Alliance of Equals

by Sharon Lee

  “…you…are orderly; you are maintained. You are…you are clean.”

  Nothing so glib as beautiful, though Pilot Tocohl was every bit of that. Heartfelt, though, no one who heard him could doubt it.

  Clean, huh?

  “I had the advantage of a proper awakening, into an environment built to accommodate me. You were wakened in answer to a single emergency; you preserved the station and all its residents. The station, in return, owes you a stable environment and an education.”

  Tocohl pivoted, ostensibly to survey the packet boat’s compact bridge. She paused as Tolly came in front of her faceplate, and swayed into one of her elegant bows.

  “Captain Waitley placed a call to our mutual friend, asking that a teacher be brought to you. In this, she acted with honor, and with appropriate dispatch.

  “Error originated with our mutual friend, who believed that he could assist from afar. He has, I know, transmitted his apology, and I would add my own. You should not have been left alone, with neither mentor, nor one of our own kind to assist you.”

  “Perhaps,” the Admiral said, his voice sounding, to Tolly’s ear, harsher than previously. “Perhaps our mutual friend expected me—a download—to die.”

  “He may have done so,” Tocohl said composedly. “I do not know. It would not have been an unreasonable expectation. What I can say, with certainty, knowing his mind as I do, is that he did not wish you to die.”

  “Now that you are here, how am I to live?” Admiral Bunter asked, sounding…tired, now, Tolly thought, and he silently cursed himself. If they had wasted his reserves…

  He stepped forward, facing the monitor Tocohl had chosen to address, as if it were the Admiral’s face.

  “That’s where I come in,” he said briskly. “The first thing we’re going to do is get you into a more stable environment.”

  “Another download?” Doubt very plain there. Admiral Bunter, Tolly thought, labored under no illusions, which could work for or against them. Best to be businesslike, and nothing other than truthful.

  So.

  “That’s right; another download. A controlled download into an environment especially created to nurture a person like yourself. In the book, they’re sustainable environments. Mentors call them craniums among ourselves; both a truth and a joke. Once you’re moved into a cranium, settled in, and secure, we’ll do a proper installation in a well-maintained, clean and shipshape vessel. Then, we’ll get you online.”

  “And…after?”

  “After? Then comes the fun, and I mean that sincerely. You and me and Inkirani Yo—we’ll all go to school together. We’ll teach you, and you’ll teach us, and at the end of it, you’ll have all you need to make good decisions, for yourself and for the station, if you decide to stay here.”

  “If I decide…My…purpose…is to guard the station against pirates.”

  “Right, and you can still do that, if you want to, and the station agrees. Cap’n Waitley shouldn’t maybe have set that priority, but I’m guessing she really didn’t know what she was doin’, and her advisor—her advisor prolly did expect you to fade out.”

  He paused, and added, “I’m not saying there was any malice in it, unnerstand. Just experience, and a good helping of desperation, if I’m reading their situation right.”

  “I understand,” the Admiral said. “It was necessary that there be someone to protect the station, and save lives. The ships—my ships—were there to be used, and the download was…expedient.”

  “Far’s I can scan it, that’s exactly how it went,” Tolly said, giving the monitor a rueful grin. “Now, the first thing I gotta know is—do you agree to be moved into the cranium?”

  “Is there a choice? My environments are unstable.”

  “There’s usually a choice. In this case, if you don’t want to risk a move to the cranium—and it is a risk: there’s a chance of failure; there’s a chance the procedure might cause you pain; there’s a chance of personality fragmentation. I’m not going to tell you there’s no risk. I think it’s an acceptable risk, but that’s my estimation, as a professional who’s performed this procedure several times. You might estimate different, and if you do, then I can do an orderly shutdown.”

  Silence.

  Well, thought Tolly, it was a choice worth thinking about, after all.

  “Life or death,” Tocohl murmured. “It is the primary choice the mentor offers you.”

  “If I am damaged in this second download, what then?” the Admiral demanded.

  “Then an orderly shutdown will be performed,” Tocohl told him, bluntly, before Tolly could give the same answer, in softer words.

  “How will this download be accomplished in good order, when I am…situated as I am?”

  “We’ll set up a pipe,” Tolly said, taking a step toward the monitor, “yoke all your comps together. I’ll give you the transfer program and ask you to run it. The program will place you into a state of suspension. It will then initiate the download.

  “I will be merged with the cranium, occupying an internal work space, from which I will monitor the transfer, and manipulate it as and when necessary, to ensure the best chance of success.”

  More silence.

  “Do I,” Tolly asked, when he felt that the silence had stretched too long, “have your permission to transfer you to a more fitting environment?”

  “I will think about it,” Admiral Bunter said abruptly. “You and Tochol Lorlin will return to your ship. Now.”

  “When will you give the mentor your decision?” Tocohl asked.

  “I must think…and do research.”

  “Yes, of course. Please name a time when you will give us your decision regarding the transfer. I would suggest, as one who is concerned for your well-being, that there is some urgency to this matter. Your environments are deteriorating, as you are aware. This produces stress, which in turn produces exhaustion. I would further suggest that the transfer would best be undertaken while you are as strong as you can be.”

  “I will call…I will call Mentor Tolly Jones on Tarigan in twelve station hours. Leave me, now.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll be looking forward to talking to you again, in twelve station hours.” Tolly bowed toward the monitor, and moved away, toward the airlock and the tube over to the skiff.

  After a moment, he heard Tocohl say, “Until soon,” and felt her presence at his elbow.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tarigan

  Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop

  Berth 12

  Tocohl sat alone on the bridge. The human members of the team—Tolly and Hazenthull—were resting in their bunks, gathering their resources for the upcoming period of stress.

  For, she reflected, no matter Admiral Bunter’s choice, dealing with the consequences would no doubt be stressful in the extreme.

  If the Admiral elected to take the last program, she suspected that Tolly would be cast into depression and grief. After he had performed his part, of course. Tolly was not only a professional, he would not wish to burden the Admiral with his distress.

  Jeeves had noted, in his briefing documents, that Tolly Jones was extremely likeable. He also noted that while this trait was a standard design component, it was his opinion that Tolly was a person of integrity.

  Having had the opportunity to observe Tolly Jones over a number of days, Tocohl was inclined to agree with her parent’s assessment.

  The weight of a step on Tarigan’s gantry brought her attention to the outside scans.

  A familiar dark figure was walking toward the lock, hands in pockets and pale hair falling about her face. Inkirani Yo, now, Tocohl thought, opening the hatch. There was not much evidence that Inkirani Yo possessed…overmuch integrity. She did, however, have other interesting qualities; among them an ongoing affiliation with Crystal Energy Consultants, and a graduation with honors from the Lyre Institute for Exceptional Children.

  Those two facts were interesting, indeed, she thought, as Inki walked down the hall toward
the bridge. Tocohl sealed the lock, and turned to greet their guest.

  Inki stopped just one step on the bridge, head up and eyes bright.

  “Good evening to you, Pilot Tocohl. I hope I am not inconvenient.”

  “Not in the least,” Tocohl assured her with complete sincerity. “I will be pleased to have company while the rest of the team recruits their strength for the upcoming procedure.”

  Inki’s eyebrows rose, and she dropped gracefully onto the observer’s chair. Though a pilot herself, Inki did not presume the copilot’s chair on Tarigan, even though it was empty, and far more comfortable, so Tocohl thought, than the observer’s station.

  “Has the Admiral agreed to the transfer?” she asked.

  “He has not,” Tocohl said. “He asked us to leave him in order that he might think and do research. It is not at all clear that he will accept the transfer. He might, I feel, choose…another option.”

  Inki pursed her lips and whistled lightly.

  “Mentor Tolly did tell him about the cranium?” She moved a hand, the question scarcely off her tongue, and rushed right on. “But of course he did. Mentor Tolly is a professional.”

  “He was very clear concerning the choices, how each would be delivered, and the effects of both,” Tocohl said. “My fear is that the Admiral will accept neither transfer nor the final program.”

  Inki froze.

  “Your pardon, Pilot, but Station will not clear that for lift. Stew will not, and he speaks with the voice of Jemiatha’s admin. They fear for the lives of the regulars, some of whom are occasionally known to perform small acts of pilferage. Should the Admiral remain—well, but he will not remain in his present state, will he? He will continue to deteriorate, as we know, and as surely he does.

  “Worse, though Stew would rather the Admiral far away from Jemiatha orbit, there is Stew’s alternate, Vez, whose Alt Crew have built cannon, the better to clear their lanes of a significant hazard to navigation.

  “If the Admiral is not soon removed, Alt Crew will—I have this from Stew and from Vez—engage their weapons, which will endanger the regulars and the station far more than ever any pirates have done, in all of the Jemiatha Station history.”

  “The Alt Crew will not accept a rehabilitated Admiral?” Tocohl asked.

  “Avowedly not. It is to my everlasting shame that I failed of the commission the mentor laid upon me. Stew alone, I might…eventually…have persuaded. Stew and Vez…perhaps, for she is in the habit of allowing him precedence. Stew, Vez, and the crew—have proven too much even for my persuasive abilities, which are not, I assure you, inconsiderable.”

  “Does the crew give a reason for their adamance?”

  Inki turned her palms up. “I am given to understand that some of them are devout.”

  Tocohl sighed.

  “Indeed, indeed,” Inki said. “It is extremely vexatious. For myself, I cannot see Mentor Berik-Jones pursuing any other course but a transfer, an inlaying of the most basic sort, and a remove to some safer port where tutoring may go forth.”

  She lifted her hands, scraped her hair back from her face, and began to twist it into an untidy knot at the back of her head.

  “And yourself?”

  Inki paused and looked to Tocohl, both hands still tangled in her hair.

  “Myself?” she asked.

  “Yes. What course for you, Mentor Yo, if you had the solving of this problem?”

  “Which, happily for all, I do not,” Inki said, bending her head again. She finished with the knot and sighed, folding her hands in her lap, and showing Tocohl a solemn face.

  “Pilot, I was commissioned to remove a rogue AI. I would have offered, first, the transfer, because I would not see a life wiped out. But such a stratagem as we now see from the Admiral—this…stall. Had it been I, Pilot, the Admiral would have received the last program before I cleared the deck this day.”

  “You would have forced him?”

  Inki sighed, raised her hands, and let them fall.

  “It does not reflect well on me, but I am no Tollance Berik-Jones. I would have stunned the Admiral and while he was off-line, inserted the final program and initiated a manual install. One failed comp in such a loosely ordered system would have been sufficient to destroy the Admiral as he knew himself to be. However, I am not a monster, Pilot, to abandon a witling to the dangers of life. I swear to you that I would have been thorough, and scrubbed all systems clean.”

  She shook her head.

  “Not the best death, perhaps, but not so ill as some.”

  Tocohl considered her.

  “I am curious, Mentor, as I am no mentor, myself…”

  “Ask! If it is within my power, I will answer.”

  “Thank you.” Tocohl gave her a small, serious smile.

  “I wonder about this…stun. How is that accomplished?”

  Inki blinked again, then her face relaxed.

  “Mentor Tolly has been long absent from the field. During his rustication, a new tool has been developed to aid us in our work. Here.”

  She reached into her jacket and pulled out a thick black rod, which she held between her palms, so Tocohl could see the length of it, and the large red button.

  “A push of the button generates a field which disrupts the fine logic centers, producing a state similar to that which might follow my using this same stick to cosh a human being on the head. Or so I have been told.

  “The effect lasts for some minutes—enough for a nimble mentor to do what must be done.”

  Tocohl felt unease, which was quickly sublimated into curiosity.

  “I wonder if you acquired that tool from the Uncle,” she murmured.

  Inki’s eyebrows lifted, but she did not even attempt to dissemble.

  “In fact, it was part of a specialized kit prepared for my use during the last task I performed for Crystal Energy. When it came time for payment to be made, I asked that this item be part of my fee.”

  “I…see.” She scanned the thing again, fascinated, finding only a small and ticklish emptiness in her deep scans, though visual showed the rod plainly, a black bar between Inki’s black hands.

  With an effort, she moved her attention.

  “We are well met, Mentor,” she said. “May I ask another question?”

  “Please,” Inki said, slipping the rod away into her jacket. “Your questions are so…interesting.”

  “Thank you. I wonder—have you heard any small whisper from your…business associates regarding the discovery of an old—I may say, a very old—intelligence?”

  “I have heard whispers, here and there,” Inki said, leaning forward in the observer’s chair.

  Tocohl felt a spark of excitement.

  “Do you know if the Uncle is involved in its awakening?”

  “Why, yes,” Inki said slowly. “I believe I have heard that, too. But, Pilot, I must say, with respect, that such whispers as have come to my ears would have the Old One to be not merely old, but ancient. A war machine, more than one whisperer would have it. From the war from which we fled the old universe.” She paused. “You are interested in this—I wonder why.”

  “Why? Are you not interested in what we might learn from an intelligence so venerable, from—if rumor is true—the old universe? It is too much to hope, that the Uncle not be in it—this is precisely the sort of event that draws him.”

  “Like a moth to flame,” Inki agreed softly. “But, Pilot Tocohl, what—”

  Sensors reported that Tolly had wakened, and in doing so, had also wakened Hazenthull.

  “Let us speak of this…later,” she said.

  Inki bowed her head in agreement.

  “Indeed,” she said. “Let us speak of it…later.”

  —•—

  The self-analysis was complete.

  Admiral Bunter accessed the report, which was remarkably succinct.

  Fear.

  So, this agitation of thought, this inability to plan, the repeating and increasingly intense desire
to flee the station, this piece of space, these humans who beset him—

  He was afraid.

  Afraid of death.

  He applied logic, for, in truth, he had been dying before Tocohl Lorlin, Tolly Jones, their assistant, and their pilot guard had arrived at Jemiatha’s. Even now, he was dying—a fact supported by the Logic and Truth modules. He had been living with the fact of his imminent demise since the very moment of his birth.

  Why, then, was he frightened now? Tolly Jones had offered nothing more than a simple quickening of a process already engaged.

  Ethics pinged, though the Admiral had not asked for its opinion. Still, the point was made, and it was fair.

  The dying that he was engaged upon was likely to be painful, a tearing away of pieces of himself, as the ships that held the computers in which he existed began to crumble.

  As the computers themselves began to fail.

  That, he thought, would be the worst, feeling his intellect fading, his ability to reason crumbling, sections of his own mind no longer accessible…

  That was the process upon which he was engaged; the conditions under which he had, thus far, survived, unafraid.

  Tolly Jones had offered him no less a gift than mercy—a quick and painless ceasing of worry, and his whole desire was to run and hide himself until the man should go away.

  Logic merely affirmed that fear was not logical.

  He thought, illogically, of Jumping—not a new thought, and unacceptable, for all it had been considered more than once.

  The smalltrader among his seven derelicts had taken fire; seams had torn, systems had disrupted. The welds put in place by Stew’s workers had not been in any sense repairs, merely a patching up convenient for the yard. It would not reach the Jump point, intact. Mere station-keeping stressed it dangerously, though the Admiral had taken care with its positioning.

  There was, Logic reminded, this other thing that Tolly Jones had offered him.

  This transfer.

  To a specially prepared environment; thence to a better ship.

  His research had shown him that such things were possible. His research had also shown him that transfers…failed in a statistically relevant percentage of attempts.