Attunga

by Peter Wood

  ‘We’ll think of something.’

  In fact Wirrin was confident he’d be able to counter any rogue traps. He’d had months of study and simulation with Pirramar, practising to do just that, and all the analysis programs they’d developed were stored and ready in his InfoSystem. The two antidotes for the Freedom AIs had only taken moments to prepare once he’d received the analysis results.

  ‘Stealth module design criteria achieved and construction commenced. Completion in nine minutes and forty-eight seconds.’

  Wirrin and Thom exchanged excited looks. The criteria they’d agreed with Turaku was a high success probability of eighty-five per cent. Anything better would involve a much longer wait with relatively small improvement. Over nine minutes construction time? It must be complicated if a sophisticated guardian drone only took seventy-nine seconds.

  ‘When is the other Comet due to arrive?’

  ‘Not for another hour and a half, but that’s most likely changed since we cut off communication. I think they’ll send at least one extra, too, but that would be hours and hours away.’

  ‘Transport modules completed. Penetration modules begun.’

  ‘Two types of modules, Turaku?’

  ‘Three, Thom. A larger transport module with full stealth and pico-level camouflage to meld with the outer hull, a high-energy penetration type to force access through the hull and connect with a service conduit, and finally, an information retrieval module with a chameleon function to allow unnoticed operation in the blocked area.’

  Wirrin appreciated this clever design then felt his heart thump when Thom suddenly exclaimed, ‘One of the Cadre drones has just accelerated in the direction of K74 and will leave the jamming area in approximately three minutes.’

  ‘Don’t frighten me like that. I thought you were going to say they’d broken stealth.’

  ‘Wirrin, if they break our stealth every alarm in the control centre will go off and maximum acceleration will kick in automatically. You won’t hear a word from me because I’ll be too busy.’

  ‘Retrieval modules begun. Completion in 137 seconds. Event launch will be under the control of your InfoSystem.’

  Wirrin was ready. ‘Thom, how long before that drone can transmit to K74? I think it’s going to relay information they’ve discovered about the drive engines.’

  ‘It’s almost out of the jamming area now. I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it.’

  ‘Send a guardian drone after it. We now have them in the construction queue when the modules are finished.’

  Wirrin pushed thoughts about the drone to the back of his mind. It was launch time. The four hybrid modules left the Comet and rather disconcertingly disappeared from view.

  ‘Do you know where they are?’

  ‘Not really, Thom. The special signals they send must be cancelled by the jamming field. All we can do is wait for their return. How long do you expect that will be, Turaku?’

  ‘With optimal performance forty-two to forty-five minutes, with adverse conditions up to seventy minutes, and anything beyond that will almost certainly mean failure. The first guardian drone is now ready for instructions.’

  ‘Tell it to chase that Cadre drone and destroy it as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Done. Launch is under your control.’

  For a second time Wirrin initiated a launch and had all traces disappear from his InfoSystem. Well, those guardians were incredibly capable and he was sure it would do its job.

  There were continual situation checks while they waited for the all-important return of the hybrid modules. At Thom’s request the picofactory kept churning out guardians, as he wanted one for each of the fifteen Cadre drones and then as many as possible for the Cadre ships themselves in case he needed to take drastic action. He was as ready as Wirrin. The whole time they’d been under stealth he’d been going over different strategies – with help from the AIs – to employ if the Comet should be detected, and now, only a few minutes from Turaku’s optimal projection time for the stealth modules’ return and with twenty-six guardians ready, his tactics were increasingly aggressive. Fifteen guardians would destroy fifteen Cadre drones and the remaining guardians would attempt to disable the drive engines on the Cadre ships while the Comet itself would fly like a bolt of lightning in an effort to evade a possible onslaught from thousands upon thousands of deadly missiles.

  ‘What do you think? Sooner? Or later? And have you thought of something else if this doesn’t work?’

  Wirrin had three alternative plans in fact, but was increasingly confident they wouldn’t be needed. Continual monitoring of the people in the blocked area showed no unusual movement or actions and, according to Turaku, the retrieval module would have reached that room at least twenty minutes ago.

  ‘The AIs factor in every eventuality when they work out things like this, Thom, so I reckon it will be sooner. I’m expecting the first module within the next five minutes.’

  As if on cue, a green docking light flashed and all conjecture was forgotten as the first retrieval module linked directly and started dumping data to the quarantine area in the InfoSystem.

  Wirrin bypassed all the travel and penetration records and rushed to find the signal stored in the transmission device. His prepared analysis programs quickly identified different blocks of code. A backup set of instructions for running the Cadre ship? Interesting but it could wait.

  An automatic controlling procedure for all the ship’s armaments? Trouble, but fix it later.

  Communication control? Not now.

  Plan Alpha? Weird name … Yes!

  With almost the full resources of the InfoSystem focusing Wirrin’s barrage of tests, the signal started to reveal its secrets.

  The docking lights flashed green three more times with the return of a stealth module from each of the other three Cadre ships and three more sets of retrieval data were dumped to the quarantine location. Wirrin applied his analysis tasks and watched with a mixture of shock and satisfaction as the results came in.

  AI trap!

  AI trap!

  AI trap!

  AI trap!

  So many? It appeared as if the signal from each ship was a combination of two different traps.

  No, a third trap had just registered as part of the transmission for the first ship. It looked like the rogue wanted to hit the Comet with a dozen different types of trap simultaneously.

  A scan of the parameters put a smile on Wirrin’s face as patterns he’d worked at with Pirramar clicked in his mind. Yes, he knew that one, and that one.

  Seven would be no trouble at all, and four more had familiar-looking structures. Ten minutes later he exclaimed with annoyance.

  ‘Am I allowed to talk to you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Am I allowed to talk to you, Wirrin?’

  Wirrin gave a little shake to refocus his mind on Thom.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s better. I wasn’t game to ask in case I broke your concentration but then you made your grumble-grunt.’

  ‘I’ve worked out counters for every trap except one, which analysis says could force AI processors to one hundred per cent usage … But I can’t see how. Is anything happening?’

  ‘There’s endless movement near the engine we thought they were dismantling, and a transport ferry went into one of the Freedom docking bays.’

  Wirrin didn’t hear the end of Thom’s reply because an idea teased at the edge of his mind.

  Endless?

  Yes, endless.

  Endless loops!

  How strange! And the only thing needed would be a suitable recognition program.

  Loop recognition programs appeared on command and Wirrin cobbled several together and tested them. Not good enough, but on the right track.

  Set a task to do this at computer speed. Thirty-seven seconds and 794 attempts later the antidote for AI trap number twelve was ready.

  ‘PRIORITY ONE! PRIORITY ONE!’

  Whoa! I
n his excitement Wirrin had yelled and now Thom was staring at him in dismay.

  ‘It’s all good, Thom. We’re ready for action. Turaku, priority one is to disable those blocked areas and then the radiation devices. Once that is done control is at your discretion. I’m releasing the antidote codes from quarantine … Now!’

  Nothing happened. Well, not for approximately 3.4 seconds, whereupon the scan of the blocked area on the nearest ship abruptly changed to full optics and the sight of a shocked face staring at a blank console.

  Two seconds later Turaku announced, ‘Cadre ships are now under full control and the radiation devices locked in a neutral state. I suggest you release the code to help the Freedom AIs.’

  Wombats! That should have been released with the other codes. Slightly embarrassed, Wirrin quickly fixed that and turned to Thom. ‘I can’t think of everything.’

  ‘Yes, I know. It’s terrible. We just won’t mention that you saved the Comet, the AIs, and Freedom.’

  Comet-Turaku’s holo smiled.

  ‘Full contact with Attunga and Warrakan is now re-established.

  ‘The Witness Council have opened a direct conference link, and Akama is asking for you to report directly.

  ‘The habitat AIs are all fully functional and the Freedom leaders are asking permission to speak with you.’

  Chapter 26

  Wirrin settled on the grav-sofa and stared at the amazing sight on the wall display.

  ‘Gulara, where is that?’

  ‘You don’t recognise it? Well, I’m not surprised as it rarely looks like this. It’s Gnardune Pool in the throes of a twenty-year flood, with the biggest water flow for a long time.’

  The amazing sight, of a rushing orange-red torrent swirling past partially submerged trees, suddenly became even more amazing. The placid pool of clear, sparkling water of Wirrin’s memory was replaced by this moving, angry, giant of a river, extending way into the distance.

  ‘Is this near the willy-willy tree? The one we climbed I mean.’

  Gulara made some adjustments and suddenly the new viewpoint was recognisable. Yes, there was the tree, that burl was distinctive, and at the moment it was above the level of the rushing water. The branch where he’d perched to watch the spoonbill wasn’t.

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘We would have been washed away. Where does all that water come from?’

  ‘It’s Northern Australia. That’s what happens when there’s a big rain.’

  Wirrin knew all that, but seeing it in a familiar place made it so real, and for a few minutes he watched in wonder.

  Gulara was waiting though, and he could watch this at home with Thom, who would be particularly interested.

  ‘Thanks for seeing me so quickly, Gulara. I didn’t expect to come to your living space.’

  ‘I’ve been to yours often enough, and since you were close by and asking, why not? Now, is this a real problem or something you just want to talk about?’

  That made Wirrin smile.

  ‘It’s both. Akama has asked me to be a representative to Freedom and I don’t want to say no to him, but I don’t think I’m the right person.’

  Gulara raised both eyebrows expressively. ‘Why ever not? I think you’d be a wonderful ambassador, and you know you’re capable, whatever situation you’re in. You can’t be worried it would be too hard?’

  ‘No, but I do think I’m too young, and even more, I haven’t got enough time or experience to do it properly. I can’t divert time from my InfoSystem studies and the work about K74 with Pirramar because that’s a lot more important and I’m just starting to get the feel of it.’

  Gulara nodded, which surprised Wirrin, but also made him feel that his decision to talk this over with his mentor had been the right one.

  ‘Yes, on the face of it I agree with you, but I can’t see Akama asking this without having a special reason. Has he told you why?’

  ‘Well, yes. It’s because the Freedom leaders asked for me.’

  ‘They did? Well, they must be very impressed with you mustn’t they?’

  ‘I know, but they act like I’m the one who did everything, and treat me as if I’m special.’

  ‘That sounds quite reasonable to me, Wirrin. I know you saved them from the Cadre ships. Was there more to it than that?’

  ‘A lot more. It wasn’t really about Freedom. That was just part of a bigger scheme to capture the Comet and its technology. We found out that the two main things they were looking for were the beam defences and our advanced drive engines.’

  ‘The Comet? How could they ever get anywhere near it?’ Gulara was well acquainted with the Comet and its abilities.

  ‘They nearly took it over and we wouldn’t have been able to stop them. The rogue worked out an incredibly clever strategy.’

  ‘That hasn’t been on the InterWeb. Tell me what happened.’

  Once again Wirrin went through the story he’d already related to the Witness Council, Akama in greater detail, Calen and Sonic at home, and even with Pirramar to a group of AIs representing the gestalt. Gulara listened with amazement till the dramatic few moments when the AIs were able to act freely.

  ‘Wirrin, of course they’re going to treat you as if you’re special.’

  ‘Almost all of the analysis work was Pirramar’s. All I did was implement it. And if it wasn’t for Thom I wouldn’t have figured out the endless loop trap.’

  ‘That doesn’t detract from the special nature of your insight and actions.’ She smiled. ‘Tell me what’s happening with the Cadre ships and the people on them. And has the Witness Council made any decisions about responses to K74?’

  ‘The ships are being returned in about a week’s time with skeleton crews. Freedom was going to keep them but we talked them out of that because it would further inflame the Cadre. Then, when that was decided, Freedom had a plan to send all the people back with modified memory so the Cadre couldn’t find out exactly what happened. Sonic came up with the idea of offering them a place on Warrakan instead, and when I saw the leaders I persuaded them to try that.’

  ‘You’ve already seen these leaders and got them to change their mind on something so major?’

  ‘They were reluctant at first but they agreed when most of the K74 crew jumped at the offer, and then even more after we explained what it meant.’

  ‘You talked to both the Freedom leaders and the K74 crew? Personally?’

  ‘We had to. Apart from a few of the other Comet crew we were the only Warrakan people there. It was really interesting seeing the reactions of the K74 crew when we were explaining what it would be like. It changed Thom’s mind. He’d been so angry, but when he saw how eager they were to get away from K74 he felt sorry for them.’

  ‘What does most of the K74 crew mean?’

  ‘Ninety-three per cent in the end, which is a lot because their standard ship’s complement is over two thousand people.’

  ‘Ninety-three per cent of four ships? Wirrin, that would be over seven thousand. That’s amazing. It must have been quite a major exercise. No wonder the Freedom leaders were impressed. And responses?’

  ‘Responses?’

  ‘To K74.’

  ‘Oh, that’s major but most of it will come from elsewhere. We released a complete record of K74’s actions to every habitat in the solar system and the AIs have their own channels of communication as well, and it’s been greeted with total outrage. Coming after the death of the AI, K74’s reputation has been destroyed, especially with space habitats.’

  Gulara indicated he should continue.

  ‘We have responded by making big changes to the Comet and our habitat defensive systems so they can function properly without relying on the AIs, if it ever came to that again.’

  ‘So? No recriminations against K74 at all?’

  ‘Nothing direct, apart from telling people what they did. The Witness Council respects the AIs’ refusal to harm any humans. Akama said they’ve done the damage themselves by making every singl
e habitat wary of them and further alienating the AI community.’ Wirrin hesitated. ‘The Freedom people did want to do more but we talked them out of that too.’

  ‘We? You mean you and Thom again?’

  ‘There were holo conferences with Akama and some others from our Witness Council but that was awkward with the time delay, so Akama and Sonic told us what to say when we had face-to-face meetings.’

  Gulara laughed. ‘In other words you acted successfully as direct Witness Council representatives. I’ve heard enough. Wirrin, you can’t refuse this job.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No buts. It’s the right thing to do. You accept the position and do it on your own terms. You make it very clear that it can’t undermine your other responsibilities. You agree to some busy days over the next few weeks but after that you’re a figurehead with other people doing all the work.’

  Gulara paused while she watched how Wirrin was taking the advice he’d asked for.

  ‘I suppose I could do it like that. I don’t want to disappoint Akama though, so I hope he doesn’t mind the idea of my backing off after the first few weeks.’

  ‘He won’t, and in fact I’m sure he’ll like it better if you do what you feel is right for yourself.’

  ***

  ‘I’m taking you to Freedom tomorrow? We’ve only been home for a day and they get here in three more. So what’s the deal? Haven’t we done enough? I’m meant to be training up on the changes they’ve made to the Comet.’

  ‘Don’t ask me, Thom. Ask Akama. He’s the one who wants us there. He’s got some funny idea that the Comet with you in charge is a special gesture to the people on Freedom.’

  Thom gawped. He’d been expecting to carry on about Wirrin’s representation job. ‘Me? They don’t need me. There are two other Comets already there, as well as three of the Cadre ships.’

  ‘They asked for you. You’re a hero.’

  ‘Idiot!’

  Wirrin enjoyed turning the tables on Thom, who’d purposefully embarrassed him with an effusive description to Calen and Sonic of what a hero Wirrin had been with the Cadre ships.