Ice Sky Storm

by Craig Delancey

  She expanded the tactical view. Some of the hyper-radio traffic from the outer system had been picked up now by the recovering local network. As she watched, her computer reconstructed a picture of the outer system. The Ulltrian fleet cut a wide, circular path, like a comet orbit, around the sun Wee-ouhout. They were dropping missiles toward Neelee-ornor, and firing at the defense fleet, but avoiding engagement. It confirmed her first suspicion: the Ulltrians expected their weapon in Neelee-ornor’s ring to win the battle for them. They had come here en masse and confident, ready to clean up.

  As she watched, the Ulltrian ships began to shift their trajectory. They were turning downward, out of the plane of the system, and slowing relative to her. Likely, it meant they were turning around. They were plotting the fastest course away from the center of gravity of the system, and away from the gravity wells of the outer planets. They were going to jump.

  They were retreating.

  She switched the view again to local space. The ring was nearly completely burned away now. Nothing moved in the local system that could stop the big weapon from completing its task. Her work was done.

  Bria killed the engines and unstrapped from her seat. She pulled claw over claw to the back of the cruiser, where the weapon’s closet stood, a shining black door.

  She would want something that would destroy most of her brain, but not do too much damage to the cruiser. The cruiser had served her well, it could still be repaired and serve another Harmonizer. A heavy particle beam weapon, she decide, set to minimal power but widest dispersal. She sneered at the irony: the huge particle cannon outside burned the rings away, and she would use a small particle cannon in here to burn her brain away.

  She selected the gun, a long silver tube. She turned it around so that she looked down its gaping maw with all four of her eyes. Her implants protested, warnings sounding, as she armed the weapon and interfaced with its firing controls. She overrode the safety controls that whined angrily.

  “Harmonizer Commander,” a voice called. Not Sussurat.

  Bria hesitated, about the send the command for the weapon to fire. But perhaps she was needed. She allowed an audio connection.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “This is Preeajitala. Savanah Runner has suffered doleful damage, but the AI remains alert. It has received a posthumous message from Gowgoroup. We know now why you destroyed the OnUnAn Embassy ship. The interrogation order is rescinded. Report immediately to Savanah Runner for disciplinary action. The Sussurat ship will escort you.”

  Another sound interrupted the end of the transmission, a second signal coming in on the same frequency. A Sussurat male, growling in frustration.

  _____

  Tarkos opened his eyes. They burned, and he blinked at the bright lights that surrounded him. A human woman floated into his view. It took him a moment to remember who she was.

  “Dr. Winters,” he croaked. It made him cough, irritating his raw throat.

  “You have been one hell of a lot of work, young man,” she complained.

  He tried to say sorry but ended up coughing again. He looked around. He was in one of the rooms in the medical bay of the Zoroastrian. His suit stood in the middle of the room. Behind it, a Neelee robot stood, a still black skeletal form.

  “Neelee-bot?” he asked. But the robot did not move or answer.

  “You puked in your suit,” the doctor said. “That suit forced a breathing tube into your lungs, saving your life. But you’ve taken a huge dose of radiation. We had to get you out of the suit. And let me tell you that was one hell of a bloody pain. We had to try a hundred and one bloody channels to Savannah Runner to get the codes to make it open.”

  “Sorry,” he managed to finally say.

  “Oh that’s the least of it. A hundred, even fifty years ago you’d be a dead man. But your suit contains a shielded idealized sample of your DNA.”

  Tarkos tried to say, I know, and settled for just nodding.

  “We’ve put together a virus to reprogram most of your cells. But you’re going to be a walking cancer bomb, soldier. You’ll need reprogramming every few months for the rest of your life. Which I expect will be short. I hope you have sperm stored somewhere, because you’re never having kids with those.” She gestured at his groin.

  “Thanks,” Tarkos said. His exhausted voice failed to convey any sarcasm. It came out more like a plea.

  “Oh don’t mention it. Now,” she pointed as his suit, which still stood in the center of the room, gaping open. “Can you move this bloody thing?”

  Tarkos told his suit to close and moved into the corner.

  The doctor pulled herself out of the room without another word or explanation. A blue glow filled the door behind her. Tarkos turned and found Tiklik’al’Takas holding to the door.

  “Tiklik,” he whispered.

  “Human Harmonizer Amir Tarkos.” The AI pulled itself into the room.

  “Did we do it?”

  “The rings have been destroyed.”

  “And the Ulltrians?”

  “They have left the local volume of space.”

  Tarkos nodded in satisfaction. He felt bruised all over, and a faint but annoying nausea lingered. He tried to concentrate past the pain and queasiness. He pointed at the robot in the corner.

  “Is that Neelee-bot? Is it in slow time or something?”

  “That is the made-mind that you call ‘Neelee-bot.’ It has ceased function.”

  Tarkos started, jerking against the straps that held him floating against the bed. He peered at the slim robot, where it stood like a statue in the corner. It did seem… inert.

  “It’s dead?” Tarkos whispered. “How?”

  “It carried you along the exterior of the weapon. The gamma radiation destroyed its matrix, and its systems failed seven hundred and four seconds after it arrived here.”

  Tarkos stared at it for a long time. It was just a machine, he reminded himself. And as a Harmonizer, his duty was to protect life, not machines. And yet… it too had had thoughts and hopes. It too had looked out at the universe and wondered what it should do during the brief span of its existence.

  “Tiklik?”

  The robot shifted slightly. Blue light pulsed from its vents. “I hear you human Harmonizer Amir Tarkos.”

  “How many of the robots we freed survived?”

  “Seven hundred and fourteen.”

  “I know that Pala Eydis made a deal with you: that Terran Exo-Intelligence would give you asylum. Do you think that those other robots—do you think that they would be interested in asylum on Earth?”

  “Do you have the authority to offer this?”

  Tarkos smiled. Tiklik was becoming canny. A few months before, it would not have asked such a question. “No,” Tarkos said. “But if I make the offer anyway, loudly and publicly, I might be able to shame Terran authorities into making good on the promise.”

  He smiled widely. His lips hurt, his cheeks hurt, and the nausea was growing worse. But a small laugh escaped him. “Captain Shirazi will love it.”

  CHAPTER 12

  A Terran week later, Tarkos waited alone in Captain Shirazi’s office. He waited in the dark nearly an hour, before the door slid open and Captain Shirazi swung into the room, feet first.

  The door had closed behind her, and she was half way to her desk, before she saw him. She floated across the room, arms frozen in surprise, her eyes fixed on Tarkos’s face. Then her gaze shifted to the thin black figure behind Tarkos: Tiklik’al’Takas, waiting silently, soft blue light pulsing like a heartbeat from its vents.

  The captain grabbed the corner of her desk and stopped herself. “Get out of my office,” she said. The command was a reflex, given immediately. But after she righted herself, orienting in the same direction as Tarkos, she added with deliberate fury, “Do you realize how you nearly did irreparable damage to Earth-Alliance relations?”

  “Please be reassured,” Tarkos said. “The Neelee now recognize that you and the Zoroastrian crew acted onl
y under the command of Bria, and earlier under the command of myself. Bria has taken all responsibility. Relations with Earth have suffered no harm. No reports have been filed.”

  “There are other channels.”

  “And the Neelee have made no complaints about you or your crew, either official or unofficial.”

  “Complaints? We saved their world, and they’ve yet to say ‘thank you.’”

  Tarkos nodded. “The Neelee don’t do gratitude. They seem to think that it leads to… complacency. But they know what you did. They won’t forget.”

  Her anger did not subside. “How did you get in here?”

  “Your ship’s AI let me in. I’m a Harmonizer, Captain. Every ship AI made in the Alliance will obey me. I apologize for the intrusion but you refused my request for a meeting.”

  “I refuse it now. Get off my ship.”

  “Immediately, Captain. Just, two items of business first.” Tarkos seized a large metal box that floated near his feet. He pushed it toward her and it drifted till the captain stopped it with a single palm against its side.

  “This is the complete data from Pala Eydis’s research on the Ulltrian homeworld,” Tarkos said, “along with some very valuable artifacts. What is in that box can help Earth and the Alliance. I am entrusting it to you. I have, however, sent an encrypted message directly to Terran Exo-Intelligence, explaining that you have this package. They will expect you to take care of it.”

  “I will deliver it,” she said. “But you know I must stay here till transport of the AIs to Earth can be arranged. Your asylum promise will be very costly. You’re going to be the most notorious criminal in Earth history, forcing us into a promise that will cost the whole planet billions in transport and maintenance fees.”

  “The transport of the AIs should only take a month. Then you’ll be on your way home.” He smiled cautiously. “I believe Earth will profit greatly from this arrangement. Earth will gain new citizens with vast knowledge. Those robots were cast aside by the Neelee, who do not trust them. But I’ve learned that Earth has very advanced AI expertise. We can handle them. And nearly all of those robots are geniuses, by any human measure. They’re full of thousands of years of Neelee technological discoveries. This could enable Earth to make great advances.”

  The captain was unmoved by his optimism. “You said two items.”

  Tarkos pointed at the robot by his side. “This is Tiklik’al’Takas, made mind of the Kirt. Pala Eydis negotiated a deal with Tiklik. Tiklik must be taken to Terran Exo-Intelligence and given asylum.”

  “It can wait with the other robots,” the captain said.

  “Pala Eydis made a special contract with this robot. It will help Terran Exo-Intelligence for one year, and then be given a new body, with drive engines, and returned to space. The promise is documented in her records. Tiklik must be treated with special care, and taken directly to Terran Exo-Intelligence, without any intermediary contacts. Tiklik has served the Alliance and Earth well already, and deserves our respect. More than that, this meant a great deal to Pala Eydis. I ask not for myself, but for her.”

  Tarkos pushed off the floor, aiming for the exit.

  “Harmonizer Tarkos,” the Captain said, just before he could open the door. He stopped, his hand on the wall.

  “I meant what I said,” she told him. “On Earth, I’ll ask that you be prosecuted. I’ll use all the influence I have to see you put into prison.”

  Tarkos considered. He could tell her the truth. He had already sent a personal message to his primary contact on Earth, Harmonizer Commander Conor McDonough. Nothing official, just a personal note with a full reporting, and the video from his suit’s records. Only the commander would see it. When McDonough read, and then saw, that Captain Shirazi had ordered a crew member to fire on a Harmonizer Commander, and that she had implicitly encouraged insurrection on her ship, McDonough would see to it that Shirazi spent the rest of her career behind a desk at a supply depot.

  But Tarkos did not tell her this. He nodded instead. “I apologize. It isn’t fair, what we did to you. Your crew is disciplined. You obviously run a well-organized ship. We did you harm to make use of your ship and crew in dangerous and unapproved missions. We did this ship harm also. But Bria and I believed, and we still believe, that we had no other options. This is going to be a terrible war. Many terrible things are going to happen. We treated you and your crew cruelly, but such things will happen often now. The alternative is the annihilation of everything we value.”

  He touched the door. When it opened, the captain said, “Her name was Katrin Haukursdottir.”

  “What?” Tarkos said.

  “‘Pala Eydis’ was a field cover. Her name was Katrin Haukursdottir.”

  Tarkos hesitated. The captain nodded, recognizing that this kindness surprised him. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I thank you.” He looked at Tiklik’al’Takas.

  “Perhaps we’ll meet again, Tiklik,” Tarkos said. “But if not, safe travels. Enjoy the interstellar depths.”

  He went into the hall and the door closed behind him.

  _____

  Alone, the captain held the large metal box and looked at the AI, considering.

  She’d had a bad morning, jarred awake by the alarm in her quarters, after a restless and very short sleep. She’d swore, fought the inevitable moment of disorientation that always came to her when she awoke in microgravity, and then unzipped her sleeping sack. Ten minutes later, she pulled herself down the hall. Crew switching shifts gave her a wide berth, saluting but otherwise avoiding her eyes. Doubts about her leadership had spread. They all knew now that she had tried to resist the commandeering of their ship, and though most of them probably sympathized with her actions, some no doubt were whispering that it had been illegal to resist. She’d sighed and pulled herself more quickly along, skipping past the mess hall and going straight to her office. She had meant to review the day, and plan rounds of ship inspection: visiting each crew team in turn would help alleviate their concerns. They would see that she remained their captain, the same they had always known.

  But now this. A new passenger, that her crew would all know had been thrust upon them by the Harmonizer.

  She looked at the robot. Maybe she could salvage something out of this. “Well,” she said, “you knew Pala Eydis.”

  “Using Terran time measurement, I intermittently conversed for a total of one hundred and seven hours, thirteen minutes, and four seconds with Pala Eydis.”

  The captain nodded. She had been in special operations training with Pala Eydis, back when Eydis could still be called Katrin Haukursdottir. Haukursdottir had been serious, intense, the only woman in their class at the Exo-Intelligence academy that the other candidates found more intimidating than Shirazi. Haukursdottir had finished first in their year. Shirazi had finished second.

  The captain pushed on the box of data from Haukursdottir, testing its mass. She noted now that Tarkos had sealed the box. He did not trust her. No surprise.

  She looked back at the AI. “Can you be any use on my ship, while we travel to Earth? It’s a long journey.”

  “I am most useful,” Tiklik said, “in the long dark places between the stars.”

  “Most of the universe, then,” the captain said. “Most of the universe.”

  EPILOGUES

  Bria spent several days in medical treatment, before Preeajitala finally summoned her. Unescorted, Bria walked the halls of Savanah Runner. The ship had suffered extensive damage. Nearly a third of the structure, and nearly a third of the crew, had been lost. It reminded her of the frightening ability of the Neelee engineers, to see that even so damaged, the ship retained most of its functions.

  Bria walked till she found the door to the dark, shielded quarters, the only room on the Savannah Runner that was not transparent and that housed a Neelee. It slid aside and Bria stepped through. Preeajitala stood in the room, reviewing towers of data that glowed around her, projected into the air. The symbols scrolled upwards and disa
ppeared when Bria stepped closer. The Neelee tapped a hoof, lightly, showing minimal respect.

  “Gowgoroup had secreted a diplomatic data cache aboard the Savannah Runner,” Preeajitala said.

  Bria twitched her muzzle, considering this.

  “Such is allowed by treaty,” Preeajitala said. “We did not tamper with it. But the cache awoke and transmitted a bitter message to the Captain. This message included a large supply of data, proving that the current government of the OnUnAn homeworld, Onus, betrayed the Alliance. They have negotiated in dark places with the Ulltrians. The message also explained that the OnUnAn embassy ship had orders to activate a weapon before they left the Neelee-ornor system, a weapon that the Ulltrians believed would weaken our planetary defenses and make Neelee-ornor their own.”

  “Machines in rings,” Bria said.

  Preeajitala flicked her long ears. “This is the most probable inference. We still do not know what those machines would have done, had they completed their transformation, but the gravitational disturbances caused very dangerous quakes on the surface of Neelee-ornor, toppling ancient monuments and shaking our hope. This did more damage than the radiation weapons.”

  Bria blinked.

  “One last thing. This posthumous message from Gowgoroup was programmed to disseminate if Gowgoroup’s clan was murdered on Onus. They were.”

  Bria let out a long, strong breath. It made the fur of Preeajitala shift in the hot exhalation.

  “Yes,” Preeajitala said. “You were protecting Gowgoroup’s family, its clan. This is why you did not speak.”

  “Gowgoroup asked me,” Bria said, “one parent to another. When leaving cruiser, on private contact channel. Told that ambassadorial ship would activate hidden weapon. Only way to stop: destroy ship. But explanation could not be told, else Gowgoroup’s clan would be killed.”

  “You are free from your bond, Commander. The clan has been exterminated, and not because of any failure on your part. You will testify to what happened before leaving Savannah Runner. No charges will be made against you. You will not be forced from the Harmonizers.”