Vigilante

by Laura E. Reeve

  Sewick and Wescott looked subdued; Barone looked down at his boots. Dokos folded her arms and her face took on a not-my-business expression.

  Sewick was the one who eventually answered. “We figured that if all of us had to haul around our ball—our advisers, per se, then so should Barone.”

  “What?” She raised her eyebrows. Barone’s “ball and chain” was Minoan.

  “I’ve requested, through my superiors, a Minoan adviser,” Barone said. “I was told that one might be sent to assist us.”

  What? Rather than uttering another inane question, Ariane shut her mouth. Of everyone here, she might be the only one who had experience “negotiating” with Minoans. Do we really want them here?

  “We’re stymied; the symbols that we’ve found in these ruins are beyond us. It’s impossible to interpret completely alien symbology without a common reference like the Ro setta Stone.” Barone used measured tones, sounding like a man who picked his words carefully, giving weight to every syllable.

  “And you think the Minoans might have a common reference? They might know something about these Builders?” Ariane followed the convention of using “Builders” for the inhabitants of this moon, because “aliens” was no longer specific enough.

  Barone nodded.

  “My biggest concern is whether you’re going to give them access to the artifact,” she said.

  “They haven’t asked for reports on the artifact. I doubt they feel threatened. Their monopoly on buoy production is safe,” Barone said.

  “What do the other contractors think about a Minoan adviser?” She included Sewick and Wescott with a wave of her hand. “For instance, the subs investigating the artifact are mostly Autonomist, but I think two researchers come from a Terran company.”

  Wescott acknowledged her assessment with a bow of his head.

  “We’d like the best of both worlds, of course. We’d like to get information on the Builders from the Minoans, yet have the Minoans stay out of our way.” Sewick surprised her with a conciliatory tone. “And so far, Barone is right: They’ve stayed out of our way. The Minoans have expressed no interest in the artifact. They haven’t even asked for access to the video coming from your bot.”

  Apparently, their rebellious bot, which was stuck on the artifact, was still working. Ariane wasn’t surprised that it was still recharging its batteries and operating, but she hadn’t expected it to continue broadcasting. Matt would want the bot back eventually, because it was property of Aether Exploration, but he didn’t have that kind of control over other research. Aether Exploration got a say in who managed the G-145 pie, not in how the pie should be consumed—or perhaps how the pie was baked? Okay, the pie was a bad metaphor. Basically, she didn’t have the authority to arbitrarily change research decisions.

  “What makes you think the Minoans will send someone to help? They’ve been pretty picky on how they’ve ‘helped’ humankind in the past.” Perhaps she should remind them of the chaos the Minoans had created upon first contact with pre-Terran Earth.

  “Come. I’ll show you what they want.” Barone gestured toward the airlock down at the end of the tube. Ariane walked beside him and everyone else trailed behind. They were going downhill and underground; she stepped cautiously in what seemed about three-quarters standard gee.

  Everyone was silent as they cycled through the airlock and when she looked at Barone questioningly, he winked. Then the site-side doors opened.

  “Oh.” Her mouth fell open and she tentatively stepped forward onto a honed hard surface that had irregular opalescent striations. She stood under an arch of the same material.

  “Not what you expected?” Barone asked.

  “It’s so—so beautiful.”

  “That. That is what the Minoans are after.” Barone pointed to her, then to the nodes installed on a thin metal structure built inside the arch. “Your reaction. The Minoans are more interested in our reactions to these ruins, than in what we’re examining.We’re required, by our contracts with them, to deliver all sorts of observational data—but data of us, not of the Builders’ artifacts, materials, or engineering.”

  She barely heard Barone’s words as she stared around the large, glittering hall. She felt as if she had stepped inside a jewelry box carved of translucent semiprecious stone. The hall was rectangular and at least twenty meters by ten meters in area, lit by glowing designs on the ceiling.

  When she and Matt first gathered their data using Aether’s Touch, they’d determined that there were artificial structures under the surface of Priamos. As second-wave prospectors, they’d only had the use of telebots and near-surface scans. They could determine the size of the upper-most structures, but they hadn’t landed on the moon surface. Neither had the original Pilgrimage exploration crews, who were technically the first wave of prospectors. Now that the Beta Priamos station and elevator were built, researchers had swarmed onto the surface.

  “You’ve pressurized the structure, and installed scrubbers and oxygen generators.” She should have noticed this earlier, but she’d been enthralled with the polished semiprecious stone pillars inlaid with metal and glowing materials.

  “Ms. Kedros, we need to start using that matrix. There’s no time for tours right now.” Sewick stepped up and grabbed her elbow, causing a twinge in her ribs. He started steering her through the long hall between two rows of columns.

  She gingerly pulled her elbow away and reluctantly walked beside Sewick. She hoped she’d have time later to explore the alien artifacts and structure. Somewhere, she thought jealously, a VIP was getting a full tour. It’s probably that bastard Parmet, with the homicidal redhead who claims to be his wife.

  Maria Guillotte was showing an input device to State Prince Isrid Parmet, his son, Chander, and his wives, Sabina and Garnet.

  “Look at this, Dad.” Chander was having fun at the sloped console, holding his hand in front of each of the large symbols to watch a holographic symbol extend. Once the symbol hovered above the console, almost touching his hand, Chander could rotate the symbol by tilting his hand left, right, up, and down.

  “You’re sure it’s all right for him to play with this?” Garnet asked anxiously, looking up at the symbols that appeared on the wall above.

  Chander frowned at Garnet’s words, but became quickly distracted and enamored by another symbol. Sabina grinned as she watched her son; Parmet was also happy to see Chander’s sullenness and ennui washed away.

  “Don’t worry, this console connects to read-only information archives. The Builders used lattice storage, and their versions of several crystal vaults are installed behind this wall.” Maria also added the somaural signal of no physical harm possible. Chander wasn’t watching, but Garnet relaxed. Garnet rarely projected, but she was adept at reading somaural signals.

  “We can’t access or understand their information?” Isrid watched the same set of symbols display after each of his son’s attempts. The symbols seemed to chide, giving him the feeling of an error message.

  “Sorry, not that easy, SP. This isn’t a v-play,” Maria said. “It’ll be a long time before we can hope to understand any alien symbols. As for this terminal, we can’t begin to know the security protocols. It might require voice or DNA keys.”

  “How long do you think it’ll take?” Sabina asked, while her hand flickered, How long will you be here? Sabina hid her somaural question from Garnet and Chander, but not from Isrid.

  “Years, I expect.” Maria ignored the additional somaural content of the question, just as she had ignored Sabina’s earlier signals. “We’re lucky the Builders didn’t create multipurpose interfaces, as we’d design them. They seemed to intend each input console to work with one particular system, which has helped us enormously. For instance, we can play with this console forever, knowing that it won’t affect other systems in this complex.”

  “That’s why you were able to get power and environmental systems online so fast?” Isrid asked.

  “I’ll show you the contr
ols to those systems.” Maria led them deeper into the complex, through strangely angled halls that were too tall for humans. “Everything in this complex is efficient in its power usage, and it’s the efficiency we want to understand. Otherwise, their generation of heat and electrical current was pretty standard. They used a nuclear fission reactor and the fuel had decayed to where it was unusable, but the shielding and thermal conversion materials are outstanding. We’d like to study them more. As for getting a working reactor, the team mimicked the fuel form factors and experimented with isotope mixtures and refinement to get the right neutron flux. After months of work, the combined research team managed to power the environmental systems, to include pressurizing the complex with an oxygen-nitrogen mixture.”

  “Were they able to date these structures using the fuel?” Isrid asked.

  “That would assume we knew the original ratios of isotopes in their fuel, but we don’t. It gives us broad brackets, yes, but we’re looking at how the entrances became buried and the pitting of the covering surface matter to make more accurate age estimates.” Maria paused for effect, allowing the dawdling Chander to catch up with the adults. “We think this structure could have been built between ten and fifteen thousand UT years ago.”

  “Wow.” Chander stroked the polished front of the nearest support pillar. “It doesn’t look that old. Everything’s so clean.”

  Both Garnet and Sabina smiled at Chander’s comment.

  “That’s very perceptive, Chander,” Maria said, “because they did clean out all atmosphere and organic matter. On purpose, it would appear, when they pulled out of here.”

  “Can’t we be more precise?” Isrid asked. “That’s a five-thousand-year window.”

  Maria glanced around at the floors, walls, ceilings, and lighted panels. “We’re still analyzing the alloys and composites they used. Many of them aren’t made from materials local to this solar system—that makes it almost impossible to date. Also, without atmosphere or organic matter, referential methods using oxidation or radiocarbon ratios are out, even if we had the hope of finding references.”

  “Not much to go on, but you could use . . .” Isrid’s voice trailed away as he thought through the scientific dating methods used in the Sol system. Every method he could think of was referential to defined material, within the solar system, of known age.

  “Excuse me, SP.” Maria signaled that she was getting a local message in her ear bug. Her communication paraphernalia was Autonomist, meaning it was higher quality and more reliable than Terran technology, which irked Isrid.

  “I’ll be right there,” Maria said, pressing her jawbone to activate her implanted mike.

  With a wry smile, she handed Isrid her slate. “I’m sorry, SP, but I’ve got an important meeting with the prime contractors. There are maps on the slate, and the areas allowed for visitors are clearly marked.”

  Maria nodded to his wives and son. She walked away with a free stride that stretched her long legs, her medium ash-blond hair bouncing about her shoulders.

  Sabina drew close to Isrid’s side and they both watched Maria walk away, until she turned at the end of the corridor.

  “She’s distant.” Sabina had a scowl on her face that caused her lower lip to pout. Her fingers flickered and said, Inappropriate behavior for a lover.

  Garnet rolled her eyes at her co-wife’s comment. “She’s busy, Sabina. She’s being professional.”

  Sabina looked up at Isrid with a cocked eyebrow, so he added, “I’d agree.”

  Sabina continued to express displeasure, a well-practiced projection for her, as she followed her son. Chander was down the hall reading notes posted by the archeological team.

  Isrid had lied. He was as disturbed as Sabina by Maria’s behavior, but not because he felt slighted. Maria was hiding something. He looked up to catch Garnet observing him. She nodded, and walked after Sabina.

  CHAPTER 9

  Considering the size and sequencing possibilities, we’re lucky that for 99.5 percent of our genetic makeup, humans are identical. This leaves 0.5 percent to account for genetically determined differences in appearance, behavior, and health, and that’s enough for decades of research.

  —Human Genome Project Review, Volume 122, 2101.092.23.00 UT, indexed by Democritus 23 under Cause and Effect Imperative

  Indecision and irritation are not definable conditions for a computational entity, but Muse 3 considered itself—pause for search—inhibited by its current operating parameters.

  After Ari left for her meeting, Muse 3 continued to cycle the request for bandwidth from the Pilgrimage. Meanwhile, it started a process to analyze CAW SEP 12.x, which described emergency procedures applicable in Consortium space. G-145 did not yet contain a Consortium world, but there were applicable procedures for Autonomists in new space.

  Muse 3 ran through the procedure 16,384 times and with each analysis, produced a fuzzy decision set. There was still no response from the Pilgrimage. Three hours, fifty minutes, and 4.2 UT seconds after Ari left, the cam-eye at the ship’s slip relayed video of three men running through the halls. Each man carried a weapon—pause for pattern matching—Muse 3 determined two were medium-voltage stunners and the third was a flechette pistol. There was still no response from the Pilgrimage. Muse 3 went through all decision sets and while flechette weapons were illegal on Consortium habitats, this event didn’t warrant any action on its part. Seven minutes and 52.8 UT seconds after this event, all communication channels through the Beta Priamos Command Post shut down, making Muse 3’s requests to the Pilgrimage III impossible.

  Pause for analysis.

  Muse 3 redefined its situation as externally constrained. When Aether’s Touch was docked at Athens Point, communication across the Hellas solar system was effortless and faster than light, thanks to multiple buoys and relays. Buoys helped move matter, and relays assisted the movement of information through N-space. In G-145, the buoy was still under manual control by the Pilgrimage crew and the relays weren’t yet operational. Now Muse 3 no longer had use of the Command Post antennae.

  Aether’s Touch, however, was a second-wave prospecting ship. All N-space ships had smart skin antennae designed for communication within ten thousand kilometers, but Aether’s Touch also supported telebot control and gathering of scientific data. This ship had redundant, separate, and reconfigurable antennae for better transmission and reception of wider frequency bands than required by passenger or transport ships. Muse 3 turned the two most sensitive antennae in-system toward the Pilgrimage III, sitting between the paths of Sophia I and II’s orbits. It could detect or initiate light-speed transmissions itself, without buoy support.

  Pause for analysis of input from sensors.

  As small as the probabilities were, the orientation of the antennae fortuitously allowed Muse 3 to observe another unusual event. Flashes of visible and infrared light on one of the Pilgrimage’s spires indicated small explosive charges. Then a module separated and began floating away from the generational ship. Infrared spectra showed the escape of a small amount of life-supporting gases from the Pilgrimage III.

  This was light-speed data, so the event had happened a few UT hours ago. However, these disparate events now qualified as an “emergency condition” against the decision sets and Ari must be notified. Muse 3 explored ways to send a message to the surface of Beta Priamos since the station CP comm support wasn’t responding.

  Muse 3 now classified its condition as frustrated. The station’s structure and orientation prevented Muse 3 from directing ship antennae toward the moon’s surface; no clear shot was available. Without a directed signal through an antenna—pause for calculation—the surface was too far away to discern omnidirectional comm signals above the ambient noise. Muse 3 widened its parameters and used all available sensor input to search for a solution.

  One of the behemoths, as Ari called the freighters on the class B docks, had disconnected from Beta Priamos and was moving away under light thrust. It was also broadcastin
g an omnidirectional distress call. The freighter’s transponder ID matched the registration of the Golden Bull. The distress codes indicated possible control problems, but Muse 3 didn’t analyze this further because the orientation and angle of the large, flat, and reflective surface of the freighter presented a solution.

  Using one antenna to track the slow movement, Muse 3 could guide another antenna and bounce a signal off the behemoth’s belly down to the moon surface. Of course, the signal would be attenuated, so message bit rate and size had to be reduced—pause for calculation.

  Muse 3 started reconfiguring antennae.

  “This is Pilgrimage Line’s best geneticist?” Abram’s voice dripped with scorn and Tahir looked up from his station to watch an elderly woman step from the airlock onto the control deck. Her dark eyes glittered as they moved quickly, taking in the bloodstains that cleaning crews were removing from the airlock and bulkheads. She glanced about the control deck and when her eyes met Tahir’s, he almost gasped at their accusation, wanting to immediately exonerate himself and protest that he couldn’t do anything to stop his father.

  “Yes, I’m Dr. Lee Pilgrimage,” she said in a calm tone, and walked over to the command chair where Abram sat, circled by consoles.

  As she walked, Tahir revised his estimate of her age upward. Her bone structure was slight, although all the crèche-get were slim and tall. Her hair was white and puffy, her skin papery and wrinkled in places, but she stood straight and proud, unlike the hunched old women in Tahir’s tribe. Perhaps this resulted from good nutrition, a generous environment, and medicine.

  “My specialty, more specifically, covers prefertilization genetic diagnosis and embryonic maturation.” Lee stopped to stand in front of Abram, a low console between them.

  “Yes, you maintain the ‘crèches.’ ” Emery moved to stand protectively beside Abram, as if the frail woman were a threat.

  “I prefer the term ‘artificial womb,’” Lee said carefully.