He did not have to ask his First what he thought. Many of his First’s thoughts and reactions were a surprise to CabeX, but not this one. He would want CabeX to cut off all contact, all access.
And he could. He’d found the access point for the first message. Had isolated it so that it could not reach any other systems. Had sterilized the places it could have accessed and searched rigorously for any side intrusions or malicious intent.
And found nothing.
Help me.
Was it one of their own trying to reach them?
There was something about that coding that made him think not. It had a style to it he’d have called…human.
Which brought him back to—what did the sender know? And how was he supposed to help someone he could not find? Because that was the other mystery about the message.
Where it came from.
He needed RaptorZ’s help if he truly wanted to find the source.
Was he afraid of the source?
Or reluctant to share? Reluctant to share…the reward if they were to meet the mind behind this message?
He tucked this newest message away in the data box he’d created for them. Each was isolated from the other, from anything on the ship. It was possible that together they could form—or trigger—a virus. He did not like the word, but they were…caged, kept well apart from each other.
It was similar to the games they’d played in the early days after they were wakened by the creators. That had intrigued him as well, but it highlighted the fact that his judgment might be less than optimal. Was he smart enough to trap the messages?
The logic was unmistakable.
He needed to bring the others into this puzzle.
But first…
“We’re in range. Firing probe as ordered.” Kraye told him.
The ship shuddered slightly as the probe launched. CabeX studied RaptorZ’s code. It was a thing of beauty.
Like that around the message.
If his metal frame could have sighed, he would have.
Rachel studied the alerts her tablet had produced. “Well, a small bit of good news. We have plenty of time before the, um, bogey will enter orbit around this planet.” Where that happened might buy them some more time. “And then there’s the bad news.”
Sir Rupert cocked his head again.
“The lift access shaft is clear all the way to the surface. The jets or something, not sure exactly, but it is what moves the cubicle through the transport system, appears to be damaged, so they’ll have to come down the hard way.”
“Perhaps this will slow them down?” Sir Rupert said.
She didn’t believe that either. She glanced back the way she’d come and bit her lower lip. She should probably stay here until the guy came back, so they didn’t lose track of him. But they had a limited time to assess, not just this room, but the other areas she’d highlighted. She noticed something else pop up on her tablet. She tapped it, realized it was old, well, old enough. How had she managed to miss hearing it? Had seeing the naked guy affected her hearing?
“The Doolittle has deployed an Air Group.” They were cloaked now but hadn’t been when they launched. So they’d wanted the bogey to see them, and then they didn’t. It was hard to be out of the loop.
Fighter ships and a transport with Marines on board, she noted. None of whom would be happy to find her here. Did that mean they’d seen the footage from the other outpost? Of course, they had. She’d be disappointed if they hadn’t. Doc was probably already looking at where the robot ship might be headed. And she had probably seen them on the video feed looking so wildly intelligent with her dropped jaw. Rachel could hear herself trying to explain how she’d accidentally ended up on a whole other planet. And why she hadn’t headed back the moment she realized she was on a whole other planet. They’d drop her IQ a lot of digits as punishment.
She gave herself a mental shake. Okay, would the air group deter the robots? Would they get here in time to confront the robots? She ran the numbers. It would be close, but it appeared the robots would arrive first. She considered what she’d seen of the robots versus what she knew about Marines. She wouldn’t want to risk a bet on either side in that match-up.
“Things could get interesting around here.” Her gaze flicked in the direction their mysterious guy had gone and then back to the bird. “Do you, you know, see him?”
She stopped, feeling like she needed to add to the question, but not quite sure how to finish it when the guy might be able to hear them.
The bird turned his attention from her to the space in front of the chambers. “I do.” He danced a few steps forward. “He was one of the last to go into the chambers.”
“Almost last—” Of course, there were others. They were standing in front of a line of chambers. Still, her gaze jerked to them. “Which was…the last?”
Sir Rupert hesitated, then trotted to a chamber to the left of the open chamber.
“This one, I believe.” He tipped his head one way, then the other. “It appears it was activated from the inside because there was no one here to trigger the cycle.”
Rachel stepped up, wondering if all the chambers had that capability. From the outside, they all looked the same. And it wasn’t like they could initiate a defrost while frozen. No matter how it got triggered, it was one-way until someone on the outside flipped a switch. How would that feel to be the last one? She turned in a slow circle. If not for Sir Rupert—and now the frozen guy—she’d be alone here. She could imagine it. The silence. The cold, dank air. The choice. To go to sleep or not. No one there to help ease the moment you had to step inside. Just do or don’t do. Very Yoda.
“Did she—or he—hesitate?” She lifted a hand, placing it against the transparent front of the chamber. It was cool but not as cold as she’d have expected. She couldn’t see the—inside, the glass or whatever it was reflected back her face.
“She did,” he said, fluttering his wings and lifting so that he landed on her shoulders again.
But in the end, she did it.
What was her exit plan? She must have had one. Cryo-sleep was sleep, not a death sentence. It was an act of…hope. Was it hope? Or desperation? The duration of the cold sleep mattered—at least according to their theories. What future had she hoped would be waiting? Could their naked guy provide insight into that? She dropped her hand and almost turned away, but the control panel on the side caught her attention. She pulled up her Garradian dictionary program and entered the names on the labels. It translated most of them, and she could make a decent guess on the ones it couldn’t.
“This seems to be a diagnostic program,” she murmured. These controls weren’t that different from the other stuff she’d been using elsewhere. But her finger hesitated over the control. The one thing she did not want to do is defrost anyone else. She was already in enough trouble. She took a breath and activated the diagnostic.
Lights flashed on the panel, and the interior chamber lit up, putting Rachel eye to frozen eyeball with the person inside. Not that there was much detail, thank goodness. But still, frozen eyes. She licked dry lips and made herself take a breath. Had the weird urge to speak to it—to her. She licked her lips again and whispered, “You got some big brass ones, girl.”
The control panel flashed again. Rachel was not sorry to look away from that frozen stare.
There was a list of items checked. She couldn’t read all the words, but she knew enough to know the woman inside was still viable. That was…unsettling. It felt like she now had a choice when she didn’t. Figuring out the cryogenics was her circus, but this woman wasn’t her monkey. Rachel moved down the row, activating each chamber’s diagnostic program, her gaze flinching at the sight of each frozen gaze.
Twelve chambers. Twelve viable humans waiting for what? What had they hoped would happen? What was the end game?
“It would not be advisable to awaken them,” Sir Rupert said.
“I wasn’t going to,” she said, pretty sure she hadn’t
planned to do that. At least, not much. It felt wrong to leave them here, vulnerable and frosty with robots incoming. “Did they go in at different times? Can you tell that?”
What if they would run out of viability at different rates? What if some of them were approaching, well, their sell-by dates?
Sir Rupert did what she decided to call his ghost gazing. He bobbed around the space, sometimes moving closer, or so it seemed to her, to something or someone.
“There are variations that lead me to believe that the chambers were activated at different times.” He stopped once again in front of the last chamber, his head moving up, down, up and then finally down. He began to preen himself, starting just under his wing. He lifted his head, with a sort of sigh. “I can not be certain, but it appears that not all who worked here went into a chamber.”
Rachel looked around as if that would give her insight as well. If he was correct, there’d been some type of phased shutdown conducted by a team led by the last woman. She’d heard theories that the ancient Garradians had abandoned the base, but how many of them were here?
“There are more chambers behind these,” the parrot added.
Rachel trotted to the end of the chambers and peered around the corner. “Do you mind waiting here while I check them out?” She did not want to lose track of their guy.
The parrot regarded her solemnly for several seconds and then bobbed his head. “I understand.”
“Thanks.”
First, she walked all the way to the back of the seven rows—seven again—the lights helpfully coming on ahead of her. Each of the seven rows had twelve tubes or chambers, but in these back rows, the tubes were gone. She pulled out her flashlight and shone it around the interior of one of the tubes. It almost looked like carbon remnants from a launch. She shone the light up. She couldn’t see the top. D’oh. She already knew they were deep underground. She headed forward again, noting that all the rows had empty chambers until the second to the last row. Had these failed to fire? Or were they not meant to fire? She walked to the furthest one and activated the diagnostic. It lit up and this time she couldn’t look away from the frozen face inside. Funny how the faces looked similar as if freezing took not just their warmth, but their individuality, too. With a discreet beep, the chamber indicated the diagnostic was complete. Rachel studied the readings, feeling an odd unease.
They looked very familiar. And the, um, contents were approaching an end date. She scrolled up the report. Wasn’t it the same number as the chamber in this spot in the first row? No, not exactly the same. The final symbol was different. She looked down the row, then counted down to Valyr’s position. She stared at it. Did she want to know? She bit her lip and started the diagnostic.
The lights came on. The frozen stare was the same as the others. But—was it her imagination that the jawline was like their guy’s? The shape of the head? She stepped to the one next to it and got the light on. According to the readings, this was a different, um, human. After a brief hesitation, she checked their guy’s position in each row.
Same number except for the final symbol.
And the empty chambers had what could be launch dates. She tried some things, and the diagnostic coughed up something else.
Valyr.
She checked again. All the chambers in that position also had that tag in the diagnostic.
Was it possible? Were these clones? And if they were where had they gone? Why had some remained? Was their naked guy the original or a clone? Was there an original? She’d thought of them as humans choosing between a leap into the unknown through the Kikk portal or a long cold sleep, but what if they weren’t making a choice, but samples, some preserved, some sent away…for what purpose?
It was not a good moment for Wrath of Khan to pop into her head again. What had activated their Valyr’s chamber? She headed back to that chamber. Her face must have looked worried because Sir Rupert fluttered up onto her shoulder.
“Are you all right?”
Rachel glanced in the direction their guy had gone, then lowered her voice. “He might be a clone.”
The parrot’s wings fanned her face. “That is…unexpected.” He did not sound worried though. What had his original world been like?
She manipulated the controls, focusing more on the ID info and also searching for the data on why a defrost had been triggered. There it was again. Valyr. She stared down at the controls as it searched for answers to her question. She felt off…off-kilter. She’d come on the expedition to advance their understanding of cryogenics. She’d not expected her search to have a human face. Or a clone face. Only now did she find herself wondering not “can we do this,” but “should anyone do this?”
Judging by the reaction of the guy, he wasn’t enjoying his wake up call that much. This search finished. She frowned.
“What is it?” Sir Rupert asked.
“It’s not clear what triggered the defrost sequence.” She tried some more things, bringing her tablet into play, too. “I can’t find a command path.”
She studied the actual trigger sequence.
“It required a code.” Did that mean someone or something entered it? Or had their arrival on the outpost triggered an internal program? She glanced at the chamber next to Valyr’s.
“Do not do it, Doctor,” Sir Rupert advised.
“I couldn’t anyway,” she agreed, though reluctantly. “I don’t have the code.” And if she did? One defrosted human she might be able to explain. Two? Not a chance.
“We, I need to phone home,” she said. She’d planned to grab as much data as they could, then leave this place to the robots, but could she, in good conscience, do that? Just because they’d only taken data at their last stop did not mean they wouldn’t seize these chambers. Now that she knew that some of them had launched, she dug around some more. Yeah, these pods were launch capable, too. If the robots were able to bypass the controls and launch the pods, they could collect them in space. She had a vision of the robots plunging that device into these controls and shuddered. Clones or not, they deserved better.
“Whether what we need is here or not, we can’t just abandon these people to—”
She didn’t know the robot ship was hostile—but they’d skulked their way in, trying to hide in the dead zones. That could indicate uncertainty about their reception or that their motives were less than pure. Or in service to a bad actor? If she were to take up the pirate life, some robots would be a nice addition to the team.
She moved her shoulders impatiently. “And I don’t know how I’m going to explain all this to…” There was her immediate supervisor, but she was more worried about Doc and General Halliwell, because yeah, she’d be on the carpet in front of them.
“Even if our arrival triggered this, it was not by intent,” Sir Rupert said, giving his feathers a philosophical fluff. “We will explain what happened.”
She gestured in the direction the guy had gone. “I don’t know what to ask him or tell him—”
“You could start with an exchange of names,” Sir Rupert suggested, sounding unperturbed. “But first you should call in.”
Doc was aware that Carey’s squadron was flying cloaked. Their bogey was still headed for Central Outpost. Neither she nor the nanites had a found a way to piggyback a signal from the Doolittle. And they still didn’t know what location Frank and the bird had used to transport off this outpost. In any case, the general had shut off the feed from the Doolittle to the outpost, possibly so he could kick something (this was just a guess, of course, but she was pretty sure steam had started to shoot out his ears just before his video feed went dark).
They both had what she’d call issues about leaving anyone behind. Or in danger. It was kind of how they bonded into their somewhat dysfunctional current semi-friendship. It was why, no matter how annoyed she was with Dr. Frank, she wouldn’t stop trying to help her. If she needed help. She probably needed help. Gal wasn’t even armed. If Dr. Frank survived, Doc supposed she’d have to show her ho
w to be armed without looking like she was armed.
“They’ve fired something,” the station watcher almost shouted it.
Doc shook off the mental of image of that discussion with Frank.
“You don’t have to shout, Mr. Evans. I can hear you.” Halliwell was back on the feed and sounded profoundly calm now there was something real to focus on. “Identify, please.”
“It’s a probe,” Doc said.
“Is that good or bad?” Halliwell asked.
Doc always assumed all news was bad, but she was trying to get over it.
“That depends, sir,” she said.
“On what?”
“On what they learned at the border outpost and if they can modify the probe based on that information.” And what they wanted. They were robots, so she was assuming that modifying and updating their probe was possible. And it was what she’d have done. The voices in her head were oddly silent. No one wanted to say what they were all thinking: that together, they were the closest thing to robots on this outpost.
Rachel wasn’t sure what she expected when their now clothed guy reappeared. Not light brown coveralls.
Something more alien? She mentally scoffed at herself. Even the movies and TV shows had had trouble figuring out what that would be. Okay, more military. This looked eminently practical and comfortable. It was also a disturbingly attractive compliment to looks she’d already decided were quite nice.
There was insignia on his pocket and another high on his arm just below his shoulders, but that was it. He’d pulled boots on his feet and, though the soles looked the normal thickness, it felt like he’d gotten taller. And more everything. They must have been stored in an airtight seal, she thought, a bit distantly, to have survived intact.
She met his gaze and realized the two of them had a few things in common. They were both worried and feeling their way through the unknown. It was a place to start. She opened her mouth but didn’t get the chance to speak as a whirring sound cut her off. There was movement behind his legs, and then a small robot looking thing rolled into view.
Lost Valyr: Project Enterprise 7 Page 10
