“Perfectly clear.” Sethe sniffed, picking up the padd.
“So, then, why did you take it into your head to open up quadrants that you knew I was working on? And then, in some fit of stupidity, alter the protocols for them?”
Sethe put down the padd and folded his arms, his tail flicking. “This refers to quads zero six hundred to zero one thousand. I haven’t been anywhere near the zero-buffer sectors since the orders came down from Captain Riker. As you demanded, I’ve been concentrating on the two-series buffer sectors. Feel free to check with Lieutenant Rager on the bridge. She gave me the go-ahead to take those processors off-line.”
Ra-Havreii’s lips twitched. “Don’t cover for yourself. It’s foolish. Admit it, and we can go on with fixing the problem, not the blame.”
“I think perhaps you misread the display,” Sethe said, turning. “Sir.”
The Efrosian engineer swept up the padd. “No, it’s quite clear.” He highlighted two of the data modules, deep-core, low-priority memory spaces that were usually used for redundant storage. “The process functions of these have been altered since I accessed them and certified them errorfree two hours ago. As you’re the only person with clearance to that sector, it had to be you. Why did you alter it?”
“I didn’t alter anything,” Sethe insisted. “Perhaps if the alien—”
“There’s no sign of outside interference.” Ra-Havreii snorted and walked away. “That thing never even came close to this section of the ship’s memory.”
Sethe shot him an acid glare. “It is a very complex system, Doctor. Perhaps it is a program artifact of some sort.”
“Of course it isn’t.” Vanishing out of the room, he laughed harshly, as if such an idea was the height of stupidity. “Because the ship isn’t capable of reprogramming itself.”
FIVE
The strange patterns of subspace melted away as the Sentry vessel dropped back into normal space. The transition was smooth and untroubled; the machine-mind Cyan-Gray had moved through the sector with ease and precision, avoiding any chance of its course intersecting with another of the distortion zones that Titan had run afoul of.
Without ceremony, the AI starship collapsed the extended transit field it had looped around the Federation vessel and cut power to the tractor beam holding the craft to its belly. Cyan-Gray’s shipframe rolled away and came to a gentle stop, holding station off and ahead in Titan’s port forward quarter.
It sent a terse subspace message—“Follow me”—and moved off again, this time at sublight power, threading the orbit of the outermost world of the double-star system.
Titan’s crew warily obeyed, matching speed and course and turning every available sensor grid to gather as much information as possible on their new surroundings.
The star system was nameless, designated only by a string of coding in the Federation astronomical database: NFC 828–90–223. It resembled the Sirius complex, with a large Type A star sharing its orbital space with a far smaller white dwarf. The cold polar light cast across the system touched worlds that were largely balls of radiation-bleached stone, dense chemical ice, or gas giants. Artifacts were visible even at a distance on the surface of some of the planets; the sensors registered huge continent-sized mine works, great open-cast scars that plunged miles into the crust of the airless rim worlds.
Closer in, the populace of System 223 made itself more obvious. There were craft of countless configurations, some smaller than a shuttle pod, others larger than a Galaxy-class cruiser, all bound on errands that took them back and forth between the planets or to drifting platforms arranged at points of gravitational stability.
Cyan-Gray’s shipframe was joined by minnowlike craft, small things that shifted and darted around the AI vessel and its Starfleet charge. The little ships never came close, instead remaining beyond an exclusion zone several kilometers out, but still they danced and followed the pair all the way in, trailing in the Titan’s wake like curious children pacing a strange new arrival. Muon communication beams flashed among the group as they scanned the aliens among them, wondering about their origins and purpose.
In the cargo bay, Zurin Dakal found it hard to keep his attention on his monitors, his gaze slipping back to the view on the wall screen, the live feed from the Titan’s forward sensors. He wanted very badly to be up on the bridge right now, sifting the tide of raw data that was coming in, enjoying the energetic shiver that raced through him every time he found himself on the cusp of learning something new.
Instead, he was here, standing sentinel over the AI’s nexus core, watching for any sign of threat. He wasn’t alone—Lieutenant Commander Keru and his security detail were with him—but Dakal had the distinct impression that he was missing out.
Keru crossed in front of him, and the Cardassian looked up. The Trill officer’s face was set hard. He had seen the man in this sort of mood before, and it wasn’t a circumstance Dakal wanted to repeat.
These were his thoughts as the AI suddenly spoke, the color pattern on its surface flickering. “You,” it said to Keru. “You resent my presence aboard this ship.”
The security chief stopped and studied the device. The look he gave it would have cowed any other being, but it seemed lost on the machine.
“You do not trust me, Ranul-Keru.”
“Don’t use my name as if you know me,” he replied. “And yes, of course I don’t trust you. Your kind attacked my ship, threatened the lives of my crewmates.”
“Those were errors,” said White-Blue. “We are seeking to correct them.” There was a pause, and the lights blinked out of sequence; perhaps it was the outward manifestation of the machine’s mental processes. “The data I recovered during my brief traverse of the Titan’s systems are interesting. I am curious about the dissimilarities between my culture and that of your organic societies.”
“If you’re looking for a conversation, you’re looking in the wrong place,” Ranul told it. “My job is to keep you confined, not to satisfy your curiosity.”
“But you did not keep me confined,” White-Blue answered. “If this was your duty, you failed it. You were also in an error state.”
“It won’t happen again,” said the Trill firmly, and Dakal heard the annoyance flaring beneath the words.
“You demonstrate a sublimated aggressive stance. It is visible in your voice pattern and body kinetics. I have a hypothesis regarding your negative predisposition toward me.”
“Really?” Ranul walked away. “Is it something to do with how your drones tried to kill Peya Fell or trap Dakal and me inside a radioactive wreck?”
“Negative,” came the reply. “It is because of Identifier: Sean Hawk. Species: Human.”
The Trill rounded on the machine, his color rising. Dakal stepped forward, reaching out. “Sir, perhaps you should not—”
Ranul didn’t hear him. “How do you know that name?”
“From your personal records. I read that your companion was terminated by a machine life culture. Species: Borg. Thus, you are ill disposed toward all machine life on a subconscious level.” White-Blue paused. “It is an understandable emotive reaction.”
For a long moment, Dakal was afraid that the officer was going to explode with fury at the AI’s bland evaluation of his lover’s death, but then Ranul took a breath and spoke. “You don’t get to talk about Sean. Ever,” he told the machine, and turned his back on it.
Dakal wanted to say something, but his train of thought was broken as Y’lira’s voice sounded over the intercom.
“This is the bridge. Ensign, are you seeing this?”
He looked back at the screen, and his eyes widened.
Cyan-Gray altered course, slipping into an orbital approach for the fourth world from the primary star. Titan moved with it, Lieutenant Lavena’s deft touch on the helm mirroring each motion of the AI vessel. Ahead lay a planet that resembled less a world than a mass of turbulent crimson. It was a dark and shadowed thing. The sunward face seethed with atmospheric chaos. O
n the night side they approached, great flashes of lightning hundreds of miles long cut ragged slashes in the murk.
Heavy shrouds of lethal radiation bled from the world, thickening the orbital space around it, impinging on the Titan’s low-level deflectors even as it moved at a distance. In the skies over the hellish sphere were more craft like the shipframe but as different from it as Cyan-Gray’s vessel was from the Starfleet craft. They kept their distance, some remaining static, others reconfiguring into structures that could have been weapons. The minnows lost interest and darted away, dipping down into the denser regions of radiation, streaking through it as if they were at play. They left trails of glittering sparks where they skipped off the edges of the atmosphere.
This was the heart of System 223, the thriving core of what considered itself life here. Dominating everything in the orbital zone were multiple moons, drifting and stately, each one bathing in its own unseen funnel of flux energy, rising from the tumultuous world below.
Riker studied the planet on the main screen. If ever a world could have looked like a piece of hell cut away and thrown into the stars, it was this one.
“Extremely high levels of thermionic and other radiation sources, sir,” reported Y’lira from the science station. “It’s putting out frequencies across the whole spectrum, everything from Berthold to Zeta.”
“A Class-Y planet,” said Tuvok.
“Demon-class,” added Vale, studying the readouts on a repeater screen. “I never really understood why they called them that, until now. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Troi glanced up at the Vulcan. “Didn’t you encounter a world like this in the Delta quadrant, Commander?”
Tuvok nodded. “Indeed, during an operation to mine deuterium for the Starship Voyager’s stores. However, that planet was of a considerably smaller mass than this one and of markedly differing composition.”
“Deuterium… Y’lira, do you think we could do the same here, top up our tanks?” asked Riker.
“Negative, Captain,” said the Selenean. “From what I can read of the surface, which admittedly isn’t much, it seems like a largely sorium-talgonite structure. Chief Bralik could give you a better idea, but I believe that if there is deuterium down there, it would be in only trace quantities. However, those planets we passed on the way in, they’re a much better bet.” She hesitated. “Something else I should mention. So far, the scanners have detected no organic life within sensor range, not even preanimate matter. There’s nothing alive in this system except us.”
“Nothing flesh-and-blood, anyway,” said Troi.
Vale frowned. “When Melora first told me about this system, she said the properties of it seemed engineered, almost artificial.” She pointed toward the screen. “Those moons out there. Am I the only one who thinks they look too regular?”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” offered Lieutenant Lavena. “Since we entered orbit, I’ve noted a zeropoint-two-six adjustment in the trajectories of the closest satellites.”
“Tuvok,” said Riker. “What are we seeing out there?”
The Vulcan’s eyebrow rose slightly as he ran a tactical analysis. “Curious. It would appear that Lieutenant Commander Pazlar was correct in her assumption. The satellites are near-perfect spheres, corresponding to one another in mass and dimension with less than a five-percent variation. Their structures appear to be composed of alloys of copper and zinc, iron and carbon.”
Lieutenant Rager turned in her chair. “Brass and steel?”
“Affirmative,” said Tuvok. “They are not moons.”
“They’re space stations,” Troi concluded. “Manufactured constructs. They must draw power from the planet’s raw thermionic flux.”
“Unlimited free energy.” Vale nodded. “The question is, what is it driving?”
“Let’s find out,” said the captain. He tapped his combadge. “Ensign Dakal? Give me a tie-in with our guest, full secure protocols.”
“Confirmed, sir,” came the reply. “You may proceed.”
“White-Blue, what are these constructs?” he asked.
The AI’s filtered voice replied, “These are the FirstGen. The primary iterations of the Sentry. My progenitors.”
“They’re computers,” said Y’lira. “That explains these readings! Electrical energy patterns of great size and complexity, through the entire mass of the structure. At first, I thought it was a power system, but it’s too random, too chaotic.”
“A machine intellect the size of a continent.” Vale blew out a breath. “I have to say that out loud just to get my head around it.”
Tuvok nodded. “It would seem feasible, Commander. To create a thinking mechanism using preduotronic technology would indeed require a structure of comparable mass to these satellites.”
“No organic life,” Riker reiterated. “Machine starships, thinking moons. These… Sentries are a culture made up entirely of intelligent computers.”
“So the question has to be asked,” Troi began. “Who created them?”
“Some believe we created ourselves.” White-Blue’s answer was immediate and insistent. “Our existence, our definition. All that we are and will be.” There was a buzzing pause. “Who created you, Deanna-Troi?”
For the moment, the questions would go unanswered. An alert tone sounded on Lieutenant Rager’s console. “Captain? I have a proximity warning. One of the smaller platforms in a lower orbit is moving up on an intercept course. It’s reconfiguring as it goes.”
“Let’s take a look,” said Riker. “Tuvok? Stand ready at Yellow Alert.”
“Aye, sir,” came the reply.
The screen shifted to show a swath of the Demon planet’s atmosphere and rising over it a drum-shaped construct that was fanning open even as they watched. Another shipframe, a collection of tubes similar in aspect to Cyan-Gray’s vessel, detached from the inside of the platform and pulled away on a plume of thrust, heading away toward the day side. The dimensions of the construct continued to grow and widen as it approached the Titan. Riker glimpsed a forest of manipulators unfolding all along the inner surfaces of the drum.
“Looks like the big brother of those drones we encountered on the wreck,” said Vale.
“It’s still closing,” Rager reported. “Slowing now. Coming to off the bow.”
“Shall I back us off, sir?” asked Lavena.
Riker shook his head. “Hold us here, Aili.”
The construct moved to a halt directly in front of the Titan. Its expansion complete, it now resembled a short length of tube with an oval cross-section. The manipulators within were extended, waiting. Riker was reminded of brushes held in the hand of a painter before the first stroke over a canvas.
“Proceed inside, Captain William-Riker,” said White-Blue. “This drone facility will initiate repairs to the Titan immediately.”
“I’m getting a signal from the platform,” Rager added. “It… it says it wants to help us.”
On the small tactical monitor display on the arm of his chair, the captain saw the pattern of AI ships in the area around the Titan. None of them was in threatening posture, but there were no gaps in the coverage between them, either. He wondered how they would react if he ordered Lavena to do something random, to bolt suddenly at full impulse. After a moment, Riker folded his arms across his chest and glanced at Vale. “Number One. Secure all exterior hatches. Collapse deflectors. Double the security teams at all hull breaches and airlocks.”
“Aye, sir.” Her reply was crisp.
“And when you’re done with that, take us in. Let’s go look this gift horse in the mouth.”
Ra-Havreii stepped to the rectangular window and frowned, placing a hand on the transparent aluminum portal. Beyond it, he could see the curve of the ship’s starboard pylon and the ruin that was the warp nacelle. He hadn’t been inside the torn structure yet, but he had viewed the vid feed from the helmet camera of Ensign Crandall as the crewman undertook an EVA survey of the damage.
His
other hand tightened into a ball. On some level, he knew it was a childish conceit to take the damage to the Titan personally, to anthropomorphize the vessel he served on, as some engineers of his acquaintance did; but it was hard to shake off the sharp dart of resentment he was feeling toward these so-called Sentry AIs. It wasn’t enough that one of their kind had blown holes in the ship, but now they were dismissing any attempt by Ra-Havreii and his staff to fix the damage.
“Do they think we’re incapable of doing it ourselves?” he said aloud, alone in the corridor. No one else heard him grumble.
He understood the concept of wanting to redress the balance for errors done. Some had said that Ra-Havreii himself was doing the same thing aboard the Titan, making amends for a catastrophic engine accident aboard its sister ship, the Luna. Admittedly, the Luna incident was an event that he, as the designer of this class of vessel, felt was uniquely his responsibility. This current matter was completely different.
Star Trek: Titan - 006 - Synthesis Page 11
