Fall of the White Ship Avatar

by Brian Daley

  "Now hear this! You people in there have only one thing to consider: the next vote is going to be unanimous, and so you will either reverse your position or you'll die."

  Everybody at the table was talking at once. Alacrity was the first one to his feet, moving to grab the Nonpareil's hand and race off up the moon-garden path by which he'd arrived, heading for the only hatch whose location he was sure of, making sure Floyt was close behind. The balance of the New Faction bolted after.

  But the hatch was secured and wouldn't open. Others gathered behind as Alacrity and Floyt struggled with it. It took only a minute or so to accept that it wasn't going to budge. There were no tool lockers or equipment stations in the Vale, no airlocks, or spacesuits to use even if there had been.

  The Ship herself was supposed to be final arbiter of rules, the failsafe insurance that the laws laid down by her founders would be abided by, the final safety factor in the system. The Ship was supposed to see to it that this sort of thing couldn't happen, and she always had. But now, somehow, she was compromised, at least in part, and the New Faction was boxed.

  "Was there anything about this kind of tactic in the data you obtained from your father?" Wulf asked Heart.

  She shook her head, the heavy locks swinging. "Absolutely nothing."

  "You know your situation," Dincrist's voice boomed at them. "But there are … those among you whom I—we—would rather spare. So then: change your vote. Tell the Ship! And we continue with our great endeavor!"

  "How can they expect to get away with this?" someone yelled.

  "Hell's payroll!" Wulf's deep voice answered. "If they get the Ship to let them dig out the Heavyset-contact secrets, they'll be able to write their own ticket!"

  "Um, why doesn't the Ship stop them, Ho?" Alacrity muttered to Floyt. "She kept 'em from bringing in guns, or they wouldn't've had to try this lock-in stuff." He didn't dwell on what would happen if the Ship leeched away the Vale's air supply.

  "I told you, Alacrity: the Ship's personality isn't one AI. It's an interlocking constellation. It's gotten very big and I think it may be starting to break down with this Heavyset business. And the subparts, well, they leak. Back and forth. And I don't have the access to get us out of here. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing."

  "Pay attention," Dincrist said resoundingly. "I am going to begin bleeding the air from the Vale. You have perhaps half an hour. The decision rests with you."

  "He couldn't have complete control of the Ship," Wulf mused, fingers toying with the thick ringlets of his beard, "or he wouldn't need a majority vote."

  The immediate New Faction idea was a motion, passed unanimously, that the Ship open the hatch. But somehow in his poking and tampering, Dincrist had found a way to nullify that.

  The next decision came from Sibyl Higgins. "I don't know what this will come to, but Dincrist and the others have us. Human life is sacred, and so I say that we concede."

  "What about the human lives of people who're gonna have to live under Dincrist and his gang, and die under them?" Alacrity drawled.

  She dealt him a wintry look. "Our deaths will not affect that one way or the other, it appears. Why?"

  "Just running a spine check, as it turns out." Alacrity smirked. He looked around, spotted the nearest Ship pickup, called to it.

  "Shareholder Alacrity Fitzhugh. Identify."

  "Shareholder Alacrity Fitzhugh, confirmed," the Ship's voice said.

  "Sampson Option. Menu."

  "Sampson Option menu, aye! Menu: Option One: event, mutiny. Option two: event, piracy. Option three: event, incontrovertible infestation. Option—"

  "Stop!" Alacrity drew a breath. "Sampson Option three: event, incontrovertible infestation. Run it."

  "Sampson Option three: event, incontrovertible infestation, running, aye!"

  People were looking at each other with eyes the size of pingpong balls, Floyt included. There was no real sense of movement, but everybody was aware of the change in the starfield overhead and looked up to see that the Ship was changing course. The crystal dome polarized for a moment as Spica swung into view and then past, the Ship realigning herself.

  "Alacrity, wouldn't you like to tell us what Sampson Option three is?" Floyt hinted quietly.

  "Something the Founders put in, my grandparents and the others who sat right at that same table in that same Vale down there, back when the Ship was just a dream! Contingency plans, and all that. I didn't know it was in there any more until I took over Hecate's shares; her access was linked to the Sampson Option. I guess all other accesses were expunged."

  He pointed up to the dome. The glow of Spica, coming from forward, lit motes in the upper air. "Anyway, you can see for yourself, can't you? We're heading into Spica. Ultimate decontamination. And nothing gets into the Ship now, and nothing gets out. And she'll evade or repel rescue attempts, even presuming somebody gives that a try."

  "And if Dincrist decides you're bluffing?" Higgins asked coldly.

  "Then he finds out I'm not."

  "Query!" Heart spoke up to the Ship. "Estimated time of destruction?"

  The Ship voice came. "Presuming no contact with stellar prominence activity, entry into Spican photosphere in thirty-four minutes. Destruction of this vessel within six minutes of that time, plus or minus estimated twenty-five percent." The Ship sounded above it all.

  Alacrity whistled. "We're really movin'!" To the pickup he said, "Put that out over the PA." The Ship's death sentence echoed across the Vale.

  The furred-stork humanoid, Clizzixx, click-spoke. Its translator device rendered, "This does not seem sensible."

  "Amen, brother," Alacrity shot back.

  The Nonpareil's expression was all misgiving. "Alacrity, my father will never give in. Remember the Regatta, when he wouldn't divert course to finish us off because he wanted to win? Well, he never stops once he's committed to something!"

  Alacrity, a little surprised, studied her. "And you think I do?"

  "It's getting hotter in here," somebody quavered.

  "Only 'cause you're sweating," Alacrity said, inspecting the hatch again. "The heat differential's so huge, passing it along to the interior of the Ship wouldn't make much difference. The Ship'll keep us cool pretty much until she's done for." And I'll kill us all before I give up this Ship! She belongs to my family; she belongs to me!

  "Let's get something to eat in the meantime; I'm starved," he lied. He started back down the path, leaving a babble of argument behind him. Floyt dashed to catch up. Heart was neck and neck, fast in chiming spike heels.

  "When do we pass the point of no return?" she asked, falling into step just as Floyt did.

  Alacrity shook his head and said slowly, "I'm not sure, and I don't want the Ship putting it out over the PA. Pheew! Once we're down by the photosphere, my friends, one good Spican prominence would probably put us out of commission for good."

  He got Paracelsus and ordered another pisco sour. Floyt loosened his white bowtie and wing collar; the Nonpareil massaged her temples and tried to think. Maybe it was imagination, but Alacrity felt hotter, too.

  Heart looked up to the blue-lit motes floating in the dome. "My father won't give her to you," she said, hugging her arms to herself. "Maybe you believe it's better that the Ship be destroyed rather than fall under his control. Maybe you're even right! I don't know anymore! But he's just as ready to die as you are, and I thought you were better than him, that way. But you're both so fucking ready to die!"

  "If I really was, we wouldn't be here, Heart. You should've heard some of the other Sampson Options."

  Alacrity set the pisco sour aside without having tasted it. "I'm not betting on your father; I'm betting on those soulbenders he's in with. He's not some heroic one-man expedition this time; he's saddled with a bunch of greedy, self-centered slime smears."

  There was a furor on the footpath. Higgins came down the trail, leading the others. Wulf brought up the rear, dignified and deliberate, Yester trailing him.

&nb
sp; Higgins came up close. "Master Fitzhugh, this has gone far enough! The issue is not worth innocent lives!"

  Alacrity almost laughed. "You seen any of those around here?"

  "Stop talking nonsense!" She took a step nearer and her small brown hands took on odd, martial shapes. Alacrity tried not to sweat, but everybody knew stories about those superhumans, the undefeated Strike Recondos who'd trained her and given her her enhancements.

  "You will revoke your instruction to the White Ship, Master Fitzhugh, or I shall be obliged to make you do so."

  Alacrity thought about nerve holds or maybe even injections, if she'd brought along styrettes. Recondos had infamous ways of getting information, but those probably weren't a patch on what somebody learned in ten-odd years running a penal ward.

  Alacrity leaned back a bit, afraid; height and weight and reach didn't mean a damn in this context. Gentry Standing Bear would probably be easier to deal with. He debated plunging into the undergrowth, dodging and hiding, anything to give his plan time to work.

  But he chose to stand his ground in his grandfather's ship, glowering. "No."

  Floyt intervened, facing Higgins and the rest. "You gutless children! Get back! He's right and you know it!"

  Heart came from the other side, shoulder to shoulder with Floyt, protecting Alacrity. "You're all so free with words! What happens to the White Ship decides what happens to the human race! Stand back, now, or strike the first blow at me."

  Most of the group was undecided, but Alacrity saw Wulf slip in to stand at Higgin's shoulder, and knew a pang of disappointment. He'd liked Wulf.

  Higgins went into a martial crouch. "Yes, I think we will have to. And later there will be time to try to get what we want."

  Alacrity, astounded, watched as Wulf brought up his big, dojo-hardened fist for a hammer blow on Higgin's neck, a risky attempt to put her out of the action with one shot, which was the only feasible way. Higgins was saying "Your last chance, Fitzhugh. Cooperate! I don't wish to do you harm!"

  Alacrity must have betrayed something with his eyes; Higgins caught some hint from him and/or Heart and/or Floyt, and swung around with reflexes that reminded Floyt of Hecate. She caught Wulf's arm on its lightning descent, arresting it there, and appeared to tap him.

  Wulf fell back, all the color leaving his face, blocking Yester from leaping to his assistance. Alacrity, Floyt, and Heart were about to launch themselves at Higgins when they realized somebody was yelling "Stop it! Look! Look!"

  There'd been a weighty metal grinding for a few seconds as the confrontation went on, Alacrity realized, and the creak of bending alloy. And now there was a growing slice of strong artificial light across the top of the footpath, overwhelming the soft bioluminescence of the Vale.

  A voice called down, "Fitzhugh! We've opened the hatch! Stop the Ship! You win!" It was some Old Guard veteran, not Dincrist. It was sweeter than anything Floyt had ever heard in his life.

  Alacrity was off and running like one of Lord Marcus Perlez's rover lightshapes, dodging around the scene at the table, racing for the light. Floyt and Heart were first to follow, then the others in a rush, except for Yester, and Wulf, whom Yester had leaning on him weakly, and Higgins, who took Wulf's other side and kneaded pressure points to undo the paralysis.

  The hatch had been crumpled open with force tools and power jacks liberated from a nearby tool locker. Mason, Praxis, Constance, and Dincrist were gone, but the rest of the Old Guard was there. It was what Alacrity had been betting on: not that Dincrist would lose his nerve, but that his followers would.

  "Stop the Ship! Turn us back!" It was a magisterial-looking, elderly man.

  Alacrity held the old man back with one hand. "Sure, all right! After you tell me Dincrist and the others give up! Where are they?"

  The answer was so shrill it was hard to understand. "They're crazy! They went forward to the bridge. They say they're going to blank the Ship's memory!"

  * * * *

  There was only one passageway tram there, a small one; by the time things got sorted out, Alacrity had jumped in along with Heart and Floyt. The other New Factioners had gathered round.

  Alacrity accelerated away. "That's enough! We're too heavy already! Get more trams; follow when you can!"

  The White Ship's bridge wasn't very far forward of the Vale in terms of the Ship's overall size, but the trip was four minutes of fear and forboding anyway, the tram whisking along passageways and riding interdeck chutes.

  When they got to the bridge, Alacrity jumped off the tram while it was still moving and marched in without looking around for an ambush. He calculated that Dincrist and the others had had enough time to divine that they couldn't stop Sampson Option three or save themselves short of caving in to Alacrity.

  He'd entered via the captain's companionway, looking out on a bridge that was twice the size of the Vale. All those tech stations, slaved through the Ship's AIs, he thought.

  Mason and Praxis were standing by command stations, out of their depth, both of them having reason to fear what Alacrity and Floyt might do. Constance was perched indifferently on the backrest of the captain's chair, eyes unfocused, running a metal talon along her outthrust tongue.

  Dincrist was checking something at a console, not too far beyond. He turned, holding up his hand to show the massive signet ring he wore, its crest now flipped up to reveal a button trigger.

  "And what will your victory be worth if I loose this cyberwipe?" Heart's father asked with a bland smile. Praxis and Mason stood to one side, their misgivings plain.

  Dincrist held high the ring. "It will set off logic bombs in the Heavyset material I gave the Ship." He gave a fey grin. "One can hardly blame the Ship AIs; some of them go back nearly a century and are obsessed with Heavies data."

  He brought a finger close to the button trigger. "I think you're bluffing, but if you're not, just stand where you are. If you don't call off the Sampson Option right now, I'll blank the White Ship's AIs and take the choice away from you. The Ship will be a helpless hulk, and we'll all go down to glory together."

  But Alacrity was shaking his head, his slate-gray hair rippling. "What happens is, you sign over your shares to me. And Mason, there, does, too, and Praxis. Or we all go into the fire, and if you disbelieve me it won't be for long."

  Constance hissed at him. "Stupid child! We know you're faking!"

  "Oh, yeah?" Alacrity pointed to Praxis. "Ask him. He already knows how far I'll go. So does the baron." Baron Mason bided his time, letting no reaction show, but Praxis looked worried.

  "Right down into Spica," Alacrity said mechanically.

  "Very well! All right!" Praxis burst out. "Take whatever you want! Take my shares, they're yours! Only turn the Ship around!"

  "Silence!" Dincrist thundered, red coming in like a weather front under his perennial tan.

  "No, he's right," Mason yielded tiredly, measuredly. "Fitzhugh, we only have a little time to save ourselves. Turn this vessel around and my shares are yours."

  "Gimme those shares first, and it's a deal."

  "There's no time!" Praxis shrieked.

  Alacrity turned to look down at the self-proclaimed Saint of the Irreducible I. "There's enough if you hurry." Alacrity glared at him. "Don't tempt me to kill you, 'cause I really want to!"

  They all knew the techniques of transfer, and the bridge pickups constituted a transactions terminal. Dincrist yelled in rage and Constance spat resentfully, but Praxis transferred his shares to Alacrity. As far as the Ship was concerned, the transfer was valid, whatever the courts might say later.

  And by the time these beauties get to a court, I'll be long gone with this Ship. Alacrity grinned to himself. And the secret to Heavyset contact, maybe.

  "You're next," he told Mason.

  The Baron had a fey smile on his face. "How I wish I'd killed you both! You, and Floyt there!"

  "Some other lifetime, maybe," Alacrity allowed.

  "Very well, then … "

  Mason began the trans
fer procedure, too, but Dincrist, unable to bear anymore, sprang at him. Alacrity had expected the first attack to come his way; sometimes there was no figuring people.

  Mason, half a head taller than Dincrist, was borne back by Dincrist's velocity. They rebounded from the systemry.

  Alacrity charged down to break it up, get the ring away from them, and incidentally do some violent laying-on of hands. Anger had hold of him and he didn't hear either Floyt's yelled warning or Heart's, or realize that he'd be passing close to Constance.

  He caught Constance's movement just as one jeweled nail sheath, envenomed sting extended, swung for his neck. Floyt had a split-instant vision of Langstretch injector kits like Gentry Standing Bear's, and knew the scuffle was a ruse to draw Alacrity into range so the Old Guard could pump him full of something that would compel him to revoke the Sampson Option.

  But Alacrity was brought up short, making Constance miss, and hauled back out of range, overbalanced and rolled out of harm's way by Heart, who had a grip on one of his tasseled shoulderboards and the waist of his form-fitting britches.

  She lost a slipper that rang on the deck as they got out of striking range. Floyt leapt in, swinging the Inheritor's belt like a war-flail, braving the raking talons, making Constance shrink back rather than risk getting herself brained.

  In another moment Alacrity, Floyt, and Heart were back by the companionway hatch. Panting and mad-eyed, Constance sank claws into the backrest of the captain's chair, slicing it.

  Mason and Dincrist, their gambit failed, had released one another. Alacrity opened the collar of his uniform jacket so he could catch his breath.

  "Time's about up. C'mon." He snapped his fingers, opening his palm again for the suicide switch ring. "Hand it over! This Ship isn't yours! And while you're at it, you're going to sign over your shares to me."

  Dincrist and Mason looked at each other. "Do like I say or I'll kill us all!" Alacrity howled at them. "You have nothing more to say about the White Ship! Nothing ever again! And I'm not bluffing."