Parker Interstellar Travels 4: The Trilisk Hunt

by Michael McCloskey

  “Could that be a Trilisk?” Siobhan asked suddenly.

  “No, I believe they looked similar to the three-legged robot we found,” Telisa said. “Or they look, I mean. I guess some are still around.”

  “Still, very interesting this thing is here as well as on Chigran Callnir,” Magnus said. “They may be connected somehow to the Trilisks. But there were none of them in the Trilisk tunnels.”

  “And now we have one here,” Telisa said. “Come to think of it, these don’t look anything like the other plants, the stalks with those dumb green clumps. Perhaps the Trilisks bring these with them. Spies? Pets?”

  “It could be a plant native to this place. Or the home planet of whoever made this place. Brought to Chigran Callnir by Trilisks?” Imanol wondered.

  “We’ll find out,” Telisa said.

  Maxsym was glad to see the other team members wondering about the plantlike thing. He did not want to go hunting for the Trilisk just yet. The longer that took them, the happier he would be.

  Chapter 14

  Cilreth had learned long ago that when faced with a monumental task, it was well worth an investment of time and effort to get the right tools up and going first. It sometimes felt like a delay or a sidetrack from the goal, but on a large job, it decreased total time to the goal.

  Understanding the Clacker was one of those tasks.

  She was able to put only about ten hours of concentrated effort into the task every day. And her health was suffering already. Twitch, overwork, and no exercise did not play well with someone her age. She needed a boost. The supersedure process crept back onto the table for her, as having a superior version of herself might get past a lot of obstacles.

  Pondering having a copy of herself reminded her of virtual cloning. Within the most daring of companies, which Cilreth had sometimes contracted for, the practice was called ghosting. Superstar scientists and engineers sometimes used virtual copies of their minds to work on problems while they were asleep or even while they went on vacation. The virtual copies would grind away on a problem and then deposit summaries of their work. Artificial intelligences could also be used, but that was more typical of government process. For the UNSF, it was more about having intelligent minions that could be ordered to do whatever the space force needed. With bright engineers it was handier to have a copy of themselves that shared the same background and vision.

  Cilreth took a day to use the Clacker to scan and copy her mind. As she progressed, she wondered why she had not tried it earlier. With the enormous amount of computing power available on the alien ship, she could run an army of Cilreths. Doubtless there would be a great deal of duplicated effort, but she looked forward to the report to read every morning on her virtual discoveries. Perhaps the Clacker could filter out duplicate information and compile some kind of summary for her.

  “Shiny?” she transmitted.

  “Within range. Listening, waiting, receiving.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Shiny seek Trilisk. Objective: lead, direct, assist team in capture.”

  “Ah, good. Any progress?”

  “I got nothing.”

  “What?”

  “Telisa teach Shiny say: ‘I got nothing’.”

  “Oh. That’s good. You know what, though? I like the way you speak just fine. You don’t have to use too many Terran phrases exactly.”

  “Shiny consider, evaluate, account for Cilreth input.”

  “Thanks. So, I want to ask a favor. No, I mean, maybe a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

  “Proceed, disclose, elucidate objective for negotiation.”

  “I’m planning to run copies of myself on the Clacker. To help me work on my understanding of the ship. Do you do that? How many should I run? How many can I run?”

  There was a pause. Cilreth felt a little judged in that silence. What did Shiny think of such a practice?

  “No,” Shiny said. “One. Seventeen million four hundred thirteen thousand nine hundred seventy nine.”

  “What?”

  “No,” Shiny said. “One. Seventeen million four hundred thirteen thousand nine hundred seventy nine.”

  “Oh crap.” Cilreth reviewed her link’s cache of the conversation. First she had asked if he did that. No. Then how many she should run. One. The other number must be her upper limit.

  “You mean I should only work on it myself, or have one copy?”

  “One copy ideal. Download state, configuration, data, run while asleep, upload memories upon awakening. Resulting mental picture retains consistency, continuity, single-threadedness.”

  “I can do all that? With Clacker?”

  “Progress made understanding, configuring, using Trilisk supersedure device.”

  “Oh, I see. Okay. Can you help me out with it?”

  “Possible, achievable, feasible.”

  ***

  Magnus worked on some tweaks in the field for his robots. The variant gravity of the habitat had revealed some weaknesses in the programming. He half wanted to enlist Siobhan to help him with some aspects of fixing the problem and half wanted to stick it out himself. As it happened, Siobhan was fully absorbed in preparing to jump around outside anyway.

  The others were busy looking at the building. The team had climbed to its outer surface to take a look incarnate. The building had entrances on several sides, strange trap-door-like barriers held closed by springs. Each door had four independently moving pieces, each with its own spring, that interlocked together when the door was closed. He half listened to their conversation as he worked.

  “I’m not sure whether this feels more like a pack-rat house or a warehouse,” Imanol said.

  “It could be an antique shop. But I think maybe a house. These aliens obviously like to keep a lot of stuff lying around,” Telisa said.

  “If it was a warehouse, wouldn’t there be stacks of similar items? As far as I can tell, everything here is unique,” Imanol said.

  Maxsym was silent. He had been studying the plant and then switched to searching for bugs, pets, or vermin. He had even mentioned a desire to find live food of some kind. Magnus thought Maxsym would fit in well with the team. He loved being here and wanted to discover as much as he could.

  Magnus checked through the robot views surrounding them. He had twenty soldiers distributed across this house and four others nearby. Five more soldiers had been shuttled from the Clacker along with supplies that might be useful given what they had found: more chutes, smart ropes, and blood stabilizers to keep them healthy in the atmosphere of the habitat. The scouts had started to leap from house to house, moving out as far as a kilometer from their position. So far, none of them had encountered any anomalous gravity fields in the wide-open spaces between houses. Magnus was beginning to think it might be safe.

  Magnus checked on what was going on immediately outside the floating house. He caught a feed from one of the soldier robots. Siobhan and Caden attached chutes to their backs, ready to try jumping from house to house as the robots were doing. Arakaki oversaw their preparations. The enthusiasm of the young ones had spread to Arakaki. The ex-UED soldier actually smiled once or twice.

  Magnus thought about the idea. It seemed like fun, launching yourself out across the air, aiming for houses. And if you missed, surely eventually you could retarget yourself. Especially with the help of the Vovokan attendant spheres, which could nudge them in the right direction. Just in case, Caden had requested compressed air cylinders from the Clacker that could be used to direct them around in the zero-g sky. So why did part of him watch them joyfully preparing and think, someone’s going to get hurt?

  Because some of us have gotten hurt or killed.

  In the end he accepted it because he could think of no better way to move around out there. If they had to make a rope connection every time they wanted to switch buildings, it would take months to move through the habitat. He returned his attention to his own body.

  “Maxsym. Have you learned anything?” Magnus as
ked.

  Maxsym hovered near the Blackvine. “I believe this creature is native to the habitat, or rather, the environ this habitat was made to emulate.”

  “What brings you to that conclusion?”

  “The dark surface of the creature—call it a plant, I guess, though it has means of mobility—”

  “It can move?” Magnus interrupted.

  “Yes. It has a system of fluid sacs, like inflatable muscles, a type of hydraulic movement, that—”

  “Then exercise more caution,” Magnus said, readying his weapon. “This thing could hop on you and strangle you dead at any moment.”

  Maxsym blinked. “Uhm, yes, I suppose you are correct,” he said. Maxsym took out his knife. “I believe this could slice that creature’s tendrils well enough. My analysis indicates they have good tensile strength but are not particularly armored.”

  “Okay, good. Now, you were saying about their origin?”

  “Yes,” Maxsym continued. “Its surface absorbs light at wavelengths that pass through these circular windows. They appear to be matched to each other. I believe these windows pass light needed by the creature, probably for an equivalent of photosynthesis.”

  “Okay, definitely plant sounding, but it can move,” Telisa said. “Looking at its tendrils, I would say it could easily navigate around this place, and probably could stabilize itself easily even in shifting gravity.”

  “Then we should attempt communication,” Maxsym said.

  “Whoa, slow down. Just because it is the only living thing in here—” Magnus said.

  “No harm in trying,” Telisa said. “Analyze the physiology further and come up with some theories as to likely communication modes. Imanol and I will finish looking at these items and see if we can link them to the Blackvine. What are its likely manipulators?”

  “The small tendrils here, they’re probably much weaker, but I think they would also be faster, more dexterous than hands and fingers,” Maxsym said.

  Magnus looked at the Blackvine again.

  No… I don’t think that created this habitat. If it did, we’re overstepping our bounds by letting ourselves into its house and tromping all around while it sits there as if asleep.

  Still, he left Telisa to it. But he made a note to himself to ask her in private later if she was just humoring Maxsym, encouraging open and imaginative thought.

  He stepped over to one of the windows and looked out with his own eyes for a change. Magnus figured the Trilisk was hiding there somewhere, ready to spring its next death trap. The first one had been lame, almost half-hearted. Maybe it had not been the Trilisk at all, just some equipment malfunction or misuse on their part.

  “Shiny,” Magnus sent on a group channel. “I think we’ve made ourselves mobile here. Now we just need to know where the objective is.”

  “Trilisk gone, left, fled, or hidden, obscured, cloaked. Search continues.”

  “Then we’ll search the old-fashioned way,” Magnus said. “We haven’t lost any scouts. I’ll send them deeper into the habitat, and we’ll start exploring more ourselves. Can we produce more scout machines? And perhaps your attendant spheres. Anything to get us more eyes and ears in here.”

  “Agree, assent, concur.”

  “I take that last part back. Not ‘anything’. Don’t make any more copies of us, please.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “How do we capture it if we do find it?” asked Caden. “Do we need it alive?”

  “Well, last we knew, it was in a human body, so we have all sorts of tools we can use to stun or injure it,” Telisa said. “If it has switched bodies again, then we can try what we have. If that doesn’t work, we’ll study its new form and improvise.”

  “But if the team is in danger, take a kill shot or not?” Caden persisted.

  Telisa nodded. “Yes, if we can’t take it alive, we’ll settle for dead,” she said, looking at Arakaki. Magnus noticed their shared look. Arakaki seemed satisfied.

  I think the old Telisa would have mentioned something about making sure they had the right Trilisk, Magnus thought. She still isn’t convinced the whole race is evil. Perhaps her idealism is cracking under the strain.

  “Okay people. Let’s get moving and find our Trilisk,” he said.

  Chapter 15

  Micet worked within a huge space, surrounded by a collection of eclectic equipment. The Trilisk remained in its Terran body. It had set up operations inside a large building near the center of the Scheklan space habitat. Micet had sustained level-four concentration for a long period of time, working on the new body. Nothing resembling the design had yet taken form. Micet was still climbing a long ladder of bootstraps necessary to create a suitable artificial host.

  The Scheklan technology was troublesome. Micet knew it would be sufficient given time. The Scheklan were brilliant enough in their own isolated way. But merging the lifetime’s work of a dozen different Scheklan scientists was always clumsy and annoying. So little was really designed to work together, even though every technology line eventually merged if one traced its ancestry back two or three hundred years.

  Micet expressed level-five irritation at yet another failure of the pieces to function harmoniously. The sharp ridges in the body’s maw threatened to bite off the mouth tentacle for the thousandth time.

  “I thought it eroded my carapace just to survive the Wehhid body. This one, though, is even worse! One mouth tentacle, and it keeps getting injured,” Micet said. Its Terran body had not used its primitive communication apparatus. The broodmates talked using the communicator in their space fold. It was only that repository that had saved them back on the planet of the Wehhids. Though tiny and lacking power, the Trilisk’s personal equipment cache, folded away in another dimension, allowed them to move, to hide, and to speak. Though the technology there was incredibly useful, it was not meant to stand on its own for so long. Micet’s job was to get them something more.

  Keziph heard the complaint, being also to the fore in the insane manner of this host vessel, but was wise enough to remain silent. The two had faced madness until agreeing to pretend they changed stances, even though they could not. Keziph had actually gotten quite good at it, entering a trancelike state when it was supposed to be out of stance. At least this way, they did not have to exist as two minds smashed together almost to the point of merging into one.

  Unbearable! No. I can do it a while longer. Just a while longer.

  Micet remade another adaptor. There were no fewer than six different electronic transmission protocols, three different power requirements, and three different types of storage schemes that had to be joined at this stage. Each family pair joined together required a different adaptor assembly.

  “This is an agony I would not soon relive,” continued Micet. “As soon as we have a new command engine, we should destroy the Scheklan once and for all.”

  Micet finished the adaptor but was so tired that it had forgotten what it was needed for.

  “What’s wrong? This body is so weak it can’t think. How did the Terrans ever reach the stars?”

  Keziph had had enough. It came to the fore.

  “You were responsible for feeding the body this time,” Keziph grated. “The mind is too tired for me to work.”

  Micet started to express level-three apology but noted with pleasure that it should not since it was out of stance. A welcome chance to avoid having to grovel. Its existence had dropped to this all-time low, gaining pleasure from such tiny victories, barely enough to keep going. It sulked in silence and pretended to be submerged.

  Keziph moved the Terran body across the lab and took out a flat plate of food material from a Scheklan spring-doored cabinet. The dry mouth tentacle rasped over it before the bony structures bit in. The material was just enough to keep their vessel alive, though it chafed and coughed with the air sacs as the nutrients were coaxed down.

  The idiocy of acquiring oxygen through the same orifice as required for feeding. Unbelievable.

 
Keziph had found that the food blocked the airway for a shorter time if the mouth tentacle pushed it down forcefully. It was a slow, mind-numbingly boring process that seemed to take forever. Even when done, the body took too long to respond to the nutrient infusion.

  The shared body was sick. They had to finish soon, or it might die altogether. Keziph despised the body so much more than ever before. Surely, here, they found themselves living in the saddest race of creatures in the universe. No carapace, only one stance, and a constant need for care and attention. They had almost died three threes of times simply by forgetting the main liquid staple of its diet. The Wehhid body, for all its oddities, had been able to go ten times longer without drinking.

  Keziph accessed the space fold to check on the status of its Scheklan robots. The mass of machines had assembled centrally and remained fully under its control. It had been laughably easy. The exact things that made the job difficult for Micet were what made Keziph’s task of marshaling so easy. Scheklans, being oblivious to one another and every other being in the universe, did not have any concept of security. Quite the opposite—their every system was as convenient as possible. Each one was a brilliant genius, an island unto itself, an innovator and a trailblazer. Yet they never purposefully shared anything. If they discovered a working system nearby, they might pirate it—or they might set to creating a brand-new one themselves, cannibalizing parts as they went. The Scheklan society was as sad as the Terran’s physiology.

  Among Scheklans, only the dysfunctional took notice of the others. That was perhaps a favorable mutation, a kind of accidental change that allowed one or two of the creatures to coordinate for their race at any given time—the Scheklan leaders, so few and far between.

  Sometimes I’m sure that we are superior only by chance—we did not have to suffer these extreme inefficiencies. Too bad the methane breathers did not either.

  Keziph had suborned four distinct armies of robots, constructed by four successful Scheklan. It had selected varieties with capabilities applicable for primitive combat.