“Well, fuck us all.” Heming jumped in, his words reflecting the thoughts in Beryl’s head. This was far too similar to what had happened back on Columbina when the Earthlings had arrived.
“It seems we’re about to have visitors.”
“Please tell us it isn’t the Earth AI again.” Vlad, like everyone else, was now focused on Iris.
“I’m working on getting some images up, but my first guess is it isn’t the Earth AI. From what little I can already tell, this ship just came out of a traveling speed similar to ours. The Earth AI did not have that capability. Not even close. If it is the Earth AI—and I doubt that—it isn’t going to be the same Earth AI we dealt with on Columbina.”
Vlad had a horrible thought—what if the AI had developed better technology and had brought the fight to them before they were ready?
Vlad waited for Iris to give them more information, hoping it would be better than what he expected. The silence was uncomfortable, all of them worried that they were about to hear that their trip to find Whit had been in vain. On the bridge, the only sound was Heming tapping his fingers on the wall against which he was leaning.
“Are you kidding me?” Iris finally said as she put something on the phones of all the humans around her.
Around the room and on the surface of the planet, each of them knew what they were seeing as soon as it came up on their screens.
The ship that had just entered the ship did not belong to aliens.
And it did not belong to Earthlings.
Vlad and everyone else recognized that ship immediately, because it looked almost exactly like the ship on which they were all living.
The ship that had just entered the system belonged to some of their fellow colonists.
Chapter Nine
“It’s like déjà vu all over again,” Heming said, breaking the silence that had immediately followed Iris showing them the ship that had just appeared in the sky with them. His statement reflected what they were all thinking—that this whole situation was strangely similar to when the Earth AI had showed up in the skies over Columbina.
After his comment, everyone furiously started asking questions, to which Iris had few answers.
“When will they be here?”
“Are they close enough to communicate with?”
“Which planet are they from?”
“How many people are with them?”
“Do they know we’re here?”
“Should we reach out to them?”
“Have they reached out to us?”
“Are they friendly?”
At the last question, which came from Vlad, Iris raised her hand. The gesture quieted everyone on the bridge and Whit, who had not been among those asking questions and thus didn’t actually need to be quieted.
“They’re from Civitas.” Iris began answering the questions as best she could, mentioning the planet that had been colonized prior to Whit’s exile on Libertas. No one in the room needed to be told it was the closest planet to Libertas; that was something everyone on Columbina with even the slightest of educations knew. And if Mimi, the only non-Columbinian among them, didn’t know, it probably didn’t matter. “They aren’t close enough for near real-time communications, but they will be in about two minutes. They will be in orbit in about twelve minutes, and I have no idea how many people are with them. I’m sure they know we are here, or at the very least, they knew we were headed here, as we long ago communicated our intentions to come here via our daily communication drones.”
“But are they friendly?” Vlad asked again.
“I don’t know, but considering who they are, I’m going to assume they are until something definitively suggests otherwise,” Iris said. “As soon as they get close enough, the previously agreed-upon protocol of information transfer between Hodios ships and the colonies will occur, like we do with our daily communication drones. The Civitians can hide something, but I don’t have any reason to think they would. Particularly because I will eventually be able to figure out what they are hiding and where to find it.”
“Do you think we should take some precautions, even if they turn out to be friendly?” Fawn asked.
“That might be prudent. There has to be some reason they are here. You don’t just send the only interstellar-capable ship you have off to another planet without a major motive behind it. Especially without sending out communications drones a few days ahead of you to make sure whatever you find when you get somewhere knows what is coming.”
The ship’s speakers suddenly came to life with the sound of a high pitched, male voice. “Rediviva, this is Hodios IV, better known to you as Ivy. We wondered if we would find you here.”
At almost the same time, Beryl watched as Iris ran a finger across her throat in a slashing manner. The screen on which Whit had just been smiling went black and at almost the same time. As Whit’s image disappeared from the screen, a message flashed across Beryl’s phone. It was a text, and it was from her father.
“I love you, Beryl. You’re the key to finding me.”
*
Sitting in his living room, the voice from the speakers on the ship orbiting above Whit’s home came in clear.
So, too, did the transmissions of communication information the Civitians probably thought were only going to Rediviva. Assuming nothing had changed since he had last been in communication with the rest of human civilization apart from Earth, this information would include everything from mundane text messages sent between friends about what they were planning to eat for lunch, to complex changes to drone technology and an upload of all changes to the Iris system for the planet.
Iris had been halfway across her throat slitting gesture when he saw the same information in the communication information that he knew Iris had seen. The piece of information that was the cause for the gesture.
There were two things he immediately knew he needed to do.
The first was to get a message to Beryl and let her know, in a way that no one else would understand, where he was going and where those with her could find him.
And the second was to get moving to that location as soon as possible.
The Civitians were at Libertas to capture him and use the technology he had developed in ways it had never been intended to be used.
Chapter Ten
Somewhere in between Civitas and Columbina, a communications drone sped through the wide and empty expanse of interstellar space it had traveled dozens of times before.
By design, the drone had limited intelligence capabilities. If it detected an anomaly in the space through which it traveled, it could analyze the situation and make necessary changes to its route based not just on previously programmed methods, but other methods it had determined plausible thanks to its past encounters and the particular situation in which it found itself.
A day ahead of it, another communications drone performed the same mundane task. A day behind the drone, another did the same. The task repeated itself between all but two of the settled planets on a daily basis, transferring everything from funny dog videos to video game cheat codes to the most complicated information ever created by intelligence systems.
Most of the time, though, the drone encountered nothing unusual and it arrived at its destination in within two to three minutes of when it was expected. It merely stuck to its planned course and delivered its cargo of information between the planets, as it had been designed to do.
Nothing about its current trip suggested to the drone that anything would be different than normal and, in fact, nothing about this trip would be abnormal.
At least, nothing about the trip would be abnormal to the drone.
The drone had left Civitas at its prescribed time, and although it did not know it at that time, it would arrive at Columbina within six seconds of its expected arrival.
The drone did not care about the content of the information it carried. It was not the drone’s purpose to analyze or even look at the data which it transported.<
br />
If the drone had been able to look at the data it carried, though, it would have known that, for the second time in its years of service to the humans who inhabited planets scattered among solar systems far beyond where they had originated, it carried a message of urgency and emergency.
Several months earlier, this same drone—unbeknownst to the drone itself—had carried a message from Columbina to Civitas, telling the inhabitants of the latter planet about the threat posed by an artificial intelligence that had arrived from one of those two settled planets to which the communications drones did not travel.
On that previous trip, it had told the inhabitants of Civitas that the Earthlings who had arrived at Columbina were not friendly. It had informed them that the Earthlings had killed five humans and one of their beloved dogs. It had served as a warning to the Civitians that if other Earthlings showed up at Civitas, those Earthlings meant them harm.
Most of the rest of the messages it sent were goodbyes from Columbinians who had friends and family on Civitas.
On this trip, though, its message was far different, though no less urgent.
This time, the drone carried a message that eight Civitians and a newly-cloned and rogue intelligence system had staged something of a coup or revolution, hijacking the only Civitian aircraft capable of transporting humans on interstellar travel in the Civitian solar system.
With the drone in transit, the Columbinians did not yet know about the eight rogue Civitians when they left Columbina.
They did not know that the rogue intelligence system had discovered the briefest hint of a signal from Libertas.
They did not know that the eight Civitians and the rogue intelligence system had staged a coup and stolen Ivy, the Civitian interstellar transport.
On Columbina, everyone assumed life on Civitas continued as normal.
As the drone traveled through interstellar space, the Columbinians said goodbye to four of their longtime friends and family members, never knowing whether they would see them again. The Earthlings who were now living on Columbina said goodbye to a fifth human in Mimi. Most of the humans those on Columbina referred to Earthlings—even though only Mimi had ever been to Earth—were unable to comprehend why she would be willing to go back into space when they had discovered an amazing, nearly unbelievable life on Columbina. None of the rest of them ever wanted to return to space.
As the drone traveled through interstellar space, it was a sad but hopeful day on Columbina. They had fought the Earth AI and won. They had saved the lives of dozens of Earthlings in addition to themselves. And since that day, they had come up with a plan to help save humanity from the artificial intelligence they had created. Their grandparents and great grandparents had left Earth looking for a new life, and now their descendants were heading back to Earth to bring something of the new life they had found back to that planet.
As the drone traveled through space, the Columbinians and Earthling watched their friends and family members disappear from the sky aboard the newly-rechristened Rediviva.
It carried the message of rebellion. It carried a message letting the Columbininas know that the Civitians were now bound to a planet without any means of escape.
More importantly, the message the drone carried told the Columbinians that the rogue intelligence system and the rebels were headed for Libertas, looking for someone they suspected was alive.
Someone who could help them become the most powerful humans in the known universe.
The person they were looking for was the same person who the Columbinians had just sent off several of their own to find.
If the communications drone had arrived just a few days earlier than expected, the Columbinians would have known what was going on at their sister planet of Civitas.
They would have known that the people they were going to meet when they got to Libertas were not there on behalf of the rest of the Civitians.
They would have known that these people were willing to do whatever it took to get their way. Four Civitians and their families had found out just how far the rogue Civitians were willing to go when they had taken control of Ivy and killed those four innocent residents of Civitas.
Instead of being able to help the Columbinians, the communications drone sped toward Columbina, its messages seemingly the same as every other day.
The drone would do its job and it would do it well, but it would not be of any help to those who were, as it sped across the galaxy, already on their way to Libertas and the first rendezvous that would decide the fate of humanity.
Chapter Eleven
“Welcome to Libertas, the Elba of interstellar travel.” Heming flashed what he knew was his most winning smile at everyone around him on the ship.
While everyone else on Rediviva had looks of mild panic and confusion on their faces, Heming knew the best thing he could do was say something—anything—to keep the Civitians from becoming suspicious. He had no idea what was going on, but Iris’s throat slashing gesture and Whit’s sudden disappearance from the screen suggested that there was, indeed, something suspicious going on, even if he had no idea what it was.
Heming had won and lost enough poker games to know he didn’t want to start a relationship off with suspicion.
“Ivy, this is Rediviva. Excuse my human companion for his somewhat sarcastic remark. I’m sure you are well aware that certain humans just cannot keep their mouths shut.”
Heming flipped off Iris. She returned the gesture, just as the video screen on the bridge flashed on with the image of a similar looking room.
Onscreen, a group of eight humans on another ship laughed at seeing Iris flipping off someone, as she was the only thing on the screen broadcasting back to them. By the time she switched it so everyone on the bridge of Rediviva was onscreen, Heming had pulled his hand back and was leaning on the ship’s wall as if nothing had just happened.
Looking around at the others on the Rediviva, Heming could see that they had all recovered from the shock of everything that had just happened enough so they didn’t look entirely like they were hiding something. Knowing them all well, he might have suspected something was going on, but he doubted any of the Civitians saw those subtle signs that something was wrong on the Rediviva end of the mission.
“You must be Iris.” Onscreen, a tall, blond man spoke to Iris. His voice was deeper than the voice that had previously come from the ship.
“I am. I heard your intelligence system earlier. Is there some issue with its physical presence? I don’t see it there.”
Heming looked at the humans on the bridge of Ivy, the other ship. The physical forms of the intelligence systems were very human-like, but it was clear no one on the bridge of the Civitians’ ship was anything but human. To anyone who had lived with an intelligence system for years, all it took was a glance to tell the difference. Heming now knew this was not an innate skill; the Earthlings they had rescued on Columbina just assumed Iris was human.
Iris loved that about them.
“There is. Ellis had an accident with his physical form and we haven’t been able to get him a new one yet.” The different intelligence systems for each planet chose individual physical forms and personalities, though they shared all their information with each other. Once an intelligence system went to a planet, a new intelligence system took over on Hodios, with all the knowledge of the systems before him or her.
Still, it was unusual that one wouldn’t have a physical form. Heming had never heard of an intelligence system not having a backup physical form. In the event something happened to one of their physical forms, the intelligence system could just switch to the new one and no one would be any the wiser. Even Heming knew that, and he didn’t pay much attention to how the intelligence systems functioned.
“Is that your whole crew? I see from your manifest it is, but I just wanted to double check.”
“It is. Ellis tells us this is your whole crew as well?”
“Yes.” Heming looked at the group on the s
creen. There were seven men and one woman. That alone was odd; he would have thought there would have been more than one woman among them.
Or rather, Heming wished there had been more women among the Civitians. The one woman with them was not really attractive, except in a handsome way. One of the reasons he had volunteered himself for this trip was because, once they defeated the Earth AI, he would return to Columbina as the conquering hero. That would surely play well with women back home. And if he could raise the funds to build his own ship for interstellar travel, well, that would just make him the conquering hero on several planets.
If they made it through all of this, Heming was going to be a very popular man.
He was definitely looking forward to that.
Unfortunately, when Heming had concocted this future scenario in his mind, he hadn’t considered the months he was going to have to spend on Rediviva without any female companionship. Mimi was obviously not an option, based on her age. Fawn was beautiful, but he wanted nothing to do with a woman grieving not just her husband, but her two children as well, even if that husband had been a truly awful man. And Fawn didn’t seem particularly interested in any male companionship at this point. And, probably most importantly, Heming wasn’t about to try anything lest he face the wrath of Iris or Beryl for taking advantage of someone as vulnerable as Fawn likely remained.
There was Beryl, though.
She was not conventionally pretty, but her eyes were striking and her red hair suggested a relationship with her would never be boring. He would definitely have tried something with her. Except, Beryl had no interest in him. Even if she had expressed any romantic interest in him—and she hadn’t—Vlad would have killed him for trying anything. At the same time, Vlad would have strenuously denied he still had feelings for Beryl. Beryl, too, would have denied any interest in Vlad.
Beryl and Vlad were perfect for each other.
Third Rock Page 5
