"What did you think of the nano swarm coating the Shillelagh?"
"Never saw anything like it, but the nanos are being analyzed in my lab. Before your ship is refitted, we'll know everything there is about the swarm and how to defeat it. I've got a couple ideas I want to work on, just from seeing the way the swarm smeared itself over the sensors."
"That is possible to defeat the swarm?" Leanne leaned forward. "By what mechanism?"
Anna looked at her and shrugged. Her hands floated around, through the virtual controls, then brought up a single panel.
"This is a primer on nano research here. You might enjoy it since you are interested."
Cletus saw that the text provided nothing more than the basics, such as would be included in an introductory university course. Either Anna found revealing such Scrutiny knowledge wrong or she had no time for Leanne. Both could be true.
"I'm interested why you're our guide rather than someone more knowledgeable about the TZO radiation and how the batteries are constructed and charged."
Anna frowned, then popped up another text in front of him. This was anything but elementary.
"I wrote the procedures for battery construction. It's all done on a molecular level, which is another road to explore beyond Judah insisting the main storage is in a higher dimension. I believe quantum mechanics explains it all, with some graviton interaction considered. You see here? And here?"
Cletus found himself drowned in esoteric speculation. From the corner of his eye he saw that Leanne idly flipped through the notes given her but concentrated on Anna's every word. She understood more than he did, but how much more?
His attention drifted to the external view around them. The terrain began to flatten and the crawler made better speed. From what he could tell from the abbreviated instrumentation, they raced along at almost two hundred kilometers an hour. But the faint glow ahead held his interest more than the clanking as treads tore through the rock beneath them. The red giant's edge poked over the horizon, causing polarizing filters to mute the scene. He blinked when he saw how the atmosphere, thin as it was, caught fire and caused small auroras to dance about.
The heavy radiation shield atop the crawler moved about, causing momentary imbalance. They raced into the radiation and needed the shield as much in front as above, perhaps more. Cletus shifted his view to the One Ring almost directly overhead. The particle accelerator shone bright like a silvered star. He tried to make out details, but the reflected light from the red giant proved too much.
"Will the accelerator be turned on while we're out here?" He turned to Anna, who broke off her explanation of her work with Leanne.
"No one is allowed outside the dome when the Ring is fired up. We don't think there is any danger, certainly not from radiation leakage since the entire planet is bathed constantly in a lethal bath."
"A precaution?" Leanne asked.
"Safety first, that's our motto. Working at the edge of knowledge is always hazardous, but we try to avoid casualties. So far, we've been lucky."
"Or careful," Cletus said. "What of the staff at the charger?"
Anna smiled slightly and shook her head.
"There's no human staff. It's entirely automated."
"AI?" Leanne scooted forward and gripped the back of Cletus' seat to hear the answer. The grinding of tracks against rock now filled the compartment. A quick glance at the speedometer showed they raced along at over three hundred kilometers an hour now.
"Well, yes. I know that's a technology not allowed on Ballymore."
"Back home," Cletus corrected.
"Yes, back home. But here, in the colony, we don't have an abundance of labor. Why not let robots take up the slack so we can devote our time and skill to intellectual work?"
"You know your history. Artificial intelligence almost destroyed Burran after the first immigration wave settled in."
"Your planet, Far Kingdom, doesn't explore AI, either, does it, Leanne?" Anna glanced back. "Why not? Is it that your population is so great you need to keep all those hands busy with menial chores?"
"We experienced a period similar to that on Ballymore. Equipping warbots with AI proved dangerous to humans."
Cletus had not considered this, so steeped in his own cultural aversion to AI. A warbot running a full-scale AI program would be a threat in space, in the atmosphere and on the ground─a threat in many ways, both to the enemy and to the side employing it.
"On Scrutiny the AI is kept at a minimum."
Cletus heard the lie in Anna's words, knowing she sought to placate him and downplay any threat he might discover.
"It frees us up to do our research and to develop those cultural necessities we can't get from Burran. Art, music, other ... pursuits."
Again he heard the distraction. Before he could press her on what those other pursuits might be, Leanne spoke up.
"Such skills liven your social life, I am sure."
"A small population can afford to explore."
"Especially far from the dictates of your church. Pope Seamus is, from accounts I have read, not the greatest advocate of such things."
Cletus started to ask Leanne what she meant. He was not a religious man, but the church held sway over many of the military under his command, forcing him to consider not only what was necessary but what was sanctioned. Pope Seamus wandered Ballymore, the itinerant pontiff, as had all the popes since the AI disaster.
That caused him to rear back. How much of the cultural avoidance of AI came from the church? He had never considered it. Always working, always studying to get ahead and deserve the rank he had attained, such matters seemed diversions and nothing more.
He stared at the bleak scenery now lit by more intense reflection from the One Ring. The red giant poked enough of a disk over the horizon to hint at the instant death being outside would cause. Cletus straightened and moved to point out a spire on the horizon.
"Is that a comlink?"
"It's a marker. We're getting close to the charging station."
"You don't use GPS?" Leanne wiped away the HUD in front of her to stare at the main display.
"Radiation makes it unreliable. We don't have sats in orbit because of the One Ring. While there's never been any leakage from the accelerator, we don't want to have any trouble turning off the equipment."
"You don't want the radiation altering the AI," Cletus said. The facility gone berserk caused him to shiver slightly. Again, he hadn't realized how ingrained the anxiety about AI was in him because he had never confronted any usage before.
"This is such a deadly environment, the additional radiation would be unnoticeable, but safety first. We don't want any com interfering with the One Ring's operation any more than we want it scrambling the production line at the charger station."
Anna worked on her display to slow the crawler. The crunching faded until Cletus could heard his own breath coming in harsh gusts. His excitement to see the battery factory grew as he pylon seemed to sprout up from the barren gray rock plains.
"Will we exit?" Leanne asked.
Anna expanded the external view to give a 360-degree panorama. A few more seconds gave a hemispheric view that included the One Ring above. When she was satisfied, she leaned back.
"No. Even with suits, the danger of exposure is too great. Here are the controls for a few drones. Send them wherever you like and study the entire factory to your heart's content."
Cletus worked four drones from his HUD. He found the controls sluggish and mentioned it.
"The AI running the factory has to authorize every movement to prevent an accident. Flying a drone across electrodes accidentally might damage the factory or even kill us all. Huge energy flows are the rule, not the exception. It takes weeks to collect and store the energy in a battery that can power your dreadnought."
Cletus saw that Anna had given Leanne her own set of exploratory drones. Whatever secrecy there might be on Scrutiny, this wasn't part of it. Or did Doctor Germain and the others think L
eanne was a trusted adviser? He realized he had no idea how to consider her. She obviously absorbed every bit of information like a sponge, and he had to believe it would all be revealed to the Supreme Leader when she returned to Far Kingdom.
If she returned. They had struck up more than a commander-adviser relationship. His father had no compunction allowing her access to the most highly guarded secrets. He had not even told his own son, his Commander in Chief Armed Forces, about Scrutiny.
Lifting his drones higher, he flew them in formation across the plains to a domed structure.
"Enter through the slots just above ground level. The drones will be recognized and admitted," Anna said.
Cletus dropped the flight to the deck and then steered closer. Dark slits opened automatically. He wondered if the drones contained IFF devices or if AI studied the situation and chose to allow the drones inside. Then he slowed the advance and worked them up along the sloping interior to take in a panoramic view of the factory. A wire mesh dish, slightly concave and more than a hundred meters in diameter dominated the center of the dome. Pointed upward at the Pot of Gold, it collected the mysterious darklight radiation and electronically piped it into four different boxes.
"The dome is closed. Does it open when you are collecting?"
"The radiation is such that the dome material is not an impediment."
"Then why have a dome at all?" Leanne asked.
"To avoid damage from meteorites," Cletus said. The system became clearer to him. "There's not enough atmosphere to slow a rock coming in, even on the tidal locked side of the planet."
"That is one reason," Anna said, making it sound as if she humored him. "Another is to discharge electrical buildup that might disrupt the robotics inside. You saw the planetary aurora coming here. Within the dome, we maintain a charge-free space."
Cletus had a hundred questions but held them in check. He wouldn't understand the answers. With a swoop, he drove down toward the center of the wire mesh dish, only to lose control of the drone. He frantically fought to prevent the sudden swerve and failed.
"The AI keeps unwanted objects from the dish. Why don't you explore the accumulators─the box structures every 90 degrees around the dish?"
Cletus did as Anna suggested. Or was that ordered? Every time he thought he was given freedom to explore, chains were lashed around him. He worked downward and into the automatically opening slits so he could see how the batteries were connected.
"It hardly seems plausible," he said. "Those huge leads from the dish are designed to carry immense current, yet the batteries are so small I can hold most of them in my hand."
"Even the batteries for the main engines are small, but you could hardly lift them. They are the size of a large truck."
"That's still smaller than the fusion units powering the Shillelagh."
He paid less attention to what was revealed around him and thought more on how this could be used. Removing the Shillelagh's existing fusion plants and relying solely on the batteries could increase its capabilities twofold. More. But were the batteries as reliable as Anna and the others said?
If they were, taking control of Burran's orbital platform would be simplicity in itself. The fleet, or what remained of it, would be no match for the single dreadnought. But once on the platform, what then? Every building leveled, every citizen killed, bolstered Weir's grip and branded the lawful Programmer General as a rebel, a murderous outlaw. There had to be a way to use this power without turning the population against Donal Tomlins.
"There's not much to actually see. Charging stations are like that unless something goes haywire. You might enjoy a quick look at the battery assemblers."
For another hour, Anna steered the sightseeing until Cletus grew bored. Leanne was willing to remain for another few hours but deferred when he asked to return to the dome. He had so much to think about.
Cletus slumped in his seat and stared at the flow of dark rock and bright radiation all the way back to the dome. He had seen what he needed about the batteries, and still he had doubts. Big doubts.
Chapter Twenty-two
Kori Tomlins fumed as the newser told of setbacks for the crowds rioting in the streets of the capital. She glanced at her daughter. Bella hunched over a hard terminal, hesitantly pressing the keys. This caused Kori to grow even angrier. Without a control helmet feeding its data directly into Bella's brain and Bella insinuating herself into the neural network that governed the entire continent, setbacks to her plans happened with alarming speed.
Kori had sent out three teams to plant bombs, to sabotage needed transport centers. The way Herold had talked, the small explosives would deliver maximum damage and confusion. She cared nothing if people died. She wanted Weir to work overtime to repair the damage to the delivery routes, the systems, the very structure of the nation. Somehow, Weir had anticipated the destruction. One bomb had detonated, the others were taken away for safe disposal. And the one that had blown apart the loading docks at the central food dispensary had only slowed distribution, not stopped it. She had counted on a full day of interruption and had to settle for mere hours.
Bella assured her that day would bring about serious protests throughout the capital. But with increasing ease, the riot squads quelled the unrest, dispersed the demonstrators and caused Kori to waste both hard-gained explosives and the agitprop teams' efforts. Every last one of those guerrilla fighters had been killed or captured. Every one.
"Someone is letting Weir know our plans. We have a traitor."
"Yes, Mama." Bella never looked up. She chewed her tongue as she used two fingers on the keyboard.
"It's Herold. Who else could it be? He never goes on the missions. He builds the bombs, then relocates his factory before the detonations."
"I have a new way to cause some trouble. Do you want to see?"
"Unless you have found a new supply for our explosives, no. Wait, yes, dear, what have you discovered?"
"The Programmer General has an elaborate accounting system in place now. Stealing from it the way we did when we started isn't possible without alarms going off."
"I know that." Kori turned away in disgust. For all her brilliance at programming, Bella showed herself to be an idiot at times.
"I can use that against him. Keeping accounts balanced to such a degree requires considerable computing power. Almost 20 percent of all Burran's server farms are constantly checking, evaluating, balancing."
"So you nudge here and there and cause him to use more computing power? So what?"
"No, Mama." Bella's tone made Kori want to slap her. She sounded as if she lectured a dimwit and not her mother. "I reallocate. Instead of a thousand kilos of amino acids for the 3D printers in Eastminster, enough to feed a quarter of the city for a day, I ship it to the capital."
"You don't destroy it?"
"It's not needed here. It is in Eastminster. The people there might not starve, but the shipment has to be tracked down and sent to the proper location since that much extra nutrient will go to waste otherwise. If I insinuate another false shipping manifest, I can send it back to the aquafarms on the coast, depriving the people in Eastminster of their food for yet another day."
"Not serious, but annoying. Yes, I see that."
"It wastes resources, but the accounting program is happy. The nutrients are always in the system, only not moving to where they are needed most."
"The people are more likely to take to the streets and protest if they are hungry and hear that others have too much to eat. I can start rumors about a government austerity program, with certain population centers taking the brunt of the cutbacks. With no food on the table, why not believe the rumors instead of what Weir's propagandists tell them?"
Bella smiled shyly. She gripped the sides of the keyboard and finally looked away from the flickering video screen. The ancient machine had been uncovered in a warehouse. It was so old that Kori doubted anyone could track it by its electronic footprint. That made it the perfect terminal to use
for such materiel diversions, even if Bella took forever to input her changes into the system.
"You are wonderful, dear. Wonderful. Can you do this everywhere? All at once to create maximum confusion and disruption? Even of military shipments?"
"It's better to only try this a few times. If Weir finds too many discrepancies, he'll look for how I entered the changes into the routing programs. I am leaving behind small Trojan horse programs to pop into effect randomly. That way I won't even know what is being shifted around."
"Use his own accounting against him." Kori tried to remember how much money remained in accounts scattered around the world after the first day or two of Bella's tampering. That had been months ago.
She closed her eyes for a moment. They had started with nothing and built the revolt against Weir into something big. If she had succeeded in assassinating him when they broke into the Residence almost a month prior, taking power would have been easy enough. No one remaining after Weir's purges had a fraction of Bella's skills. The master computer would have been hers to command. But they had been betrayed then, too.
That might have been the first time. Weir's guards had been waiting for the attempt. Bella insisted that Aaron Riddle was responsible and that he had known they were coming far enough in advance to set the trap. Kori discounted her daughter's opinion. Riddle was a lapdog, nothing more. He had been furious when Cletus had received a promotion over him, but there had been a good reason for that. It looked like nepotism, but she knew her son was cleverer and had a keener sense of tactics.
Kori forced herself to relax thinking how her son and husband had both abandoned her. Riddle had been opportunistic aligning with Weir. She might have been in a better situation if she had done the same.
"I can waste the resources in other ways," Bella said. "If an order calls for a hundred kilometers of cable, I can have the factory turn out a thousand. It will be useful eventually, but the resources are normally all allocated on a just-in-time schedule. This unbalances that timetable without unbalancing the payment accounts."
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