Tiago and the Masterless (Interrogative Book 1)

by Charles Barouch

  "Local. Please access the maker unit via life support. Local. I need specs on sims Three-one-one through Three-seven-seven. We are building an army."

  "No. Bad idea," Audra said. "If the Masterless are fighting the government, then this is all your fault."

  "My fault? I'm not the one invading my ship!"

  "Our ship. Look at the facts. If the Masterless were able to control Nellie and me…" Audra began.

  "Nellie and I. That's a glitch."

  "No it isn't and stop interrupting. If the Masterless can't control the generic sims but they could control both of the modified sims, it means that something in your mods makes us vulnerable. If you make more sims using your technique, you are just adding to the Masterless' army."

  "I know that."

  "What? They why do it? I don't understand you," Audra said.

  "Watch and learn. Local. I need specs on sim Three-one-one. Local. Run him through the diff of Nellie's changes. Local. Instantiate Three-one-one in the maker unit bay."

  "Name for this instance?" chirped the local.

  "Neville. Local. Instantiate a biostasis gun in the maker unit bay."

  "So now it's two versus fourteen. What have you accomplished?" Audra asked.

  "Just watch," Tiago said.

  What they were watching wasn't 3D. It wasn't even pictures. For Tiago and Audra, all they could see was the effect on the atmospherics. In the hallway, the scene was much more visceral. And what they saw, other than Three-one-one consuming oxygen in the maker unit bay, was nothing. No change.

  "Local. Open the door for him."

  "Not connected to the door. Need to be proximate," Local chirped.

  "Can we communicate with him? Local. Open communications to the maker unit bay. Neville, use the local which is sewn into your left sleeve. It can open the door."

  "This is an official channel," Three-one-one said.

  "I am Captain Salazar of the Interrogative, Corporal Neville."

  "Neville is my first name. And I'm a Lieutenant. Dead giveaway, not addressing an officer properly. Stay where you are and I will come and arrest you. If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear," Three-one-one said.

  "Local. Communications off. That went well. How does he have a last name? I didn't give him one."

  "His last name is Used," Audra said. "Same as Nellie."

  "How do you know that? How did Nellie and Neville get last names?"

  "My error," Audra said, unhappily. "I created a glitch with my code. Well, not actually with my code, but that can wait. Ask the local for Nellie's full name. You'll understand."

  "Local. What is Nellie's full name?"

  "Nellie Variable Not Assigned A Value, Of Zero Was Used," chirped the local.

  Tiago laughed until he gasped for breath. It was inappropriate. Their lives were in danger. It would hurt Audra's feelings. Still, he laughed. When he finally regained some control of himself, he took steps to protect them.

  "Look. Neville is in the hallway. He used his local. Now we need to keep him there. Local. Scan Neville Used. He is an impostor."

  "Cannot compare. No access to those areas of the ship's computer," chirped the local.

  "We need a better way to keep track of them. See if life support can tag the individuals."

  "Local. Can we tag the individual sims in the hallway?"

  The display changed. The sim now had their numbers, in glowing green, marking their location.

  "Glad I only added one for now," Tiago said. "Once the Masterless notice him, they'll take him over. He'll be standing with the other team at that point if we have any luck. And we are due some luck. Best outcome, the biostasis gun hits enough of them to re-balance the sides. Worst outcome, one side or the other wins. We can prevent that by adding modified and unmodified sims as needed."

  "A balance of power," Audra said. "What a horrible definition of balance. Look, he's attacking the government sims."

  "Local. Instantiate Three-four-seven, unmodified, in the maker unit bay."

  "Name for this instance?" chirped the local.

  "Quintrell… Used. Local. Instantiate a biostasis gun in the maker unit bay."

  "Local. Open communications to the maker unit bay. Lieutenant Used, this is the Captain. Use the local which is sewn into your left sleeve. It can open the door. You need to guard the maker bay from the intruders."

  "Understood, Captain," Three-four-seven said.

  Tiago watched as Three-four-seven's number moved out of the room.

  "Local. Lock all maker bay functions to my voice only."

  "Done," chirped the local

  "Now we have a little time. Audra, why not kill them? It's only their bodies. They would still be in the computer," Tiago said.

  "Nellie passes for human according to the ship's computer. So do I. So does Neville. If you killed – disassembled – the others, the government sims, that would be fine," Audra said. "You know, as I'm saying it, I can hear how crazy it sounds. Despite that, I feel this way."

  "That little speech, more than the changes to skin and eyes, that's what makes you human. You are irrational and emotional. If we survive this, we should celebrate. Today, Audra Manuel, is your birthday."

  "So, you won't kill them?" Audra persisted.

  "No, you and Nellie and Neville are safe. Safe from me, at least. If I can change topics: We still have very little access to the ship's computer, we might get killed by either of the two feuding sides at any time, and there's still the matter of the dome on the moon."

  "I don't think they killed the voice interface. I think they are draining power and non-essential systems are shutting down," Audra said.

  "How is voice command non-essential?"

  "Between locals and sims, most of the functions are still available. If the other 'missing' functions are all ones that the ship is shutting down for power conservation… maybe, for what's left, voice is redundant," Audra said.

  "The Interrogative is powered by a hydrogen engine. Unless they put a hole in the tanks – an insanely large hole – we have enough fuel to power everything for months. I don't like this theory."

  "The ship has all that power, but the computer isn't the ship. Don't conflate them in your mind," Audra said.

  "Conflate? Is that a glitch? In any case, where are you going with this?"

  "Conflate is a word. You can look it up later, after we fix the power problem," Audra said. "There's hardware that limits the amount of power a device – the computer, the coffee pot, any device – can draw. If you drain power from the engines, you can't draw enough, I agree. But, if you draw from an individual device, the power controls will stop that device from being able to draw more. So, the computer is vulnerable. Besides, it makes more sense to assume that they know how to draw power than to assume they know how to disable select systems on our computer."

  "I agree that if they had such selective control, they could have just killed the atmospherics and let us choke to death," Tiago admitted. "I still don't like the theory. But, let's pretend I accept it. What's your point?"

  "If they are drawing power from the device, there's very few places they could put the leech. We find it. We remove it. We win," Audra said.

  Tiago shrugged. "It's worth a try."

  He took a quick look at the battle. Nellie and Neville seemed to be winning. If he left the life support bay, he wouldn't be able to keep re-balancing the fight. With a shrug, he used the local to open the doors. Audra headed toward the lift and Tiago followed after. If she was wrong, and in his heart he was sure she was, this was folly. The kind that could get them killed.

  Chapter Eleven: Collapse

  Captain's Log: Ship Date 621 continued

  Computer generated slug: Systems compromised...

  Most places the command crew needed to go on a daily basis were lined up so as to be easily accessed from the primary lift tube. The ship's computer -- or at least the primary hardware -- was not near that tube line. Unless a part failed, there was no reason for anyone to
ever visit the core, and plenty of reasons, some paranoid, some not, to make it inconvenient to get there. Even with a hardware failure, the maker unit and the messenger bots collectively made most repairs hands-free. Thinking about that made Tiago realize why the maker unit had some independent intelligence. It would need it if the ship's computer was the thing which needed fixing.

  "Local. Open lift doors. Local. Lift to ship's core."

  To access the rest of the ship, the lift was designed to move horizontally as well as vertically. Tiago found the sideways motion unsettling, which told him the inertial dampers on the lift were no longer working perfectly. He wobbled a little as they stepped out. Audra – who was built with a gyroscope instead of a middle ear – suffered no ill effects. That bothered him for some reason.

  "Local. Lights."

  It was a bare room, twenty feet wide and over three hundred feet long. The walls went up thirty feet or so. It was otherwise empty. If it were not for what lay behind the walls, it would be unimpressive. They began pushing at sections of wall, popping off the ground level panels. Without schematics, it could have been a long process, but careful thought narrowed the possible places to search to a reasonable handful. Power, most likely, would run from a conduit under the floor, over the ceiling, or along the back of one of the walls. As a result, they could ignore most of the panels on the walls.

  The had perhaps a dozen floor level panels open when Audra spotted a power feed. Despite how lucky that seemed, they both knew that a system this critical would have multiple feeds to protect it from having a single point of failure. Since this might be the one that was sabotaged, they stopped popping panels long enough to check it.

  "Local. Power reading on this cable?"

  "Cable reads at 0%," chirped the local.

  "This is a back up power cable. No luck," Tiago said.

  "That's okay, tell the local to shunt primary to this cable. If I'm right about the leech, that will fix everything," Audra said.

  "Local. Make this power cable primary. Local. Set all other power cables to standby."

  "Test it," Audra said.

  "Interrogative. What is your status?"

  Nothing. Audra looked shocked. Tiago wanted to look smug, but he looked worried instead. Being here meant they weren't in control of the fight in the maker unit bay. If that fight had been won, by either side, it was only a matter of time before Audra and he were rounded up. He needed to be wrong.

  "What if the leech isn't on the power cable, but on the core itself?" Audra asked with less confidence.

  "Local. Run a power diagnostic on the core."

  "There will be a delay," the local chirped.

  They stood in the uncomfortable silence and thought their private thoughts. Audra was going through her logic, looking for a flaw. Tiago wasn't dwelling on the recent past. He was trying to plan his next move.

  "Diagnostic complete. Power is working within standard tolerances," chirped the local.

  "Damn. Okay… Local. Tell the core to lock out all the locals unless carried by verified crew. Local. Tell core to transfer bridge to Survey Shuttle One. Local. Open lift doors." Tiago said.

  This time Tiago led and Audra followed. They traveled to cargo bay one. Tiago paused by Repair Shuttle Three.

  "Local. Lock this shuttle. Local. Open the lift doors."

  Tiago ordered the lift to take them to the survey bay. He walked over to Survey Shuttle One. It was a luxury ship compared to the repair shuttle. Audra settled into the co-pilot's chair as Tiago took the pilot's seat.

  "Local. Off. SS1. Make airlock... Belay that. Which airlock is that? I know that Cargo Bay One has airlock one…" Tiago began.

  "SS1. Access ship's computer. Interrogative. Which airlock is closest to Survey Shuttle One?" Audra said.

  "Airlock seventeen," responded the ship's computer.

  "Wait. What?"

  "You made me crew. I have voice command authority. Whatever was done to the ship's voice command wasn't done to this shuttle," Audra said. "Ready to go?"

  "You mean we could have just gone into any shuttle and done this? Why didn't we?"

  "Didn't think of it," Audra said.

  "Interrogative. Prepare airlock seventeen for SS1. SS1. Plot a course to the dome on the nearest moon. SS1. Take us to the dome."

  The shuttle lifted a few feet off the deck, using magnetic repulsion, and glided to the airlock. Once it was outside of the Interrogative, the shuttle pointed its nose down toward the moon and let the weak gravity pull it toward its destination. Braking jets kicked in as the surface loomed in the forward display, and the shuttle gracefully touched down.

  "No vacuum suits," Audra pointed out.

  "No custom-fit suits. Survey shuttles should have suits in the locker. SS1. What's the count of vacuum suits in our sizes."

  "No suits in storage," said the shuttle.

  "I can fix this. Interrogative. Launch RS3 on remote pilot. Land it in the flattest spot within one klick of our position. SS1. When RS3 lands, send a messenger bot to meet it. Audra, we'll have suits soon enough."

  Audra trained Tiago on the basic safety issues involved with trusting your life to a vacuum suit. It was easier than he'd feared, but still theoretical. Without a suit available, he couldn't try anything she described. By the time the lesson was over, RS3 had landed.

  The messenger bot on SS1 was stored in the rear cargo hold. It was able to slip out of the ship without affecting the internal air supply. RS3 didn't have a separate cargo hold, so Tiago had to vent the atmosphere in order to open that shuttle.

  "SS1. Link to Interrogative. Interrogative. Link to RS3. RS3. Open the doors. Interrogative. Link to Maker. Maker. Link to Brainless Maker. Brainless Maker. Build two vacuum suits, model fourteen, to my size specifications. SS1. Seal the cargo bay to separate it from the cabin. SS1. Open access to cargo bay. SS1. Link to MB1. MB1. Go to RS3, collect two vacuum suits. MB1. Return with the suits."

  Talking this way was very like programming on the fly. As the messenger bot returned, Tiago resumed his chain of commands.

  "SS1. Close the cargo bay access doors. SS1. Open cargo bay interior doors."

  Tiago grabbed a suit and passed it to Audra. They were close enough in build that either one could use either suit. Once they were dressed, they entered the cargo bay, sealed the cabin – to preserve the atmosphere – and stepped down onto the surface. For the first time in his life, Tiago stepped off a ship onto a world other than the Earth.

  It was a let down. The surface was dusty, gray, and poorly lit. He was very aware of the risk of puncturing his suit. Ahead was an unknown but hostile group called the Masterless. He had always pictured touching down on a planet very like the one spinning below this moon. He had images of smiling people who were eager to trade technology, goods, and stories. This was like being promised seats at a sporting event only to find out they were in the parking lot, not by the field.

  If Audra had an opinion about the moon, she kept it to herself. Tiago realized he was lagging behind. It took an act of will to stop himself from running to catch up. Vacuum suits are fragile things.

  "I see something which might be an entrance," Audra said over the communications system.

  The dome was less than fifty feet away. Tiago couldn't see anything special where Audra was pointing. To him, it was simply more dome, just like the bit of dome on either side of it. Once they were ten feet away, though, he could see a seam in the material. If that was a door, these Masterless might be much shorter than he expected. The horizontal part of the seam didn't even come up to his waist.

  "We'll have to crawl," Audra said. "Be careful of the suit. The feet and hands are much better protected than the knees and elbows."

  In his head, Tiago was busy redesigning the suit. He knew some fabrication techniques which might make it more robust next time. Part of him wanted to use this excuse to go back to the shuttles and use the brainless maker. He knew that fear of a suit tear was something of an excuse, a way of avoiding the
real, somewhat less rational, reasons he wanted to return. Tiago Salazar was many things, but he wasn't a natural born explorer.

  He knew why the suits weren't better designed, of course. It came down to two simple issues. The first was that the government cut corners. The second reason was that the people who designed the suits knew they'd never be the ones using them. Standing here, in this suit, was quite the design motivation for Tiago.

  "I don't see an obvious way to open it," Audra said.

  "Pretend I'm blind. Describe it to me."

  "I don't understand," Audra said, shrugging. "The dome is roughly 80 meters tall. It is essentially a half circle, making the circumference…"

  "No. Not the whole dome. Just the area we think is a door. Indulge me."

  "The seam marks off a square. Not a true square because of the curve. The base, where the dome is embedded in the surface, is of the same material. I would have expected some sort of reinforced lip."

  "What if you were correct about the lip?"

  "I'm not. There isn't one," Audra said.

  "But if you were correct and you couldn't see one?"

  She considered a moment. "Then this isn't the bottom. Either the surface dust has built up over the lip, or the dome has settled down over time. The door is bigger than we thought."

  "Bigger than you thought," Tiago lied.

  "We have to go back and get digging equipment," Audra said. "There might be an obvious control just below the current surface."

  They went back to the shuttles. Tiago was secretly relieved. He needed to get this resolved and resume control of the ship. If possible, he'd like to get on a better footing with the Masterless. He was curious. There was so much he wanted to learn from first contact. He wasn't, he thought, grasping at a faint hope there might be a way to end this peacefully; every fiber of his being was sure that there was such a way. His only doubt was over his ability to find it.

  SS1 had other basic survey equipment, despite having no vacuum suits. Tiago left Audra to collect it while he considered making two new suits. By the time she was ready, he had abandoned his idea. The thought of an untested design scared him too much. Messing with the sim protocols had let the Masterless get a foothold. With that example in front of him, he wasn't ready to trust his life to another hack at this point.