The War Machine: Crisis of Empire III

by David Drake

  Finally, the last section of Ranger’s carapace was lifted into the bag, leaving the case seemingly empty. “There he is, the little devil,” Wellingham said. “There, in the corner. Waldo, seal and stow the bag, then put the close-up camera on the intruder and give him a tenth of a second at a microwatt. Show the captain what our visitor looks like.”

  The two arms holding the bag sealed it and set it on a shelf in one corner of the chamber. A monitor snapped on over the isolation box, and showed the view from a camera at the end of another arm that swung down from the top of the box. At first, the picture wasn’t very informative to Spencer. It just showed a silvery blob of old-fashioned solder that had fallen off Ranger when Wellingham took him apart. It was sitting in the corner of the isolation chamber. Spencer was mildly surprised that the KT would have used anything as crude as solder on a high-tech AID like Ranger, but thought nothing more about it.

  Until Waldo fired the microwatt laser burst at the blob—and it recoiled, backed away, and slithered away to the far side of the chamber, trying to escape the beam.

  Wellingham turned toward Spencer. “There it is. What it is, how it works, what it does, I don’t know. I can’t even say for sure if it’s a living thing or a machine. But it certainly isn’t anything known in the Pact. Presumably, there’s another one of these somewhere inside the ship control circuits—unless it’s slunk off to hide somewhere now that it’s shown itself. The next step is to use this little beastie as a guinea pig, see if there is any way these things can be detected at a distance. If we find something that works, then we scan the ship until we find the other one. I just hope there’s only one, and that the damn things can’t reproduce somehow.”

  “Excellent work, Chief.” He turned toward Tarwa. She was staring at the parasite, which was now trying to work its way up the glass to the top of the case. Waldo gave it another taste of the laser and it dropped back down.

  “Come on, Commander. Let’s get back to my cabin. We’re not done talking yet.”

  ###

  Spencer waited until the door was closed on both of them before he said anything more. “Now I am convinced. I think the Duncan is potentially in very serious danger. If that thing could control a door, it could control the ship, order her to wreck herself. I want you to launch, get this ship away as soon as possible. The information we have now is vitally important, and I don’t think it wise to use the Duncan’s comm system to report it. I want to keep the data as closely held as possible. So this is what we are going to do. My AID will prepare a full report on our information set so far. AID, commence compiling that report now. I want it ready in five minutes. Once that is complete, download a copy of it to a record block for Tarwa.

  “I will then depart the ship and use my AID to contact the destroyers in orbit, ordering them to carry the information back to Navy headquarters when they depart. I wish we could use the Hyperwave system, but that is definitely compromised.”

  Spencer smiled bitterly. “I expect the KT will hear all about it from the Navy—even if the Navy doesn’t know that the KTs listening. Once I have transmitted that message, I will attempt to find the other KT agent and bring her up to date. We’ve seen how small the parasites are, and must assume that whoever controls them will attempt to get more of them aboard. They might easily secrete themselves in someone’s clothing, or cause themselves to be ingested and carried aboard that way. How many ship’s personnel are ashore?”

  “Sixteen, including three officers. Sent out to buy provisions, line up shore leave accommodations, and negotiate with the shipyard.”

  Tarwa didn’t need to check her AID, Spencer noticed. The kid was doing her homework. “Good,” he said. “Not as bad as I thought. None of them, in fact no one at all, will be permitted back aboard ship until Wellingham has perfected a means of detecting and deactivating the parasites. That includes myself. In dire need, personnel will be permitted into the bioguard bubbles for treatment and care.” The Duncan had four of the extrudable bubbles, each sealed off from the ship proper, each a sort of disposable sickbay intended for the treatment of infectious casualties without endangering the crew.

  “But we might need the bubbles later,” Spencer went on, “and I don’t want them used lightly. I will carry sufficient local currency for my needs, and have the purser arrange accommodation for those crew that are already ashore.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “All right then. Take a moment and let this sink in: the moment I step out that hatch, you are in command of the Duncan and of the task force. That’s not some legal fiction, not some symbolic gesture. It will be real, immediate command. We are in a very dangerous situation, and I think the odds aren’t going to be with me or with Suss. The home team has already demonstrated that it’s very efficient, and doesn’t mind playing rough. Your primary goal: discontinue all repair tasks and prepare the ship for immediate boost out of here. If I have not contacted the ship in thirty hours, you are to operate on the assumption that I am dead. The report my AID is preparing will include all the data I have. You are to use that data, and the ships at your disposal, as best you can. You are to determine the nature of the threat to our forces and neutralize it. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Sir.” Tarwa’s eyes had widened, and there seemed to be a sort of catch in her throat. But she kept control. “I will do my best.”

  “Good. The best advice I can give is to listen to Commander Deyi aboard the Banquo. He’s a very experienced officer. Now I must prepare to leave, and you’d best take the conn back and make sure you’re familiar with the situation. I expect to depart in a half-hour. I’ll check in with you before then.”

  Tarwa stood and saluted. “Thank you, Sir. I won’t let you down. Good luck.”

  Al stood up as well and returned the salute. “Don’t go wishing your luck away,” he said. “You’re going to need as much as I will.”

  Chapter Eight

  Attack

  Radio or telephone. That was what it came down to. And neither of them was to be trusted.

  Suss sat in the sidewalk cafe, drank her tea, and thought it over. She did not like choosing between two evils. The lesser could turn into the greater at a moment’s notice. But there were no other contact procedures available for their mole inside StarMetal. No dead-letter procedure. Just radio or phone. Electronic communications. Which were supposedly not to be trusted.

  This was a good table for feeling safe in, Suss thought idly. An unobstructed view of Mermaid Street and approaches in front of her, and a thick stone wall behind her. But focus on the problem. How to contact the KT mole? If “mole” wasn’t too dramatic a word for an occasional like Sisley Mannerling. Moles were true agents—Mannerling merely passed information once in a while. It was very low-key, low-risk stuff. Suss had never met the woman, of course, but she knew the type. Slightly bored with her job, interested in. a little excitement in her dull life, glad of the extra money and the meaningless thrill of serving the Pact while playing secret agent.

  At least Mannerling was well-placed. She was Chairman Jameson’s personal secretary. Suss hoped and expected that she would have all the access to StarMetal data that job suggested.

  But radio or telephone. That was the question. Either order Santu to make a millisecond transmission at a prearranged time, or place an audio phone call with a bogus message. Both had risks, both were of limited flexibility. Suss checked her watch. Eight hours until the next window for a radio message. There were no time constraints on the phone procedure. And that was what decided her. Audiophone it was. Suss did not fancy the idea of wandering around for eight hours.

  Besides, a phone call was far less spy-like than sending message to a covert receiver. Suss always preferred mundane techniques when dealing with occasional. Leave the dramatics to others.

  Anyway, if Sisley Mannerling was like far too many occasionals, she’d fail to monitor the radio receiver in the first place. Suss paid her check and went looking for a pay phone.

  ###
>
  Sisley Mannerling punched the answer key on her phone. “Chairman Jameson’s office,” she said cheerfully. Being cheerful was a large part of her job description. There were perhaps a half-dozen executives on the planet who rated a sentient secretary, let alone a human one. Half the trick of having such high status was to pretend your rank didn’t matter. So Sisley was relentlessly informal with everyone who called, doing her best to overawe everyone by the very act of putting them at their ease.

  “Yes, good afternoon,” a female voice said on the phone. “This is the flower shop. I just wanted to call and tell the chairman that his azaleas are ready for collection. We’ll be expecting him. Could you please give him that message?”

  Sisley felt her heart begin to hammer against her ribs. “Yes, of course. I’ll let him know.” She hung up the phone and stared into space for a long minute. She knew the word-code. A KT agent wanted a crash meeting with her. The procedure was to wait one hour, and then proceed to the main lawn of Anderson Park to await contact. One hour. She glanced at her desk clock. She could take an early lunch and never be missed.

  She turned back to her work and tried to concentrate on it. Her hands trembled slightly as she worked her computer system, but she forced herself not to notice that.

  But there were others in the building who were careful to notice everything to do with the chairman.

  And they knew damn well he had never taken an interest in azaleas.

  Which fact gave them a decided interest in Sisley.

  ###

  Spencer walked the streets of København, strenuously uncomfortable in his civilian get-up, dead certain that the concealed devices he wore underneath his shirt and jacket were instantly obvious to everyone he passed thanks to the huge bulges they made in his clothes. He felt a strong need to be alone for a while to settle his nerves. Finally, he turned a corner and found a small park to sit down in.

  But it wasn’t any vague uncertainty that was bothering him, he realized, but instead a very specific danger he had not yet faced up to. “AID,” he asked, seemingly to the empty air. “How do I know you aren’t infested by one of those damn things?”

  “You don’t,” the AID’s voice replied from under his coat. “However brief, and however tenuous, I did have physical contact with Ranger over the hardwire link. It is conceivable, albeit unlikely, that a parasite traveled from Ranger to myself over the cable, extruding itself to be thin enough to pass from him to me undetected. It was my fear over just such an invasion that caused me to request the link be broken, though I thought it prudent not to discuss the matter with you until we were in private.

  “It is also fairly likely that the parasite infesting the ship’s circuitry did not come aboard with McCain and Ranger, but arrived on its own beforehand. If one got aboard unassisted, two could have done so. I would be a logical target for such an attack.

  “So there is the possibility that I was infested. But there is no way, short of disassembly and microscopic examination, for you to be utterly sure one way or the other.”

  “Are you infested?” Spencer asked. No harm in the blunt, straightforward question.

  “No. I have been running constant diagnostic checks on myself, constantly trying to confirm I am in control of my own circuitry, and that my sense of identity has not been manipulated. To the best of my knowledge, I have not been violated. I believe that, given the data and experiences I downloaded from Ranger, it would require sophistication beyond the capabilities of the parasite we have seen to take me over without my knowing it. Obviously, however, you must assume that I would give a similar answer if I had been subverted.”

  “Agreed,” Spencer replied. Damn the machine! He wanted to throw it away and run. But he needed it too much. “Even so, I think I believe you. You don’t sound or act different, and you would resist any attempt to infest you, and you would alert me to that attempt.”

  “Yes, Captain, I would.” The AID hesitated for a moment, and then did something it had never done before. It asked a rhetorical question. “Captain, what are those things?”

  “I wish I knew, AID. I wish I knew. But it’s a pretty fair guess that they don’t mean us any good.” Spencer felt very alone. He reached a hand into his coat and touched the pouch that held his AID. He had never named the device, the way everyone else named their AIDs. He wondered at that, even though he knew the reason.

  AIDs were supposed to be expendable. If push came to shove, doctrine was that an officer should no more hesitate over losing his AID than he would over abandoning his pocketknife. Scramming an AID to prevent it falling into the wrong hands should be no more emotional than burning a surplus codebook.

  But losing or destroying his AID would feel like more. Spencer knew that. He had scrammed Ranger when it had begged for death, and that had felt like murder. If he needed to scram his own AID, perhaps it would hurt less if the device were nameless. Spencer had already lost too many people, too many places and things dear to him. He did not want anything or anyone else to become dear.

  Already, right now, he was getting attached to the little artificial mind. If he named it, then might it not become even more important to him? Spencer did not feel strong enough to lose anyone else, even an officious robot assistant. His thoughts suddenly turned to Suss. He feared for her, and missed her. She too, was a friend. A friend in harm’s way.

  He tried to shake off his gloomy thoughts. He leaned back against the park bench and looked across the square at the city beyond. It looked to be a green and pleasant place, he told himself, a happy and prosperous world.

  The hell it was.

  “Okay, AID, what’s the situation on transmitting?”

  “Unless there has been some shift in deployment since the last time the Duncan contacted the ships in orbit, the three destroyers should be in synchronous orbit over the planet’s equator, 120 degrees away from each other. The Lennox should be at zero degrees longitude, zero degree latitude, in direct line of sight from here, low in the southern sky. If you remove me from your coat pocket I believe I can make a coded microburst transmission immediately.”

  Spencer glanced around nervously, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around. He pulled the AID from his pocket and tried to point it vaguely at the south.

  The AID extruded a lens at the end of a fiber-optic stock. The eye swiveled around and examined the situation on visual. “There is a building across the square blocking my line of sight,” the AID said. “Could you please carry me to the far side of the park? I believe there will be no obstructions from that vantage point.”

  Spencer shoved the AID back in his pocket and walked to the far side of the park, feeling as if every window of every building surrounding the open space hid a watcher or an assassin. He found another south-facing bench, sat, and took the AID from his pocket. “How’s this?” he asked.

  “Excellent, Captain. Please stand by.”

  Spencer sat as still as he could, trying not to wiggle the AID and thus give it additional transmission problems. After an hour-long delay that his watch said was only a minute, the AID spoke again. “I have reached the Lennox and sent my report. The Lennox confirmed reception and will send a coded message to Duncan reporting our contact, but Lennox will make no mention of what we actually said to the Duncan. She will send that during her next regular contact with the cruiser.”

  “Nice work, AID. Any chance of your transmission or their answer being detected?”

  “There is always some chance that a radio transmission will be detected, traced, and decoded. I could not use laser, as an optical laser frequency would have trouble punching through the atmosphere at the power levels available to me. However, the radio beam I used was very tight and of only a few seconds’ duration. I doubt anyone on the planet spotted it. The Lennox cloaked her response by combining it with a whole series of messages to various agencies on the planet. One to the weather bureau, several personal message grams to the local comm offices, a number of spurious calls to various departme
nts aboard the Duncan. A monitoring section would be unlikely to note one microburst to us in the midst of all that traffic. However, to be on the safe side, I suggest that we get on the move.”

  That sounded good to Spencer. He shoved the AID back in his pocket and walked out of the park. “Our next step must be to contact Suss,” he said.

  “Captain, I beg to differ. We can serve no purpose by interfering with her. We might easily endanger her or expose her contact.”

  Spencer grunted and walked on, glad that there was a couple walking past him. Their presence gave him an excuse for not replying at once. He felt damn foolish arguing with a machine. The fact that the machine was probably right didn’t help matters.

  The trouble was Suss had problems she didn’t know about yet. It was understandable that he was worried about her, and wanted to help her. But would barging in on her do anything more useful than make Spencer feel better?

  The man and woman passed out of earshot and Spencer spoke, trying to justify himself. “First off, she knows nothing about the parasites. If they are indeed connected with StarMetal, as we are all assuming, then she and her AID have just walked straight into the parasites’ home turf. Secondly, she knows nothing about McCain’s death. If she is trying to contact McCain’s network, that could be important. It also might be nice if she knew something went to the trouble of taking over a Pact ship just to kill a KT agent. Third, she does not know the ship has been sealed. Suppose she gets into trouble, has to make a run for it, and decides to spend her one chance for escape by heading for the Duncan? And ends up banging on the hatch while the bad guys are descending on her? We have to contact her.”