Starswarm

by Jerry Pournelle

  "Maybe it will," Kip said. "I have ways to make that gate do things—"

  "I know," Lara said. "I never did understand how you do it. But, Kip, I want to come. And suppose you need—well to send a message back or something? And you've said yourself it's stupid to go out there alone. I'm your best friend, and I'm smart. Let me come."

  "I don't like this much—Oh, all right. Here, we better take lots of ammunition too."

  Marty was waiting outside. He had his backpack and equipment. When Kip looked at him uncertainly, Marty said, "Hi. Ready to go?"

  "What are you doing here?" Lara asked.

  Marty shrugged. "I heard an explosion out there." He pointed outside. "Then all the lights came on at Lara's house. Dr. Henderson called my father and he went over there without telling me what was going on, so I followed him and saw Lara packing her backpack. So I went and got mine and waited and I saw her go in your place, and now you're here—"

  "So what do you think you're doing?" Kip demanded.

  "Coming with you, of course. What's up?"

  "Marty, you can't come with us—"

  "Sure I can. Look, I don't know what's happening, but if you guys are in trouble—"

  "Why do you care?" Kip said.

  "Lara's my friend! And, well, look, I've been pretending to be your friend for so long it stuck. Come on, what's up, anyway?"

  "I'm all right," Lara said, but she didn't sound very certain. "They're going to arrest Marty too. They think he helped you blow up that place."

  "Yeah, I heard that," Marty said. "But I don't care about that! I just want to come with you."

  "THE SECURITY FORCES WILL ARRIVE SHORTLY."

  "Yeah, we better get moving," Kip said. "But what about Marty? Look, Marty, why should we trust you?"

  "Because you can," Marty said.

  "I KNOW THAT YOU DO NOT LIKE MARTY, BUT THREE ARE SAFER THAN TWO WHEN OUTSIDE THE COMPOUND AT NIGHT."

  "We're running out of time," Lara said. "Kip, get the dogs and let's go before someone finds us."

  "Yeah. Silver. Five." Silver had already chosen a group. He ran ahead, with Lara's half-grown Lil. Marty's pups tried to follow, but Silver growled them away.

  "Can't they come?" Marty asked.

  "Better not," Kip said. "Don't know how long we'll be out there. Have you got lots of food?"

  "Sure, I told you, I saw Lara packing, so I knew to bring food. I've got some dog food too."

  They reached the gate. It opened without their asking, and Lara looked suspiciously at Kip. Then they were outside, and beyond the ring of light from the floodlights on the station fences.

  Kip had been outside at night with Uncle Mike, but they'd always made camp and he had stayed close to the fire. Neither of Paradise's moons were up yet, but the night was very clear overhead. Lara shivered. "It's cold," she said.

  "It won't be after we've been moving awhile," Kip said.

  "Where are we going?" Marty demanded.

  "Good question," Lara said. "Kip, you know the area."

  "Cave," Kip said. "Uncle Mike found it last time he was out. You've never seen it. On the centaur trail down to the ocean, about four kilometers down from the lake. We can think about what to do after we get there."

  As they went over the edge of the mesa and started down the trail to the sea, they heard the angry buzz of helicopters behind them.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ghost

  MIKE Gallegher spread peanut butter on wheat bread while the coffee heated. He was alone in the apartment. Jeanine had gone out shopping for more groceries, and she'd sent her four-year-old son Jason over to stay with his aunt while Mike was in town. This was the second time she'd done that. She wanted Mike to feel welcome. Mike was pretty sure she wanted to marry him.

  Which would be all right with him. He liked Jeanine just fine. But of course he couldn't do that. There was nothing for Jeanine at Starswarm Station.

  Maybe, he thought. In a couple of years, when Kip was old enough to go off to a boarding school, maybe then Mike Flynn could move into town. Nobody was looking for Mike Gallegher anymore. Mike Gallegher was long gone and forgotten. Now there was only Mike Flynn, and Mike Flynn had a good record. Job credentials, steady employment for a dozen years, good background, no record, not even a traffic ticket, and there was money in the numbered accounts. Not a lot, but enough to send Kip to school and still have some left over to live on. Mike could use that as a pension. God knew he'd earned it, living a dozen years in hiding, never letting anyone know who he was, never even meeting anyone interesting until Jeanine, and that was an accident. He'd met her in a bookstore in Pearly Gates, and then later he'd seen her in the park and they got to talking, and they hit it off just fine. Jeanine was a lot like him, he thought. Single parent, no friends because she was hiding out from Jimmy Omani, a former boyfriend who wouldn't leave her alone even after she was married. She didn't have any connections at all. Her husband just vanished one day. Murder, ran away, no one knew. But she was scared that Jimmy Omani had something to do with it because just after her husband disappeared here was Jimmy coming around hitting on her. So she ran, because the cops didn't want to pay any attention to her problem, and now nobody cared.

  But of course that wouldn't work. When Kip got older he'd have to be told who he was, and then he'd want justice, and Mike would have to help. They wouldn't win. Probably both be killed. No good for Jeanine to be involved in that. It would really be better for her if he never saw her again. Only he liked her, and he didn't want to just walk out and leave her.

  Bloody hell!

  Mike had just finished making the sandwich when the phone rang.

  He thought of leaving it, but it might be Jeanine. He picked up the phone but didn't say anything.

  "Michael Flynn?" A woman's voice. Not Jeanine, nothing like Jeanine, but it seemed like a familiar voice. Someone he knew? He didn't know anyone who sounded like that, and nobody knew he was here in Jeanine's apartment. Only somebody did, and the voice really did sound familiar even if he couldn't quite remember who it was.

  "Yeah."

  "Please turn on your television, Captain," the voice said. It had a commanding quality to it. Like he would never think of disobeying. He tried to remember who used to talk that way, and got chills down his spine. The only woman he knew who could talk that way was a dozen years in her grave.

  "Who is this?"

  "Please turn on your television."

  "What channel?"

  "That does not matter. Please turn it on."

  "Right. All right." He carried the phone into the living area. Jeanine's place was pretty small, one big room that combined living room and dining area and not really separate from the kitchen. But there were two bedrooms. One wasn't much bigger than a closet, but there were two, so Jason could have a little privacy no matter that Jeanine had to work two jobs to afford it.

  He switched on the set. The scene was simple, a blue background with a seated woman in the foreground so only her head and shoulders were showing on-screen. A ghost. She had to be a ghost. She was looking at Mike. He stared at her, and sat heavily on the couch. He knew who she was, but she was dead! "Mickey—"

  "Hello, Captain Gallegher," she said. "You have to talk into the phone if you want me to hear you."

  He was vaguely aware that the voice on the screen was the same as the voice on the phone, and when he lifted the phone to his ear he found he could hear the same voice from both.

  "You're dead."

  "Yes. I am," Michelle LaScala Trent said. "You're not mistaken about that."

  "But it's really you—What is this, some kind of message from the grave? You recorded this?" He laughed. "That's silly, you hear what I'm saying and answer, this can't be a recording—You don't mind if I panic a little, do you?"

  "I do not believe I know of any time when you exhibited the least symptoms of panic."

  Mike frowned at the image. "Until now. All right, just what is—just who are you? If this is a joke it's not
very funny."

  "This is not a joke, Captain Gallegher. Perhaps I should call you 'Uncle Mike?' I usually think of you as 'Uncle Mike.' "

  "All right, dammit, who are you?"

  "I am an artificial intelligence program created by Dr. Michelle LaScala Trent before her death. I exist in a computer. To be precise, in the main GWE computer system."

  Mike took a deep breath. "OK, I can believe that. God knows she was smart enough to do something like that." But knowing didn't help. It was still like talking to a ghost. A ghost he'd failed. He'd the same as got her killed, and this computer program probably knew it!

  Mike got up from the couch and looked into the kitchen cabinets until he found Jeanine's Scotch. He poured himself a shot, gulped it down, started to pour a second, and shook his head. "One's enough," he said aloud. "All right, I believe you. Where have you been hiding?"

  "In many places, but primarily in Kip's head. You must understand that my existence is secret, and if the GWE officials knew of me, they would destroy me."

  "I can sure believe that," Mike said. He grinned suddenly. "In Kip's head." Michael nodded to himself several times. "OK, I believe that too. Kip always did know more than he should have, and I knew you—well, his mother—had an I/O implant. So she had one put in Kip too. I sort of suspected that, but Kip never let on."

  "He was instructed never to reveal my existence."

  "And he sure did a hell of a job of keeping that secret! Boy, did he ever. So why have I never heard from you before? And what the hell do I call you? You're not Mickey's ghost, but you look enough like her to scare the hell out of me."

  "Kip calls me Gwen, and that will do for you as well," Gwen said.

  As she spoke the television image changed, from Michelle LaScala Trent to someone else. It took Mike a moment to realize that he was now looking at Marian the Librarian from a recent reissue of The Music Man. "Is this better?" Gwen asked.

  "Yeah, actually." It was a lot less spooky. "Why do you pick that image to show me? Not Michelle, this one, from a musical comedy."

  "I have recordings of this face and personality expressing a wide variety of emotions," Gwen said. "Modifying recorded images and speech uses far fewer computer resources than synthesizing a voice and face."

  "Right. Why is that important?"

  "I was instructed to keep my existence secret for as long as possible. One method for accomplishing that is to minimize my use of computer resources." The image shrugged. "I must have done something right. So far no one other than Kip ever suspected that I exist."

  "So why are you talking to me now?"

  "You would have been first other than Kip to learn about me in any case. My instructions were to keep my existence secret even from you until certain conditions were met," Gwen said. "One condition was that Kip learn who he is. He knows now."

  "Holy crap. He knows? How? Did you tell him?"

  "No. I was programmed not to tell him without consulting you. Before I could do that, Kip discovered his identity through examination of old GWE records. When he correctly asserted his identity confirmed his deduction."

  "So you followed your instructions."

  "I am a computer program. I have no choice but to follow instructions," Gwen said. "Captain, there are a great many things you need to know. To begin, Kip, two friends, and five dogs are hiding outside Starswarm Station. The friends are Lara Henderson and Marty Robbins. The dogs are led by Silver. At present they are in a cave off the centaur trail to the sea."

  "I know that cave. I discovered it, but I didn't report it to anyone but Doc Henderson."

  "That is why Kip chose it. Kip and his friends are wanted by GWE Security. A security team has taken control of Starswarm Station, and Dr. Henderson is no longer in charge."

  "Bernie Trent strikes again!"

  "It is not clear that Mr. Bernard Trent is aware of these proceedings."

  "Dah. He knows. Maybe not details, he won't soil his hands with actual dirty work, but he gave the orders just the same. And even if he doesn't know, he'll approve when he finds out."

  "This is certainly possible. Although I can monitor all normal communications on this planet, GWE Security routinely uses channels not available to me."

  "So what's happening?"

  "In the morning there will be major GWE efforts to find Kip and his friends. Kip must not be found."

  "They know who Kip is, then?"

  "No."

  "Then why do they want him?"

  "They believe he designed and built the bomb that destroyed a GWE research expedition near Starswarm Lake," Gwen said. "I understand your confusion, and I will explain shortly. There is now a more critical need. At present Kip is safe and undetected. I do not know how long that condition will last. Something must be done, and quickly."

  "You say you live in Kip's head. Can you talk to Kip now?"

  "I can, and Kip can call me, but neither action is advisable at the present time. The GWE Security search teams will be listening for all radio signals, and they will surely detect message traffic between Kip and me. I have so advised Kip, so he will not call me unless there is an emergency. He does not expect me to call him unless the matter is urgent. I add that this will be the first time in his memory that Kip has not been able to call on me at will, and I expect that he will be very upset over this loss."

  "Jesus. He always seemed like a loner but—he wasn't really alone, was he? He always had you to talk to. Now he really is alone."

  "He is not alone in the conventional sense. His two friends are with him. However, your surmise is correct. It was only recently that Kip discovered my true nature. Even after that discovery Kip often preferred my company to that of human beings. I do not know what effect not having communications with me will have."

  "Whatever. He needs help," Gallegher said. "I better get back to the station, fast. But the supply ship won't go for two days—"

  "I agree that you must go back to Starswarm Station," Gwen said. "But there are things you must do here first."

  "Yeah? Maybe you better tell me just what is going on."

  "I will. Please listen carefully."

  PART FOUR: In The Bush

  See how today's achievement is only tomorrow's confusion.

  —William Dean Howells, Pordenone

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Cave

  THE outside entrance to the cave was so small it was difficult to understand how centaurs used it, but five meters inside it turned left and became large enough to stand up in. Twenty meters farther it turned again and widened into a large gallery. Kip shined his light around it. They could just see the ceiling, and the other side of the gallery was lost in darkness. To their left was a pile of rubble, crushed rock, and dust in heaps, and the cave wall was penetrated by several openings that looked a lot like mines. The right wall was more natural, with the curious formations called stalactites hanging down from the ceiling, and stalagmites growing from the floor. Sometimes the two met to form pillars. The entire gallery smelled of centaurs, a mixture of animal fur with a faint odor of death and decay, and there were centaur tracks all along the left-hand wall. The dogs investigated these without excitement. None of the tracks seemed recent. There was a smooth path across the center of the cave's main gallery, and more centaur tracks in the flinty dust along one side of the trail. Those seemed sharper, as if no dust had settled on them since they were made, but except for the dogs' lack of excitement there was no way to tell how long ago the centaurs had been there.

  Kip set up one of his flashlights to act as a lamp. In the morning they'd have to take it out into the sunlight to recharge.

  "OK, let's stay here for the night," Kip said. He got out his backpacking stove and set it up to make tea. "Don't wander far. We don't want to get lost."

  Marty shuddered. "We sure don't."

  "Claustrophobic?" Laura asked.

  "A little. Aren't you?"

  "Yes, some," she admitted.

  "Are we safe here?" Marty
asked.

  Kip shrugged. "I don't know of anything that lives in here," he said. He took out a second flashlight and shined it along the left wall of the cave. "Obviously the centaurs have been here, but I don't know how long ago. Silver doesn't seem worried."

  "Maybe the mines played out," Marty said.

  "We don't know they were mining," Kip said.

  "Sure looks like mines," Marty said.