Roboteer

by Alex Lamb

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Though quite frankly I do not think employing them as a messenger service is an efficient or fitting use for them. These are state-of-the-art suntap gunships. They carry weapons with an aleph security rating. Sending them into protectorate star systems presents an unwarranted risk for this project. Any number of enemy spy cells may take the opportunity to observe them.’

  ‘I am well aware of the consequences, Admiral,’ said Gustav. ‘There is no need to remind me of them.’

  ‘Furthermore,’ said Tang, ignoring him, ‘the message itself is somewhat hard to swallow. An attack on the Prophet?’ He made a sour face. ‘Coupled with your name on the orders, it will not take people long to guess that this has more to do with Memburi than Earth.’

  Gustav had heard enough. ‘If necessary, we shall embellish,’ he said firmly. ‘The Gallies have stolen some of our superior technology for their assassination attempt, thus the reason for our involvement. I’m sure the palace will support us. They have at least as much reason as we do to keep this discreet. And now, gentlemen, let us proceed.’

  He strode towards the strategy room, forcing a pace a little too fast for Tang’s shorter legs. The admiral matched his pace with difficulty, his face getting redder still.

  ‘Then there is the issue of the fleet position,’ he added.

  Ah, the fleet, Tang’s private joy – Gustav had ruined his tidy little rows of ships.

  ‘You have spread us out and revealed our strength before the strike,’ the admiral said bitterly. ‘This will make it considerably harder to launch the big push against Galatea.’

  That was the task Tang had been salivating over for years. It was to be his moment of fame – the victory that he expected to catapult him into the history books.

  Gustav stopped and swivelled to face the shorter man. ‘Admiral, imagine for a moment, purely hypothetically, that the Galateans find a way to interrupt the suntap. What would you do if your fleet arrived in their system and found that your weapons didn’t work at all? There would be no bold victory. In all likelihood, your forces would be slaughtered. I prefer to work from a broad, exposed position than face that prospect. I suspect you do, too.’

  ‘I strongly doubt they could develop a defence like that in such a short time,’ Tang blustered.

  ‘Why?’ Gustav asked coldly.

  Tang’s security rating didn’t permit him full knowledge of what transpired at the remote facility. Thus he had no way to gauge the severity of this emergency for himself. He had to take the scientific assertions Gustav gave him at face value, something he hated doing.

  He regarded Gustav with a loathing he could not disguise.

  ‘As General Ulanu’s assistant, I can assure you that he is fully cognizant of the weaknesses in his position and is ready to accept them,’ Rodriguez put in smoothly. ‘I would suggest that all we can do is assist him as best we can. In any case, you can rest assured that the Prophet will receive a fair and accurate impression of your role in these proceedings from me personally.’

  Tang fixed Rodriguez with a startled expression, as if noticing the disciple’s existence for the first time. His eyes lit up. Gustav could tell the man had spotted a potential ally.

  Gustav had predicted this, though he was surprised by how quickly it had happened. It was inevitable that once those two got together, it would be the most natural thing in the world for them to try to conspire against him.

  Let them, he thought to himself. He was alert to the possibilities, to the extent that he’d started carrying his executive automatic around in the pocket of his ship-suit wherever he went.

  ‘You’re exactly right,’ he told Rodriguez, injecting a little menace into his voice. ‘We are in a state of alert. Thus, as the commanding officer on this project, obedience is all I expect from either of you under these circumstances. But I expect it unconditionally.’

  He fixed each of them with a hard stare. Tang met the look with sullen suspicion, Rodriguez with a pious, scornful smirk.

  ‘Now, let us proceed to the planning room,’ Gustav announced.

  He walked on ahead again, leaving the two of them trotting behind him. As he strode down the corridor, he could feel the spot on his back itching where he was sure the knife was going to go.

  11.2: WILL

  From the moment they left the Fecund system, Will felt uneasy. With every day that passed, the sensation worsened. By the time he was four days into the flight back to human space, it was intolerable. Foreboding churned his guts and made his teeth ache. Sleep became impossible.

  As a consequence he was awake when, on the fourth night, Hugo appeared at the side of his bunk.

  ‘Will,’ he said. ‘I’ve been going over my results and I’d like to talk to you about them.’

  ‘Now?’ said Will blearily.

  ‘Preferably.’

  Will was instantly suspicious. ‘But it’s the middle of the night.’

  He glanced up towards the top of the cabin. Only Amy was on duty, her bunk flickering with visor-light. The others were asleep.

  ‘Please,’ said Hugo quietly. ‘I don’t expect any answers from you, but what I have to say may trigger some of your artificial memories, and that would help my work immeasurably.’ He looked down, as if embarrassed by the admission.

  Will had barely exchanged a word with Hugo since their disagreement in the meeting room. That Hugo was suddenly interested in talking to him now didn’t exactly inspire his confidence. But Will couldn’t just ignore the fact that the man had extended an olive branch of sorts. He’d clearly suffered since being responsible for the deaths of the Earther crew.

  Perhaps Hugo had chosen the night because he was embarrassed to make peace in front of the others. He might not try again. And if Will could convince Hugo of his good intentions, perhaps he could help lobby the captain to turn the ship around.

  ‘Okay,’ he said uncertainly.

  Hugo smiled. ‘This way, then. We’ll use the privacy chamber.’

  Will didn’t feel entirely comfortable as he descended the ladder to the room below. He quickly checked his home node to make sure his memory logs were running properly. If Hugo got weird again, Will wanted the captain to be able to see what had happened for himself.

  Hugo reached the bottom of the ladder and sat on the floor, his back against the wall. Will did likewise. The floor beneath him hummed with the pull of the gravity drive.

  ‘So, what do you want to talk about?’ said Will.

  Hugo hung his head, shut his eyes and spoke. ‘I have been checking and rechecking my data, and I have come to an uncomfortable conclusion. The suntap schematic is definitely incomplete.’

  He glanced up at Will with accusation in his eyes. Will began to wonder if he’d made a mistake in coming down here after all.

  ‘My original assessment of the gravitic-generator control system was accurate,’ said Hugo in a quavering voice. ‘The software that completes it is not there. It is added in from outside at the time of operation.’ He regarded Will expectantly.

  Will wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. ‘So where does it come from?’ he ventured.

  Hugo drew a long, heavy breath. ‘I know what it looks like, but it can’t be true.’

  ‘Well?’ said Will.

  ‘The blueprint makes it look like it comes out of empty space. From natural curvon polarisation patterns. We didn’t know that curvons could polarise. That’s why it took me so long to figure out. I had to advance Galatean science in order to comprehend the supposed purpose of the devices.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ said Will.

  Hugo shot him a look of tortured amusement. ‘Because it would mean the galactic core is broadcasting software patches. Consider it for a moment,’ he said dryly. ‘A black hole thousands of times heavier than the sun. The single most significant object in the galaxy. And we are expected to believe that its total output is being tweaked for our benefit as if it’s nothing more than a cheap house-mast. An im
possible result by all accounts. It’s as if we’re being made fun of!’ Anger flickered back into Hugo’s features for a moment. ‘I have a much better explanation, if you’d like to hear it,’ he added.

  ‘Go on,’ said Will uncertainly.

  ‘I believe that the aliens download the software into the device’s processors at run time. In order for a culture to have access to the suntap, their computers must necessarily come into contact with the lure star first. In doing so, they’re infected with an alien virus, just as we have been. That virus monitors their actions and responds accordingly. Given that we already know the computers of both societies which have the suntap have been compromised, it is relatively safe to assume that this is the general case. And given the relative difficulty of engineering such a virus compared to that of manipulating the galactic core, Occam’s razor would appear to support my argument. Do you not agree?’

  Will wasn’t sure he did. ‘I see where you’re coming from,’ he said slowly. ‘But how can I help you?’

  Hugo nervously tapped his fingers against his lips. ‘If we assume the validity of such a viral strategy, then we must ask ourselves why the Transcended refuse to provide us with the software directly.’ He looked straight at Will.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Will. ‘To maintain control over its use, I suppose.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Hugo darkly. ‘And, by extrapolation, every system on the ship dependent upon it. So, simply put: any civilisation that comes into contact with the relic world is lured by the promise of unlimited power and leaves with their technology under the relic’s control to at least some extent.’

  Put that way, the aliens sounded more than a little menacing. Will wasn’t sure he liked where this train of thought was taking them and still wasn’t clear why Hugo needed him for this exercise.

  ‘Another line of reasoning I’ve followed concerns the remarks you made during our meeting in the Fecund system,’ said Hugo. ‘Let us assume that what you said is true, and that you were not responsible for wresting control of the data feed from me during first contact.’

  ‘Yes, let’s,’ Will muttered.

  ‘The next logical question is why an alien should choose you as a target for contact instead of me.’

  Will frowned. He tried to phrase his next words as tactfully as he could. ‘As I said in my report, because I represented the kind of constructive self-editing they were looking for.’

  ‘But do you?’ said Hugo, his mouth cracking into a slightly unhinged smile. ‘I am as much the product of genetic engineering as you are. Arguably more so. Your mods may be extensive, but they are cheap and unrefined compared to mine. I have a counter-hypothesis. You were chosen for contact because of your interface. Because, being like a machine, you were the easiest to manipulate. Their abuse of your memory processes since appears to bear this idea out.’

  Will’s face hardened. He hadn’t come down here to be told he was some kind of puppet. One more remark like that and he was going to leave.

  ‘And if they chose a living contact on the grounds of pliability,’ Hugo continued, ‘then we have to examine the so-called Transcendeds’ intentions, and regard their story in a somewhat different light, I think. I have to consider the possibility that you are the unwitting and unwilling subject of a very dangerous kind of alien control.’

  ‘Right, that’s it,’ said Will. He got to his feet and set one hand on the ladder.

  ‘I blame myself, really,’ Hugo said, with a sorrowful shake of his head. ‘Had it not been for my eagerness to seek out knowledge, you wouldn’t be in this unfortunate predicament.’

  ‘Thanks for the sympathy,’ Will snapped.

  ‘That’s why I’m sorry for what I have to do next.’ Hugo took a tablet out of the pocket of his ship-suit and thumbed it into life.

  Will’s skin prickled. ‘Do what?’

  Hugo fiddled with the device and spoke breezily. ‘Since I worked out what you’ve become, Will, I have been looking for a lever of some kind to make your reluctant parasite divulge some of its secrets. I didn’t want to damage you, or any part of the ship. Such an act would be counter-productive. Then you provided me with the answer. Your precious nest archive.’

  Will’s hand curled tight around the rung.

  ‘It is an extraordinary device,’ Hugo remarked. ‘Robust enough to last for eons without degradation. Yet now that it is plugged into our computer systems, its somewhat more delicate memory architecture is vulnerable once again. I doubt it would handle power surges well. Particularly if someone routed primary fusion output through the hold patches.’

  Will stared the scientist down. At the same time, he fired a message to the ship’s alarm system to warn the captain and isolate the archive.

  Hugo’s tablet bleeped at him. He smiled. ‘I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,’ he said. ‘I’ve already taken precautions to ensure we won’t be disturbed.’

  Hugo took a deep, ragged breath. Will noticed the man’s hands were shaking.

  ‘You will now answer my questions to my full satisfaction,’ Hugo breathed. ‘Firstly, where is the rest of the suntap code?’

  Will felt sick inside. ‘This is madness,’ he said.

  In the back of his head, he reached out to locate the block Hugo had put over the comms. He found not one block but dozens. Hugo had plastered every software system in the privacy chamber with rerouting patches several layers deep. It would take him hours to find a way through. In the meantime, his interface was effectively paralysed.

  ‘I ask you once again,’ said Hugo, his voice rising. ‘Where is the rest of the suntap code?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Will blurted.

  ‘Wrong answer.’ Hugo stabbed the tablet with his finger. ‘Archive integrity at ninety per cent,’ the tablet said cheerfully.

  Will was horrified. One-tenth of their hopes for winning the war had just been fried into static. He started towards Hugo.

  Hugo twitched a warning finger. ‘No foolishness, please.’

  Will realised what he had to do. If no other device in the room had a link to the rest of the ship, Hugo’s tablet must. Will hurled an emergency command at it to warn the ship. It didn’t respond. He dragged a data model of the device into his private node and started bombarding it with every kind of request he could think of. There had to be some way in.

  ‘For the last time, Mr Monet,’ said Hugo. ‘Where is—’ His finger raised above the screen.

  Will threw himself at the scientist. He grabbed Hugo’s wrist and pinned it back against the wall. Hugo was strong, but Will’s nights in the muscle-tank had paid off.

  ‘What are you going to do, Mr Monet?’ Hugo spat through gritted teeth. ‘Kill me?’

  Will’s soft assault on the tablet finally yielded fruit. The light in the privacy room went red. The radiation alarm sounded.

  Hugo grunted in fury and wrested his arm free. He was about to press the panel a second time when a figure bounded down through the privacy hatch and grabbed his arms. It was Rachel. She swatted the tablet from Hugo’s grasp and slammed him against the wall.

  Ira was the next one through the hatch.

  ‘What in fuck’s name is going on in here?’ he bellowed.

  ‘Just a little negotiation, Captain,’ said Hugo. He managed to sound self-righteous despite the presence of Rachel’s elbow against his windpipe.

  ‘Negotiation?’ Will yelled. ‘This asshole just tried to destroy the nest archive!’

  Ira regarded Will coldly. In that moment, Will realised that the captain didn’t really want the thing on board. He feared it.

  ‘Rachel!’ Ira snapped.

  She released the scientist. Hugo adjusted his ship-suit like a ruffled bird.

  ‘Examine the camera records, Captain,’ he said smoothly. ‘You will see that Mr Monet attacked me.’

  ‘Because you were going to kill us!’ Will shouted. He turned to the captain. ‘He tried to make me tell him things I don’t fucking know!’

  ‘I discovere
d that Mr Monet has the secret of the suntap, Captain, and that he’s not telling,’ said Hugo.

  Will turned back to the physicist and shouted in his face. ‘You’re mad! What’s wrong with the answer in front of your fucking face? Is it so hard to believe the Transcended broadcast code? They can tune stars. They created the black hole that made this whole stupid lobe! What’s the difference between that and the one in the middle of the fucking galaxy?’

  Hugo’s self-satisfied smile dimmed a little. He hadn’t known the black hole was artificial.

  Wild with rage, Will pressed his advantage. ‘Why do you suppose they’re so happy to give the blueprint away, you idiot? Because it’s nothing without their help. Just like the human fucking race! Nothing!’

  Will turned away, his cheeks tingling, and realised that Rachel and Ira were both looking at him strangely. With a start, it occurred to him that the reason Hugo hadn’t known about the black hole was because that detail hadn’t made it into Will’s report on his contact with the Transcended. There had been so much else to say and Will had so little time to prepare it. However, he now sounded more compromised than ever. Ira stared at Will. Rachel just looked sad. Will was speechless. He wasn’t sure he could stand it.

  ‘Listen to him,’ Hugo hissed. ‘He doesn’t even sound human any more. You know what I think? I think there never were any Transcended. The whole story is a lie. There are just the sick, twisted remains of a greedy species who ruined their own star. They’ve been waiting millions of years for something like their own expendable children to come along so they can start the whole hideous cycle again. And Will’s the closest thing they’ve found. That’s why they chose him. And that’s why they’re training him, Captain. They want a whole army of roboteers. Of programmable people they can use to take over human space!’

  Hugo glanced around at the unconvinced expressions before him. ‘Don’t look at me like that. You’re fools if you can’t see it. Fools!’

  Will itched to put a fist through Hugo’s face, but it suddenly looked like Ira might do it for him.

  ‘I’m not afraid to suffer for the truth, Captain,’ Hugo sneered. ‘Our species is at risk, and your ship is carrying the disease that could kill it.’