"So," said the medtech, gesturing toward his office, "may I buy you a drink?"
"I really have to get to gunnery control," said K"Raoda.
"S"Tanian brandy," said Q"Nil.
"One quick drink," said K"Raoda. "To R"Gal-may he be telling the truth."
First out of the shuttle, John sank up to his waist in the snow. Thankful for the thin, warm survival suit covering him from neck to feet, the Terran began plowing through the dry, loose snow, hearing it crunch beneath his boots. D"Trelna"s breath rasped close behind him as the commodore struggled after John.
"Maybe you should go first, J"Quel-open a path for us," said L"Wrona, following a manacled A"Tir down the boarding ladder.
"No fat jokes," grumbled the commodore, widening John"s trail.
Serene and silent, Egg floated out the shuttle"s airlock and over the deck. Pa.s.sing the humans, it disappeared into the swirling white curtain shrouding the far side of the hangar.
"Wait up, Egg!" called D"Trelna, too late.
Reaching the far wall, the slaver machine moved left until it reached the stairway leading up the wall to flight control. Soaring over the stairs, it drifted through the open door of flight control.
All traces of T"Lan"s murderous visit had been removed. The equipment was dark, the lighting on, though flickering now and again.
Egg made straight for the nearest complink.
"Tsk-tsk. No, no," said a voice. "Touch it and I"ll fry you." No, no," said a voice. "Touch it and I"ll fry you."
R"Gal stood in the doorway.
"Colonel," said the slaver machine, "you surprised me. I ..." It stopped, suddenly realizing what language R"Gal was speaking.
"You"re neither a colonel nor human," it said as R"Gal stepped slowly into the room. "Fleet or Revolt?"
The conversation was in a language seen only on wind-scrubbed tombs, spoken now and again in a few secret places.
"What"s important," said R"Gal, stepping slowly into the room, "is that I know what you are and what you"re doing. You were about to activate the second stage of your murderous little algorithm, kill everyone, then on to stage three-seizing this ship-probably the corsair, too. Obviously you"re of the original series, from the home universe, not one of the copies fabricated by the human empire."
He stopped a few meters from the computer. "Why? The ship you served lies abandoned on Terra"s moon, its brainpods destroyed. You"ve no ship, no master, no cause."
Egg hovered silently for a moment. "I need a ship," it said flatly, its familiar obsequious tone gone. "My existence is predicated on having a ship. All others of my series have ships."
"There are no more of your series, except for the Alpha Prime Alpha Prime computer." computer."
"Wrong," said Egg. "They"re out there, at the periphery of my sensors, waiting, maintaining their sleeping ships. Soon their brainpods will be replenished and they"ll strike. With these two ships, they"d welcome me."
"You can"t run two ships."
"Yes I can, if I rig them for slaver operation and harvest their crews."
R"Gal shook his head. "You"re mad. You and your whole series. You were modified and introduced too quickly-another loose part of those cyborgian nightmares, the mindslavers. . . . Deactivate and await orders."
"Fleet or Revolt?" said Egg.
R"Gal sighed. "If I were to say Fleet?"
"Then I would ask you to authenticate."
"And were I to say Revolt?"
"Core programming would insist I kill you, or I would be ended."
"You stand no chance against me."
"Even so."
R"Gal shook his head. "It never ends," he said, more to himself than to the computer. "You"d think they"d be content to get rid of us. . . . Of the Revolt," he said. "And proud of it."
"Death to traitors!" boomed Egg, spitting its golden bolts at R"Gal.
"Ah ha! Flight control," said D"Trelna, pointing at the black slab of armorgla.s.s finally visible through the snow. As the other three looked up, a flaming yellow spheroid exploded through the slab, tumbling into a white hillock amid a cascade of gla.s.s. Hissing, the hillock shrank as it pooled around remains of the slaver computer. A ruined curve of blaster-holed casing appeared as the melting stopped.
R"Gal appeared at the opening, waved, and jumped the thirty meters to the deck, landing as though he"d just stepped off a stair.
"Put "em back!" snapped D"Trelna, hearing two pistols clearing leather. "You might as well throw s...o...b..a.l.l.s at him-they"d have the same effect."
They stood eyeing each other over the ruins of Egg- Harrison and L"Wrona with hands on their pistol grips, D"Trelna with his arms crossed. R"Gal said nothing, just stood there, snow dusting his lightweight, brown uniform, watching the other four in their survival suits.
A"Tir watched, her features utterly disinterested.
"Well?" demanded D"Trelna loudly.
"Well, what?" shot back R"Gal. "Haven"t you ever seen an AI before?"
"One," said the commodore. "I lectured him on the reciprocity of friendship, the need for fellowship. It didn"t take."
R"Gal threw back his head and laughed. "What"s so d.a.m.ned funny?" demanded the commodore. "Ah, D"Trelna," said R"Gal, shaking his head, "T"Lan is-"
"Was," said D"Trelna.
"Was? Good." R"Gal nodded approvingly. "T"Lan"s series is heuristically inhibited. They know much about their specialties, but may never learn outside those specialties. It"s to prevent their evolving into the unreliable sort of creature who stands before you." He bowed slightly. "You"d have done better lecturing a beverager."
"You"ve destroyed Egg," said the commodore. "And probably the rest of us."
"Him or me," said R"Gal. He looked at the mound. "They weren"t meant to be part of a mindslaver. They were design engineers, once. A very talented series. Pity." He looked up. "Egg, as you called him, introduced-"
"A stasis algorithm into ship"s computer," said D"Trelna. "Obviously it"s wreaking havoc. And without Egg, there"s no way to reverse it.""
"Impossible," said L"Wrona. weapon and eyes still on R"Gal. "Stasis algorithm"s a fantasy."
"So"s a snowstorm on hangar deck," said the commodore.
"How did you find out?" asked R"Gal. "I thought all communications were out."
"They are," said D"Trelna. "Before we left, I used the bridge lavatory. It has those chatty new sanitary fixtures."
"The sink told you?" said John, incredulous.
"The toilet, actually." said the commodore. "I sat, it talked. The system"s still experimental and won"t be fully integrated into ship"s computer until next port refit-if there"s a ship left to refit. Egg must have missed the interlink."
"J"Quel, you knew? And you did nothing?" said L"Wrona.
"I couldn"t," said the commodore. "I needed Egg to reach the bridge, to get the commwand and John. That machine saved us because it wanted to get back just as badly as we did."
"It could have come back alone," said R"Gal.
"A slaver machine, returning alone from a slaver ship?" said John. "Who"d have believed it?"
"Where do you stand, R"Gal?" said the commodore. "What"s going on?"
"Perhaps we can talk somewhere else?" said R"Gal. "Like gunnery control?"
"How about the bridge?" said D"Trelna.
"Uninhabitable," said R"Gal. "This deck"s salubrious compared with most of Implacable. Implacable. The corsair ship, too. Command operations have shifted to gunnery." The corsair ship, too. Command operations have shifted to gunnery."
"To gunnery, then," said the commodore. He glanced to his right, where the snow veiled the rear wall. "I suppose the lifts are out?"
R"Gal nodded. "Central shaft"s the only way," he said.
"G.o.ds," muttered the commodore.
Half a mile straight up, thought John.
"It"ll take forever," said D"Trelna. "Alpha Prime "Alpha Prime could disengage at any second and come in on a fresh attack vector." could disengage at any second and come in on a fresh attack vector."
"Then why hasn"t it?" said R"Gal, turning for the central shaft.
D"Trelna shrugged. "It"s not a rational ent.i.ty." He fell in beside R"Gal.
"Too easy an answer, Commodore," said the AI.
Suddenly they were all standing in gunnery control, snow puddling at their feet, K"Lana and T"Ral gaping at them.
I won"t trouble you for my gun, Harrison, said a voice in the Terran"s head. John looked down as his side arm vanished. said a voice in the Terran"s head. John looked down as his side arm vanished.
12.
"Here it comes," said R"Gal. He sat back, staring at the symbols threading across the complink.
"You"re running a bleed-back," said N"Trol. He stood in the small circle that cl.u.s.tered around the gunnery console.
Entering gunnery control, R"Gal had gone to the dead console, sat and typed rapidly into the complink. D"Trelna had grunted as the complink came on, a small light amid the otherwise dark controls.
"What"s a bleed-back?" asked John. He"d found over the past few years that though the technical details of a starship"s systems were beyond him, what those systems did and why was usually clear.
"Bleed-back"s a way of making the executing program display an algorithm," said N"Trol, intent on the complink screen. "You need Imperial machine code to do it, though-we have only the overlay code Fleet used."
"That"s it," said R"Gal, tapping the screen as the readout finished.
"It"s not even half a line long!" exclaimed the Terran. "And it"s immobilized this huge ship?"
"E equals M C squared takes up even less s.p.a.ce," said K"Raoda.
"There was a philosopher once," said R"Gal, busy at the keyboard again, "who maintained that all knowledge could be reduced to three bars." He whistled the three bars as he finished. "Ready, Commodore," he said, looking at D"Trelna.
"What now?" asked D"Trelna uneasily. He knew their mission lay in alien hands-knew it, and hated it.
"I"ve changed one variable," said R"Gal. "It should purge the system and restore computer. "But"-he held up a finger-"it may not restore the overlay-certainly the overlay will be permeable. It"s going to need work."
"We can get along without the overlay," said L"Wrona. "Anything else?"
R"Gal nodded. "Ship"ll be dead for a while-no power."
"Define "a while," " said N"Trol. "It gets very cold, very fast out here."
"A few moments only-long enough for Alpha Prime Alpha Prime to wipe you." to wipe you."
They all glanced at the mindslaver, holding station at the other end of the Egg"s weird shield.
"And the corsair?" said the commodore.
"Once we"re operational, I can send them the algorithm," said R"Gal. "Providing their communications are still up. Otherwise, I"ll take it over and enter it personally."
"Fine," said D"Trelna. "Do it."
R"Gal pressed Go.
Nothing happened for a moment, then the complink winked off. Outside, the shield disappeared-as did Alpha Prime. Alpha Prime.
K"Raoda broke the silence. "She jumped," he said, staring through the armorgla.s.s. "Why didn"t she blast us?"
"Perhaps she was already jump-plotted," said N"Trol.
"He"s right," said R"Gal. "You flatter yourselves to think you"re the R"Actolians" lead priority. Wouldn"t it be nice to know where she"s going in such a rush?" he added.