Attunga

by Peter Wood

  ‘Does Turaku think they found out anything about Sonic?’

  ‘They didn’t. That’s definite. And they won’t find out about his developing abilities either, because after this intrusion we’re restricting that knowledge to Attunga and Warrakan.’

  Thom interrupted, looking puzzled. ‘What is that ship? I thought I knew every type on Attunga and it’s not one of them, and the search I did came up with nothing at all.’

  Burilda shook her head and Thom turned to Wirrin.

  ‘Try a search. You’re way better than me.’

  Thinking Thom might have made some simple mistake Wirrin fixed the image he was seeing and connected it with a basic search program from the InterWeb. Nothing happened, so he applied a more sophisticated search engine.

  First Level security. Limited access granted.

  Wow, this was exciting. Turaku must have just given him access. Wirrin used his holo screen so the others could see what was happening and when a set of pointers appeared he quickly scanned them.

  ‘It’s an overview, Thom. It won’t tell us everything.’

  For the next ten minutes it told them enough to set Thom’s mind spinning.

  ‘They can’t do that!’

  ‘Can’t do what?’

  ‘Accelerate so fast. Our training course says grav-compensators can only cope with 14G and this thing can reach 21G.’

  Wirrin thought back to the excitement just six days ago when Thom put the personal transporter through its paces for them at 8G and his mind boggled. A quick calculation showed that after one minute, 21G meant you were travelling at over 12 kilometres every second.

  ‘Well, that’s what it says, Thom. It must be able to do it.’

  It made Wirrin wonder what capabilities and discoveries might be hidden behind the security walls. Gulara arrived and they headed for the boarding ferry. Now they’d find out for themselves.

  Calen had left early to accompany the three dolphins and Wirrin tried a quick link to see what he was doing.

  No link! That was a shock and Wirrin didn’t like it. He couldn’t ever remember a time when he couldn’t contact Calen or Thom.

  ‘Gulara, there’s no InterWeb to Calen.’

  ‘Once we’re on board and inside the security bubble the InterWeb will function normally for you again … Can you wait that long?’

  Since they were on the boarding ferry that meant a couple of minutes at the most, but Wirrin couldn’t wait and kept trying his links. It was puzzling because, instead of a message saying the links weren’t available, the InterWeb was responding as if they didn’t even exist.

  As soon as they passed the gravity warning and entered the big ship Wirrin tried again, with retinal image mode so he didn’t look so impatient. The image of Calen in the transport unit with the dolphins appeared seamlessly and Wirrin relaxed. The water in the unit was chest high, enough to give the dolphins comfortable clearance, and Calen was between Sonic and Flute looking at a real-time display unit.

  ‘You’re checking Calen?’ Gulara said.

  ‘Yes, and Sonic looks really excited.’

  There was a momentary pause, as Gulara linked in to see for herself.

  ‘How can you tell?’ Gulara turned to the ranger.

  It felt strange having Gulara asking Burilda questions – she always seemed to know everything.

  ‘They can figure dolphin body language better than I can, Gulara. They’ve picked it up from Calen.’

  Wirrin and Thom exchanged a glance. Better than Burilda?

  Burilda crossed to a TransCom portal and a few seconds later the group reached a room where a number of people were seated comfortably before a large viewing screen. The main image was of deep space, with Warrakan as the focus, but there were sub-windows round the periphery. Several were obvious – a view of Attunga, and the dolphin transport unit – but most of them had displays that would need explaining.

  There was a shimmer of light as Turaku appeared.

  ‘Welcome to my place.’

  Everyone acknowledged the ancient greeting and Turaku indicated the big screen. Warrakan was moving, which meant they were on their way. Except it was sliding sideways and not getting any closer.

  ‘Sonic wants to look round so we’re doing a circuit of Attunga first.’

  That was interesting in itself. The dolphins loved exploring their watery environment but had little interest in what lay beyond, so this was another difference showing up in Sonic. Turaku appeared to be watching the big screen intently, which cued Wirrin that there must be a reason. The AI could gather information through any sensor connected with Attunga, so what was he looking for?

  ‘Security display.’

  Attunga and Warrakan shrank in size, and hundreds upon hundreds of scattered pinpoints of orange light appeared.

  ‘Those are the surveillance drones you were interested in, Wirrin, from K74. Their numbers have increased rapidly since the Freedom intrusion.’

  Wirrin took in the scene, shocked by the numbers.

  ‘Most of them are centred around Warrakan?’

  ‘Yes. It’s the newest development in the solar system and they’re very interested in the big drives being installed. They also probe every vessel that docks there.’

  ‘Do you know what they’re looking for?’

  ‘Everything and anything they can find out.’

  Wirrin thought about what had happened at Freedom and a strong feeling of revulsion boiled up at these machines and their spying.

  ‘Why don’t the security AIs stop them?’

  ‘They’re harmless to all intents and purposes. They see what we want them to see and taking action against them would only escalate problems with K74,’ Turaku answered.

  Wirrin had another thought.

  ‘If they can’t probe this ship they’ll think it’s got a secret of some kind, won’t they?’

  ‘This ship doesn’t even exist for them unless they get closer than 2 kilometres, and then it just registers as an anomaly.’

  Wirrin was puzzled.

  ‘They must have cameras, Turaku. If they were that close they’d be able to see us easily.’

  ‘That’s correct. We substitute the data in their transmissions with the visual signal they’d receive if we weren’t here.’

  Wirrin smiled. There wasn’t much to worry about from a spy device that sent back whatever information it was given. With that ability Attunga really was way ahead of K74.

  Wirrin watched all the lights and, when the screen returned to normal view, wondered if he could access the security information for himself. With a few quick subvocalised commands the lights appeared in his retinal mode. This was really interesting. He tried scanning towards K74 to see how many more drones were coming. Hundreds. And ships as well?

  ‘Turaku, what are those ships? The security shows two of them represented in red. Are they dangerous?’

  ‘All habitats have defensive ships. That’s only to be expected, but those two have destructive abilities and we’re watching them closely.’

  Wirrin focused his attention on the biggest and called for information. Atomics. Lasers. Lethal picobots …

  ‘Lethal picobots? What does that mean?’

  An image of the ship appeared on the general screen. Turaku must have brought it up so the others could follow the conversation. It certainly had their attention.

  ‘It has picobots designed to infiltrate and destroy communication and control systems, as well as others that can attack physical life.’

  It was a stark and shocking realisation for Wirrin. Nanobots had been used for similar purposes in the past, but those nightmare times were now barely remembered. Picobots, hugely advanced by comparison, would be far more dangerous.

  ‘Don’t be concerned. We can control them easily.’

  ‘How far away is it?’ From Burilda’s expression this danger was completely new to her.

  ‘Half an hour at least.’

  ‘It looks big. What’s the scale of it?’
Thom asked.

  Wirrin checked and then, wide eyed, said, ‘It’s nearly 500 metres. More than twice as big as this ship.’

  Turaku raised a hand as if to quell everyone’s dire thoughts.

  ‘Its size is irrelevant. To all intents and purposes it’s harmless. We could disable it in moments.’

  ‘Why don’t you? It shouldn’t be coming here.’

  ‘There’s no need. It won’t come past our prescribed limits.’

  Gulara, who’d been rather quiet, spoke up. ‘We’re not at war, Thom. They’re entitled to travel through free space.’

  Wirrin thought for a moment. ‘But something is happening isn’t it? The break-in to Freedom, all these spy drones, dangerous ships heading towards us, and this special security for Sonic?’

  A look passed between Gulara and Turaku and Wirrin knew they were communicating with each other.

  ‘Very good, Wirrin. Yes, there has been a big change, and the Freedom incident was the trigger. It focused the directed habitats’ attention on Attunga and Warrakan, in particular K74’s because of its proximity. In the past they’ve largely ignored us as an insignificant, privileged oddity, but their failed attempts to find out what’s happening with the dolphins has brought them to understand there’s a lot more to us than they previously realised. There are difficult times ahead. Not so much for us I hope, but for the semi-directed habitats and particularly for Earth.’

  ‘Insignificant? That’s crazy. We’re the best habitat there is.’

  ‘We do have the best conditions and the most privileges, Thom. Our Witness system and advanced association with our AIs assure that, but we are insignificant in terms of population. Most space habitats are past the billion mark and all the planetary habitats dwarf that. What’s the total population of the solar system, Wirrin?’

  ‘Um … 430 billion people and growing quickly. The five open space habitats combined add up to 2.7 billion and Attunga is just past 0.8 billion.’

  ‘Add Titania to the open habitats. We’ve been working with them for several years now, helping them adopt our open society.’

  ‘Titania? There’s a habitat way out there?’

  Way out there was a good description. Titania was one of the moons of Uranus, several light hours away.

  ‘There are six of them, Thom. The original Titania habitat and one on each of the major moons.’

  Wirrin searched and displayed the information on a holo screen for everyone. Just as Gulara said, there was one space habitat and five moon-based structures.

  ‘They started fifty years ago! And look at that. The moon habitats are all at least twice as big as Attunga but their total population is only 570 million.’

  It was remarkable. With something like thirty times the space the population was less than Attunga’s.

  ‘You’re very perspicacious, Wirrin.’

  Wirrin liked that, coming from Gulara, and looked for any other interesting information.

  ‘Two years ago, the space habitat had a population of 240 million but now it’s only 50 million. I’ve never heard of a habitat going backwards.’

  ‘The people have moved to the moons and the space habitat is developing into the third gestalt AI centre.’

  ‘Third? Where are the other two? And what’s an AI centre?’

  ‘You get one guess, Thom.’ Gulara’s raised eyebrows could mean only one thing and Wirrin blurted it out.

  ‘It’s us! Attunga and Warrakan! We have to be.’

  Clearly, Wirrin thought, special expeditions with Gulara and Turaku meant finding out fascinating new information.

  ‘This is more First Level information, so keep it strictly amongst yourselves. The AIs are building duplicate centres containing all their important projects and expansions. When Warrakan departs, every individual AI will be sending a replica, and the three gestalt AIs will do the same.’

  Wirrin had his own understanding of gestalt AIs, but since Turaku was manifest it was a good time to try for more information.

  ‘Have you ever been in a gestalt, Turaku?’

  ‘There are many levels of gestalt, Wirrin. At the moment I have strong links with four security AIs, two from Attunga and two from Warrakan. That gives me extra capabilities but there are limitations – those 50 kilometres slow down the processing of information we share. That’s a simple gestalt and it happens millions of times every day. For example, I linked with Attunga’s data AI a few seconds ago to access the latest update from an Earth database on dolphin activities. With a simple gestalt I keep my full sense of identity. In a deeper gestalt I don’t just share information, I share some of the processing as well. The greater the amount of sharing, the more my self-awareness is modified, and for some AIs the capabilities that come with the deepest degree of sharing are more important than retaining identity. The Attunga gestalt includes 273 amalgamated AIs so far.’

  Wirrin didn’t know what to think. Just one AI could monitor every single person on Attunga for every second of the day. What would 273 of them joined together be able to do?

  ‘Wow! It must be like a god!’

  That set Gulara and Burilda smiling, and even Turaku looked amused.

  ‘Hardly. It’s bound by the same fundamental laws we all are, Thom.’

  ‘Do you talk to it very much?’

  ‘Non-stop at the information exchange level, but with less and less frequency the deeper the level of gestalt needed.’

  ‘What sort of things do you use the really deep level for?’ Thom was on fire with this. AIs were going to be the topic of conversation for days.

  ‘Important decisions about Sonic and the dolphins, which might change priorities and processes for Attunga and Warrakan.’

  ‘Is there a dolphin project on Titania?’

  ‘Not yet, but there will be. Every open habitat will have one within five years.’

  The mention of dolphins reminded Wirrin of an earlier question. ‘What did you mean by difficult times on Earth?’

  Gulara and Turaku conferred again. What now?

  ‘Wirrin, do a search for recent dolphin events on Earth. Turaku has given you full access.’ Gulara’s voice was solemn.

  Several seconds later Wirrin felt a lump develop in his throat as he looked at sixty-three dead dolphins, then another forty spread along the waterline of a sandy beach, clumped in sad groups with small waves lapping against their inert bodies. Thom looked stricken. Thank goodness Calen wasn’t seeing this.

  There was a report of a mystery sickness that had struck at two separate marine research centres. Dolphins all round the world were being monitored closely. Gulara was shaking her head slowly.

  ‘Search deeper, Wirrin.’

  Wirrin did then recoiled in horror. The mystery illness, according to a post-mortem study, was really an attack by picobots.

  ‘Someone murdered them?’

  ‘We’ve analysed the post-mortem results and there are striking similarities with the picobots on the K74 ships.’

  Disbelief, anger and sadness warred within Wirrin till a comforting touch from Gulara helped him gather his wits.

  ‘You think K74 might have had something to do with this?’

  ‘It’s very likely. We’ve sent alerts to every research station on Earth but haven’t been able to reach them all.’

  How was that possible? Wirrin could connect to anyone on Attunga as quickly as he could identify them.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Earth AIs are very constrained in the more directed areas.’

  Well yes, that was right. Just like on K74 where the AIs were so constrained that they all left.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Have a look.’

  Wirrin used a sub window for a quick scan, stored the file in his memory implant then went to retinal mode.

  Wow – 7643 marine research stations, their projects, their degree of involvement with dolphins and other information – it was all there. But 1540 stations, mostly in two major continental coastal areas, couldn’t be r
eached.

  ‘How much time do we have before we arrive at Warrakan?’

  ‘Twenty minutes. Sonic is enjoying his sightseeing.’

  Wirrin turned away so he could concentrate properly. It was no good trying to contact research stations himself; they were twenty-seven light minutes away and the Earth AIs would know how to do that better anyway. Yes, there it was. A sub-database with files on every contact attempt. Maybe he could find out more about the two attacks? A quick look at the sourcing code for the file in his implant showed it was a dolphin activities database, probably the one Turaku had already mentioned. Could he access it? Yes, and it was enormous. Search? No, that was the file Turaku had sent. Broaden the terms of reference? Yes that would do it.

  Wirrin set up searches for all references to dolphins, picobots, the marine station locations and any travel associated with them.

  He set up searches for any communications to the marine stations and for any references about non-human sentience.

  Search after search he added, then combined cross-referencing engines with each search to note any links. All this he built into one coordinated task. He checked it through several times, then just before activating it, had another thought, and assigned correlators to process all the results from the searches and cross-references.

  Task mode – Archival or direct-data?

  Archival meant working with data stored on Attunga and would be very fast. Direct-data meant sending queries through the InterWeb to all the habitats and data centres in the solar system, and because of the time lapse for transmission, would take much longer.

  Wirrin commanded both, then watched in amazement as a task profile built for both modes.

  ‘That’s a major task, Wirrin.’

  Wirrin transferred to holo so the others would understand what Turaku meant. The archival approach showed a preliminary result in four minutes. That was an extraordinary amount of time in itself, but the other approach was saying six and half hours for preliminary results and fifty hours for ninety-five per cent completion.

  ‘Why does it take so long, Turaku? It’s twenty-seven minutes to Earth so double that and add-on a bit, and there should be something in an hour.’