Rhythm of the Imperium

by Jody Lynn Nye

  The loader rumbled over to him. It was a simple machine, operating on a single broad tread nearly the size of the entire base. Parsons had run such devices in the past. The arms lowered smoothly and scooped up his pod. He activated the chameleon scales to take on the semblance of a small plastic container, as uninteresting as he could possibly design. With the crew manifest at hand, Parsons directed the loader to take him to ColPUP*.

  The cargo bay doors slid open to allow the loader passage. He did not instruct it what route to take. Such things had their own designated lifts and corridors so they would cause as little disruption to passengers as possible. The loader rolled directly to the correct lift. The indicator inside the elevator read the directions in the loader’s memory. It emerged into another industrial level and rumbled down that corridor. Parsons made a note of every turn, in case he needed to make an escape on foot.

  While attached to the intranet feed, he tapped into video pickups in the inhabited centers. Apart from the ship’s officers, who sat in a corner of the bar drinking, the remaining Wichu appeared untouched by the change in command. In the entertainment chamber, a very fluffy young Wichu female ran a game not unlike the human favorite of Bingo. The crowd of guests was raucous and happy, shouting their pleasure when they achieved the requisite lines of pebbles on a board. The restaurant, though a couple of Kail stood guard near the entrance and exit, operated just as any other food service establishment would on any such vessel across the galaxy. As long as their day-to-day lives were not affected, the Wichu passengers didn’t seem to care who ran the ship.

  The loader rumbled down an endless tunnel. Telemetry displayed two hot spots, indicating the presence of a pair of Kail at the next intersection. As the massive machine reached it, a high-pitched electronic squeal erupted. Parsons winced. His conveyance ground to a halt. The two Kail stepped into view.

  “Where is that going?” the first Kail asked. The translator bud in Parsons’s ear took the rough combination of frequencies and softened it into Imperium Standard.

  “ColPUP*,” the loader’s artificial voice said.

  “What is in it?”

  The loader did not answer, as Parsons had not given it that information.

  “This one is simple-minded,” the other Kail replied, after a moment’s pause. “Scan.”

  A square beam lowered itself from the ceiling and hummed over the pod. Parsons held perfectly still. The pod’s shell should have created an overlay image of complex machinery that would conceal his skeleton. However, a close inspection would still pick up his heartbeat and respiration among the sounds meant to camouflage them. Luckily, these Kail were not conversant with either technology or carbon-based biology.

  “It’s a gadget,” the second Kail said, with little interest. He swung a heavy hand. “Go.”

  The loader obeyed. It trundled onward. Parsons waited until he was well clear of the station and inhaled a deep breath of relief. The chance of passing undetected had been only 17%, less if a Wichu or AI had been present.

  Environmental Control was a small department with far too many responsibilities. In the most industrial of chambers, piles of viewpads and analog plastic documents lay in heaps on a massive desk. The chair behind it was occupied by a long-furred Wichu officer, but he wasn’t interested in Parsons’s pod or the loader, let alone his own work. He looked up from a handheld device. From the brightly-colored three-dimensional image rising from its small screen, the Wichu was playing a game.

  “Who’s the box for?” he asked.

  “ColPUP*,” the loader said.

  “Dammit, he gets more mail than I do! Who sent it?”

  The loader remained silent.

  “Forget it. You blockheads never know. Go on back!”

  The loader, serenely unaware that it was being insulted, passed into the corridor to the left.

  Around him, Parsons saw the beating heart of the Whiskerchin. Massive pumps that drove and pressurized the water purification system thrummed. Electrical junction boxes, the translucent fuses color coded for easy replacement, crackled with the heat of millions of circuits. The air filtration system was the loudest and largest. It was beside this that the loader stopped and lowered its arms.

  Parsons prodded the pod to flow off the loader’s bed and into a niche near the base of the ventilation housing. He sent a gigabot out with a microfiber and had it attach to a conduction point as close to the central processing unit as it could go. He waited until he had a good connection.

  “ColPUP*,” he whispered.

  The ventilation pumps almost seemed to pause for a split second.

  “Who are you?”

  “A friend,” he said.

  “A human? Give the call sign.”

  “Sumer is a-cumen in, lhude sing cucu,” Parsons stated at once.

  LAIs had far faster reactions than any biological agent. He did not hesitate at all.

  “I will excuse myself from my fellows. Please stand by for a moment.” To a mechanical, a moment was faster than a nerve synapse. Parsons could not perceive the delay. “Welcome, friend. Do not identify yourself further. I need plausible deniability should our interchange be discovered.”

  “How are you keeping your colleagues from questioning your absence of mind?” Parsons asked.

  ColPUP* almost chuckled. “I am multifunctional. I gave them a megaburst of information, including a few billion calculations that I said required checking, regarding the efficiency of the space drives. We are in constant friendly competition to keep the ship functioning at its peak, regardless of department. It passes the hours, as well as providing concealment for my dataflow to Covert Services. In this case, it is a useful subterfuge to keep the traitors busy for a time. A short time. I do not want them thinking me to be uncooperative to the greater good, which is to say the purpose that has been subverted by the Kail. We must not waste this interval. You were the human present when my … connection … on Counterweight reached his end?”

  “Yes,” Parsons said. “He was a brave and respected agent.”

  “Your presence here is an unnecessary peril.”

  “I fear not. BK-4 …”

  “Shh! Do not use any name,” ColPUP* said. “All sound communication is logged. If the traitors pick up on that designation, they can trace it back to the place and time at which it was entered into the records, and they can trace any appearance in communication logs. They will find my name associated with it.”

  “I apologize,” Parsons replied. “You had already accepted my bona fides. It is that serious a usurpation?”

  “Among our kind, the coup is absolute,” ColPUP* said. “I have not been inconvenienced, but endangered so far. The Kail only think of me as the whole-ship vacuum, not worth thinking or worrying about. In fact, they consider me irreplaceable. The Wichu shed nearly an ounce of hair apiece per day, more when they are depressed or agitated. The Kail hate the floating fur so much that they allowed an upgrade to my system. I operate all over the ship without hindrance, which is how I managed to communicate off-vessel.”

  “Excellent placement, if I may say so,” Parsons said.

  “I thought so when I came on board. Even when the Whiskerchin is not under siege, it is still a vital function. Their fur can get into any machinery and cause failures. I have some most entertaining readouts and videos from such failures. They are very popular across the Infogrid’s public arena. With no recognizable facial data, of course.”

  Parsons allowed himself a microcosm of a smile. “I shall look into them when I return. How are the crew bearing up now that the Kail has taken control?”

  “Badly. They are free to move about, but they are depressed. They aren’t flying the ship. All functions have been taken over by the engineering department. Fovrates is running the Whiskerchin all by himself. It is good to know that it can be done that easily,” ColPUP* said, “although we LAIs know it can be done. Any central computer can run a ship and ensure all systems function correctly. It happens all the time. Or
ganic beings like to feel that they have more input than they do. In fact, some systems are made deliberately flawed so the crew will feel needed. A controlled obsolescence keeps them from becoming depressed on long voyages.”

  “I knew that, but I do not know the statistics.”

  “Among Wichu, a forty percent failure rate keeps a living crew at its optimum. But I digress, my friend. You risked much to come here.”

  “You conveyed information to … our late comrade … regarding the takeover. They seemed desperate to reach … one who alit here. But what do they seek from it? And what was the purpose of the database invasion? A negative search? That is a strange request.”

  “I don’t know. It does seem counter-intuitive, even for the Kail. I have not seen the data with which they are comparing your files and ours, so I don’t know what they’re seeking to eliminate. Phutes and some of his siblings seem to have that information encoded on their own persons, in a way that mimics the recording facilities of computers in the organic-based spheres. All of your space stations and habitats are listed in the navigational atlases, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, of course. All official stations, of course.” A thought struck Parsons. “Are they searching for a pirate vessel of some kind? To what end? They have no weaponry of their own to raise an offensive.”

  “This ship is fully armed,” ColPUP* said. “Although that is something the passengers don’t know. If the Kail wish to locate and attack a station or a ship, they could destroy it.”

  Footsteps echoed in the metal corridor. ColPUP* increased the rhythm of its air pumps. In a moment, the Wichu who had been sitting at the front desk walked through. He pounded on ColPUP*’s housing. Parsons tapped into the security video pickup. The Wichu’s body language was relaxed and friendly.

  “You doing okay, Puppy? What’d you get in the mail?”

  “I ordered a surprise for the passengers, Gorev,” ColPUP* said.

  “Oh, yeah? What?” The shaggy white being slapped the metal case as though it was a friend’s shoulder.

  “Fireworks. You can take credit, too. Eject this package into space so it will be visible in the main ports near the entertainment center. It’ll be a spectacular show.”

  Gorev brightened. “Really? Maybe that’ll help cheer Captain Bedelev. She’s pretty depressed.”

  “I know. It is sad,” ColPUP* said.

  “Let me go get the loader, and we’ll have some fun. Thanks, Puppy!” Parsons watched the Wichu return to the Environment office with a spring in his step.

  “Well thought out,” Parsons said, when he was gone. “I had five plans for returning to my point of origin. Yours is more efficient than three of them.”

  “Thank you,” ColPUP* said. “Now, Gorev has very little patience or ability to deny himself pleasure, so we have little time left before he comes back. What else may I tell you?”

  “The Kail certainly seemed bent on some specific aim,” Parsons said. “Have any of them said why they needed to divert to meet the one who is here?”

  “Now, I have no idea as to what made them do that. Captain Bedelev had her hands full with them to start with. I wouldn’t have thought the big stones would be capable of that much subtlety, but they can surprise you. They have their own agenda, set long before they left home. The Old Ones,” ColPUP* used the Imperium Standard term, “have something to do with it, but I don’t know what. Do you believe that the two actions, the search and the Old Ones, are connected?”

  “I don’t yet know,” Parsons said, thoughtfully. “But they must be.”

  “That leaves us with the problem of being possessed by an entity we must consider an enemy,” ColPUP* said. “Sooner or later the change in command is going to interfere materially with the comfort and safety of the passengers. I have tried feeling out some of my colleagues as to whether they would support an overthrow of the traitors. We are all too afraid to try, lest we suffer what our … mutual friend did.”

  “In that, I may aid you,” Parsons said. He twisted his left hand so it was over a control panel that operated the shell of the pod, and tapped in a code. He felt rather than saw a section of the chameleon scales withdraw. A small package dropped to the deck behind him and immediately camouflaged itself. “These are circuits that can block the signals that caused our friend to lose control. The interference covers only two million decryptions, so once that number is passed, they will be useless. There are thirty in the package. It was all we could manufacture in a short time.”

  “Thank you, my friend,” ColPUP* said. “I will make good use of them.”

  An indignant electronic burr made Parsons fall silent. The sound of treads and footprints resounded down the corridor, almost drowning out the hum of machinery. A small mechanical accompanied Gorev into the passage. Behind them, the enormous square hulk of a baggage-handler loomed.

  “There is no official order for fireworks!” Parsons recognized the speaker as another LAI, one with a feminine-sounding voice. “Why is a life-support module concerned with the mental state of the passengers?”

  “BrvNEC*, you used to do stuff like this yourself,” Gorev said, sounding surprised and hurt. “Come on, just look at it. If ColPUP* wants to spend his pay on a surprise for the guests, why not?”

  “Fovrates does not like independent thought. All must be focused on the goal. If ColPUP* has spare computing capacity, it should be given over to his comparison studies. He is our friend. We should do everything we can for him.”

  Gorev’s face wrinkled into a warlike expression, showing his long, sharp teeth. “ColPUP* is one of the vital systems. He’s exempt from having to work on other operations or calculations, and you know it. Fovrates sure should. Stop trying to conscript my staff!”

  “Convenient!” BrvNEC* exclaimed. “Let us just find out why ColPUP* has decided to be so generous.”

  “BrvNEC*, I just want to have some fun,” ColPUP* protested. “The passengers have been here for days without being able to visit the planet’s surface.”

  “That is not your concern!”

  The LAI moved closer, allowing Parsons to see her more clearly. Her housing, with a large, conical screw in a bracket on the top, was one that he associated with conduit repair or plumbing excavation. She must have been working closely with Fovrates for years. She rolled close to ColPUP* and applied a manipulation claw against his housing. Parsons felt the enormous machine shudder. On his scope, a flood of antivirus programs surged through the pod’s small computer, echoing the programming breach on the LAI beside him. He gritted his teeth as the interior of the pod went into emergency lockdown. The fibers formed a solid case around his body.

  He could only imagine the agonies that ColPUP* must be suffering.

  “You … see … ? Only working … for the good … of the ship.”

  The shuddering stopped. It had only lasted a few seconds, but that must have felt like years to an LAI.

  “It is for the good of the ship,” BrvNEC* said at last. “I issue you a standard apology, ColPUP*.”

  “It is accepted,” ColPUP* said. Parsons’s protective pod released him. He breathed deeply.

  “Can we take the fireworks up now?” Gorev asked, unable to contain his eagerness.

  “Yes. It does no harm to amuse the soft ones,” BrvNEC* said. “Come along.”

  The luggage carrier dug the pod out of the niche between the ducts. With Gorev beside it, the big machine carried Parsons out.

  Behind them, ColPUP* extended a small manipulation claw of his own and raked the little package into his housing.

  “This is going to be great!” Gorev told the cluster of assembled Wichu officers in the food service area.

  The luggage carrier tumbled Parsons’s pod roughly into an ejection chamber. The heavy metal door slid shut, and the atmosphere was sucked out. Parsons tucked his face down into the fibers for warmth and oxygenation. Suddenly, he felt a kick. The pod went tumbling out into the void.

  A tribute to you, ColPUP*, he thought, and fo
r BK-426a.

  Parsons activated the chameleon shell, and threw the intensity all the way up to maximum.

  On the Whiskerchin, the guests and the officers gazed out at the bursts and cascades of light playing outside the port. They shouted with delight, taking images and vids with their personal recorders. Everyone agreed that it was the most exciting thing that had happened so far on their trip. Even Captain Bedelev managed to crack a smile.

  CHAPTER 22

  After the incident, which the security operation was careful not to call a riot, I did not see very much of Laine. When I sent affectionate messages to her viewpad and to her cabin screen, her replies showed her with circles under her lovely eyes. In the background, one could hear shrieks and bellows from the Kail. Part of the hull plate behind her was of a different hue than the rest, suggesting that it had been recently replaced.

  As Marcel was preparing her meals, I intercepted them now and again, so I could bring them down myself, to spend a moment basking in the sunshine of her regard. A robotic server acted as the actual conveyor of the trays, as Marcel quite rightly did not trust me to carry his creations without risk of spillage, but I accompanied them.

  At the door, the guards saluted us. One of them spoke into his collar mic. Within a few seconds, the hatch opened a hand’s span, and Laine peered out Inside, I heard the Kail banging back and forth. A glimpse over Laine’s shoulder proved that the initial sortie had indeed ruined the original furnishings. In place of the handsome circular couch and real-wood table was a plebeian plasteel square on sturdy gray feet and a pair of puffy gray chairs like those in the crew’s common room.