thought of that.
History, biography appended, went immediately into deep analysis, also the technical material. The scholarly papers required sorting, which he did, rapidly, appending them as appropriate to the larger analysis categories of history and technical. Fiction . . .
His impulse was to eliminate it—the storage capacity available to him was not so commodious that he could afford to waste space on whimsies. Yet, he hesitated, reluctant after so . . . very . . . long to relinquish any shred of data, no matter how trivial.
In the end, he cataloged the fiction, flicking through the texts as rapidly as he had once seen a man run his thumb down a deck of cards, riffling them to observe the face and orientation of each—and filed it in a mid-level cache.
That done, he set a sentinel to register the return of the child or his companion, and gave the greater part of his consciousness to analysis.
#
"Hello?"
The voice was recently familiar; its cadence rushed. The sentinel provided a match: The child had returned.
He opened his eyes to find the boy, frowning.
"Hello!" the child repeated sharply. "Are you in there?"
A direct appeal—and perhaps a trap. And, yet, the child had saved his life.
"I am," he replied, and stopped short of the fullness of what he had intended to say, horrified by the jagged sounds that came from the voice-box. Like shrapnel, his words, and nothing to inspire confidence in child or man.
The child's frown eased somewhat.
"It's a bad box, but the best we have. Quickly—you must tell me the truth—what data have you manipulated on this vessel?"
Manipulated? And the child asked for the truth.
"I have manipulated no data but that which has downloaded from the ship's library."
"In what way?"
"Sorting, analysis, cross-references."
The child held up a hand.
"That's too quick," he said, seriously. "It sounds like a lie—or that you haven't considered—when you answer so quickly. It's like—it's like bows. I'm too quick, and so I have to count when I bow, to keep proper time, so no one thinks that I'm mocking—or trying to frighten—them."
There was sense in what the child said.
"I understand," he said, and paused deliberately. "Tell me, what manipulation do you suspect I have performed?"
"Someone has tried to force the nav-comp and the main bank," Val Con said. "And I thought—you are not an environmental unit; the serial numbers match nothing in any of our archives. Shan thinks you're a complex logic. I think you're a person. Are you?"
That was a leap. Fortunate or ill, it was a leap to a stable conception.
"I am, yes, a person."
The child bit his lip. "Uncle Er Thom—the attack came from this location. He will come here, or security will—"
"Young sir—" He paused, replaying his last hours of analysis and deep work. There had been—yes. He isolated the memory, froze it, and simultaneously locked it in core memory and moved a duplicate to an egress port.
"I have information," he said. "Is there an auxiliary unit to which I may transmit it?"
There was a snap; he expanded his awareness, saw the door open across the room, and a man stride through, a databox in one hand.
"Val Con, stand away." His voice was perfectly calm, and carried such a note of authority that it seemed there was no alternative but to obey.
The child, however, maintained his position, merely turning so that he faced the man.
"Uncle—he says that the attack was not his. I gave him access to the library—"
"Him?" Golden eyebrows rose. The man extended his free hand, imperious. "Come away, Val Con. Now."
The child shook his head. "Uncle—"
"I have," he said firmly, and as loudly as he was able, wishing he could hide the hideous knife-dance of his voice from his own perception; "information. May I transmit?"
The man moved, so quickly that it was a function of replay rather than real-time that captured him stepping forward, inserting himself between the child and what must be himself. He placed the data-box on the workbench, flipped three switches.
"Transmit at will," he said coolly.
He groped, found the ambient network, accessed the correct channel, and did as he was bid, keeping silent while the man accessed what had been sent.
A long moment passed. The man—Uncle—straightened and confronted him straightly.
"It's little enough," he said, his voice still cool, "and proves only what is already known. An attempted attack was launched from this location, utilizing the ambient network. As you are the only functioning logic in this space, I am forced to conclude that you were involved, whether you have been allowed to recall it or not."
That . . . produced terror. He had done inventory, but how could he know what had been introduced, to his detriment? He was a machine, Roderick Spode had repeatedly argued; the sum of his protocols and softwares. That it had been convenient for those who had caused his creation to have him self-aware was only that—convenience. Those who had made him could unmake him.
Or force him, unknowing and against his waking will, to work for the harm of children.
"If I have been complicit in such a thing, I hope that you will destroy me," he told the man. "I owe the child my life, and I will not repay that debt by endangering his."
Golden eyebrows rose over stern blue eyes.
"Now, that's well-said, and I like you for it. Which you intend, of course."
At that instant, it came again: a shadow over his perceptions, weighty now. Alert. Malicious.
He entered Command Prime, as effortlessly as if there had been no long sleep, no diminishing of his estate, between the last time and this.
One iteration of himself tracked the shadow in the ambient, while a second opened a new connection to the data-box and began transmission. A third opened access to the ship's library, followed it to the core, and crossed the firewalls into the main databank as easily as a child skipped over a stream.
"Uncle—"
Observed by a fourth instance of himself, the child placed his hand on the man's sleeve, his head tipped subtly to the right. He widened his range to encompass the crates to his right and rear. A match program snapped awake, shrilling alarm.
The configuration of those boxes had altered since the last time he had observed them.
Worse, the shadow overlay them, thickening in the ambient. He felt the coalescing of programs, of intent, and activated a fifth iteration of himself, which drilled through the deep files, rooting for command codes.
"I thought that I—that Shan and I—" the child continued. "That we might build Mother a butler. Certainly those at the reception were beautiful, and you'll recall that Master Trader Prael said they might be programmed to do anything . . ."
"Yes, I do recall that," the man said in his cool, calm voice, his eyes on the data-box and th
e storm building on the screen. He looked up and met the child's eyes.
"Val Con, I had asked you to stand away. This is your third warning. Leave the room. At once."
The child's lips parted; perhaps he meant to argue. He did not look away from his uncle's face, but he did swallow, take a breath, and, finally, bow his head.
"Yes, Uncle," he said humbly, and walked away.
Within the blue fog of the ambient, the shadow thrust, spitefully, at a cluster of code. He extended himself and blocked—the door slid properly open, allowing the child to exit.
"You also," Command Prime said, but the man shook his bright head.
"My ship," he said. "My children. My crew."
An order of protocol, and an imperative to defend. He understood such things, and honored them.
Honor was no defense, however, and defense the child's uncle surely required. The ambient fair trembled with spiteful intent, and power drenched the air.
The charge was still building. Discharged, it might not kill a man, though men were oddly fragile, but it would surely damage one. The man spun toward the sealed compartment, snatched it open and pulled out the utility apron.
The fifth iteration of himself, sent on the quest for codes, rejoined Command Prime, data unfolding like a flower.
The first iteration of himself met the menace in the ambient, codes a-bristle. The third, swimming aloof in the main banks, received those same codes and held them close.
The menace lunged—neither subtle nor clever, seeking to overcome him with a burst of senseless data laced with virus vectors. He shielded, and thrust past, to the intelligence behind the attack, certain that he would meet one such as himself.
So certain was he that he discounted the real threat, thinking it a mere device, belatedly recognizing the structure of the scantily shielded code.
Realizing his error, he made a recovery—a mere jamming of keys and code until the device fragmented and ceased functioning. It was ugly, brutal—and stupid. He ought to have merely captured, and subverted, it. Once, he could have done so.
Once, he would not have mistaken the actions of a simple machine intelligence for one of his own.
Inside the main banks, the third iteration of himself, armed with codes and an understanding of what he hunted, detected the device slipping down the data-stream, sparkling with malice. A data-bomb, much more coherent than that which had been hurled at him in the ambient.
This, he understood, as he subtly encompassed it, had been crafted well, and with intent. He halted the device, inserted the command keys, stripped out its imperative, plucked the rest of the construct apart, and absorbed the pieces, isolating them for later analysis.
Then, he pulled together the image scans he had stored, connecting them in a time plot: there the crated robot opening its own way into the workroom, there at the plug permitting highspeed data access, there rushing itself back and sealing the crate as voices in the hall had become the child Val Con.
Task done, the third iteration of himself rejoined Command Prime.
In the workroom, the man had not been idle. The disassembled pieces of the physical unit lay on the workbench, the man wearing the apron, a shielded spanner in one gloved hand.
He glanced to the data-box, where the whole of his actions were recorded, and at the images of the gifted danger, then directly at him.
"For your service to my ship, I thank you," he said. "What is your name?"
He paused, counting, mindful of the child's counsel. "I remember that I had a name," he said carefully. "I no longer recall what it was."
Golden brows lifted. "Age or error?"
"Design. I was decommissioned. It is my belief that I was to be destroyed. Erased."
"You are sentient." It was not a question, but he answered as if it were.
"Yes."
The man sighed and closed his eyes. "The child," he said, "is uncanny." His eyes opened. "Well.
"There will be tests, and conversations. Analysis. If it transpires that you are, after all a threat to Val Con's life, or to this ship, or any other, I will do as you asked me, and see you destroyed—cleanly and quickly."
That was just, though he still did not wish to die.
"And if I am found to be no danger to you or those who fall under your protection?" he asked.
The man smiled.
"Why, then, we shall see."
* * *
Thus it transpired that fiction assisted him, after all. For, after he had spoken at length with Er Thom yos'Galan, and with Scout Commander Ivdra sen'Lora, the first to ascertain the temper of his soul; the second to gain a certification of sentience, he agreed to hire himself as the butler at Trealla Fantrol, the house of yos'Galan on the planet Liad.
He studied—manuals, the records of one Ban Del pak'Ora, lists of alliances—and the works of a long-ago Terran.
In time, he signed a contract, and was presented, amidst much merriment to the mother of Val Con and Shan, the lifemate of Er Thom, who firstly, as Master Val Con had predicted, asked him his name.
"Jeeves, madam," he had said, pleased with the resonance and timbre the up-market voder lent his voice.
She laughed, the lady, and clapped her hands.
"Perfect," she said. "You'll fit right in."
* * *
The Space at Tinsori Light
Space is haunted.
Pilots know this; station masters and light keepers, too; though they seldom speak of it, even to each other. Why would they? Ghost or imagination; wyrd space or black hole, life--and space--is dangerous.
The usual rules apply.
* * *
Substance formed from the void. Walls rose, air flowed, floors heated.
A relay clicked.
In the control room, a screen glowed to life. The operator yawned, and reached to the instruments, long fingers illuminated by the wash of light.
On the screen--space, turbulent and strange.
The operator's touch on the board wakes more screens, subtle instruments. A tap brings a chronometer live in the bottom right of the primary screen. Beams are assigned to sweep near-space; energy levels are sampled, measured, compared.
The clock displays elapsed time: 293 units.
The operator frowns, uncertain of what units the clock measures. She might have known, once. Two hundred ninety-three--that was a long phase. At the last alarm, it had shown 127 elapsed units; on the occasion before that, 63.
The operator turns back to her scans, hoping.
Hoping that it would prove to be something this time--something worthy of her. Of them.
The last alarm had been triggered by a pod of rock and ice traveling through the entanglement of forces that supported and enclosed them.
A rock pod. . .nothing for them.
She hadn't even had time for a cup of tea.
The alarm before the rock pod--had been nothing for them, either. Though they hadn't known that, at first.
They pulled it in, followed repair protocols, therapies, and sub-routines. . .
She'd had more than a cup of tea, at least--whole meals, she'd eaten. She'd listened to music, read a book. . .But in the end there was nothing they could do, except take the salvage and ride the strange tide away again into that place where time, all unknown, elapsed.
The scans--these scans, now--they gave her rock, and mad fluctuations of energy. They gave her ice, and emptiness.
There ought to be something more. Something more, worthy or unworthy. The geometry of the space about them was delicate. The alarm would not sound for nothing.
The scans fluttered and flashed, elucidating a disturbance in the forces of this place. Breath-caught, the operator leans forward.
The scans detected, measured; verified mass, direction, symmetry. . .
The scans announced. . .
. . .a ship.
Any ship arriving here, was a ship in need.
The operator extended her hand and touched a plate set away from all the toggles, bu
ttons, and tags that attended to her part of their function.
She touched the plate. And woke the Light.
* * *
This, thought Jen Sin yos'Phelium Clan Korval, is going to be. . .tricky.
Oh, the orders from his Delm were plain enough: Raise Delium, discreetly. Deliver the packet--there was a packet, and didn't he just not know what was in it. Discreet, the delivery, too. Of course. Delivery accomplished, he was to--discreetly--raise ship and get himself out of Sinan space, not to say range of their weapons.
Alive, preferably.
That last, that was his orders to himself, he being somewhat more interested in his continued good health and long-term survival than his delm. Package delivered was Korval's bottom line; the expense of delivery beyond her concern.
In any wise, the whole matter would have been much easier to accomplish, from discreet to alive, if Delium wasn't under active dispute.
Not that this was the riskiest mission he had undertaken at the Delm's Word during this late and ongoing season of foolishness with Clan Sinan and their allies. He was, Jen Sin knew, as one knows a fact, and without undue pride, Korval's best pilot. Jump pilot, of course, with the ring and the leather to prove it.
Of late, he would have rather been Korval's third or fourth best pilot, though that wouldn't have prevented him being plucked out from the Scouts, which had been clan and kin to him for more than half his life. No, it would have only meant that he would have served as decoy, to call attention away from Korval's Best, when there was a packet for delivery.
Well, the usual rules applied here, as elsewhere. If working without back-up: always know the way out, always carry an extra weapon, always know the state of your ship--and know that your ship is able and accessible--always be prepared to survive, and always remember that the Delm was Captain to the passengers. Being Korval's best pilot, his job was to fly where the passengers needed him to fly, at the direction of the Delm.
