Attunga (Tales of the Terran Diaspora Book 1)

by Peter Wood

  ‘Regretfully we’ve not only revealed part of our offensive capability, Thom, but also our presence. It was a battery of broad-spectrum energy beams controlled by the security AI and myself. Wirrin can access the details from his InfoStation.’

  Offensive? Wirrin would have called it defensive. Well, in this case anyway.

  ‘Thank you, Turaku. These are remarkable achievements.’ Akama released his safety harness and headed for the transporter exit with everyone following.

  ‘Turaku, these attacks are bordering on fanatical. I think we should bring all dolphins into the Comet as soon as possible.’

  Everyone hesitated as Burilda spoke. Akama and Gulara nodded then turned to Narn for his thoughts.

  ‘Honoured One, I am in no position to make such a decision, but it is apparent to me that we should follow as closely as possible the advice of our companion intelligences.’ Narn indicated Turaku.

  ‘I agree with you, Narn. With so much happening we’re all behind Turaku. What do you suggest?’

  ‘The likelihood of further hostile action is low in the short term, but rising. I would like to see immediate action.’

  ‘Rising? Again?’

  Akama spoke for the whole group when he expressed his disbelief.

  ‘Not critically, but their determination is obvious. We rate it highly unlikely, but possible.’

  ‘Bring the dolphins aboard as quickly as possible.’

  Wirrin felt like cheering at Akama’s emphatic demand.

  ‘Action initiated. Sonic informs me the dolphins will be dispersed to pod groups and ready for pick-up in five minutes.’

  Five minutes? Turaku must have been in contact with Sonic all the time they were talking. Well of course he was. Poor Calen, he’d be even more stressed at a sudden message for a rush loading. They should be down there supporting him.

  As the group left the transporter and entered the Comet’s control centre Thom noticed a crowd of people leaving. ‘Who were they?’

  ‘Oh, they’re the companions moving to the dolphin transporter modules to be with their respective pods,’ Narn said.

  So many people? The control centre looked as if everyone involved with the Comet was there. Yes, they had to be. It was the safest place in the ship.

  Thom nudged Wirrin’s arm.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Find out if there are any more threats.’ He indicated the InfoStation.

  ‘Me? Turaku and the security AIs are checking non-stop.’

  ‘Use your tricks. You think differently to them. Go on. You never know.’

  Wirrin sat down and linked in. He’d been dying to do this for ages, from the moment when Turaku was so busy and commandeered all connections and he’d been prevented till now by the rapid unfolding of events.

  What was happening? Thirty ferries ready to go as soon as the human companions reached them. No, thirty-one ferries. Where did that extra one come from?

  The Comet’s picofactory was building extras to speed the boarding process.

  Okay, first the threats. He tapped into the Comet’s security with one of his triggers.

  ‘Dingoes! Thom, look at this.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Wirrin flashed some schematics into view.

  ‘They’ve analysed those big drones. Just as well they disabled them. Just one of them could have hurt every dolphin in that gathering.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘They make gigantic sound-waves, nearly three hundred decibels. Just one burst would permanently damage the dolphins’ sound receptors if they were any closer than 20 kilometres.’

  ‘That’s horrible. Don’t tell Calen. Not till the dolphins are all safe. Could Turaku do anything to stop them?’

  It took a couple of seconds to find out.

  ‘He could. He was actually ready. Sound is so important to dolphins he’d prepared contingency plans for every possibility he could think of. The air cover vessels were equipped to vaporise a wall of water in front of the signal so its strength would be dissipated.’

  ‘He knew they were going to do it?’

  ‘No, but he was ready anyway. He’s amazing. Look at all these. He worked out 273 ways they might be attacked by water and had responses for all of them.’

  Wirrin read the list as it scrolled rapidly past: poisons, concussions, explosions, stealth picobots. Stealth picobots? What were they?

  ‘I’ve never even heard of some of these things.’

  Thom was looking at him strangely.

  ‘Did you just read all that? I could only pick out a few things from that list rolling up the screen.’

  ‘You’ll be just as fast after your reading course.’

  That got a dubious look.

  ‘Are there any dangers showing up?’

  ‘Um, not at the moment, and they’re using the highest level of monitoring they can.’

  ‘Are there any more ships close by?’

  ‘Yes. Seventy-four in a 100 kilometre range.’

  ‘And what about the other centres?’

  ‘Ningaloo has sixty-four, and there are 247 at the Great Barrier Reef.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Thom, it’s one of the wonders of the solar system.’

  ‘Do your special checks on them.’

  Wirrin was starting to wonder. Thom seemed almost fixated on the idea that there must be more danger.

  ‘The security AIs are checking them all the time.’

  ‘I know, but the first lot of ships tricked them till they looked more closely.’

  ‘The first? You think there are more?’

  ‘They had backups for the first drones, and when they didn’t work they had another huge backup in space. Three ocean ships isn’t very much compared to those four big spacecraft.’

  Wirrin hadn’t thought of it like that, but it did sound sensible.

  ‘Turaku and the security AIs calculate an eighty-three per cent probability of other resources being involved, but all their searching isn’t finding anything.’

  Thom gripped Wirrin’s shoulders as if to say, ‘Come on, you can do it. Get into it.’

  ‘See, I’m right aren’t I? It needs a different way of looking at things.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They know they’re up against really clever AIs, so they’re doing something to avoid the AIs’ capabilities.’

  Wirrin and Thom both jumped as Turaku appeared beside them without his usual shimmer alert.

  ‘Well thought out, Thom. Keep assisting Wirrin with your ideas.’

  He blinked off as suddenly as he appeared and Wirrin glanced at his steady image talking with Akama.

  ‘Whoo! That’s the first time he’s used multiple images in the same setting.’

  Thom firmed his grip on Wirrin’s shoulders and Wirrin focused.

  Where to start? Thom seemed to be fixated on the ships so that would do. Trace their origins? Already done and too obvious.

  Examine all the people connected with every ship and find any links or references to dolphins, dolphin centres, K74 or other directed habitats?

  Wirrin added idea after idea, some from Thom but mostly his own, and set everything running. What about new information from the AI based on K74? Yes, it might be important. Add it in.

  It was too soon for any response, given the fifty-four minute turnaround time.

  After five minutes he’d added dozens of ideas with no results, or no definitive results. There were billions upon billions of responses.

  Wirrin had a quick look at his search tree. Five per cent of the Comet’s computational power was now commandeered for his queries. That was an enormous amount. It would increase too, as the number of links and references built.

  ‘Space dust! Look how much processing we’ve got going. It just hit 5.3 per cent of the Comet’s capability.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like very much.’

  Wirrin snorted with laughter. Thom needed some basic education about processor power.

  �
��Thom, that’s—’ Wirrin’s words were cut off as Thom’s grip tightened fiercely.

  ‘What’s the rest of it doing?’

  ‘Everything. Running the Comet, the security. It’s linked in with Turaku and the security AIs, and the databases and communications. You know that.’

  ‘Check out what’s happening. Especially with the AIs.’

  ‘The AIs? I don’t think I can do that.’

  ‘With that InfoStation? I bet you can … Ask Turaku.’

  Wirrin didn’t have to. His holo screen cleared and a command menu he’d never seen before flashed into view. A rapid scan of the overview had his eyes goggling. Turaku was giving him the capacity to watch an AI function, almost like reading his mind and body. Things were happening trillions of times too fast for Wirrin to look at anything specific, but he could get a general picture.

  Turaku should be examined first. Wirrin felt as if he’d been given express permission, with the new command menu appearing the way it did. So, what was Turaku doing?

  What did ninety-five per cent of potential performance mean? With the capabilities of an AI, it sounded like a huge amount was happening. Wirrin didn’t know enough about AIs to figure if that was normal.

  Yes, it was. A quick query brought up a simple performance/time graph showing an almost unvarying ninety-two per cent since Comet-Turaku had become aware. An extra three per cent didn’t seem like much.

  ‘Turaku seems pretty close to normal. He …’

  Wirrin broke off and followed Thom’s interest in what was happening on a further section of the display screen where people were grouped with Akama.

  Calen was next to one of the dolphin transporters and talking to a dolphin companion while members of the pod swam into place. He suddenly looked up and waved as if he knew people were watching him, then dived and disappeared. Now that Wirrin was linked to his InfoStation it would be easy to watch and keep track of them. A couple of seconds’ work produced a sub screen following everything Calen was doing.

  ‘He’s all right. He doesn’t look too stressed. What does the graph thing tell you about Turaku?’

  Wirrin wasn’t so sure about Calen. Well, back to the job at hand.

  ‘It says it’s normal for him to be working nearly flat out.’

  ‘Are you sure? He was so busy his image froze twice, and that never happens. With all these things going on he must be doing more than usual.’

  Wirrin changed the scale on the graph and searched the time axis for the two performance spikes he knew must be there.

  Yes, ninety-eight per cent for the first one and slightly more with the multi-spectrum energy beams. He enlarged the second spike section and extra information appeared.

  That was interesting. The performance output was measured with two basic indicators, background and foreground activity. How did they relate?

  ‘Hey! Thom! That’s nothing like normal. He usually only puts five per cent into foreground and all the rest is background. Ever since we landed it’s been the other way round.’

  ‘Is it the same for the security AI?’

  It wasn’t quite, but it was definitely similar. Both AIs were concentrating at an extremely high level.

  The amount of information being processed was amazing, and Wirrin, wondering where it was all coming from, did a trace to find out.

  ‘That can’t be right.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Turaku and our security AIs are working with every AI in Australia and they’re all concentrating the same way, on security work.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Every single one.’

  Wirrin did some more checking and nearly fell off his chair in amazement.

  ‘I don’t believe this. The numbers are too high. They can’t be processing this much.’

  ‘Have a closer look at it.’

  Wirrin turned to see why Thom was sounding so definite.

  ‘Analyse what they’re analysing. Go on.’

  It was a striking phrase.

  ‘But that’s what they’re already doing. I don’t see the point.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. I don’t know how to say it.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘Um! I’m asking you to look at the data, not use it yourself.’

  Wirrin finally understood and was impressed.

  ‘That’s not easy, Thom. I’ve done that with ordinary data, but not data that’s being used by AIs. They do things differently.’

  ‘You’ll work it out.’

  He was looking rather pleased with himself now that Wirrin had grasped his meaning.

  Wirrin searched out the library of analysis programs he remembered using in EdCom and started checking the purpose of different types.

  No good. None of them applied in quite the right way.

  Okay, set up an InterWeb search with the proper parameters.

  Wirrin was relieved when hundreds of results poured in. A closer look showed they still weren’t what he wanted.

  Change the parameters and try again.

  After a number of refinements he whittled the results to a short list of five programs, each with one or more features he wanted, but none with them all. Combine them somehow? Yes, that might work.

  Wirrin set his task going then grunted when error messages about data incompatibility came flashing back. What? Oh yes. A data conversion algorithm would fix that.

  ‘Is it doing anything?’

  ‘Yes, Thom. It’s tracing the data packet routings, then it will look for patterns and anomalies, and then it will check the structure and properties.’

  ‘Well, that sounds good.’

  Wirrin bumped his head back into Thom’s chest and laughed at the stir about his jargon.

  ‘Twit! It depends whether it finds anything.’

  ‘Twit? What’s that mean?’

  ‘Sonic’s been saying it to Calen lately. Something about a bald hairy lion. They were laughing about it a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘Bald and hairy?’

  He rotated his thumbs in Wirrin’s neck muscles then stopped when Wirrin sat up with an exclamation.

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘It’s tracking the data … No wonder they’re all busy. They’re connected with almost every data source on Earth and the information is pouring in like a flood.’

  ‘All the AIs?’

  ‘Yes, Thom, it doesn’t make sense.’

  Wirrin picked a random source and showed it to Thom.

  ‘See this? It’s a database about the old transport vehicles which ran on fossil fuels and it shouldn’t have anything to do with the attacks or the dolphins, but the AIs are processing every single element as if it’s important.’

  Wirrin felt a surge of excitement. Something strange was definitely being revealed. Suddenly the performance graph for Turaku plummeted to just over thirty per cent, steadied, then started rising. A closer look showed the foreground portion fluctuating near twenty-six per cent and the background tasks increasing.

  Wirrin switched to the graph for the security AIs and a similar thing had happened, though with slightly different numbers. The vehicle database information suddenly disappeared for no reason and Wirrin’s startled squeak was interrupted by a warning neck squeeze.

  ‘Everyone’s looking at you.’

  They were too, and not just looking. Akama and Turaku were approaching.

  ‘Well done, Wirrin. Turaku informs me you’ve just assisted the entire Australian AI community.’

  Wirrin wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but he didn’t have to because Turaku started explaining.

  ‘Our thanks to both of you. Your analysis task resolved the priority trap which had ensnared us and provided a means of escape.’

  ‘Priority trap?’

  Wirrin had a good idea of what that might be but he listened carefully as Turaku explained.

  ‘Yes, the information in the data sources we access was modified so that every element was tagged with a priority signal linked to dolphins and security. Th
at made it vitally important to look at every element regardless of its significance. It was very cleverly done.’

  ‘You mean every single bit of stored information on Earth showed up as a threat to the dolphins?’

  ‘In a way. It also indicated a connection that needed following.’

  ‘So Wirrin saves the day.’

  ‘Indeed he does, Thom.’

  What a dingo head! Wirrin started to say it had all been Thom’s idea, but again the display on his screen changed, this time to the familiar overview of Shark Bay with three red markers showing. Now what?

  ‘The backup threats you were concerned about. With proper attention they were easily revealed and will be quickly dealt with.

  ‘Honoured One, the Comet is about to move to Denham Sound.’

  Already? Had 1400 dolphins been moved into the Comet so quickly?

  Wirrin saw that it had taken just over twenty minutes and realised he’d lost track of time while concentrating at his InfoStation.

  Sonic and Calen must be aboard. Yes, there they were in Sonic’s module, Calen watching and Sonic working at his special underwater InterWeb console, keeping in contact with the Earth dolphins. Attention switched to the Comet’s big real-time display screen showing the external view as the convoy moved rapidly south.

  Wirrin took in the various accompanying aircraft. Their number had built and he asked Turaku about them.

  ‘Is anyone tracking them? They haven’t got stealth like the Comet.’

  ‘They do have a degree of stealth but it’s all turned off to add an element of misdirection to the strong attention we are now receiving.’

  The main section of Wirrin’s holo changed and showed a display of fifty-three space vessels and satellites scanning them from orbit and more moving into range.

  ‘Our unprecedented energy expenditure has brought worldwide scrutiny and concerted attempts to understand what happened.’

  Wirrin hadn’t given a thought to the effects on the rest of the world. He’d been much too occupied.

  ‘Have we explained anything to them?’

  ‘That an out-of-control space vessel was destroyed to prevent the annihilation of the Shark Bay marine environment as well as the above-ground facilities and people at Monkey Mia, Denham and Carnarvon. They don’t understand how and they won’t be told.