“I’m coming.”
With his Patron following, Matt marched out through the Derindl Autarch’s office, pushing away his hormonal reactions, disposing even of the liking he felt for Dreedle. He could not afford to feel lust or passion or caring for this strong, intelligent alien woman.
He might have to kill her.
Even if she were not in the hire of the Anarchate or Halicene, she still might need to be sacrificed for the good of her people and her planet. And as a Vigilante, he had one inviolate rule—don’t get involved with a possible Target.
Whistling tunelessly, Matt left the Autarch behind, boarded a hovering Defense Remote, and returned to the ship. Eliana sat beside him in the Remote’s cargo hold, unusually quiet. As if she sensed that the calmness innate to living within a culture that practiced community ecology might soon be disrupted. Drastically.
On the way back, Suit’s sensors noticed something unusual. As ordered, Mata Hari hung nearby, just above Top Canopy, but now it was supported by four pressor beams that speared down from the ship’s belly. The pressor beams supported Mata Hari like four legs, similar to the Colossus Mode of his Suit boots. What the hell? Matt hadn’t ordered that—he’d ordered Nullgrav Hover. And he’d never seen the ship do Colossus Mode on a planet’s surface—or known that it could do so. Entering the Bridge, Matt stepped out of Suit, ignored Eliana and stood naked under the waterfalling lightbeams, in optical neurolink. He communed with his AI.
“Partner, why is the ship supported by four ship-to-ground pressor beams? And why the hell didn’t you tell me we could do something like this?”
In his mind, Matt felt Mata Hari ’s looming presence. The presence seemed embarrassed. “Matt, I’m sorry—I didn’t know I could do that either.”
What the hell? “Mata Hari —you are the ship. So where did the order come from, if not from you?”
“From the Restricted Rooms.”
What the? “But I thought you controlled them and were just being secretive. You were, weren’t you?”
The AI paused long seconds. “I wasn’t. And I don’t control them.” Guilt flooded his mind—an AI felt guilt? “They are . . . the Restricted Rooms are also impenetrable to me. I know this sounds strange, Matt, but I really like you and I wouldn’t—”
“Bullshit.” She stopped talking. “Come on. Out with it. What are you really hiding?”
“Nothing!” The pain in her voice was real; either Mata Hari had achieved a quantum jump in her ability to imitate human emotions, or her pain was real. As were her feelings, which had been more intense of late, more spontaneous, more . . . real.
“But, but . . . .” Matt stopped, confused and upset that now, of all times, his ship had a weird software bug in it that neither he nor she could fix. In his mind, Mata Hari hung back a little . . . as if she were ashamed. Suddenly, her mood brightened.
“There! The pressor beams have shut off. Don’t worry about it Matt.”
“Don’t worry? Sure.”
As Eliana looked on, puzzled by their open argument, Matt stepped down into the Interlock Pit and queried ship systems, trying to trace the data-fault. But his virus-trace kept getting rebuffed every time it came near one of the Restricted Rooms deep in the ship’s innards. Strange. Mata Hari had some explaining to do—if she could remember. Damn . . . what do you do when your AI develops selective amnesia?
Within the Pit, in communion with his symbiont, Matt shrugged and ordered the ship to head north to Olympus. The Job came first. Later would come a leisurely full systems checkout . . . in some unnamed nebula where no one could find them.
“Matt? Aren’t the ship and Mata Hari one and the same?”
Distantly, he heard Eliana’s very reasonable question, sensed her interest in him, and understood her wish to be included. But Matt couldn’t do that. Not now. Not when he had a Problem to solve.
“Please, Patron, I must work with my AI to sort out this episode, and also prepare for our arrival at Olympus. I will include you once we arrive,” he said.
Eliana sighed regretfully and turned away to head for the Spine hallway and her stateroom, pretending indifference. Pretending she was whole once more, back in the bosom of her Mother Tree. Back among people with whom she had grown up. At home. The Spine slidedoor closed behind her.
He had no time for guilt. No time for regrets. No time, even, to feel the way a normal human ought to feel when one of his tools acts up. Instead, he focused on the hours-long trip north, on the planet Halcyon, and on his Problem.
Sitting naked in the Pit, drinking in streams of lightbeam data inputs, Matt shut out Eliana, even shut out Mata Hari. He shut out everything except the Problem of finding a way to save a planet without destroying all life on it.
It was a cold, emotionless method.
But for him, it worked.
CHAPTER SIX
Hours later Matt still sat in the Interlock Pit, wearing only skin. The forward holosphere occupied his full attention as he watched sexy goings-on in the Autarch’s personal office—thanks to a few nanoware gifts Suit had left behind at Tree Melisen. Just now, the Autarch was making love with two Derindl males. Behind him, the Spine slidedoor whooshed open. Matt ignored Eliana’s entrance and leaned forward. He’d always wondered just how the Derindl used those short tails. Now if—
“Pervert!” Eliana declared.
He turned and looked up at Eliana, dressed in a brown tunic and white stretch pants. Her eyes blazed with indignation. Matt folded hands in his lap and sat back—as much as his neck cable would allow. “Who says what is sexual perversion? You? Me? Some religion? Anyway, it’s irrelevant to my real purpose—obtaining intelligence on the Autarch and Derindl society.”
Eliana scowled skeptically. “A likely excuse. You’re sure you’re not—”
“Being a horny cyborg pervert like the Vidcasts say we are?”
“I . . . .” Eliana rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry. You explained how you’re not like that. And I shouldn’t be so quick to flare up.” She smiled a bit lopsidedly. “But as you said, for a Greek, I’m even-tempered. At least compared to my aunts and uncles.” She turned more serious. “Also, I’m not used to such invasions of personal privacy. Will you turn that off?”
Matt thought-imaged through the PET relay; the holosphere image vanished. “It’s done. Anyway, Mata Hari will scan the transmission for pertinent Intelligence. Satisfied?”
“Thank you.” Eliana now looked closely at him. Not forcing herself, nor with her usual squeamishness. She looked at him as if she cared what he felt and thought and hoped for and . . . .
“You’re welcome,” Matt said, his mouth suddenly dry. “And thank you for treating me as a person.”
“Matt, you’ve always been real people to me. It’s what surrounds you that gives me pause.” Eliana squatted down beside him, her rose scent enveloping him. She stared into the Pit with open fascination. “Does it hurt?”
“What?”
“Those lightbeams. The . . . the connections to your belly and neck. Everything.”
“Does wearing clothes hurt you?”
She grimaced. “Hardly the same thing.”
“But it is.”
“Well . . . what’s it like? Being a cyborg?”
Perhaps she would understand. “Eliana, being a cyborg is just being different in some unusual ways, like a crossbreed is different from Pure Breed humans, or humans are different from Derindl.” The analogy hit home; she looked troubled. “Have you ever thought of what I am able to perceive as a cyborg?”
She shook her head, eyes running over his bare skin, the coax cable connection to his neck. Eliana then focused back on him—eye-to-eye—showing honest curiosity. “Not really. I’ve played virtual reality games where different environments are portrayed, but I don’t think it’s the same.”
“It’s not.” Matt held up his left hand. “See that? Looks like a normal hand with five fingers . . . nails short, skin swarthy, knuckles rough. Right?”
“Right.”
He blinked, bringing into play miniscule lenses behind his contacts, a different lens for each eye. “When I order my onboard nanoware lens to shift into place, I can see that hand in many light spectrums. Like the infrared and ultraviolet that I’m now using. Organic flesh looks different in different light spectrums.”
Eliana looked up sharply from his hand, inspecting his face with wonder. “Really? You can do that without looking different outside?”
“Easily.”
“What else can a cyborg do?”
Matt smiled, enjoying her sense of discovery. “Well—grab that piece of pipe beside your accel-couch, the one I brought in from the Biolab, and hand it to me.” She did so, hurrying back to sit beside the Pit. He placed the straight aluminum pipe atop his thumb and an outer finger, with a middle finger underneath, then pressed down with his outer fingers. “See?”
Eliana gasped at the horseshoe-shaped pipe. “But your skin looks normal. It looks—”
“It is normal, along with my bones. They just have metallic bioupgrades that increase endurance and add structural and cross-sectional strength. Your own skeletal upgrade is just a civilian version of my combat upgrade.”
She looked skeptical. “But doesn’t it affect—”
“There’s no effect on my sensations of heat and cold—or touch.” Tossing aside the bent pipe, Matt reached out and tickled Eliana behind her ear.
“Oh!” She jerked back, then she smiled. “That tickled.”
“I couldn’t resist,” Matt said as he indulged his playful side.
Eliana turned analytical thoughtful, like the molecular geneticist she was. “But isn’t it all confusing?” She gestured at the devices that lined the sides of the Pit cone. “How do you separate out the inputs? The feedbacks? How the hell do you handle the stepdown interfacing between human nervous system thought speeds and the . . . the optoelectronic gigabit flows you mentioned earlier?”
Matt warmed to Eliana; it had been a long time since he’d worked with another human. “Eliana, when you use your lab stereoscope, don’t you employ split-screen imaging and 3D graphics rotation?”
“Yes.”
Matt nodded. “Then next you perceive both images at the same time. How?”
“Why, I just unfocus a little to take in the multiple images.” She blinked, looking thoughtful. “It’s like a trick. You have to work at it.”
“Exactly! When I take in different visual and digital inputs from Mata Hari, it’s the same thing. But where you see three or four images, I see hundreds. Sometimes thousands.” Mental indigestion seemed to overwhelm Eliana. “Imagine looking at a hundred wallscreens at one time. That’s what I do without even thinking about it—it’s second nature to me. Instinctive.”
“Instinctive?” Eliana said skeptically. “Nothing human can take in that much datafeed without being . . . too different.”
“But a cyborg can! It’s like swimming in an ocean, deep down, fully surrounded by water. And the water is alive with information!” Matt nodded at the forward holosphere, now showing a view of south continent from forty miles up. “See that? I can see it in my mind—if I choose. I can smell your perfume from miles away—thanks to some miniProbes.” She looked pleased. “Thanks to my connection with ship’s sensors, I feel new senses, senses at the quantum-effect level. I taste the minerals in interstellar gas clouds. I hear the stars wailing from the other side of the galaxy. For me, it is a new kind of reality. One that is imminent, encompassing and far deeper than any known by an unaltered Human. But I am still human.”
Eliana looked skeptical, then puzzled. “Matt, that view is from south continent, but we’re now passing over north continent . . . on the way to Olympus. What’s up?”
He relaxed in his chair, palms resting on glass datapads, and decided it was time to engage more deeply with this bright young woman. “Do you really think all I’m doing is conducting a public parade of interviews with strangely motivated humans and aliens?”
Eliana threw her head back and laughed. It was a musical, bell-like laugh that sounded natural and unaffected. “I’d begun to wonder. Your point?”
“The view in the holosphere is a downlinked image from one of the several score minisats that Mata Hari left in orbit as we came down from Zeus Station.” Matt blinked, changing the holosphere image to one of deep sandstone canyons and ancient xeric woodlands that crawled over stony buttes and mesas. “That’s a hopper-crawler image from the vicinity of the Stripper, uplinked to one of my relay minisats.” He blinked again, ignoring Mata Hari ’s patient amusement as she listened in; as if he could prevent her peeking even if he wanted. “That’s a passive monitor Probe I left in the debris caused by our Zeus Station exit.” Matt blinked three more times in rapid succession. “Those are views—and multichannel inputs—from other Derindl Mother Trees. All part of my sociobiologic behavioral sampling of the Derindl. I’m interested in their societal response to the Stripper. Enough?”
Eliana relaxed more, sitting cross-legged on the Bridge deckplates with hands folded in her lap. “An Intelligence web?”
“Exactly. Among several other Options that Mata Hari and I are concurrently pursuing.”
“You’ve got a Plan!” Excitement flared in her eyes.
Matt nodded. “Of course I do. Eliana, I may be self-educated, but in the last seven years I’ve acquired two graduate level degrees via independent study of the ship’s Library, plus I’ve got several libraries resting in my prefrontal cortex, thanks to my cyborg modifications.” She looked impressed. “And this ship is much more than it seems.”
“So I’ve noticed,” she said, glancing back at Mata Hari ’s memory pillars. “I . . . I liked the traditional clothing that your AI wore in the Biolab holo. But I have never heard of a ship’s AI forgetting its abilities, or saying it doesn’t control some part of the ship.”
It seemed the Colossus Mode incident with his symbiont bothered her as much as it did him. “I know. But this is a T’Chak ship—nothing is normal about it. Including the external hull. You realize it’s a flexhull, able to change configuration at will?”
Eliana frowned and focused back on him. “Of course. I just experienced it during the pouchout to visit Autarch Dreedle. Even I’m a biologist by primary training, not a technologist. But . . . I know enough about people to wonder why you’re doing this parade of interviews so publicly when—”
“Threat! Threat!” keened Mata Hari ’s anxious voice. “Correction—Communication inbound. Alert. Restoring holosphere. Input now!”
Matt and Eliana looked forward simultaneously.
A dark green scrub-forest appeared in front of them. The view telescoped down, focusing in on a small domehut sitting beside a rocky stream. Next to it, a mini-ground station pointed its microwave dish at Mata Hari. The caller was directly below their flight path. Interesting. But who could be calling them?
Matt spoke aloud for Eliana’s benefit. “Characteristics of emission point?”
“The area is wild mountain forest not colonized by a Mother Tree,” Mata Hari said, her tone competent and professional. “A single lifeform is present, based on infrared heat signatures. There are no hidden power sources. No weapons emissions. No active-ranging besides the microwave signaler. There is only a climate-controlled domehut . . . with a single lifeform inside it.”
“Human or Derindl or alien?” Matt asked.
“Uncertain.” Eliana looked very interested in both Matt and the holosphere. “The two species are indistinguishable from this altitude,” Mata Hari said. “I could send a Nanoshell probe to enter, evaluate and report back?”
“No.” Matt thought hard—they were still three hundred kilometers south of Olympus and the human colony. “What’s the message?”
“A request for a meeting with ‘the Vigilante’.”
Matt grinned wolfishly. “Wonder if they mean you or me?”
Mata Hari chuckled. “Almost certainly you. As you were discussing with Patro
n Themistocles, you are the one getting the most Vidcast press.”
He nodded. “Descend. Take up Hover station. Pouch-enclose me in Suit and spit me out. The Patron will stay behind.”
Eliana looked upset as he climbed out of the Pit. “Why can’t I go with you?”
“The unknown is not for amateurs. And . . . keeping you safe matters to me. Personally.” As Matt walked toward Suit, his upgraded hearing detected the sharp intake of her breath. He entered Suit and locked-up.
“Well . . . you’re the Vigilante,” Eliana said as she stood up, her tone controlled even as she turned for the rear slidedoor. “I’ll be in my stateroom until you return. Good-day!”
“Patron! Eliana. Wait!” Matt smiled at her through Suit’s faceplate, trying to take the sting out of his command decision. She looked unsure, then walked past him to the Spine slidedoor. It closed on her without even so much as a look back.
He sighed. Too bad. But Business is business. He couldn’t take chances with her ignorance of field contact procedures, plus she had no suit and no real protection from the forces that hunt a Vigilante.
Inside Suit, with all systems powered up, Mata Hari spoke to him. “Matt? Ready to leave?”
“I’m ready. Execute.”
As the Bridge ceiling enclosed Suit, then spit him out into the high, cold air of Halcyon’s north continent, far above a wilderness landscape, Matt pondered the meaning of the contact.
Who was calling him? And why?
Whoever it was, he felt certain this was no random contact. Humans and aliens do not hail a Vigilante, then ask him to attend a commerce social.
Ocean-time enveloped him as he fell.
One hundred forty milliseconds.
The domehut loomed in Suit’s faceplate as it descended through the air. In daytime infrared, the hut appeared uninhabited, except for its single occupant. Matt blinked. His pulse-Doppler kicked on, penetrated the flimsy walls, and returned. A virtual reality holo display rotated in the middle of faceplate.
Star Vigilante (Vigilante Series) Page 11