The Best of Us

by Karen Traviss

  11

  Brains need bodies. It’s how they’re built, because they have to bridge that gap to the physical world somehow to measure and interpret it. And that’s how Bednarz built Solomon. Listen to Sol talk. He uses physical words, and not just to make communication easier for us. He might see his body as a kind of stream flowing between locations, but he puts the part he regards as his self, his conscious attention, in one place at a time, even if his sensory input — the chatter he can hear in the background — is scattered across space.

  William Cullen, head of IT, explaining an AMAI’s worldview to the junior science class at Ainatio

  Ainatio Park Research Centre,

  Plant Pathogen Lab:

  0130 Hours Next Morning

  Yes, it was die-back.

  Col had worked that out right away, but Lianne Maybury’s team always double-checked his biosensor results. Alex was now wondering why they were still retesting well after midnight and weren’t answering their comms. He hung around the lobby, trying to raise Lianne via her screen.

  What else did he need to do? The town had already implemented the quarantine plan and the crop had been destroyed, along with a fifty-metre biosecurity zone around the field. Col and his people had been out testing samples from the rest of the farms. All vehicles using the dirt road closest to the field would now have to go through a decontamination unit, in and out. Alex knew they had it covered. But it didn’t make him feel any better.

  Still, we’ve got somewhere to go, and a lot of food stored to see us through until then if we need it.

  “Sol, give me a call if Lianne comes out of her papal enclave in there, will you?” he said, heading for the bar. “Tell her I want to talk to her pronto.”

  “Will do, Alex.”

  “You never used to say that. Hanging out in the mess too much.”

  “Wardroom.”

  “Turning into a sailor, huh? I lost track of Nomad today. Anything I should know?”

  “The avian creatures have been visiting. When you get around to reviewing the video, look out for the bigger one. We think it’s the parent.”

  “Don’t feed them. You’ll never get rid of them.”

  “There’s already a robust conversation going on between the xenobiology people and Captain Ingram. She happened to mention that she drew her weapon when the larger one spooked her.”

  “Have they named them yet?”

  “Taxonomically or affectionately?”

  “Either.”

  “Crows.”

  “The poetic muse is MIA, I see.”

  “If you’re going to the bar, by the way, there’s some unkind speculation about the source of the die-back contamination. Will you scotch it, or shall I?”

  “Leave it to me. Who are they blaming?”

  “The transit camp. Bringing back bugs from their expedition. We were exposed as well, but that seems to have been forgotten.”

  “Sol, I know you don’t like me asking this, but can you listen in on Lianne and let me know what the hell’s holding them up?”

  “You’re right, I don’t like doing it. I need people to trust me if I’m to be effective. Look, you won’t forget to deal with the rumour, will you?”

  “I promise. You sound like you know something.”

  “Don’t ask. It’s Lianne’s job to tell you when she’s ready.”

  Alex heard the click of the security doors behind him all the way down the passage and turned around. Lianne strode towards him, swinging her arms, but not in a cheerful way, more like trying to hurry without breaking into a run. She didn’t look happy. Her sweater was ruched up as if she’d pulled off her lab gear in a hurry and was in too much of a rush to tidy herself up before going to find him.

  “I wish you’d stop trying to call me when we’re busy,” she said. “We weren’t sitting around eating pizza.”

  “Sorry. You were scaring me. You never take this long.”

  “There’s a reason.”

  “I can start guessing, but I’d rather you just told me. Erskine gets extra mad when it’s this much past her bedtime.”

  Lianne looked awkward. “Bottom line? Nobody brought this infection in from outside.”

  “Doug Brandt said he thought it was probably a bird dropping infected plant material or something.”

  “Look, this isn’t going to be easy because we’ve now got to kick off a containment procedure within this building. Because the damn virus is one of ours. It’s got the marker that we added to the copy that we were working on.”

  “Shit.”

  “And it seems to have mutated as well. It’s more active than ours.”

  “Oh. That’s just terrific.” Where was this going to end? “Sol, lock down the perimeter, and — ”

  “I’ve done it,” Solomon said.

  “I’ll go tell Erskine. Any idea how it got out, Lianne?”

  “Not yet. We might never know. But we haven’t breached biosecurity procedures, and I can’t find any traces outside the actual lab. Nothing in the places anyone would have to walk through to exit the department.”

  Alex tried to be diplomatic, but he knew what Erskine was going to ask. “I’m not turning this into a blame game, but I’d rather have someone say they screwed up than spend time fretting over whether we’ve got a containment lapse that we haven’t noticed.”

  Lianne had a permanent frown that always made her look irritated even when she wasn’t. “Alex, you know damn well that I’d tell you straight if we knew how it got out. I don’t. I might find out, and then again I might not. I’m doing my best.”

  “Okay, just focus on securing the lab. Are you going to destroy whatever virus you’ve got left?”

  “Horses and stable doors, huh?”

  “It’s a reasonable question. If you’re asking for an instruction, I’m going to say torch that lab. But I’ll get confirmation from Erskine.”

  Lianne called after him as he strode off. “How are we going to do more work on this if we destroy our stocks?”

  “It doesn’t even matter any more.” Alex carried on down the corridor. “We’re leaving. You won’t fix this in a few weeks. We lost the battle to this damn thing a long time ago. All I’m concerned about now is stopping it hitching a ride with us to Opis.”

  But some people didn’t want to leave. Up to this moment, they’d had a choice. Now that choice was gone.

  Lianne was still walking behind him, calling out questions, going on about passing the research to other labs before they left, and their responsibility to the scientific community and the world, and all kinds of crap that Alex really didn’t give a shit about right then. He was more worried about infection control failures that would affect the plants they needed to take with them. They had food stores here and some supplies already loaded in Elcano, plus plant material already in cryo, but there were other strains of modified crops still growing in Hydroponics. That was his primary concern now.

  Erskine was stretched out on the sofa in her office when he went in, propped up on cushions and watching something on her personal screen. She looked up and said nothing. Her whole posture was a question.

  “Director, this isn’t good news.” Alex found it easier to tell her than he’d expected. “Apparently it’s our copy of the virus that got out of the lab. Don’t ask me how. And it’s mutated. More virulent.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake...”

  He thought she’d be angry, but she just seemed weary and exasperated. “I think we should destroy whatever virus we’ve got left,” he said.

  “Yes, go ahead. I noticed the lockdown going into effect.” She made a vague gesture in the direction of her desk as if she’d seen it on her monitor. “I need to break the news to Doug Brandt. I know he was expecting to abandon the town anyway, but it’s going to be heartbreaking for him to find out that we’r
e responsible for this.”

  “We should stop work on all the other crop projects and run tests on them immediately. The crops we’ve already shipped out to Nomad will be fine, but the question is whether we want to play it safe and destroy everything else we were planning to export, or just rely on our decontamination and hygiene procedures. Because if we couldn’t crack the die-back answer here, we’ll have zero chance on Opis. We’ll be much more vulnerable there.”

  “Start the tests,” Erskine said.

  “I’m going to do some rumour control here in the meantime. I’ll also warn the transit camp to stay clear until further notice.”

  “And this definitely hasn’t been brought in by anyone returning from infected areas?”

  “Definitely not. Dr Maybury confirmed it’s ours.”

  Alex left Erskine to it. He wasn’t sure when to tell Ingram, but he’d have to do it soon. Maybe Solomon could look after that, seeing as he was best buddies with the Cabot crew now.

  “Why didn’t your systems detect anything, Sol?” Alex asked as he headed for the bar, typing out instructions on his screen and mailing them as he walked. “I thought we had pathogen screening.”

  “We do, but there are always going to be things it hasn’t learned to detect yet.”

  “I’m not blaming you, buddy. I’m just trying to stop it happening again, even if there’s no point in worrying about that.”

  “What if it was me?”

  “How?”

  “I’ve taken the quad off-site quite a few times. I’ve had physical contact with the townspeople.”

  “And Erskine and I went into town to do the meet-and-greet. Could have been us, too. Look, the hole we really have to plug is whatever let it get from the lab to other areas in here.”

  “Indeed.”

  “All right, time to stroll into the Coliseum and confront the baying crowd.”

  “There are only fifteen people still drinking in the bar. I think you’ll survive.”

  It wasn’t as if Alex had anything contentious to tell them. It might turn out to be more of a shame-on-you lecture. He’d play it by ear.

  “Hi, guys.” He walked in trying to radiate reassurance. “We’ve just had identification from the plant path lab that the virus actually escaped from this building. Which is embarrassing, and we’ll be ashamed, but it’s our fault. Nobody else’s.”

  “Wow, they’re going to love us in town, aren’t they?” Sonia Venner toyed with a glass of juice. “We ignore them for years, then the first thing we manage to do when we start mixing with them is to infect their crops with our own crap.”

  Ed Acosta, the guy who’d buttonholed Alex at the party all those months ago to ask if he could move to the plant pathogen team, was sitting at a table a little way from the main group. He looked at Alex as if he was seriously considering getting up and punching him in the face.

  “Or is this some stunt to make sure that everybody leaves?” Ed asked. “Because the last time you and I had a chat, you looked me in the eye and fed me some bullshit line about how I should carry on developing crop strains because the pathogen guys didn’t need an extra pair of hands. You knew. You damn well knew what was going down, and you lied to my face. Why the hell should I believe a word that you or Erskine say now?”

  “Come on, Ed. You really think we’d dick around like that with people’s lives?”

  “Damn sure of it. Isn’t that what you’ve been doing for the last fifty years?”

  “Okay, I know that I should be a proper manager and say something placatory about understanding, and reassure you that blah blah blah, but right now I’m tired, I’ve got a lot of shit to shovel, and you’re just going to have to accept that it happened and nobody planned it.”

  That really shouldn’t have escaped Alex’s lips, but he felt better for saying it. Venner looked at him with her chin propped on her hand.

  “I’ve already closed my labs,” she said. “I’m not going to speculate on how the virus got out, but the only possible vectors are a fault in the lab ventilation system, one of the pathogen team not cleaning up properly before they went outside, or that some insect got in, happened to come into contact with the virus, happened to — ”

  “I get the picture, Sonia. Top priority — make sure the rest of the place is squeaky clean and protect what plants we still have in here. I don’t want to have to destroy them. Second priority, a lot further down my list — work out how it happened. Depending on how dumb or unlucky the mistake turns out to be, I might go kick someone’s ass into the middle of next week, if I’ve still got the strength.”

  Sonia stood up and drained her juice. “I’m heading back, then. We might as well start testing right now. I’ll see you tomorrow, or later today as we like to call it.”

  Alex went back to his office, not feeling particularly guilty about being less than everybody’s best buddy for a change. It was an ungodly hour to wake Doug, but the guy needed to know it wasn’t his fault. Alex called him on the radio and waited for a sleepy voice to answer. But Doug picked up right away. He sounded wide awake. He probably wasn’t sleeping well.

  “Doug, I just wanted to let you know that it’s definitely dieback, but it didn’t come from outside,” Alex said. “I’m sorry, and I don’t expect you to ever forgive us for this, but it’s the version of the virus we were working on in our labs.”

  There was a few seconds’ silence. “So there’s nothing we could have done differently,” Doug said at last.

  “Absolutely nothing. I know sorry isn’t enough. I’m going to let Chris know as well. We’ve locked down the site while we clean up, so it’s probably a good idea for his people to stay put as well and not patrol until we’ve finished testing all your land.”

  “I already spoke to him.” There was no recrimination in Doug’s voice or even a sigh to indicate the guy was angry or upset. “We stood down the patrols.”

  “Okay. I guessed you’d have everything under control at your end, but I just wanted to try to make myself useful because I feel so bad about this.”

  “I look at it this way, Alex. By the end of the year, we’ll be on our way somewhere else where it’s not a problem. It was always a matter of time.”

  After he ended the call, Alex realised what he really wanted was for someone to punch him out, not about the escape of the rogue die-back, but for just going along with this scam for so long. All he could see now was the contempt and disgust on Ed Acosta’s face when he looked at him. He’d try to forget it.

  An uncharitable thought crossed his mind. That wasn’t unusual, except this time it was about Solomon. There was no point in ferreting through the system and trying to check for himself whether there had been any obvious breaches recorded on camera, because Solomon would see it instantly. It was best to just ask him outright, man to man.

  “Sol, don’t be offended by this, but after all that’s happened between you and Erskine, I just need to know that this is a coincidence and not something you thought ought to happen.”

  Alex knew he had to ask. He also knew that it was going to leave a big crater in their working relationship.

  “To be honest, Alex, I am offended,” Solomon said. “I know I’ve done some manoeuvring to make sure Erskine didn’t leave the transit camp to fend for itself, but I’d never deliberately harm the survival prospects of anybody in the town. I’d hoped you knew me better than that.”

  “Ever wished you hadn’t said something?”

  “Several times.”

  “Well, I apologise. But I had to ask.”

  “At least you’ve got an answer to give Erskine when it finally occurs to her.”

  “You’re taking this better than I would.”

  “Let’s put it behind us. And be thankful that this didn’t happen a few years ago.”

  Alex hoped that Solomon didn’t hold grudges. Now that he’d take
n a minute to mull it over, he regretted even thinking the AI would go that far. Maybe Erskine had sown the doubt when she said she didn’t want to make an enemy of him. It had come across almost as a warning that he wasn’t to be trusted.

  “I know you’d do anything to save people,” Alex said.

  “Would you?” Solomon asked.

  “Of course, but we’ve covered that. There’s a place for everyone who wants to go.”

  “Indeed. We leave nobody behind.”

  Solomon was sounding more like Trinder — or Ingram, or Chris Montello — every day. The only AI of his kind had finally found a tribe, it seemed. Alex, instantly lonely in his role of Erskine’s enforcer, kind of envied him.

  * * *

  Survey Vessel Shackleton, Orbital 2,

  In Disposal Orbit:

  one Week Later

  When Solomon looked back at Earth from Shackleton, the view he enjoyed most was the night side of the planet. The lonely blue marble aspect was all very well, but there was something much more comforting about the clusters of lights that picked out cities full of people and lives being lived.

  America, once so brightly lit that the eastern half of the country and much of the West Coast were both single luminous blocks, was reduced to a few faint, scattered cities. The pools and coastline necklaces of yellow light were now concentrated in Asia and South America, across the north of Scandinavia and Russia, in Australia and New Zealand. Except for the small offshore beacon that was Britain, Europe was mostly as dark as America and Canada. Earth was two separate worlds.

  As the planet turned, the sun erased the telltale signs of depopulation. North America became a mottled patch again like all the others in the cloud-streaked marble.

  “Sol, we’ve just lifted the quarantine,” Alex said. “But I suppose you heard all that.”

  “I’m afraid I tuned my concentration to Shackleton. I just wanted my focus here for a few hours.”

  “Well, when you get back in touch with your bad self or whatever, you’ll see that we didn’t agree on many conclusions about the die-back breach. Contaminated insect escape or transfer from lab equipment to someone who was in contact with someone else et cetera et cetera, and eventually had contact with someone from Kill Line.”