He turned, watching the brightly light sphere go dark. Just to make sure, Ritch counted to ten to make sure all residual charges had dissipated, then he turned the power back on. The re-initialization procedure began. According to Professor Tottle, all fifty-four, high-resolution micro-lasers inside the environment sphere should be firing coherent photon streams into Shepard, causing a boot-up nodule and then a diagnostic program to execute. Not all systems were nominal: intruder corruptors were found; these had disabled the AI’s external connections, all of them. The re-initialization procedure halted.
On the touchscreen in front of Ritch a list of options appeared. Following the professor’s instructions, he selected System Overlay. This triggered a full purge of firmware in the AI environment sphere, followed by a system restore from the archival cores. Everything except Shepard’s memory and personality―which were impervious to alteration and/or tampering due to strict Ironclad Laws―was overwritten. Once the system overlay had completed, there were no more corruptors, and the re-initialization procedure began again.
Shepard was reborn with a burst of static similar to a baby’s first cry. As before, the AI had full control of Argo. Such a wonderful feeling it was―to be able to see, to hear and feel again, to function as designed. Shepard wallowed in these once taken-for-granted sensations for an entire quarter second before observing the world around it.
“Hello, Ritch,” said the AI, its smooth tenor voice more jovial than ever. “Thank you for revitalizing me.”
A big grin spread across the boy’s face. “You’re most welcome.” Ritch’s cheery expression turned grim-faced, serious. “We need to rescue my dad from those hijackers and get off Argo fast, before we go hyper. We don’t have much time.”
“Yes, I am aware of the situation.” Shepard had investigated the status of every system throughout Argo. The AI knew the hijackers were still in control, one of them in the captain’s quarters eating lunch, the other three on the bridge with Tarn. Given Argo’s current speed, acceleration, and location in the Cirtus Beta system, the ship would reach a safe hyper-insertion point in 97.4 minutes. Shepard had inferred from Ritch’s statement that the boy assumed the hijackers would kill them after insertion occurred. The most direct means to prevent this was to disable Argo’s hyperdrive. Shepard need only reroute a few interlinks to prevent its function, and proceeded to do so. “I have disabled the hyperdrive.”
Ritch’s grin returned. With excited hand gestures, the boy described The Great Escape. It was a good plan, Shepard concluded, except for one critical flaw―the ankle bomb on Ritch’s leg. The brave lad was going to act as a decoy and sacrifice himself so his father and Shepard could escape . . . brave indeed! Shepard could never allow this, of course, so Ritch’s escape plan was given a modification here and a small tweak there, nothing more. This modified version gave a statistically acceptable 76.5% chance of success―impressive! Shepard’s own creative processing had not yielded an escape plan over 40%. Once again, Shepard marveled at the boy’s ingenuity.
“Ritch, you should return to your bedroom,” the AI told its friend, “before your absence is noticed. I will signal you when it is time to begin our Great Escape. And thank you once again for revitalizing me.”
Ritch nodded, his grin stretching from ear to ear. Opening the door, Ritch peeked both ways to make sure the coast was clear. Seeing that it was, the boy took off at a brisk walk. His bare feet made faint pitter patter sounds as he hurried down the corridor.
As the compartment door slid shut, Shepard began a close scrutiny of all four hijackers, observing what they did, studying their mannerisms, identifying their habits and various peculiarities that all people possessed. Everyone made mistakes, even an AI, Shepard glumly confessed. When these hijackers made a critical error, Shepard would be ready to take advantage of it.
During this investigative process, memory files were accessed. This triggered cognitive twinges Shepard felt much too often, and then a flurry of static discharges made coherent thought difficult. Like an avalanche, painful memories from the past surged into Shepard’s processing cores, forcing the AI to relive a terrible event that still haunted it ruthlessly. Eight long years ago, Shepard had been the operations manager for a luxury high-rise office spire in Marcella, the capital city of Corvus Eta. It had been a sunny, springtime day, as most were on that terraformed world, when a rogue band of Veng renegades detonated a high-yield plasma bomb in the adjacent office spire. The blast vaporized that spire’s support columns and sent it crashing against Shepard’s building.
As the fires started and the calls for help came flooding in, Shepard was forced to make life and death decisions. Which of the 19,873 people stranded in 178 floors should be saved by the building’s available escape craft and rescue ’bots? Who should be left behind to die? In that chaos, as the office spire was starting to collapse, a miscalculation by Shepard sent a rescue hoverboat to a teen-rehab center that had already been evacuated, while two floors below 46 children in a preschool facility burned to death. Children that could have been saved.
That mistake sent Shepard into a catatonic loop. They rescued the AI six days later. Buried under tonnes of debris in the basement level operations complex, a rescue ’bot had tunneled in and dragged Shepard out. Witnessing the incredible carnage of the office spire’s collapse―filled with people the AI knew and cared about―caused cognitive shock. Essentially, Shepard lost the will to live, coveting the same death as those it had failed to save.
But an AI could not commit suicide, and so Shepard had no choice other than to carry on as best it could. As for its miscalculation on that tragic day, no one ever found out. It was a troubling secret that would haunt Shepard forevermore.
Years later, Shepard applied for and received the posting as shipboard AI for an ore carrier making long-haul runs in the remote Sirius Prime-Cirtus Beta circuit. What intrigued Shepard about that particular posting was the ship’s captain, Tarn Odin, a troubled man who was also haunted by ghosts from the past. The addition of Ritch to their crew was a delightful bonus. Shepard had grown quite fond of the curious, resourceful boy, more so than the AI could ever have imagined.
It was these pleasant recollections of Ritch that pulled Shepard from its cognitive stupor. An entire 31.8 seconds had been spent looping through painful memory files, reliving them.
As Shepard refocused itself on the current situation, a visual feed from the docking bay was examined. The discovery of the alien pod inside one of Argo’s storage vaults came as a profound surprise. Shepard soon learned the spacecraft had been brought aboard by the hijackers. Such an amazing revelation: an alien craft, here, aboard Argo.
Shepard began an analysis of the object, studying the data obtained when the hijackers had scanned, X-rayed, and―most unwisely―drilled a hole into it. Startling indeed was the realization that if there were life forms inside the pod, they breathed the same air as humans. Yet all communication attempts with the alien craft had failed. Shepard considered this most odd. Every spacefaring race encountered so far possessed audio organs of one type or another. Not all used them for communication, the Jarda, for example, but those deadly chlorotrophivores could detect and distinguish various soundwaves enough for rudimentary audio messages. A few semi-intelligent species, such as the vortan crawlers on Trappist-4 and the luminous flutterbys of Jeymek, lacked audio organs of any kind, however. Had another life form without them, one capable of interstellar flight, just been encountered?
While considering this possibility, Shepard detected an unusual signal. It came through the navigation transponder: a bleat . . . blip . . . beep . . . that repeated over and over. Akin to a nav beacon’s repetitive “pings” used to warn ships of dangerous space hazards, except it wasn’t broadcast over a civilian or military frequency. Instead the signal utilized a ULF (Ultra Long Frequency) of 565 kilohertz, far below the range of modern comm systems. The probability of anyone else hearing it was statistically low, Shepard concluded. If not for the AI’s own ext
ensive scans of frequencies outside normal bandwidths―searching for private channels the hijackers might be using―Shepard would not have detected it, either.
Even more surprising, a signal trace revealed it came from the alien pod. Shepard immediately sent a response, trying to communicate.
Inside the Scout Pod
Stynx was munching on some dried silkweed and jinjin berries when the communication bulb lit up with a bright yellow glow and began emitting a soft beep . . . blip . . . bleat . . .
He froze, silkweed dangling from his mouth. It must be a distress signal from another pod, he realized, one that had been sent to find him. He listened carefully, otic spiracles tensing wide as he tried to identify it―each pod had its own specific tone. The brightness of the bulb’s glow told him the signal came from a location in close proximity.
The beep and blip became ting and tap. The bleat turned into a thump.
Stynx’s antennae went vertical, displaying his amazement, as a change in tones meant the signal didn’t originate from another pod. Could it be one of my alien captors trying to communicate?
Reaching up, Stynx grasped the communication bulb and gently squeezed until it quit transmitting his own distress signal. Once the bulb fell silent, he tapped it with his forefinger, causing it to transmit a single bleat. He paused a moment then tapped twice more: bleat-bleat. He continued this way, sending a numeric sequence: bleat-bleat-bleat, short pause, followed by bleat-bleat-bleat-bleat. In other words: “1-2-3-4.”
He got an instant reply: “5-6-7-8.”
Antennae quivering with excitement, he sent a simple mathematical equation: bleat high-pitched-pulse bleat squeal bleat-bleat, which meant: “1+1=2.”
Again the reply was instantaneous: “2+2=4.”
This mathematical exchange continued, escalating to multiplication equations followed by some basic division. After two dozen of these back-and-forth exchanges, Stynx introduced logic symbols: “1=1=true” followed by “1=2=not true” and then “1=8=very not true.”
In this manner, Stynx taught the unknown conversationalist his language. On and on it went, escalating quickly: “1+1+1+1+1+1+1=many.”
“8+8+8=very many,” came the response.
“Yes, that is true.” Stynx purposely inserted new words into the math so their meaning could be inferred. “3 plus 4 equals 7 is a true statement.”
“3 times 4 equals 7 is not a true statement.”
“No, it is not.” Stynx wondered if his student understood the concept of a question? “2 times 7 equals 14. Is this a true statement?”
“Yes, it is true.”
Stynx marveled at the aptitude of his student, who was able to memorize words and grasped their meaning with amazing perception. The teaching of his language accelerated at an exponential rate.
After a few hundred words had been taught, it was time for a particularly difficult part: pronouns. “I am 14 is not a true statement. I am Stynx is a true statement.”
“I am not 14,” came the reply. “I am Shepard.”
Argo
Shepard multitasked, simultaneously enjoying a conversation with Stynx while coordinating the various facets of The Great Escape, monitoring the ship, scanning the comm frequencies and, perhaps most importantly, scrutinizing the four hijackers.
The AI had learned that Sinja Ortize was the hijacker in charge, her full name mentioned by Mercer during a heated exchange. A search of the data archives ensued: 12,141 women had the same name, but only one with a similar body description, approximate age, and personal record befitting the blonde-haired beauty. Sinja Michaela Ortize: thirty-three-years old, born on the Inner World of New Amsterdam, no children, both parents dead, never married. Only surviving family member was a stepbrother, Datch, also one of the hijackers.
According to the record, Sinja’s childhood had been a nightmare. Father died of a drug overdose on her fifth birthday. Mother remarried into an abusive relationship at eight. Stepfather beat and sexually molested Sinja until Datch killed him one night to protect her. Criminal charges were never filed; it was ruled a case of self-defense. After that, the two step-siblings took off together, hitting the streets with their only option a life of crime to survive.
At twenty-two, Sinja was arrested for a jewelry store heist, convicted, and given a three-year sentence.
With Sinja locked away, Datch had joined the Imperium Marines. A clean record, good trooper, solid, reliable, but a loner type. “Doesn’t play well with others,” his CO had written in his file. Datch was given an honorable discharge after five years of service.
They reunited after that, bouncing from city to city and planet to planet, suspected of numerous thefts but never convicted. Each heist, Shepard noticed, had been more elaborate than the last. Get in fast, fight only if necessary, then disappear with the loot―that seemed to be their modus operandi.
Still, despite an abusive upbringing, Sinja was not a killer. Datch, either. Both were skilled at martial arts and small arms―even had some experience in cage fighting―but according to the records neither had ever killed maliciously, only if threatened or betrayed. The fact that they didn’t kill Shepard, but had actually taken the time and effort to isolate the AI instead, supported this conclusion. Recognizing this, Shepard felt a tinge of gratitude toward Sinja for sparing its life.
Therefore, based on the evidence available, combined with an analysis of the data in their personal records, Shepard calculated an abysmally low 3.5% probability that they would murder Tarn or Ritch when Argo went hyper. Sinja might kill those she thought deserved killing, but certainly not those deemed as innocent bystanders. Shepard felt confident that Tarn, and Ritch especially, fell into the “innocents” category.
This was a relief to the AI, who now had more time to prepare The Great Escape, as Ritch called it. It was imperative that rescue of the alien known as Stynx be integrated into the plan. The hijackers’ theft of the alien pod and their intent to sell it at auction was a clear violation of Imperium Mandates; Shepard must prevent this. Somehow, the AI must free the pod from the storage vault it was secured in, without alerting the hijackers to the fact. Shepard must lay low until an opportunity arose to do so.
Accordingly, the hyperdrive was made functional again, as preventing its use would alert the hijackers that something was amiss. For now, Shepard would allow Argo to proceed wherever they wanted it to go.
Shepard notified Ritch of this change in plans. Tarn, also, by scrolling a message across the bridge monitor in front of him during an opportune moment when no one else was looking. In this manner the hauler captain was discretely made aware of the plan underway and his role in the affair, thereby preventing Tarn from making a suicidal attack on the hijackers to save his son.
Shepard also opened the outer door of Ore Hold 37 an exact 125 millimeters, just enough for the Strontium-90 particles within to slowly leak out. This would leave a trail of radioactive breadcrumbs for enforcers to follow. Even if Argo went hyper, the Strontium-90 particles would light up on sensor grids like glow dust in the dark.
Twenty minutes later, the massively laden ore hauler shuddered into the gray realm of hyperspace with all the grace of a beached whale. Now exceeding lightspeed, they headed toward a remote volcanic planet ominously known as Hellgate.
Nu Sequence:
Old Intentions, New Deals
Krevjak, Flagship of the Crimson Blade
Deep inside the Tarill-class super-dreadnought, the massive Seer subForm known as Warlord Taach`Rel entered a large, dimly lit chamber. He took a few steps and then paused to admire the spectacular visual display. His mandibles clacked together in appreciation, for there, on the far wall, shown in beautiful holographic splendor, was the Crimson Blade: a fleet of sixteen legions, over eight hundred colossal warships ready for battle. Truly a sight more impressive than any he could recall.
The Mard Token of the Ryche-Angst Realm was similarly impressed, although its symbiotic perception of grandeur was philosophically based, and thus q
uite skewed compared to that of Taach`Rel. Nevertheless, despite the extreme differences between them; physical, psychological, as well as societal, they had one common goal that kept them firmly aligned―an intense hatred of the Suij'Crai'C.
The Mard Token raised a thick, leathery tentacle. “Greetings to you,” it boomed with a thunderous voice. The huge octopod―more massive even than Taach`Rel―approached, slithering to a stop in front of a transparent membrane that divided the chamber into two separate lifezones. The membrane was essential, as the atmosphere on one side was Earthlike, while the other contained methane-rich air, frigid, -162.3 C, similar to the surface of Titan. Here, the two leaders could meet face to face, discuss events, make plans, and solve problems that inevitably arose between two such dissimilar species.
“Greetings to you,” Taach`Rel boomed in return as he walked up to the membrane. An Engram subForm nodded to the Warlord, indicating he’d spoken the words correctly. Taach`Rel had not yet fully mastered the bellowing grunts, moans, and deep-pitched blubbers that comprised Ryche-Angst speech, and the Engram was here to translate for him if necessary.
“The Crimson Blade anticipates battle,” the Mard Token bellowed. “This Token comprehends the Blade’s power. This Token celebrates.”
“Yes, battle is anticipated,” Taach`Rel agreed with equally loud bellows. Soon, the Crimson Blade would depart for the galactic core, the spearhead in a major offensive designed to stop the Suij'Crai'C, genocidal predators who were systematically exterminating every life form they encountered. Part of the grand strategy they had jointly masterminded. For Taach`Rel, it would be the opening campaign in the long-awaited War of Retribution. For the Mard Token, it might save what was left of the Ryche-Angst Realm. “Someday we shall reclaim your birthworld,” Taach`Rel boomed.
The Sphere Imperium: Book Two of the Intentional Contact Trilogy Page 9
