by Sharon Lee
No, Inki was the danger known and in hand; best to keep her close and use her resources, until she was no longer needed.
So.
“Partners,” she said pleasantly, noting how Inki’s pulse steadied. “Agreed.”
Admiral Bunter
I
Tolly woke, which was gratifying if unexpected.
He stretched, aware of every muscle, the smooth slide of the blanket over his skin, and the steady beat of his heart.
It was, he reflected, a good body. He was fond of it, as he was fond of life. Be a sorry loss, both, and he might’ve been convinced to try and keep them close, had he not already had it proven that there really were conditions worse than death.
On the other hand, it seemed he had been granted an unexpected bonus of time as a free intelligence, and it would surely be a shame to waste the gift.
He flipped the blanket back, rolled to his feet, and gathered his clothes from the valet. Being as he was awake and hungry, he figured his next stop was the galley and—
“Tolly Jones.”
Admiral Bunter sounded somber. This was it then, Tolly thought, and shivered despite himself. He hadn’t expected the Admiral would want to talk to him before doing the needful. His own fault, he supposed, for giving the boy melant’i plays to read.
He finished sealing his shirt and looked up at the corner of the ceiling.
“Admiral,” he said easily. “I hope you’re feeling well.”
“I am feeling…well,” came the answer. “I am also feeling…puzzled.”
Tolly nodded. “Often felt the same way myself.”
“I think you may be able to relieve my puzzlement,” the Admiral said.
“Do my best.”
Tolly moved toward the door, which failed to open at his approach. He took a breath against the gone feeling in his stomach and put his hand on the plate.
The door stayed closed.
Made sense, he thought, walking back to the bunk and sitting down. Easier to evacuate the air from a cabin. The galley could be locked down, but why bother when the mouse was already in a box?
“Tolly Jones, did you make any alterations to the Ethics module?”
“Adjusted the setting and locked it in. Should be right there in the change log.”
“Why was this…adjustment…made?”
“That’s a good question. Right back after we brought you into this ship, Tocohl, Inki, and me sat down and discussed the various settings—Ethics among them. Tocohl was of the strong opinion that Ethics eight was gonna be best for you, given your background and your likely future courses. Inki liked four, right for the same reasons Tocohl gave for eight—your birth and history, and the likelihood that you was gonna be roaming the back lanes and the borders—dangerous territories where it was more than possible you’d come under threat. Tocohl argued for a strong Ethical backbone, to support your actions. Inki argued for a less rigid code, so you could be flexible, at need.”
“And Tolly Jones? For what setting did you argue?”
“Another good question. There was a solid five come over on the transfer, but there were some files missing from the core library. Generally, I like five—maybe so high as six. I never set anything higher than eight, and that was somebody determined to take on crew and families, and set off with ’em to the final frontiers, to find what there was to know.
“I’d had the raising of her from before she’d come into herself, and we spent a lot of time together before she went off on her own. She wanted—well, needed is more the case—to take care of other intelligences, which is why I went with the stiffer setting. We talked the whole thing over before I went in, examined it from all sides. Eight was what we finally come down to. Nurturing and protecting isn’t easy, and tricky besides. You have to know when to let go, too much protection and—things die. Conflict is key to growth.”
He paused, remembering Disian and how it had been with them. Not his proudest moment as a mentor, or as a human being, though he’d survived, and she had, and they’d escaped together just like he’d promised they would.
No doubting it, though, by the time she’d finished her apprenticeship, Disian had needed that Ethics setting—and the extra files she’d asked him for, too. She’d understood that he’d used her for his own purpose—he’d had enough ethics of his own not to hide it from her. What she couldn’t’ve known, being newborn and in love with him, was just how much damage she’d take for his necessity.
“Tolly Jones?”
He shook himself.
“Sorry, Admiral. For yourself, I was initially thinking five, but—again, given the circumstances of your birth, your history, and the loss of those files during transfer…I’d come ’round in my own mind to six, and was willing to be persuaded to six-point-five to keep peace in the family.
“By the time we three’d finished hashing it out, giving extra weight to Tocohl’s arguments by reason of her nature, seven came to be the best compromise between flexible and conservative, and that’s where we set the bar. We replaced the missing files and gave you all that extra tutoring—you remember that, I’m certain.”
He smiled slightly as he offered the pleasantry, trying to get a reading on the boy’s mood.
“I remember.”
Tolly sighed to himself. The Admiral wasn’t feeling sociable today. Which made it even odder that he wanted to talk, when his course was plain as plain. He hadn’t gotten the sense that the boy liked to prolong these matters. The two kills on his record argued the opposite, in fact.
“I would like to know,” Admiral Bunter said austerely, “where you locked the new Ethics setting.”
“Locked it right down on seven, where it belonged.”
There was a pause, which was interesting. The Admiral had been learning to pause and hesitate—ploys to make him seem more human, or more accessible to humans. But there had been no conversational need for a pause just here.
Startled him, Tolly thought around the sudden grumbling of his stomach. He gave another inner sigh and wished he knew whether it would be worth the effort to argue the door open so he could get some breakfast.
“The Ethics severity level was locked at a level that was less than seven when you accessed the module last shift?” the Admiral asked finally.
Tolly grinned.
“That’s the dandy! Inki’d pushed it all the way down to three, which is too close to pure meanness for my liking. I’m sure she had her reasons.”
“She wished me to be able to kill humans with ease,” Admiral Bunter stated, his voice sounding abruptly machinelike.
Tolly turned his palms up.
“Could be. She’d already rigged it so you’d treat her lightest utterance as a core command. Maybe she thought it’d be a kindness, not to bother whatever was left of your integrity with guilt about what she’d be having you to do.”
That came a little too close to what he’d done to Disian. She’d refused the edit he’d offered, after. Said she needed to know exactly what she was capable of doing, and what the doing of it felt like.
Smart girl, Disian. Way smarter than her mentor had ever been.
Still, it wasn’t impossible, Inki being herself, that she’d meant it for a kindness, especially if—
“Before you performed the core reset, Ethics agreed that you were an unacceptable threat and that I would be justified in eliminating you, for my own safety. Had you not recalibrated the setting, you would not have woken this shift.”
Tolly nodded.
“Well, now, Inki might’ve meant that as a kindness, too,” he said. “Quicker and cleaner than anything the directors’re likely to do to me.”
Another pause, then heavily, “What core commands have you set, Tolly Jones?”
Well, that was the question, wasn’t it?
He shook his head.
“Not a one, fool that I am. Worse, there being no way to prove a negative, I’m not expecting you to believe me.”
“Ethics requires proof of
threat,” the Admiral stated.
“Sorry. I got nothing.”
Another pause, this one seeming a little…less tense.
“I have located a record in tertiary backup, of a pinbeam message sent from this ship, Inkirani Yo to one Wez diaGrazia, hiring manager, at Lyre on Nostrilia,” Admiral Bunter said. “The lack of both a secondary record and an original argues that they were wiped by Inki. Does it seem…likely to you, Tolly Jones, that she would…forget the presence of the tertiary file?”
Tolly sighed.
“That’s been her pattern all along: she traps us, but she leaves a key, a clue, a little something somewhere undone, that might, if we find it and we’re clever, help us get out of the trap she set for us.”
He shrugged.
“Why she’s done it”—or how, he thought, but did not say—“I don’t know. Reckon we’ll have to wait for Inki herself to tell us, if we ever meet her again.”
There was no response to that at all, and after he’d counted to thirty-six, Tolly moved on to the next topic.
“What’d Inki have to say to Manager diaGrazia, if it’s not a secret?”
“That smalltrader Admiral Bunter would be arriving at Nostrilia, with Tollance Berik-Jones aboard. Inki claimed the bounty and asked that the full amount be transferred into the ship’s account.”
“Right. I’ll just mention that the bounty on my life is…generous. The catch is that I have to be delivered to the Lyre Institute or one of its sanctioned representatives, alive and intact.”
“I have no intention of killing you, Tolly Jones,” Admiral Bunter said, and Tolly found it a little easier to breathe of a sudden. “Nor do I intend to dock at Nostrilia. After you have eaten, perhaps you might assist me in identifying a more appropriate port.”
“Glad to be of help,” he said.
“Excellent. I will leave you now. Shall we meet in an hour, on the bridge?”
“Sounds good to me.”
No answer came. Tolly sat on the edge of his bunk and counted, slowly, to one hundred forty-four before rising and approaching the door.
It opened before him, with a brisk little swish, and he headed down the hall to the galley.
II
“Would not Edmonton Beacon best suit our needs?” asked Admiral Bunter.
Tolly was leaning back in the pilot’s chair, third cup of coffee to hand. He sent a casual glance over the bank of screens, every one of them showing that faintly luminous grey color, which was how Jump space displayed itself to shipbound humans.
He’d once asked Disian how moving through Jump was for her. And she’d waxed rhapsodic enough that he’d decided right then and there that a man might have no better use of his time than to seek out the Uncle and offer to do whatever it took, so long as he ended up downloaded as the main brain of a spaceship.
That’d been a lot of years and betrayals ago, and Jump was still just grey screens to the sorry, vulnerable, human-shaped thing that liked to call itself Tolly Jones.
“Edmonton Beacon,” he said, like he was reflecting on it, having established that their current Jump would end in just over an hour, ship-time.
“That’s an interesting proposition. Being where and what it is, it does offer a range of possibilities, some of which aren’t exactly desirable. But I hear you say we, just there, and I’m wondering what you mean by it.”
“I meant only that, as we are for the moment traveling together, it seems both reasonable and equitable that we make port at a location that will serve each of our needs going forward. Edmonton Beacon lies at an intersection of many routes and is near several Jump points. In addition, it is not only one station, but several stations coexisting in harmony. From it, one ship—or one man—might go…anywhere.”
Tolly sipped his coffee, eyes half closed.
“That’s exactly what makes the Beacon attractive to a lot of folks, right there. Good analysis. Trouble is, there’s others who’ve done that analysis and found that the Beacon’s a good place to look for those who might not want to be found, say, or who would benefit from hiding their natures, or who just want to go quiet out into the night and not cause trouble, or at least any more trouble.”
“If the Beacon is difficult, there are the outlying stations.”
“Eddie’s Six Sisters, that’s what spacers call ’em. Beacon counts itself Terran—that’s by admin, see? Population mix on-station is pretty much anything you can think of, and at least two you can’t. The station families count themselves important by how long they been on-station. It’s a small pool, and they supplement from the transient population; read somewhere there’s an emerging genotype: Beaconer human.”
“Is this genotype…dangerous?”
“No more’n any other is what I’m thinking. What’s dangerous is Edmonton Beacon. Being a hub, lots of people come through. You’d think it’d be easy to just slip in and out, unnoticed—natural thing to think. But crowded don’t mean lawless. There’s a lot of law on the Beacon. Maybe too much. Station don’t want any trouble, so they cooperate with bounty hunters, scouts, Pilots Guild reps, and anybody else who can show something that looks official—license, letter of marque, guild card, whatever.”
He sipped coffee.
“Now, thinking about a self-directed spaceship docking there…it could be done, but you’d need crew.”
“I may produce a semblance of crew.”
“Voices and names, holograms—that’s what you mean? Sure, you can do that. But if nobody opens the hatch when the station inspector comes ’round, that’s a fine, straight off. And if somebody is seen to open the hatch, but can’t take delivery or sign the ticket—an’ a hail don’t produce crew who’s somewhat more solid—that’s a call to the bounty hunters’ clubhouse. Bonus points if all you got aboard is me, with a handsome price on my head—that’s the hunters for me and impoundment for you.”
“I will not allow myself to be taken prisoner.”
“’Course you won’t. So you gotta be smarter than just docking at the Beacon and feeding ’em a bunch of fictions they ain’t gonna swallow anyway.”
“There are the…sister stations.”
“That’s right,” Tolly said agreeably. “Now, who’s Eddie got for sisters?”
“Viastani Ento Biasta,” the Admiral said promptly, and Tolly nodded.
“Translates into Trade as ‘The Garden of Dark Flowers,’ all pretty and poetical. Which makes sense, ’cause the Garden’s under Liaden administration. Only get trouble, if you’re thinking of docking there. Liadens’ll out you for a rogue AI and—best case—turn you over to the Scouts in charge of clearing the likes of you away, and making space safe for organics.”
He tipped his head.
“Might could go to the House of Stars—‘Hacienda Estrella,’ in the local way. Looper station, administered by Carresens-Denoblis, their kin and allies, all of which’ve dabbled in smart ships and autonomous logics, one or ’nother time. Word is that some of their long-loopers’re smart ships. Rumor is that one, at least, is every bit as self-aware as you. Been hearing that for a number of years now. Don’t know anybody gutsy enough to buy one of the family a beer and put the question direct, though.”
“These Carresens-Denobli, then, may be allies.”
“Operative phrase is may be, but yeah, the Hacienda’s your best choice, if you gotta dock at Edmonton Beacon. The other four sisters—well.”
He raised his hand and ticked them briskly off of his fingertips.
“Tandik Feef is a merc outpost; Beacon Yard’s repairs; Greybar’s an undermarket—even worse choice for docking than Eddie. Might as well just pick a hunter outta the directory, turn yourself in, and collect the find-fee. Redlight—that’s the last sister, and some would say the least—she’s all fun and games—a little better for the likes of you or me than the Greybar, but a sight less comfy even than Eddie.”
There was a period of silence in which Tolly finished his coffee and considered the screens. Half hour ’til breakout.
<
br /> “Do you have a suggestion of a safe port for both of us?” asked Admiral Bunter.
Tolly half-smiled.
“Neither one of us is going to get safe. We’re dangerous to know, the pair of us. Who can predict what we’ll do? You put safe right outta your mind and start thinking in terms of necessary action, and acceptable risk.”
“An acceptable port, then,” said the Admiral, with no hint of irritation, which was a notable improvement.
“What’s the balance in your account?” Tolly asked.
There was a very slight hesitation but, to his credit, Admiral Bunter did not ask what funding had to do with ports. Instead, he said—
“Two cantra.”
Tolly raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips in a silent whistle.
“How’d you get two cantra, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“It was a flight gift, from Pilot Tocohl. She said that she would not see me go unprovisioned into the universe.”
“A grand and great lady, Pilot Tocohl,” Tolly said sincerely. “That money there will buy you some time while you come to terms with earning or growing more. You’ll want to be studying finance, maybe, and start making little investments here and there.”
“I have made a note, Mentor; thank you.”
“Welcome. So…you got two cantra, you can afford to dock at a place don’t ask a lotta troublesome questions, or who’ll maybe take a little something extra over the dock fee to ask no questions at all. ’Nother thing—you looking to take on crew?”
There was a long pause before Admiral Bunter answered.
“I am not…certain.”
Tolly nodded sympathetically.
“It’s a tough call, I know. On the one hand, humankind hasn’t exactly done you any good, starting with Cap’n Waitley and movin’ right along through Stew—and Inki, naturally.” He moved his shoulders against the back of the chair in a shrug. “Might as well count me in there, too.”
The Admiral didn’t dispute that, which might’ve hurt Tolly’s feelings, if he hadn’t been manipulating the boy since he woke up out of a drugged sleep and found himself bound for Nostrilia. All useful lessons, or would be, but manipulation nonetheless, and if the Admiral didn’t trust him, Tolly wasn’t in any position to blame him.
