by Ryk E. Spoor
Still doesn’t excuse my inattention to begin with. Well, Ariane, you finally realized what you need to be doing; don’t waste time beating yourself up over it, just get to doing it. “So Steve tells me you’ve ended up running things?”
“No, no. Just . . . trying to keep things going smoothly. I help organize, really—it’s what I learned to do on a much larger scale with AISage help. While I do miss Maxine’s input,” he continued, referring to his own old AISage, “back then I was also coordinating a space station for over half a million people by myself. I can manage to help keep things going for a few thousand pretty easily.”
Three people came jogging up at that point. “Tom—” one began.
“Yes, David, I know it’s going to be difficult, but there really isn’t another practical path for that shipment. You’ll just have to close up everything and let them through.”
The man named David—and his two companions—looked pained. “Look, Tom, this is the fourth time this week! I can’t keep closing up every time—”
Cussler’s voice shifted from his usual friendly, professional tone to something just a hair sharper—and with about ten times the authority. “Dave, I understand it’s frustrating. But I did warn you about how heavily used that set of passageways was and how tight those alcoves were. You decided that the high traffic was an advantage. And from what I hear, you were right, overall; people going to and from the Upper Sphere are always grabbing snacks at your booths. This is the price you pay for being on that route. Now please don’t complain about this again. Either deal with it, or move. I know at least two other people who would love your spaces.”
David grimaced, then nodded; his two friends looked momentarily uncertain, but followed David as he left.
“You handled that well,” Ariane said. “What was that about?”
“Well? Eh. Acceptably, I suppose. David’s currently running a snack stop between the Inner Sphere and Upper Sphere, just before the Elevator. Right now it’s for interest vector and bragging rights, but he’s made some noises about maybe trying a real, honest-to-God business, a market stall somewhere in the Grand Arcade. He makes real good stuff, but he’s still relying on the AIWish type gadgets, so I don’t know how well he’ll do just on regular . . . ingredients, so to speak.”
Ariane nodded. “We could certainly use some people doing that kind of business. Right now our only presence in the Arena is through our Embassy. On the other hand, I’m sure that trying to establish and run a business in the Arcade is as much a shark tank as the politics of the Arena itself. What’s the big traffic here?”
A powered cart rumbled past, dragging something large enough to make them all squeeze agains the walls. “Basically two main sources of large shipments: the power station, which we’re expanding constantly, and the defense installations.”
“So we are getting some firepower up there? Good,” said DuQuesne emphatically.
“Quite a bit now, plus of course the ships that Orphan lent us.”
One more thing I should have been making myself keep up on. “What is the status of our defenses?”
Tom turned and started down the corridor. “Come with me, I’ll show you.”
Ariane noticed how people waved, and made room, for Tom. She smiled suddenly. That actually solves one problem I was wondering about.
They entered the Foyer; Ariane managed not to stop dead upon seeing the entire place almost filled with various buildings, and the formerly twisting artificial arroyos carved out into straighter roads. Ha. I’ve started to get used to the challenges of the Arena, where you can’t go using nanotech or other tricks to get things done faster or more efficiently. But if they’re shipping in loads of charged batteries and the nanotech still works in here, of course they can get things done a lot faster.
Tom led them to the central building, which retained something of the look of the original little house that he and Steve had lived in during the time they were mostly alone on the Sphere . . . but was about ten times bigger. “Come on in,” Tom said, leading them into a semicircular living room more than large enough for all of them. He glanced at Oasis and the two prisoners. “You can lock them in the spare bedroom, down that hallway, second door on the left.” He tapped the side of his head and grinned. “I’ll know if they’re up to anything; put a security feed in there just for this.”
Oasis grinned back. Oscar Naraj’s lips tightened, but neither he nor Michelle Ni Deng said anything; they walked quietly in front of Oasis down the side hall; a moment later they heard the click of a lock, and Oasis reappeared, looking slightly more relaxed.
“Now that that’s settled,” Tom said, “Steve, you want to grab people some drinks while I set up?”
“Sure, Tom. You want your usual?”
“Sure. What’ll the rest of you have?”
Ariane restrained her instinct to hurry. This is exactly the sort of thing I need to know about before I go back for the showdown, and a few hours, or even another day, won’t make a difference. “Since we’ve got a full-template AIWish back there—how about a pomegranate martini?”
“Persephone’s Curse coming up,” Steve acknowledged. “What about the rest of you?”
While Steve got everyone else’s preferences, Tom Cussler gestured to empty air; lights began to flicker. “Let me fire up the displays.”
He remembered that I prefer to get information from my regular senses. I’ve gotten some better at taking straight downloads through my interface—it’s got a lot of convenience—but I really prefer doing it this way. “Thanks for indulging me, Tom. I know it’s a pain.”
The broad shoulders shrugged. “Oh, not really. We’ve actually got a fair minority of people like you here, since we have been selecting for people who aren’t AISage dependent. Besides, it’s good training to keep these kind of skills; if any of us are leaving the Sphere for the rest of the Arena, we’d better know how to deal with it.”
A large screen covering the entire gently-curving wall across from where Ariane and the others were sitting lit up, became a three-dimensional display in which a model of Humanity’s Sphere (one of three, now!) rotated slowly.
“Basically we’ve got ourselves three main divisions of defense,” Tom said. “First, we’ve got the loaner fleet; three of them are stationed outside of the Straits at any given time.” Miniature ship icons blinked on as indicated. “Several are hanging up at about twenty thousand kilometers above the center of the main landmass—which is where the Outer Gateway is; that provides direct surveillance and cover for our main entry and exit point and our current Upper Sphere installations. The rest are doing patrols.” Several more ship icons appeared doing slow patrol patterns around the entire Sphere.
“You have crews on them already?”
“Hey, we’re not above cheating,” Steve said with a wink, handing the drinks out to their respective owners.
Tom took his and winked back at Steve. “How very true! Got the best volunteers I could, then took our first trained pilots—other than you—and sent them back home to have their skills recorded and encoded for general transfer. Steve remembered the notes on your challenge against Sethrik and the Blessed—that Orphan had warned us that Sethrik would have the best piloting skills . . . installed, so to speak, and that told me that that kind of transfer, at least, wasn’t forbidden by the Arena. So we’ve already got crews of ten on each of the ships and we’re trying to fill them out as we get more people. The ones with the largest crews do the patrols, because then they can use the smaller onboard scout boats to extend their range without undermanning the main ship.”
“Sounds like someone thought this out carefully.”
“That part of it,” Tom acknowledged, “would be the Arena Defense SFG. They’re responsible for a lot of the other work, which leads us to the second division of defense, the Gateway stations. We’ve got two SFG-designed big cargo conveyor ships—the Nodwick and the Nunzio—running now, and with that we’ve been able to manufacture some very large
pieces and bring them through. Short story is that we’ve now got some pretty impressive fortresses sitting right on top of every one of the Sky Gates; anyone tries to come through we don’t like, they’re running through a kill zone that will hurt.” The display showed a large ring—a few kilometers across—encircling each Sky Gate; a closeup showed that the ring was closely linked sections which each were heavily armored and bristling with weaponry.
“Very nice,” DuQuesne said in an approving voice. “Big enough to let just about anyone come through without trouble, but mean enough to make just about anyone regret it if they didn’t ask first. You’ve fitted our ships with IFF beacons for this, then?”
“Identify Friend or Foe, yes. That lets even dumb automation give the alarm; no IFF beacon, the weapons automatically charge and track, and an alert is sent for someone to either give the fire authorization or not. We’ve set up encrypted, secured comm-buoy relays through the area so that we can send the signals and data to any of the available ships or down to the ground. Usually the nearest patrol ship would be given the alert and make the call.”
“I sure hope you have adequate safeties on that; the last thing we need is some friendly ship getting shot by accident.”
“The design of that control system was done by Carl and me,” Steve said. “And we tested it several times. No accidents. Simulations show it should be perfectly reliable, too.”
Ariane nodded. It’s still a bit scary to think that any ship coming through here which isn’t one of ours will be being tracked by that much firepower . . . but given our current situation, I guess it can’t really be helped. “Good job, then.”
Another light blinked on, this one in the center of the main continent of the Upper Sphere. “And finally, of course, we’ve been putting up—and are continuing to expand—defenses on the ground. We’re also starting recruiting for armed forces,” Tom said, looking pensive, “but that’s a sticky subject. The CSF doesn’t want to give up its best people in case someone pulls off a real-space attack—which is theoretically possible—and there honestly aren’t all that many people who want to leave fun and safe lives back home for a chance to get shot down by some alien invader.”
I can’t blame them, Ariane admitted privately. But someone’s going to have to, since we can’t depend on purely automated defenses. “Tom, this is . . . excellent. I really should have kept up on things much better—and I will, from now on—but I have to say that I don’t think I could have expected things to go any more smoothly if I had been. You’ve done everything I’d have wanted done and you never even bothered me about it. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Tom said, looking just a little embarrassed. “Honestly, though, it all just sort of . . . happened. Watching how systems interact, getting them to work together . . . it’s just what I do, if you see what I mean.”
“I most certainly do see. But as this place gets bigger, and the different rules of the Arena versus back home start to penetrate, it’s going to start to get harder to run—lots harder, especially if any of our immigrants start thinking like our friends Oscar and Michelle.”
Tom Cussler nodded slowly, a frown growing. “Wish I could say you’re wrong, but I’m sure you’re right. Not sure I can think of a solution, though.”
“I can,” she said. “The problem is that back home people almost don’t have to depend on everyone else, at least for survival. We can be, and in some ways, we are little self-involved islands. But here we can’t be that; we can’t get AIWishes to give us everything we want all by ourselves. So there really does have to be a hierarchy, someone who’s in charge.”
Tom’s eyes suddenly narrowed in consternation. “Oh, no—”
“Oh, yes. Thomas Cussler, you are the perfect choice. Heck, you’ve already taken the position. I just have to give it a name and make it official. Then you’ll have the authority you’ll need to make the decisions stick when people start thinking they can just go off and do things their own way.”
Tom rolled his eyes, but then nodded. “Yes, I guess I can’t argue with the idea . . . and truth be told, I really wouldn’t feel comfortable turning over control of this little community to anyone else—at least anyone outside of our little group.” He looked pointedly down the dark side corridor. “But—just to be completely frank—are you going to have the authority to make that stick? Because I think there’s a lot of people who are going to want to fight you on that kind of decision.”
“That’s what I’m coming back to make sure of, Tom,” Ariane answered, and she was gratified to see that he smiled at the words. “With what’s happened in the Arena, and now—we find out from DuQuesne and Oasis—back home, we can’t afford any more screwups.
“They didn’t take me seriously. I didn’t take me seriously, and while we came out of it well, hundreds . . . no, thousands of other people died because of that failure on our part; the fact that those other people were at the time my enemies doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that if I had kept my eye on things, they wouldn’t have been my enemies and we wouldn’t have had to kill them. That kind of fumbling around stops now.”
Tom nodded. “Glad to hear it. If you have a way of pulling that off, that is.”
DuQuesne chuckled darkly. “Oh, I think we do.”
CHAPTER 51
“And what, exactly, do I get from this if I cooperate?”
Oscar Naraj’s voice wasn’t truculent or hostile; as DuQuesne had rather expected, it was completely controlled, a man asking a simple question. Oscar’s glance was focused mostly on Ariane, but did take in DuQuesne, Oasis, Wu Kung, Simon, and Gabrielle, who were the others on board “Arena Transfer Shuttle #3.” The others were staying this time; Laila had looked slightly wistful at the thought of returning, but had chosen to stay rather than discover what might happen to her when she returned and three AISages woke up in a mind that might be far too different from the one they had known.
Ariane smiled very coldly at Oscar. “Not a pardon and not off the hook, if that’s what you’re hoping.” The smile warmed—just enough to take it from absolute zero to dry ice, but hey, that’s a couple hundred degrees. “You claim you did not direct what happened to me, and did not want such tactics. You’ve been acting like you think you may have screwed up. If you cooperate—exactly—I might start to believe you’re more valuable as an asset than as an example. That is what you might—and let me stress that word, might—be able to get out of this.”
Naraj studied her wordlessly for several minutes. DuQuesne could see conflicting tensions in his muscles. But it’s his decision to make alone. Ni Deng was locked up in her own separate cell on the shuttle ship; this was Oscar Naraj’s play.
“Very well,” Oscar said after another moment. “I will send the message as you direct, complete with my own key codes and verifications. I am not quite sure what you expect this to accomplish.”
“You’ll also send the appropriate signals to any allies who aren’t in the SSC, CSF, or their Arena Research Division—exactly the signals you’d send if you were returning after completely successful negotiations according to your standards,” Ariane said. “And if you’ve come to respect us as you claim, I hope you understand that if you do try to slip something by, there’s a good chance we’ll catch you right there, and a certainty we’ll catch you out sooner or later—with ‘sooner’ being the way to bet.”
Somewhat to DuQuesne’s surprise, Oscar gave a genuine smile. “Captain Austin, I most certainly recognize that. I understand your hostility—and it is deserved—but I hope you realize that I am not an utter fool. I see that your general plan is complete surprise, and to this end I will indeed cooperate fully.”
Ariane looked at him, then the others. “What do you all think?”
Wu Kung nodded. “He wasn’t actually smelling very twisty at all there.”
Oscar failed to suppress a start.
“Yeah, Wu is something of a lie detector. Since you’re always planning something he was never sure whi
ch way you were jumping, but he was always suspicious of you and Ni Deng, even when the rest of us were starting to relax,” DuQuesne said, grinning. “I’d say go, Ariane.”
The others agreed as well. Ariane nodded. “All right, then everything’s set. DuQuesne?”
“Console’s unlocked. Send away, Mr. Ambassador.”
Naraj concentrated; DuQuesne observed the heavily encrypted traffic streaming to the recording system of the message torpedo. Wu Kung was close by, and DuQuesne could just make out his breathing—heavier, as he carefully scented Naraj for any sign of duplicity in this operation.
“Done,” Naraj announced after a moment. “If you send that torpedo through, it will transmit the appropriate messages. They will then be expecting me at the monthly meeting, and my other allies will not be prepared for you to crash the party, so to speak.” He looked at her curiously. “I admit to not knowing exactly what you plan to do. I can see you making a fairly forceful showing, but if I understand what you need to achieve correctly, you will need some sort of additional leverage beyond that which I am aware of.”
“Yes. I will.” She turned to Oasis. “Put the ambassador in his room and lock it.”
Once he was gone, Ariane sighed and sank into one of the shuttle’s chairs. “How sure are we about what he just did? Could you read what he sent?”
DuQuesne shook his head. “Wouldn’t do us any good even if I could. There’s no way to tell if he had personally agreed-upon codes that would allow him to send innocuous-sounding messages to people that actually tipped them off to something being hinky. But I’m going with Wu’s instincts and his sense of smell. Naraj’s a cool customer, a Big Time Operator if there ever was one, but I don’t believe he could’ve stayed completely calm while trying to slip one by both me and Wu, with both of us practically standing right over him. He’d have gotten nervous. Real nervous.”
“All right, then. Send it, Simon.”
At Dr. Sandrisson’s direction, the message torpedo dropped away from the docked Arena shuttle and flew off to the safe minimum distance before winking out of existence in a quick double-ended flare of light.