by S A Pavli
“If you need help from Alfred…” I began.
“He has already offered,” she said with a grin.
She dropped me off at the apartment where I had been held prisoner, saying that it was mine and Manera’s apartment, and giving me a little look as if to say ‘you lucky boy’. Did she fancy Manera? I chuckled at the thought. I liked Colrania, she was professional and no nonsense but there was a warmth about her that was engaging. She pointed out that the communication system was now working and showed me how to use the apartment system. She also gave me a clip on comset that allowed me to talk to her team, the ship, or Alfred or to set up private channels. I settled myself into the apartment then contacted Colrania to offer my services.
The rest of the day passed in technical work. I lacked the skills and knowledge of Hianja technology but tried to make myself useful fetching and carrying, monitoring and reporting.
The Settang Despasss was a vast metal world, bare and unadorned. The smell of the air was metallic and its walls and bulkheads were covered with cables making geometrical lines in all directions. It desperately needed colour and décor to distract from the monotony.
“Spending too long in this place would drive you bonkers,” I muttered as I trudged up and down the long corridors.
That evening we all got together for a meal and a few drinks and I was questioned continuously about Earth, its customs, history and people. It was a very convivial evening and I got to bed feeling a little tipsy. It was fortunate that all of our apartments were next to each other and the ‘mess’ where we had eaten was central because once alone in the apartment the sheer size and artificiality of the ship left me feeling cold and alone. I missed Manera, and it took me a while to get to sleep.
The next couple of days passed in a similar fashion and good progress was made in finalising the ship’s systems. We even had a trial run at a military engagement with our fighters and an imaginary enemy, shooting off a few dozen rounds of shells and a few missiles. The fighters performed well in my estimation but Alfred had some ideas for improving their performance so Colrania’s team got back to re-programming their computers. On the third day we were due to depart for our destination as soon as the remainder of the expedition personnel arrived.
I had been in touch with Manera earlier and she had told me what to expect. Three large Tanseh arrived in orbit and manoeuvred to dock with the Settang, one at a time. Colrania and I were at the ‘visitor’ bay to welcome the first of them as it docked next to the Epsilon. First out of the airlock doors were a couple of robots followed by the tall lissom figure of Manera, dark hair blowing in the wind from the air conditioning. She looked around the bay, spotted me and waved. I waved back and walked over to the Tanseh to meet her. We embraced and kissed and she looked into my eyes with a welcoming smile.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself beautiful,” I replied. “How have you been?”
“Busy,” she said. She turned and looked behind her at the two figures standing at the exit of the Tanseh. “And hassled.” She inclined her head in their direction. As they came down the stairs I examined them discreetly. This must be the difficult Jansec Ullginvat, and his mistress Lanatra Minrva I thought. He was a stocky individual of medium height and she was slightly taller than him and I thought rather ‘hatchet faced’. I had learnt from past experience not to judge Hianja females by the same standards as Human females. What I considered to be plain, even ugly, was considered beautiful by Hianja standards. Equally, my belief that Manera was the most beautiful female in the Galaxy was surprisingly not shared by Hianja, although I suspect most of my fellow Humans may agree with me!
Both were dressed, like Manera, in boots, tight fitting trousers and belted smocks. Manera introduced me to them and up close I could see that despite his unimposing stature, Jansec had a forceful personality, with intense dark eyes and strong prominent features. Lanatra had a nice smile, lush lips and attractive blue eyes beneath a sculptured blonde coiffure. Are all blondes throughout the Galaxy “femme fatales”? I asked myself.
“Our famous alien,” said Jansec jovially as we shoulder hugged. “Good to meet you in person Captain.”
“Thank you Guardian, also for me a pleasure to make your acquaintance. And also you Guardian,” I added as I shoulder hugged Lanatra.
“Remarkable how Hianja you are,” said Lanatra, gazing at me with a perplexed look on her face. “If I saw you in the street I would not look twice.”
“I would look twice,” said Manera, putting her arm through mine and giving me an admiring gaze. I smiled and Lanatra laughed while Jansec looked impassive. Some other individuals were coming down the stairs from the Tanseh and I spotted Hamolatonen and some other uniformed individuals. I guessed they were the new crew of the Settang. They were followed by others, carrying boxes and tool bags, dressed in the grey fatigues of engineers.
I went forward to greet Hamolatonen and the crew and introductions were made all around. We led our new guests to their accommodation while the robots unloaded the Tanseh. The other two Tanseh containing supplies and more robots would be unloaded in their turn.
Hamolatonen called an expedition meeting in the ‘common room‘, as he called it, for later that evening before the evening meal. Robots were unloading food supplies and I guessed that there would be ‘proper’ catering now instead of the self catering we had been enjoying up to now. Hamolatonen called me and Manera over. He was talking to Colrania and he pulled us together in a huddle.
“Jansec and Lanatra do not know that Alfred in on board the shuttle. He is interfaced through a special high speed line directly to the Settang’s new AI which has been informed that Alfred is a specialised computer to which it must defer on questions relating to the expedition only. If it has a problem it will consult with me, Colrania or Manera. All of us have a direct link to Alfred.” I nodded my approval.
“That sound all good,” I agreed.
“All interactions with the Peacekeepers will, physically, go through Alfred,” he continued. “But as far as all expedition members except us four, are concerned, Alfred does not exist and all interactions with the Peacekeepers will be handled directly by myself, Jansec and Lanatra as the three Guardian representatives.”
“That is putting a lot of responsibility on Alfred,” I pointed out.
“I am relying on you and Manera to be his advisers,” said Hamolatonen. “If things get hot and I am outvoted by Jansec and Lanatra, then you and Manera must advise Alfred. It is a huge responsibility but I cannot think of any other two people that I trust more.” He gave us both a steely look and I was reminded of admiral Crozier. They would get on I thought.
“You can rely on Manera to do the right thing, and me to agree with her,” I said. This lightened the mood and they all smiled.
“I think I like the Human sense of humour,” said Colrania.
“Wait till you get to know him better,” said Manera putting on a long suffering expression.
“Good,” said Hamolatenen. “See you all at the meeting this evening. Colrania, could you brief me on where you and technical team are?” With an amiable nod at Manera and me he turned and bustled off with
We chatted casually for a few minutes until we were given the all clear to move around.
“I look forward to this evening Paul,” Jansec said cordially.
“Thank you, us also,” I said, Manera gave him a smile and a nod. When they had left I turned to Manera.
“He seems an amiable enough fellow,” I said. She made a face.
“Don’t be fooled. It’s a front to lull you into a false sense of security.” I chuckled and shook my head.
“For such a sweet innocent soul you have a surprisingly suspicious nature.”
“No, I have been briefed by Hamo, Krusniet and Kemato. They have a lot of experience of this character.”
We stayed for a while as observers until Hamolatonen’s team decided to hand over to the ship’s AI with only one token member of the crew to ‘
keep an eye’ on things, then went off with them for coffee. Manera and I were considered as ‘honorary’ members of the crew and I spent a happy couple of hours exchanging notes and experiences on starship operations. A couple of the crew expressed their enthusiasm at the idea of serving on an Earth starship. This was an original idea and I thought why not mixed crew on both Hianja and Earth starships?
But that was something for the future. Manera went off to do some more work on her scientific instruments and I had another visit to Alfred to work with him on some problems we had unearthed the previous day. Alfred was concerned that the Hianja AI lacked any tactical military capability. He had demonstrated his own capability in the past, proudly telling me that he was ‘fully conversant’ with military strategy and tactics!
We were working together to come up with any and every possible scenario involving the Peacemakers and to design strategies for handling them. I was doing the ‘creative’ part while Alfred did the detailed programming. It was actually quite fun and Alfred had to pour cold water on many of my more extreme ideas.
There was a buzz from my communicator.
“Paul, this is Jansec. If you are not busy I wonder if I may impose on you?”
“Yes Jansec, what can I do for you?”
“I would be interested in a tour of your shuttle craft. I am by way of being an amateur pilot and I believe it is a very fast and manoeuvrable craft.” Oh shit! Did he suspect something or was this an innocent request?
“By all means Jansec, I would be delighted. I’m in the middle of something, shall we say in an hour?”
“I will come to your airlock.”
“See you then.”
“Bugger, Alfred how are we going to handle this?”
“What is it that you are concerned about?” he asked.
“He will ask about the ship’s AI. When he sees your drum, he will realise that it’s you.”
“Does it have my name on it?”
“Er… sorry?”
“The drum. Does it have my name on it?” I could not help laughing at Alfred’s unintentional humour.
“Sorry Alfred that was quite amusing. What I meant was that he may realise that a shuttle would not normally have such a high powered computer installed. Since they specifically demanded that you were not part of the expedition, it could make him suspicious.”
“I see.” There was a pause while we thought about the problem. Alfred’s drum was prominently installed in the middle of the ship‘s main cabin, connected to its low temperature cooling system. It was impossible to miss.
“I’m going to have to disconnect your drum and store it in the hold for now,” I said.
“If you believe it is necessary then you may proceed,” he said. Alfred’s drum was totally self contained with power and full back up storage. All I needed to do was unplug him from his housing. It was the work of a few minutes to unplug the drum and store it in the hold in an anonymous box, then close up the cabinet and shut down the cooling.
Jansec turned up on time and I showed him around the ship. He seemed to be knowledgeable about aircraft and asked some pertinent questions. He noticed the cubicle in the centre of the ship and asked its purpose.
“Ah, that’s Alfred’s second home,” I said. “When he is not on the Lisa Jane.”
“Remarkable technology,” he said. “It is the one area where you are ahead of us. We could not get so much power in such a small space. Are you in communication with Alfred?” You are a suspicious bugger I thought.
“No, in the circumstances there seemed little point in setting up a link.” I said. He seemed satisfied and we parted, expressing mutual anticipation for the evening. But I was developing an increased respect for his acumen.
Chapter 22
Four days into our journey and life had settled into a routine for me and Manera. Hyperspace is a very boring place. It’s a universe with absolutely nothing, no suns or planets, no matter of any kind in fact. Just diffuse energy. The characteristics of this universe were such that FTL speeds could be attained with little expenditure of energy, Mr Einstein’s laws did not apply. Because of the peculiarity that all universes ‘mapped’ on to each other, we could travel a thousand light years in this Universe in the same amount of time as travelling a few million miles in ours and then ‘pop’ back into our Universe.
Manera and I had no specific ship related tasks other than exploring the giant ship. Mastering its weapons was still the main challenge for the crew and Colrania‘s team, with Alfred’s covert assistance and they worked long hours. But we always had our evening social events, gathering for drinks and the exchange of news before our meal.
Our first social evening with Jansec and Lanatra was friendly enough, with Jansec mostly regaling us with stories about his business empire. He invited us back to his native planet, promising us we would love it, which we graciously accepted ‘when the time was right’. There was an undertone of artificiality about the whole thing however, not surprising given that we were all strangers and one of us was from another planet! Manera and Lantra were from quite different backgrounds, Manera being a scientist and explorer used to ‘roughing it’ on the frontier, while Lanatra was a fashion model and designer, used to the big city scene. Not that Manera was not au fait with the latest fashion trends, but it was not an obsession and her main interests were elsewhere.
It was on the afternoon of the fourth day that Jansec confronted us with his bombshell. He called a meeting of the whole team within an hour, mailing us that it was a matter of grave importance and we must all attend. I was enjoying a small private lunch with Manera in our apartment and we both saw his message at the same time. We both looked at each other questioningly.
“Any idea?” I asked.
“No, he hasn’t mentioned anything to me,” she replied. She spoke into her communicator. “Connect me to Captain Hamolatonen.” She shook her head at me. “Maybe Hamo knows something.” After a few seconds Hamo came on line and Manera had a brief conversation with him. “He has no idea what it is about,” she said. We finished our lunch and a little later Hamolatonen and Colrania came to our apartment to confer.
We asked Colrania if there was any way Jansec could have acquired ‘inside’ information. He had been asking questions she said, wanting to know what comms channels existed and, since the Peacekeeper AI was in full control of the ship, what were her team doing. She said they had made up some computing jargon which she thought he had accepted. I was beginning to think we had underestimated Jansec.
We made our way to the common room. Jansec and Lanatra were there as well as Colrania’s technicians and Hamolatonen’s crew. There were thirteen of us, and I fleetingly wondered whether that was unlucky. Jansec stood and scanned the room, his face sombre.
“I called you here on a serious matter,” he began. Do tell! and we thought you just liked our company. “It has come to my attention that I, and my colleague Lanatra, have been lied to and misled.” His eyes fixed on me and there was none of the friendship that he had displayed during our previous encounters. “Firstly, regarding the alien AI, called Alfred, it was agreed by the Guardian Council that it would not be included on this expedition. However I believe it has been installed in the alien shuttle and is on board this starship. This is a deliberate violation of a Council ruling. Secondly, It has also been agreed by the Council that we should make no attempt to tamper with the Peacekeeper AI software. I have reason to believe that again the Council’s ruling has been ignored and this ship’s AI has been either tampered with or replaced.” He directed an angry look at Hamolatonen. “Captain, these acts have both been carried out under your authority and I believe with your authority. What do you have to say?”
To his credit, Hamolatonen neither tried to lie, bluster or avoid the issues. He stood and met Jansec’s glare impassively.
“You are correct on both issues Jansec, but I make no apology for flouting the Council’s rulings. Let me explain. The Human AI Alfred is a uniquely powerful comp
uter with abilities that our own AI computers do not have. We will only use his expertise if we need to. As for the Settang Despass, it kidnapped Captain Constantine and was about to perform illegal surgery upon his brain. Alfred, his ship’s AI had no choice but to defend him. It is in his programming, he could not allow his Captain to be killed.”
“We only have the Captain’s word that he was in danger. Why should the Settang want to perform surgery on you? That is preposterous,” exclaimed Jansec
Hamolatonen turned to me.
“Perhaps Captain, you can tell everyone what happened?” I nodded and stood up.
“It all started when Alfred informed me that a fighter aircraft had left the Settang and was coming down from orbit.” I went on to describe my kidnapping by the soldier robots and how I was taken up to the Peacekeeper starship and put in front of its AI avatar. I then went on to describe what it wanted to do to me and its ultimatum.
“I was fortunate,” I said, “that it allowed me time to consider my fate because that gave Alfred the time to carry out his viral attack and bring down the AI. Without that I would now be dead or enslaved.” I could see that my audience were aghast at what I was saying and Jansec himself had disbelief written all over his face. When I finished talking he jumped up immediately.
“That is a ridiculous story. It is more likely that this alien … creature,” he waved his hand at me disparagingly, “is part of a plot hatched by the Earth authorities to destroy the Peacekeepers in order to make the Federation defenceless. He has taken you all in!” He stabbed his finger at Hamolatonen, Manera and everyone in general. There was an angry murmur and I felt Manera’s body move as if she was about to stand up. Hamolatonen jumped up and waved his hands as if to calm everyone.
“Those are hysterical words Jansec. The Earth Federation consists of the Earth and three other planets. You seriously believe they have the resources to conquer us? Even without the Peacekeepers we could build a military force capable of defending ourselves. No, the Earth authorities are rightly concerned that the Peacekeepers represent a threat to them, which is why, and I remind you, in case you have forgotten, which is why they have refused contact with us. Captain Constantine is here at our invitation, not as a representative of Earth. We intercepted his starship the Lisa Jane and brought him here in the Ensadis.” He finished by emphasising his final words.
