Provider Prime: Alien Legacy

by John Vassar

  “Why? A sentinel squad would be eight-to-one in our favour.”

  ‘Roderick Thorne has already demonstrated superior weapons capability in the destruction of Harry Doyle’s vessel. We must assume that he still has access to it.’

  Mitchell couldn’t fault their logic. “I’ll bring that up in the de-brief. It may be the last opportunity I get to be of any use. I suspect my days of freedom are numbered.”

  Rayna stirred and looked up at him. ‘Who are you talking to?’

  ‘Just talking to myself,’ Mitchell said, disconnecting from the SenANNs so abruptly that he almost fainted.

  Rayna stroked his face and smiled. ‘You don’t have to be ashamed, Lee. You must know by now what I’m capable of. And you must know that you’re capable of it too. You knew I was trapped in that buggy as soon as you got close. We didn’t speak, but you knew.’

  ‘Yes, I knew.’ Mitchell pulled her closer. ‘But in my case I have special piece of tec in my head, just here. It lets me talk to FedStat control. And it also lets me talk to the SenANNs. You’ve just overhead a bit of top-secret conversation…’

  Rayna kissed his neck. ‘Oh dear. Just as long as you’re in charge of the punishment, then.’

  ‘I’m not denying the other thing. FedStat made me quite aware that I have… tendencies in that direction.’

  Rayne rubbed his temple. ‘So, what’s this special tec thing? Oh, I can feel it! Just under your skin!’

  ‘Shhh… No-one’s supposed to know…’

  ‘Sorry,’ whispered Rayna. ‘So is it like a normal IDN then?’

  If only you knew. ‘Yes, very like that. Except it doesn’t glow in the dark and you can’t buy your lunch with it. It’s there to help when I’m out fighting crime.’

  ‘So you’re still with FedStat?’

  Mitchell’s shook his head. ‘Not for much longer. It’s time the big boys took over now.’

  Agent Charlis had returned and was looking over his passengers. ‘We’re approaching Cytec T-13. I’m expecting a smooth landing but I’d advise you buckle up.’

  Victor Wade had been sitting with his head in his hands. He looked up, his eyes bloodshot and weary. ‘What? We been flying around in circles? I sure as fuck am not going back to T-13. Not with that thing still there.’

  Charlis said, ‘Relax, Mr Wade. T-13 isn’t where you think it is. When we land I’ll see yourself and Agent Mitchell for a short debriefing. I’ve requisitioned a mess hall to use as a temporary base of operations.’

  Mitchell sat opposite Victor Wade in a corner of the airy canteen and watched the big man’s face contort with disbelief.

  ‘What do you mean I’ve never been on T-13 until now?’

  ‘Exactly that,’ said Charlis. ‘For obvious reasons we haven’t sent in a recon team yet but we’re confident of the basics of the situation. For the past few years, you’ve been stationed at what was once known as Cytec T-1, which Populus records list as abandoned.’

  Wade shook his head. ‘I know what I know. You can’t tell me I wasn’t there. Every shipment that I received was for T-13, every assembly worker, everything. And those poor fucks are still trapped in there. What are you doing to get them out?’

  ‘Our scans show no accommodation units and no food recycs. Now that yourself and Miss Ash have been evacuated, there are no human life signs on that base at all.’ Charlis sat down and looked at Victor Wade with the first trace of compassion that Mitchell had seen in him. ‘We’ve hacked into part of T-1’s security system. Not all of it, but enough. Looking at the areas which you, Mr Wade, had access to, I can understand why you would believe you were presiding over a large-scale manufacturing operation.’

  ‘Surprise me, then,’ said Wade. ‘Tell me why I would think that.’

  Mitchell interrupted, ‘Because someone went to an awful lot of trouble to convince you, Victor…’

  ‘Agent Mitchell is right,’ said Charlis. ‘What you observed through your airscreens was an elaborate simulation. And when I say elaborate, I mean that every piece of data that you could access was generated afresh. You would never see the same image twice. Never suspect that the production figures were not factual. There was no way you could have known that you were being deceived.’

  Wade looked at Agent Charlis, then at Mitchell, then back at Charlis. His eyes began to redden. ‘Then what happened to them? All those people that I processed… If they’re not there now, where did they go?’

  ‘We have yet to locate them, Mr Wade. We’ll do everything we can, but right now our priority is to contain that autom. The resources for that will be here in less than thirty minutes.’ Charlis stood and extended his hand. ‘Thank you again for your help. Get some rest now. Agent Soames will show you to your quarters.’

  Unsteady, Wade got to his feet. He suddenly looked old and despite his size, frail. Before he reached the portal he stopped and whispered, ‘There were hundreds. Hundreds of them.’

  Agent Soames, the fittest-looking female agent Mitchell had ever seen, guided him out. He waited until they were out of earshot, then turned to Charlis. ‘Okay. What’s this ‘Agent Mitchell’ crap?’

  The DS man’s gaunt features threatened another smile. ‘I thought you’d be pleased. That was the deal you had with Devlin, wasn’t it?’

  ‘The deal was that Devlin would do his best to get me reinstated if I pulled off the mission.’

  ‘I think you’ll agree we’ve found our prime suspect. And Commander Devlin is in no condition at the moment to question my decision.’

  Mitchell spoke and thought at the same time, praying that he actually had the skills to do so. ‘What’s happened to Devlin?’ “SenANNs. You should be listening to this.”

  ‘We are here, Lee Mitchell.’

  Charlis replied, ‘We’re not sure. His behaviour became erratic soon after Bhanerjee’s suicide. Enough for me to believe that he was under an external influence. Then came his order for me to shoot down your skimmer. There was no logic to it whatsoever.’

  ‘You’re a better shot than I gave you credit for,’ said Mitchell. ‘But you did disobey a direct order from a Senate member. Treasonous, if I remember right.’

  ‘You do. And if Devlin himself wasn’t beyond suspicion, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You’d be dead and I’d be in the brig at Sat-1. The only reason I’m still active was Devlin’s next order - to annihilate Hirayama-Y survey base. At that point the High Council let me intervene. I told the garrison commander to go along with the order, just revise the detonation co-ordinates. You know the rest.’

  Mitchell frowned. ‘There were people on the surface nearby. Do you know if they were picked up?’

  ‘I wasn’t aware of that. I’ll get it checked out for you. Unless the SenANNs can advise?’

  ‘They can’t. You were telling me about Devlin.’

  ‘Yes. Devlin...’ Charlis walked towards the vista panel that looked out across the featureless expanse of Tsiolkovsky. ‘He killed two of my staffers trying to escape from Sat-1. Good men. Whatever had a grip on him, and I’m assuming it was Thorne, had taken total control. But I know he tried to fight back. We wouldn’t have stopped him otherwise.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No. We just managed to pull him out of his skimmer before it hit atmosphere. No physical injuries, but his mental state is borderline schizophrenic. On my orders, he’s under as much sedation as his body can take.’ The DS man’s voice held genuine respect. ‘Devlin always played his cards close to his chest, but he’s no psychopath.’

  Mitchell nodded. ‘What are his chances?’

  ‘Of survival? Better than fifty-fifty according to the medtecs. Of being the man he once was? Nobody can give me a straight answer. Whatever Thorne has used on him is light years ahead of Verum. And until we know it’s out of his system we can’t take the chance on letting him regain consciousness. I wonder if I’ve done him a disservice. If we should have just left him in the skimmer...’

  ‘If there’s a chance he
’ll pull through, you did the right thing. Letting him die would have been the easy option.’ With honesty leaking from the DS man’s defences, Mitchell took a chance. ‘Are you going to tell me what all that bullshit was in my domice?’

  Unblinking, Charlis said, ‘Necessary. And not all of it was bullshit. I wanted you out of the mix and scaring you off was the best option. Couldn’t take a chance on anyone at that stage, not least an ex-DS agent reactivated by a potential suspect.’

  Mitchell noted that Agent Charlis hadn’t apologised.

  ‘So... am I talking to the new Commander of Delere Secos?’

  ‘Not at all. Senator Rasmussen is Acting Commander. I’m still a foot soldier. But at least they’re listening to me. And yes, your temporary reinstatement has been sanctioned by the Senate. Although I haven’t mentioned the SenANNs’ involvement in your activities.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Devlin was given the best protection we had against Thorne’s serum. It didn’t do him any good. I believe the SenANNs are the only ones beyond his reach.’

  ‘Agreed.’ Mitchell looked warily at his new ally. His new CO, as it happened. ‘What do you make of this transference theory?’

  ‘We have to take it as read. The SenANNs believe it, at least as far as I can understand. The interface training is taking a back seat.’

  Join the club. Mitchell said, ‘I know this much. The SenANNs are concerned that a full squad of SWS automs isn’t enough to stop Thorne. They believe he still has access to the weapon that was used on Harry and Agent Telson.’

  ‘We have to try. I want to know what’s going on at T-1 that justified such an elaborate hoax. Once the cam circuits came down we found a massive power plant under there. And I was economical with the truth with what I told Wade. There was no production line as big as the one that he was conned into believing, but some kind of manufacture had been going on. There are six specialised automs in the western section and a hermetically-sealed laboratory that looks as clean as a hospice. Not to mention over nine hundred unidentified automs on standby in a bunker that looks like it was built to take some punishment...’

  ‘Wade may have felt better if you’d told him that.’

  Charlis was staring out at Tsiolkovsky’s barren surface. ‘I doubt it. Wade thought he was looking after just over nine hundred assembly workers.’

  39

  “How can over nine hundred people have vanished without Populus Control being alerted?” Mitchell was marching down T-13’s central corridor back towards the main hangar and Charlis’s skimmer. There was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. As if he didn’t want to know the answer.

  ‘Our Brother at Populus Control is investigating. We are analysing the data that has been retrieved so far from Cytec T-1.’

  “Could these T-1 automs be the same units that were never found in Harry’s investigation?”

  ‘The precise number has never been calculated owing to lack of evidence. But that is an interesting supposition, Lee Mitchell. We sense that you are concerned over the discovery of these units. May We ask the reason for this?’

  Mitchell jumped into the skimmer and headed for the cam-suit locker. “You were party to my conversation with Charlis, you heard the same as I did. The numbers match Wade’s workforce.”

  ‘We understand. We also predict that Agent Charlis may be mistaken concerning the lack of human vital signs at T-1. We have re-analysed the data from the scans taken in the recent mission. There is baseline activity for nine hundred and twenty-seven human beings hidden in the sub-ether spectrum.’

  “What do you mean, hidden?” Mitchell stuffed his limbs into a cam-suit. The sentinel squad was now less than ten minutes away.

  ‘We now understand why Populus Control did not register the so-called workers as missing. Their sub-dermal tags are still transmitting life signs and location data. However, the signals are being broadcast from their actual location at T-1 via the sub-ether communications system. In this way, they appear to be alive and well at various locations on Earth and ExTerra.’

  “I don’t get it. If they’re still at T-1 our scans would pick up their life signs regardless of what data their IDNs were giving us.”

  ‘We have come to the same conclusion, Lee Mitchell. We are the same, but We are different. Given the evidence, We predict that the sub-dermal tags of each individual have been removed. There is a high probability that the same system used to deceive Victor Wade is being used to transmit this false data.’

  Mitchell strode forward to the cockpit. “Then there is a high probability that they’re dead.”

  The SenANNs reply was more upbeat that he had expected.

  ‘Your conclusion may be flawed, Lee Mitchell. We can predict no logical reason for Roderick Thorne to lure these people to the Moon and then terminate their lives. At least, not with the data that We currently possess.’

  “Let’s hope I get a chance to ask him.”

  Charlis was going through pre-flight and glanced up as Mitchell joined him. ‘ETA of the SWS squad at target point is four minutes and twenty. You okay? You look a bit white.’

  Mitchell felt the co-command seat wrap around him. ‘Fine. What’s the plan?’

  ‘Send the squad in under a standard search and retrieve mode. With the override that the target must not leave T-1 intact.’

  ‘Intact rather than alive?’

  Charlis gave the smallest of shrugs. ‘The sentinels won’t know the difference and we don’t have time to give them the subtleties. As far as they’re concerned this is a rogue autom, nothing more.’

  Mitchell frowned. ‘With Thorne’s intelligence they’ll be hamstrung from the word go... give me a moment.’

  ‘Yes, Lee Mitchell. We are able to assist, but not with direct control.’

  “You can’t control the SWS Squad through sub-ether?”

  ‘We cannot. It was never part of the original design criteria. Neither can We utilise your own neural link device, which was configured to link with your original vessel. However, through yourself We can monitor the tactical situation and advise on the best course of action. We predict this will give the best probability of success.’

  “I get it... You tell me and I tell them…” Mitchell turned to Charlis, who was wrenching the skimmer out of T-13’s hangar at pace. ‘The SenANNs will guide the squad through me. I’ll need direct speech control to all SWS units. It’ll be quicker than relaying the info to you.’

  Charlis said, ‘Not sure what the standing orders are on that, but I’ll sanction it.’

  Mitchell saw Rayna’s face in his thoughts. She seemed to be pleading with him but he couldn’t hear her words. He sensed she was angry. ‘Charlis, what’s happening with Rayna and Wade?’

  ‘I’m evacuating them to the Lomonosov garrison. Thorne’s attack on that Widgeon was deliberate. I don’t want the girl to be used against us again.’

  Charlis was right. Tactically, they would be vulnerable if Rayna was close by. Lomonosov was as heavily guarded as any place lunar-side.

  Don’t worry. You’ll be safer where they’re taking you. I’ll see you again soon.

  He sensed that she understood. He also sensed that she wasn’t happy.

  The skimmer scorched across the surface of Tsiolkovsky. Ahead, Mitchell saw the dreadnought containing the SWS squad barge itself into position, dwarfing the stationed cruisers as they backed away into a flanking formation. Charlis was taking no chances. A dreadnought was overkill for eight sentinels, but the firepower it carried was enough to raze the entire crater if need be. Mitchell felt a surge of adrenalin as he watched the dark hulk hovering over T-1.

  Charlis said, ‘Okay, you’re up. I’m sending in assault drones first so we have visual on every unit. The sentinels will have to do without cam circuits to receive your instructions. Tactical is on your screen now.’

  Mitchell nodded. He exhaled and closed his eyes.

  ‘We believe it is customary to say ‘good luck’, Lee Mitchell.’


  “It is. Thank you.”

  ‘Drones away,’ said Charlis. ‘Target is located at the red node on your screen. Looks like a coms room.’

  40

  Once more, Ja’faal of Vis’haan stood alone in Area 1, Section 1 in Cytec Assembly Plant T-1. The array airscreen was active in front of him. He thought of his mission. He thought of his duty. Ka’laat’s original plan was that Ja’faal would summon him once the first stage of Earth’s conversion was complete. That was before. Before he had been betrayed by Cortex.

  He now understood the reason why the transference was failing.

  It was not the degradation of his own mind, trapped in the stinking human shell for fifty years. It was not the intervention of Delere Secos and their ghost agent.

  Cortex alone was responsible.

  He had designed Cortex too well. Given it too much intelligence, too much ability to reason. Too much of a will to live. As it began to achieve sentience, Cortex’s last act had been one of revenge. In the last few hours of its existence, whilst modifying Thorne’s Sentinel host to accept his accumulated mission data, Cortex had also been working on something else.

  The virus had remained undetected until now. Ja’faal had scheduled background systems checks on the Sentinel to run every hour after the first few emotional lapses he had experienced following the transference. The conclusion from the last set of data was inescapable. The core programming that contained his intellect, the essence of his very being, was slowly, irrevocably degrading. He could not help but admire Cortex’s work. The virus was a perfect in its design, clinical in its efficiency and ironic in its execution. Like the strands of DNA that unravel and disintegrate during the human ageing process, critical elements of the core memory engrams were being stripped, one by one.

  Everything had changed, and Ja’faal knew the truth of it.

  He could not complete his mission alone, but he must push aside any feelings of failure. The survival of Vis’haan as the supreme race was paramount. The Elders would accept his humility only if Earth became a harvest world. If not, he would welcome death.