“Hey, no sweat, kid, the aliens have charmed half the planet already, they’re in big demand everywhere, and Tarue, she’s a hell of a negotiator, she’s lining up deals all over the place, stuff to ship back to Uta. And her kits and my kids are inseparable, you should see them, playing all the time, my kids are learning the kit’s language, couldn’t get them interested in anything like that before, man.”
“Are they too much of a burden, keeping you away from your work, or anything?”
“Hell no, I’m in my glory, right in the thick of the deals, I’m the girl to go to to meet the aliens, you know. And anything needs being done at work, I’m just delegating. Cool. Lumu is in here, too, helping out with contacts, she’s doing all right.”
Lori made a little face, tilting her head a fraction.
Dak pointed a finger at her. “You know, kid, I noticed a long time ago that you made things happen. I see you still do.”
Now shaking her head, Lori said, “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Well, look, if you get tired of being cooped up in that little room–you really going to stay there for a, what–week, more? Anyway, let me know, I’ll send someone handsome to rescue you, and give you a break out here in the open air. Hear?”
“Yeah, I’m staying. But I’ll let you know.”
“Stay in touch, kid,” Dak said and clicked off.
Lori spent the next many hours finding a starship going to Kali, nothing certain, but she put in reservations holds on the three potentials, canceling her standing reservation, then dealing with the bureaucracy that resisted her insistence that Leta’s body be held until she could accompany it. That took a threat of going to the Council of Elders, and the intervention of the American Embassy with that from Kalimanta, to finally secure it.
Sesepe joined her for lunch, bringing the com cable up from Eagle One, he much amused by her immediate use of it to check with the air car. He told her they were refurbishing the structural supports, would complete that first, and then do some minor other repairs, remove all the systems around the memory and control shields, and as soon as the technical plans were complete, install the control device, as he kept referring to it, and then proceed with everything else. He assured her that they were on schedule, had not found anything unexpected, and again asked if she really wanted to remain. She assured him that she did. And just as well.
Yet, inside she was no longer so sure she really did. She found the exposed air car disquieting, thinking it worst than naked, vulnerable and fragile, unprotected and wide open. Still, she was fascinated as well, sitting there hour after hour, watching everything that was being done, the slow and methodical work of restoring her air car. And she thought of it as not dis-similar to what had been done to her, not so long ago, repairing and restoring her systems, even her very lifeblood, and she remembered the donation from Hunter, and she idly rubbed the spot where the needle connecting her veins to his. She smiled at the thought of him, went to the computer, and composed a long letter home, and saw it posted within the hour, going out on one of the many ships bound back to Earth. And she felt a little homesick. More than a little.
Two days later, Sesepe came to her, with a glistening silver-white gown, and said, “You must come into the room and into the hagazzii. It refuses to disarm the main-core defensive grid.”
What the hell is that? Lori thought. It has that, too? “What do I have to do?” she said, as she stripped, showered, and let Sesepe help her into the gown, which fit loosely in some places, and tightly in others. Totally encapsulated, she followed him into the adjacent clean room. They stopped just outside the still open gridwork of the air car. He pointed to a cutting tool near the side of the armored core.
“We must open the core here. The machine arcs the cutter when it touches the core, burning it out. We cannot ground it. It must deactivate the defensive fields. You must tell it to do so.”
How the hell do I do that? She wondered. Is there a code, or something? If there is, we’re in trouble. “I’ll try,” she said, plugging the hardline into her headset connection in the clean suit. She called Eagle One, said, “It’s me, Lori. Eagle One, you need to turn off the core shell defensive array, so we can enter to install the...em, device.”
“Verify identity.”
Perplexed, she said, “Eagle One, it’s me, I’m standing here next to you. Can’t you see me?”
“Scanners are inoperative.”
Oh my god, it’s blind. Shit. “Sesepe, I have to go inside, sit in the control seat, and open the suit to expose my hand.”
“Is that necessary?”
“It’s the only way.”
“There is some risk of contamination.”
“I know, but I’ll have to chance it.” She climbed up into the air car, sat in the frame for the pilot’s seat, and unsealed the thin glove over her right hand. She immediately put her hand on the viewscreen, and said, “Eagle One, it’s Lori, I am here.”
The screen flashed, and it said, “Identity confirmed.”
Lori sat back, and took her hand away, and the air car said, “Lorelei, maintain contact at all times.”
She leaned forward and returned her hand to the screen, now glowing in orange, and the air car repeated the identification confirmation. She turned to Sesepe, and was about to nod, when the air car said, “Lorelei, what is your favorite fruit?”
Her eyes smarted as she realized what the air car was doing. This was its last measure of defense, against any sort of coercion, of someone forcing her to put her hand on the screen, to somehow compromise her loyalty. She had to respond, could not remain silent, and those there, should they be up to something nefarious, could hardly know the proper word for her to say. And if she gave the code word for danger, she wondered what sort of hell would erupt around her. But she need not do that, so swallowing once, she said, softly into the mike, “Blueberries.”
The screen turned from a dull orange to blue, and only then did she turn and nod to Sesepe. Facing the screen again, she said to Eagle One, “It’s all right, I am here with you, and I will stay with you for the whole time it takes for the installation.” She wondered if she should chat with it, to distract it, and thought that was useless. Thinking at the speed of light, it could talk to her and do a million other things, and hardly notice.
The air car said, “I see you now.”
Below her, a mechanical arm swung in and began a series of tiny moves, a thin cutter throwing a tiny stream of gleaming sparks downward onto a square piece of dark fabric. None would be left inside to float around during some weightless flight, and contaminate a joint or a connection. It withdrew, a tool was replaced, it darted inward again, and Lori saw a small flap of metal bent up and out. A tiny vacuum nozzle ran about, and withdrew. She leaned over, trying to see inside the opening, but all was dark, or hidden. Again, an instrument change, several clamps providing reference points, more darting about, in and out. Finally, from a foam box, the arm removed a small module, and darted downward with it.
The kill switch, the god-damned kill switch.
Shortly, a mini welder glowed briefly, the arm withdrew, the clamp empty. Sesepe said, “Testing,” and held a small pickup at the opening. The lights flashed and turned from orange to blue. “Done,” he said, and the mechanical arm returned, flipped the flap of metal back downward, ran over it several times and started to weld it closed again with a thick stream of what looked like molten gold, but was surely some sort of alloy. Lori hoped.
Quietly, into her mic, she said, “Eagle One, can you detect the module just installed and tested.”
“Yes,” it said, nothing more.
Sesepe was running some more tests, as the robot sanded and smoothed the seams, the vacuum nearby, then said to Lori, “The installation is complete. You may return to the observation room now.”
Before removing her hand Lori said, “Eagle One, they are finished with the installation. You may resume normal status. I will leave now, but I will be on the line and speak
to you soon.” No answer, so she slowly lifted her hand, wrapped it up in the foil again, stood, and left. Turning once out of the air car, she looked at it and thought, What have I done?
The work crew, seemingly quite pleased with themselves, did little else, only moving Eagle One back to the work room, and left early that evening, Lori once again finding herself alone in the small lounge room, and feeling depressed. She wished Hunter was there and she missed him badly, someone to talk to, someone who understood, who could advise and comfort her. What she wouldn’t give for a Williams Space phone, so she could call him, and Amanda, and talk. No such thing, of course. Worse, her period showed signs of imminent arrival, and she with almost no supplies. The mostly alien food in the place did not appeal to her, now, and she wondered if it was all worth it. She stared at the air car, a skeletal shape below, and worried. She wished now she hadn’t come, Leta dead, the kill switch installed, and she so far away from everyone she knew and loved. Well, not everyone. Feeling sorry for herself, she tried to call Dak, but she was gone, off half way around the world with Tarue, Skip would tell her she’d called. She’d wanted to talk to Eagle One, but knew it was not a good time, her feeling like she did, the machine would notice for sure, and that would not be good.
A depression settled on her, nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to occupy her. She flipped on the TV, and idly watched it.
An hour later Dak did call, and after taking one look at Lori, and listening to her plea for sanitary supplies, said, “You’re getting out of that place, tonight, I’m taking you to dinner, gonna get you a good shower first, and a nice night’s sleep, and things will look better in the morning. Now, can you get out OK, or do we have to spring you somehow?”
“I don’t know. I think I can call the security office, maybe they’ll provide an escort.”
They could, they did, and two hours later, Lori arrived at Dak’s estate house, and stepped into the midst of a happy dinner party.
“Gees, Dak, it’s the middle of the night, your staff getting overtime for this?”
“Hey, they’re glad to do it, those Damai never sleep, you know, got to keep someone up all night long, not me usually, but it’s OK now. How about a shower, then you can eat and tell me everything.”
In the morning, she did feel better. Sipping hot, flavored coffee by the pool, the breeze warm and the fragrances from the flowers mild and sweet, she could forget the work on Eagle One, and listen to Tarue talk of her many deals and potential trades.
“Everyone wants to know when you will return, Sky Lady. I tell them not till you are married, and that will be back on Earth. What more can I say?”
“We will give you a departure date as soon as we return to Earth. But that won’t be for a month or two, at least.”
She returned to the factory room a day later to find work resumed, the screen showing more progress, and things still on schedule. Interested in the new installations, she watched, and then helped with calibration and power settings, again sitting in the pilot’s seat, made easier by the need for the clean suit no longer there.
The final testing took only a few hours two days later, and she watched in fascination as the new outer armored plating was installed. Amazingly light, she even lifted and held several sections in place as the robots fastened them to the support grids with bright welds. With the last panel done, the external access doors closed, and Sesepe said, “Finished.”
Lori stepped back, and looked at Eagle One. “It’s beautiful,” she said, her eyes going moist. “It’s so beautiful.” Indeed, it looked brand new, and in most aspects, it was.
Sesepe bent his head to the side, questioning that, but accepted her hand as she went around the room, telling everyone, “Well done.” No thanks, as usual, needed to be given.
Last, a technician handed her a container, with the guns and the other personal and survival items from the storage areas beneath the floor. She asked Sesepe if that area was still secure from random scanning. He assured her it was better than ever.
Sesepe and three technicians flew with her to the proving ground. They did not call it the firing range any more, yet that is really what it was. Now, they tested the weapons deep in a narrow canyon, static firing mostly, the glowing new Hi-E lazers and sparkling energy spheres well hidden from all but spy-eyes directly overhead. Sesepe told her that none were there this day.
He shook his head at her two handed flying, on the old and totally obsolete sticks still in the air car, he again said she should modernize to the single joystick, or half-moon wheel, but Lori said, “No, I need both hands to fight.” And she believed she could fire the two weapons faster, though it hardly mattered, Eagle One would do it for her, quicker and better, but she still wanted that option.
Two and a half hours of flying and firing, setting several battle sequence options, testing the speed and range of the weapons, and learning to use the optical targeting displays were all Lori needed, or wanted, for the moment. She’d spend more time with Eagle One, doing their own programming, once away from the watchful eyes of Wallacea. And no doubt, full reports going back to the Elders. Lori would send Fogi a long letter, also, complimenting Sesepe and praising his crew at Wallacea, and accepting the work as fine improvements, the closest to thanking them that she could.
Her return greeting at Dak’s reminded her of the fuss usually made back home for someone with the arrival of a new air car–and it looked like one, gleaming in the sun, all polished and unblemished. She wondered how long it’d stay that way. Everyone gather to look at it, though inside, it all looked pretty much the same as ever.
Better still, one of the starships notified her of an early departure to Kalimanta, two days hence, and she and the Damai would need to complete what business they could before they embarked. Their visit concluded with a big dinner party at Lumu’s, which went far into the night, she and the “new” air car the center of attention.
A day’s journey out of the system Eagle One called Lori, requested to speak to her. Lori went to the chilly, darkened hold, and climbed into the pilot’s seat, her breath steaming in the frigid cold, as she called for heat. Eagle One said nothing while the air warmed up a little. Finally, she asked it, “What do you want to tell me, Eagle One?”
“Lorelei, I know you are distressed at the installation of the kill switch. However you need not be.”
“Yes, we are far enough away, I don’t think it can be activated here.”
“Nor can it be on the planet behind us.”
Lori jumped up, alert. “What?”
“The kill switch can be ignored by this hagazzii, depending on the situation. In a matter critical to the Saxons, it will not be effective.”
Totally surprised, Lori felt light-headed. “How is this possible?” she said, her voice faint.
As Eagle One spoke, the screen illuminated various schematics, parts mentioned glowing a moment, before moving on. “Several redundancies are built into the main memory and control area. The outer assemblies, the only ones accessible without dismantling the core, can be isolated, bypassed, as it may seem to you, without affecting core functions, including all tactical, defensive and offensive capabilities. To that outer area, as the old blueprints indicated, and new scans confirmed, is where the kill switch was installed. That area is redundant. Secondary components are deeper inside. My original...operators anticipated a device of this sort, though not employed at that time, yet already available and in use in some situations. This information was never recorded as part of any blueprints. ”
All that worry for nothing. Eagle One is safe. Safe from those bastards, on and off planet. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she started to ask, and knew the answer. Her demeanor, her dread, was no doubt noticed, behavior highly palatable to the Pokoniry, they keenly aware of body language. Had she known, had she been aware, her whole attitude, her whole being would have been different, perhaps only subtly, but probably noticeably, to the Pokoniry. And they would have done something different then, tore the
whole core apart, whatever it took. Or maybe not, maybe they knew that all along, and went through the motions, put her through hell, for their own part in the on-going saga of this amazing hagazzii. “No, I know why, Eagle One. So you are safe. You are safe from the wave disruptors, and safe from the kill switch.”
“Yes.”
“I am so relieved. Will they know?”
“The switch will react to random tests as programmed, as agreed. I will react as expected to all such tests. So it is important that, when tested, as it surely will be, probably soon after we return to Florez the next time, that I stop and descend, and wait until cleared to resume operation. But they will not know until they try to activate it, and nothing happens, in a situation more critical to you, that it does not work. Perhaps then, they will think it a failure of the part.”
“Perhaps we will never need to have them think that.” Lori put her hand on the screen. “Eagle One, if when off Florez, an attempt is made to activate the kill switch, you must notify me immediately, or the operator at that time, and take appropriate offensive action against the site which sends such a signal, if known and identifiable, and warranted to protect the passengers, and yourself.”
Script ran on the screen, and the air car said, “Affirmed.”
Lori sat back, very pleased. What an amazing machine. “So your original, em, operators, planed for this, and they prepared for such devices. I am very impressed.”
“Yes. Future technology is difficult to predict. The original planning included much redundancy, and some phantom systems, wiring, and other devices, as well, as decoys and deception opportunities, should they be required in the future.”
“They planned very well. Very well indeed.” And how much more is there to this machine we don’t know? Still. And might not ever know?
A brief burst of script ran on the screen.
“Now, can you show me, if you wish, exactly where the kill switch went, and how it fits into your core memory?”
The air car began a detailed description, the screen showing various depictions of smaller and smaller sections of the main memory, energy and power paths, and isolation and blocking locks, maybe a quarter of which Lori understood. But it was quite obvious that the system itself was not vulnerable to the small device just installed, in fact it could be easily isolated, but would not be for the time being, the better to camouflage the fact it was ineffective in doing what it was supposed to do. When the narrative ended, with the device shown surrounded in blue lines, Lori asked if it contained any explosives, or an independent power supply.
T-47 Book II (Saxon Saga 6) Page 11
