Hammer and Crucible

by Cameron Cooper

  “Lyth,” Dalton said as he reached the control panel in front of the wide three-part screen. “Is the carrier away yet?” He leaned on the panel and looked into the screen and down to the right.

  With a jolt, I realized they weren’t screens at all.

  “They’re windows!” Juliyana breathed, beside me, sounding as winded as me. “Actual fucking windows…” She looked up and around the empty deck. There were stations for more crew than Dalton—at least one was navigation, for it had the flat tabletop where the 3D stellar maps could display. The other posts could be a variety of things—I’d figure that out later. There were too many mysteries here to unravel, and higher priorities to deal with first.

  The engines kicked up a gear, becoming a steady, low rumble we could hear now, not just feel through our boots. The ship leapt forward. The view on the screen showed the gate steadily growing larger. Gee force pressed against me, making me shove a foot backward in response.

  We were going to make the gate a shit-ton faster than Newman had managed with his trusty freighter.

  What was this ship? I studied the details, trying to figure out what model it was. I had never seen a deck like this, before. There was no name plate for the ship rivetted to a bulkhead, which was usual. I hadn’t recognized the long lines of the ship when I had studied it in Newman’s viewscreen on approach to the station, either.

  The railguns top and bottom and on both sides, said this was not exactly a civilian ship. Freighters and private craft did carry arms and weapons—it was only sensible—but they didn’t advertise them the way this ship did.

  I had never seen another ship quite like this one before.

  “The carrier is just pulling away from the station,” the disembodied voice informed Dalton. Only, Dalton wasn’t standing straight. He bowed, still gripping the control panel, this time for support, not leverage. He moaned.

  I waded forward, for the ship was accelerating hard, putting all of us under immense pressure. “You’re flying without crush juice!” I yelled at Dalton. “How fucking stupid can you be?” I moved right up to his side.

  He shook his head, a fractional movement. Pain etched on his face. “No, no—I’m juiced. It’s just…” He grimaced and closed his eyes.

  “Old?” I guessed.

  Dalton didn’t answer.

  “Computer, slow your rate of acceleration right now!” I yelled.

  “No, I’m fine,” Dalton said quickly. He straightened up slowly, with great effort. I wasn’t fooled. He was still feeling the force in every cell.

  I wasn’t his keeper. I didn’t try arguing again. He could crush himself to death if he wanted to—later. For right now I needed him whole.

  “I said, computer, slow the fuck down or you’ll kill one of your passengers,” I shouted.

  The ship slowed and the pressure instantly eased. I took a deep breath, enjoying it. “Thank you,” I told the thing. Lyth, Dalton had called it. “Ships’ AI,” I said to Juliyana. “Automated everything, run by the computer core.”

  “Risky,” she breathed.

  I had to agree with her. Managing a ship this size and complexity with only the help of a single AI was a sure way to end up floating dead and cold in deep space somewhere, because you only had two hands. Automation didn’t and couldn’t deal with everything adaptable humans could, with their opposable thumbs.

  I looked though the view windows, still marveling that they were actual windows. This close, I could see the forward ends of the ship protruding from either side of the bridge position, thrusting forward like the twin troop craft attached to the front of the carrier we were leaving farther behind with each passing second. These were elongated diamond-shaped protrusions, bristling with antennas and dishes and other probes on their noses.

  Dalton saw the direction of my gaze. “Drop ships,” he said. His voice was hoarse and he pressed the heel of his hand against his chest, massaging it. “At least, that’s what Lyth tells me. Also, when they’re cradled by the ship, as they are now, they can act as backup bridges, if something should happen to this one.”

  “A nice redundancy,” I murmured. “Status on the carrier?” I added, lifting my voice a little to address the AI.

  “Lyth, you can speak with Danny,” Dalton added.

  “It won’t catch us,” Lyth replied, sounding amused.

  “Its mauler cannon might,” I pointed out.

  “Not in five seconds, it won’t.” This time the amusement was more than apparent in its voice.

  The gate filled the entire view from top to bottom. Soon, it would be larger than the windows. We would have to lean forward to see all of it.

  Juliyana came up to my side. “This is too easy,” she murmured.

  I had to agree with her. “Later,” I murmured back. “Once we’re in the hole, you can hold him down and I’ll dig out answers, ‘kay?”

  “Deal,” she breathed.

  Dalton tried to look amused. The pain lines around his mouth ruined the effect. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat and said, “Capacitor ready, Lyth?”

  “Of course,” Lyth replied. “Transitioning into a wormhole is a bit difficult without one.”

  Juliyana laughed and smothered it. “I like its attitude.”

  “Relax, people,” Lyth added. “I got this.”

  For a ship at maximum speed, the vibrations coming through the deck and the low rumble of the reaction engines was mild, yet the gate loomed large. Now I could see the complex details around the thick circle of bio-mechanical technology. It glinted dark blue and black, silver and gray in the light from Devonire, as all gates did.

  As we watched, the space inside the gate turned aqua blue and opaque. The wormhole had been formed. At the same time, the capacitor whined, building up for the high-energy jump through the gate.

  AIs always coordinated the jumps through gates. It required precise timing. The completed formation of the wormhole and the full charge of the capacitor needed to occur to the same moment, with only a split second leeway in either direction.

  The aqua surface shimmered.

  I saw the probes and the fine noses of the drop ships push through the surface and disappear a fractional beat of time before the blue washed over us and the ship shivered, as all ships did.

  We were in the hole.

  All of us took a deep breath and let it out. Even the AI gusted out a noisy exhalation.

  I turned to Dalton. “What the fuck are you doing way out here, Dalton? And where the hell did you get this ship?”

  He snorted and turned away from the windows. They were showing nothing now. The view would be blank until we emerged from the hole once more. Looking at the nothingness of a hole for too long was unnerving, and some people actually got nauseous if they stared at it for too long. Most ships turned their big screens to other views once they’ve made the jump. These were window screens, though.

  “You might want to install blinds or something over those windows,” I told Dalton. “Save us from getting dizzy.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said absently. “Lyth, could you take care of that?”

  “Absolutely,” Lyth said, his tone accommodating.

  The windows turned opaque.

  “Nanobots in the Glasseen,” Lyth announced, sounding proud of himself.

  I would have to deal with the AI-with-an-attitude problem later. I stared at Dalton. “Why were you on Devonire?” I demanded. A question at a time, if necessary, to get it out of him. It was deeply disturbing to me that he just happened to show up where we did. Did he know we had been looking for him?

  Juliyana did not seem to be in a hurry to tell him that, either. She moved over to the navigator’s table and parked one hip on it. It was her right knee hanging over the end of the table, which put her hand within inches of the blade she had in her boot.

  Dalton moved over to the shell facing the window. A pilot’s chair, if ever human, manual helm control was needed. He leaned his shoulder against it, crossing his arms. He m
ade it look casual, although I wondered how much propping up he needed. Gee force pressure could have lingering affects.

  “I found the ship,” Dalton told us.

  “Found it?’ Juliyana repeated.

  “He stole it,” I interpreted.

  Dalton shook his head. “No. I really didn’t. It invited me aboard.”

  “Invited…” I rolled my eyes. “What, it sang out to you as you happened to be passing, and you thought, why shouldn’t I step on board a strange ship? It surely can’t belong to anyone else. Ships float abandoned all over the empire, after all.”

  “That’s pretty much what did happen,” Dalton replied, his jaw flexing. The blue eyes seemed to grow a bit harder and brighter. He was irritated.

  Well, that made two of us.

  I glanced at Juliyana and her folded arms and steady stare.

  Make that three of us.

  Dalton said, “First, it wasn’t floating anywhere. It was parked in a junk park in the bowels of Badelt City. Second, I was led down there by…shit…” He stood up. “You’ll believe this as much as you’ll believe I had no idea you were arriving on Devonire just now, but…” He paused, measuring me. “I was moving fast,” he began.

  “Running away,” Juliyana amended.

  “There was a sudden flux of Rangers onto the station. Combat battalions—I know too many of them, so I…moved,” he told her, his irritation growing enough to show in his voice. “I turned randomly, trying to get lost. The city is a maze, anyway. As I ran, doors started opening, and lights would flash to get my attention. The first time I dived through a door that opened, it shut right behind me. I figured if whatever the fuck was going on was going to be that helpful, I’d go wherever it wanted me to go.”

  “Which was down to the junk park?” I guessed.

  “That’s where I ended up,” Dalton replied. “Then the ship waved at me—”

  Juliyana gave a hard laugh of disbelief.

  Dalton’s jaw tightened. His eyes narrowed. Then his lifted his gaze up a little. “Lyth, it’s time to do that thing you do.”

  “Sure, Gabriel,” Lyth replied.

  Nothing happened. I raised my brow at Dalton.

  “Hi, Danny Andela,” Lyth said—from behind me.

  I whirled.

  Juliyana bolted off the table, her hand flashing to her hip, her eyes wide.

  A stranger stood there. He was two meters tall, with black hair which needed trimming, a lean physique and a know-it-all grin, which grew broader as I studied him. “Boo!” he added.

  Juliyana sucked in a little squeaky breath.

  “Hologram,” I murmured. It was a damn good one. I couldn’t see any shimmering edges, or transparent sections. Lyth looked as solid as me.

  Lyth shook his head. “Wrong. Sorry.” He leaned toward me, picked up my wrist and gripped my hand and shook it.

  I tore my hand out of his grip and backed up.

  “He’s harmless,” Dalton said. “So far,” he added, with a judicious tone.

  “Android?” Juliyana breathed, moving closer to the thing, gazing intently. “Only, how did you get around the Laxman Syndrome?” She circled the thing, which turned to follow her arc, a smile on its face.

  “I don’t know,” Dalton said, his tone sharp. “I know nothing about this ship. Lyth—this one you’re looking at—was standing on the boarding ramp of the ship, waving to me as I moved through the junk park. I could have had a battalion of rangers on my ass, so when he invited me onto the ship, I took the opportunity.”

  “You’re all wrong,” Lyth said happily. “Not android, therefore no need to get around anything tricky.”

  “You stepped onto a strange, junked and abandoned ship and managed to pilot it to Devonire?” I asked. Although, the junk status explained the rust on the exterior of the ship. Junk parks were damp, unventilated places. Even carbon steel eventually succumbed to the moisture.

  “I didn’t do a damn thing to pilot it except ask for permission to dock when we got here,” Dalton said. “The ship flew itself.”

  “That’s impossible,” I shot back, still watching Lyth as it spun to follow Juliyana’s circle around it.

  “Stay still, damn it,” Juliyana muttered.

  Lyth grew still but twisted its chin to watch her circle…and kept twisting. I gasped as its head swiveled right around on its neck, with no apparent damage.

  Dalton sucked in a startled breath, too. “Damn…” he breathed.

  Lyth looked even more amused. I would have said it was enjoying our discomfort—no, it was enjoying showing off, only ship AIs didn’t have emotions.

  Juliyana halted her circling. It wasn’t giving her any more answers than we had so far. “Okay,” she told the thing. “Explain your nature so we can understand.”

  “It would be easier to demonstrate,” Lyth said, his smile growing warmer.

  “Demonstrate, then,” Juliyana told it.

  Lyth melted into a puddle on the floor, with flowing traces of colors which had made up his appearance swirling like paint in water.

  We all stepped out of the way.

  The puddle didn’t spread the way normal liquid did. It remained exactly where it was…then it shrunk. The colors disappeared before the puddle itself did, turning it to a black, non-reflective mass that…evaporated.

  I stepped closer to the place where the puddle had been. We all did.

  Dalton prodded at the space on the treaded floor with the toe of his boot. “He did that last time,” he said.

  “If you’ll step back a moment,” Lyth said, from the overhead speakers.

  We all stepped back.

  Lyth grew in front of us once more. I watched it build from a small spill of the complete black, developing size, then details and finally colors…and Lyth stood there once more. He spread his hands, as if to say “see?”

  “So yeah, he waved at me,” Dalton said. “And said I should come aboard, that he could get me off the station without alerting the Rangers.”

  “What are you?” I demanded.

  Lyth put his hands together in a surprisingly elegant movement. “I am an outward extrusion of the ship. I am the ship. You stand aboard the Supreme Lythion. I am my hands, my heart, my tools, for…” He shrugged his shoulders and fell apart.

  It was like watching a child’s container of marbles all poured out upon the floor, to bounce and roll and find room for themselves, jostling and knocking together.

  Only these marbles were all five-centimeter high versions of the full sized Lyth.

  “This is how I can fly myself,” Lyth said, from overhead. “If levers must be pulled or buttons depressed, I can do that…”

  The thousands of tiny Lyth figures moved over to the navigation table and ran up the leg to the surface. A bunch of them moved over to the control panel and formed into a disembodied finger, which carefully pressed the power grid.

  The navigation table came to glowing life, showing the planetary bodies of an unnamed system, circling a blue-white sun.

  The finger turned it off again, then flowed back to the rest of the little figures, which flowed down the leg of the table and back to the space where Lyth had been standing, before.

  They came together and rose up into Lyth’s shape once more. “Of course, most of the functions in this ship don’t require a human hand to manipulate them. The ship was designed so I could manage them all. For those few functions which require touch, I can still take care of them.”

  “Why?” I demanded sharply. A ship that could fly itself and control its own internal functions was far too powerful, in my estimation. I felt deeply uneasy just standing on the deck of the thing.

  “Why, to serve you,” Lyth replied, his smile fading. “That is my purpose.”

  “What if your purpose was corrupted, and you decided taking a knife to my throat would serve others?” Dalton asked, his voice raspy. I recognized he felt the same concern I did.

  Lyth swayed toward him, raised his fist and punched his jaw…o
nly the fist didn’t make contact. It splintered apart and flakes dropped to the ground, to float over to Lyth’s boots and be reabsorbed.

  His hand reassembled. “Impact against any solid-state mass, beyond a certain velocity, destroys this structure’s cohesion.”

  “Velocity…” Dalton murmured, his fingers up against his untouched jaw. He rubbed it and dropped his hand.

  “Yes, but you could kill us all because you control the ship,” Juliyana replied. “You could expose the interior to vacuum. We’d be dead in three minutes. That doesn’t require velocity.”

  “Why would I do that?” Lyth asked, his tone reasonable. “You are my guests.” His brow furrowed. “Besides…it would be, well, wrong.”

  “An AI with ethical subroutines,” I breathed. “Amazing.”

  “And hands, too,” Dalton added.

  “You should think of this body as merely a tool,” Lyth said. “I can reassemble myself into any object—probe, hammer, sensor—”

  “You can form intelligent circuits?” I said sharply.

  “I am the intelligence,” Lyth said, its voice coming from the overhead speakers.

  “This form has sensors in every nanoparticle, which combined together provide feedback which I can process,” the Lyth in front of us added.

  “Nanobots,” I breathed, as the essential nature of the thing became clear to me. “Acting in concert.”

  “I can reach into the smallest spaces in the ship,” Lyth added. “In this form, I can move around the spaces designed for humans.”

  “Have you been Turing-tested?” Juliyana asked, looking at the ceiling where the speakers emitted.

  “I have no consciousness,” Lyth said. “The self-awareness you profess to as humans escapes my understanding. I have been taught human mannerisms and learned how to interact with humans in ways which reassure them and allow me to serve them to the fullest capacity.”