He could feel the quarx working to speed his coordination. As the robot’s directions came in a continuous stream, his hand on the control twitched left, down, up, left, right, in tiny adjustments. The ship was slewing in perfect sync, following Napoleon’s course. He realized he was holding his breath, and forced himself to breathe.
/// Napoleon knows what he’s doing...///
/Yah.../ Breathe in, out, follow the mad course...
Soon he was scarcely thinking about what he was doing, just reacting to Napoleon’s commands.
There was a sudden, loud outcry from Li-Jared. Bandicut responded slowly, turning his head to look around for the Karellian. But Li-Jared’s voice was coming from a speaker, and there was panic in his voice. “What are you doing to the ship?”
“John Bandicut is flying it!” Ik roared. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything’s going crazy!” Li-Jared yelled. “It’s all changing! I can’t get to the backup or the commons, and I can’t get back to the bridge!” The Karellian yelped, then shouted: “The corridors are collapsing and twisting! I can’t even tell where I am.”
“Jeaves!” Ik boomed. “Can you find out what’s happening?”
Bandicut, trying not to be distracted, steered shakily as he heard Jeaves say, “The shipboard AI is changing the contours and layout of the ship. Copernicus is trying to find out why.”
“What was that? Say again!” Bandicut was struggling to keep course changes separate in his mind from the rest.
Li-Jared called again, and his voice was a little steadier. “If you can hear me, I’m in some kind of arm, sticking out into space. It’s just a narrow little corridor, and I’m at the end of it. There’s a door here with a window, and it just looks out into space...people, it’s weird, I can see the nebula and...moon and stars, that thing we’re falling into. You’re steering around that, right?” Bong. “I feel as if this thing could fall off the ship any second...”
“Li-Jared, you’d better get out of there!” Ik called. “We think the AI has gone crazy, and it’s—”
“Left ninety degrees now, Cap’n! And down thirteen,” Napoleon interrupted. “Then ready on thirty to the right...now.”
The Mindaru object loomed. “I thought we were going to steer clear of that thing.”
“It’ll be close. Hold this heading until I say break...”
*
The explanation had become apparent to Copernicus, but not the solution. The shipboard AI was corrupted, all right—corrupted by an outside intruder. Copernicus had found data pathways open between the ship’s long-range sensor arrays and some control kernels that had nothing to do with the sensors. And a quick scan of the data moving through those pathways suggested nothing resembling sensor data.
The ship was being invaded, and the invader had gained at least partial control over the shipboard AI. Copernicus had little doubt that the source of the invader was the same as the creator of the n-space web they were caught in.
Copernicus retreated briefly to consider. He had no time to lose, but every action had to count. He made his plans quickly.
He began with a lightning stroke to cut off the flow of data through the sensors. The stroke was successful, but only for an instant. The connection was remade with alarming speed, and he couldn’t afford to be tied up keeping it severed. He was already doing that with the flight controls, and it was costing him. Worse, the invader was now aware of his presence. The best thing to do was keep moving, be a small target, and hold nothing back. He couldn’t intervene everywhere the enemy was at work, but he could make its existence here as uncomfortable as possible. Live or die, succeed or fail, he would give it everything he had.
The AI, under Mindaru influence, was changing the ship’s physical layout by the moment—threatening, in fact, to tear the ship apart. Copernicus focused on protecting the bridge and the vital propulsion and life-support systems. But as for the shape of the ship...its normal lozenge shape was already distorted, sprouting pseudopods, with holes opening in various places, like tears in stretched pizza dough. Li-Jared was caught in one of the extremities; now he was sprinting down the spindly hallway, trying to get to safety. The best Copernicus could do was to keep the section from splitting off into space. There was no safety to be found, not there, nor anywhere else on the ship.
And how was all this shapechanging affecting their flight? Copernicus had to talk to Napoleon.
*
There was a buzzing at the edge of Napoleon’s awareness. For a few microseconds, he let it go unanswered; he was busy with navigation. Finally he grabbed a picosecond to answer the other robot.
We’ve got an emergency, Copernicus reported. The AI is infested with Mindaru programming. It’s altering the shape of the ship faster than I can counter. Can you still fly?
Napoleon spun through half a million navigational computations. Yes, he said at last. We’re practically in a controlled freefall right now. I don’t think changes to the shape of the ship can affect our trajectory much. But we’re going to need maneuvering capability when we reach the central object.
Reach the central object? Copernicus asked sharply.
We’re going right down the muzzle of that thing.
*
“Hrah! Has the AI turned against us, then?” Ik asked.
Napoleon swiveled his head. “There’s an infection. We’re trying to clear it out.”
“Infection!” Ik barked.
“And I’m trying to determine whether Copernicus himself has been compromised,” Jeaves said.
“Rrrl, how do we know you have not been compromised?”
“You don’t,” Jeaves said. “That’s why you four are making the decisions. I’ll advise, as I can. I believe I am not infected, but that cannot be proved. Your robots may not be infected, but that cannot be proved. You must use your own judgment. You can’t run the ship for long without the AI. Let’s hope the damage can be localized and contained, and that the AI is robust enough to survive.”
*
Bandicut could not escape the feeling that he was driving straight for a train wreck. Maybe they’d just auger in, and do as much damage as possible. He drew a ragged breath. “Napoleon, what’s your plan for avoiding that thing?”
“Cap’n, look up at the map.”
Bandicut did, and saw white filaments of field lines converging on the center. Between the filaments were darker regions, dull red shading to black. “Okay...what’s it mean?”
“It’s like a fishnet, Cap’n. The outer part drags you in. Near the center, all the strength is in those lines that are pulling it together. But there are narrow gaps. If we’re fast we can dart through, right under its nose.”
Bandicut blinked. “If we can keep the AI from tearing the ship apart, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“Is this supposed to encourage us?” Antares asked. “Because it’s not.”
“It is the only encouragement we have, Lady Antares. It is the only encouragement we have.”
Chapter 22
Through the Gap
The center of the grid was growing rapidly. Bandicut had a firm grip on the joystick, waiting for the moment of breakaway.
The condition of the ship was another matter. An invisible battle was raging between the AI and Copernicus. The bridge quaked violently every few minutes, and for one instant, Bandicut felt the joystick turn to liquid in his grip, before firming up again. The rest of the ship appeared in the monitor views like a drunken amoeba, squirming and contorting madly. Li-Jared was still trying to fight his way to the backup controls.
“John Bandicut, we may have a problem,” Napoleon said.
Bandicut blinked sweat out of his eyes. “Do tell.”
“I’m not certain the bridge is still attached to the rest of the ship.”
Bandicut’s breath caught.
“I’m getting ambiguous readings, Cap’n. Some of them suggest we may have come apart. Have you heard from Li-Jared?”
Not in the las
t few minutes, he tried to say, but couldn’t get out.
“He could tell us better. But here’s what the visual sensors are showing...”
On the far right and left of the viewspace, monitor squares blinked on, displaying views of the ship—interior and exterior, the latter presumably viewed by a camera out on a strut somewhere. Bandicut’s stomach churned. Portions of the ship were billowing out like tattered shirtsleeves. “My God,” he croaked. “Is the AI doing that? Or the n-space fluctuations?”
“Uncertain, Cap’n. However, I don’t see any choice but to keep going.”
Bandicut nodded, swallowing. “Jeaves, are you—?”
“I’m here,” said Jeaves in a subdued voice. “Napoleon’s right. Signals from the rest of the ship are sporadic, and I don’t know if we’ve come apart or not. Copernicus’s battle with the AI has burrowed down to a level I don’t dare interfere with. But I’d say our lives are in your hands and Copernicus’s now. Keep going and pray.”
Bandicut grunted, and tightened his grip on the joystick.
*
The object at the center of the grid began to take form. “Can you magnify that?” Ik asked Napoleon.
“Yes, but you may find it disturbing,” the robot answered.
The image grew, becoming grainier. The object loomed out of the murky shadow like an enormous sea urchin in a deep-space cave, its spines waving treacherously. Bandicut thought he could see a cloud of small objects around it, like floating detritus. /Damn, but I don’t want to go in there./
/// Who would?
But Napoleon says the faster we go in,
the better our chance of
a clean breakaway. ///
/Yah,/ Bandicut whispered. /Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead./
/// Human expression? ///
/An appropriate one,/ Bandicut said, refocusing on the course. He tried to think like a fighter jock from an old war holo, maneuvering his shot-up plane through the stormy sky...
“Cap’n, we’re on our final approach,” said Napoleon. “We can expect our velocity to pick up. It’s about to become challenging.”
“The ship is holding,” Jeaves reported in a distant voice. “By a whisker.”
With that, the floor seemed to drop away. The ship plummeted in a broken zigzag, the fractal shape of the field blossoming outward. The ship, with Bandicut twitching the stick this way and that, followed the zigzag like a broken field runner, following sudden changes in the shape and dimension of n-space with hypnotic speed and instinctive movements. He was terrified the ship would get away from him, but it didn’t.
The shroud of debris surrounding the adversary was taking on a sullen red glow. Bandicut also felt a buzz around the edge of his thoughts. /Do you feel that?/
/// Yes. But John—do you see what I see? ///
/What do you—?/ And then he saw it, in the glow. He saw what the debris objects were. For a moment, he could not draw a breath.
The objects were broken spaceships. They were approaching a graveyard of spacecraft, hulks of dead ships gathered in a drifting cloud around the spiny array that bristled from the Mindaru object. “Napoleon, do you see it?”
“Yes, Cap’n. We’re going to have to steer around them.”
The view zoomed in as Bandicut watched. He heard Antares gasp as she, too, realized what they were looking at. There were dozens of vessels—broken and burned and blown to pieces, floating in slow orbit. All wrecked by the Mindaru? Over what—millions of years? That was what it looked like. None showed any sign of life; some looked as if they were crumbling to dust...
“Cap’n, keep flying!”
Bandicut drew a sharp breath and jerked his attention away from the mesmerizing sight. They were going to pass very close to those wrecks.
/// John, is that our scout craft I see? ///
/I don’t think so, do you think so?/ Bandicut squinted. He wasn’t sure he would recognize the scout ship even if he saw it, but...damn, that did look like...pieces of what he remembered...
/// Caught, not destroyed.
At least not completely. ///
His breath went out in a rush. /Yeah./ He didn’t even want to think about the implications of that. What if Delilah were still alive? He absolutely did not want to think about that. Because even if it were true, there was nothing they could do to help her. Nothing at all.
*
Relentlessly, the AI kept trying to alter the shape of the ship, and just as relentlessly Copernicus worked to stop it. The robot had already come to the conclusion that there was only one way to really stop the AI, but knowing it and figuring out how were two different things. Plus, he would have to do it at exactly the right time, or the result would be disaster.
Still, the AI’s resources were not infinite, especially since Copernicus had managed to close down seven of the subsystems. But the ship’s structural integrity was seriously in question; if he did not take the difficult step, he might well be trying to save a ship that was literally pulling itself apart. That was as good a reason as any he could think of for throwing caution to the winds.
*
Li-Jared paused, panting. This was ridiculous—running in a dozen different directions, always with the same result. He was no nearer to the bridge than he had been before, or to the commons where the backup controls were. He had passed through the hangar section, where an empty docking bay had reminded him of the scout, now lost, with Delilah.
But what was this now? He had just stumbled into a chamber that was almost all window—in fact, it was a clear bubble on the surface of the ship. He was standing, practically, in open n-space. Bong bong bong...
He could barely breathe.
He tried to think. It couldn’t really be a bubble, could it? He could see the hull of the ship, and it looked like tattered, disintegrating fabric. And in n-space itself, he could sort of see movement. Yes, bits of debris were floating past: pieces of wrecked spacecraft. Gasping, he tried to focus more clearly. N-space as it appeared here wasn’t empty or entirely dark; there were visible striations, as though he were peering through multiple layers in the depths of a clear blue sea.
This was different, though. We’re in n-space. Are those dimensional layers? Is this a view of where we’re going...or no, where we’ve been! He forced himself to move closer and look out, though he was nearly sick with vertigo. Yes, he could see faint traceries of...well, it was almost like a wake, behind and a little overhead, as though they were descending through the strata as they moved forward. Whatever was creating this bubble must be translating information visually and—
What is that?
Something was moving out there, moving beneath the surface...not really a surface, but that was how it looked, like something following underwater...
Like something rising from the depths.
He opened his mouth and tried to speak, and he couldn’t. Shaking, he leaned out even farther to get a better view—and yes, indeed, a quick and shimmering shape was pursuing them, and was definitely moving upward toward them. And that wasn’t the only thing that terrified him.
The bubble he was standing in was starting to peel from the side of the ship. It was rocking and swaying, and he could see the place where it attached to the hull beginning to pull away. Very soon it would rip all the way to the door he had stumbled through. He was about to lose his escape route.
He glanced back at the thing in the depths and shouted, “Ik—Bandicut—anybody—if you can hear me, there’s something coming after us!” Then he dove through the doorway, rolling as he made it back into the main body of the ship. He sprang up and looked back to see the opening silver over just as the bubble beyond ripped away.
Gasping, he tried to repeat his warning call. “Can anyone hear me?” He had to get back to the bridge! “Napoleon! Copernicus!”
Faintly, as though echoing down the rippling corridor, he heard the voice of Copernicus answering, “Li-Jared, if you can hear me, follow my voice! I need your help!”
&nb
sp; You need mine? Li-Jared thought in astonishment. But he sprinted down the corridor toward the sound of the robot’s voice.
*
The quarx was trying to get Bandicut’s attention, which didn’t make him happy while he was trying to fly.
/// Charlene-echo seems to be saying,
they’re sensing Delilah’s presence somewhere
in the wreckage...///
That took him a few moments to absorb. If it was true, that meant...
/// I don’t know what it means, John. ///
/Is Antares sensing it?/
/// I don’t know. ///
He didn’t have time to think about it. They were speeding through fractal-shaped patterns of n-space distortion, and he had to keep flying. Napoleon called out a warning, “Cap’n, in five seconds, break left hard and—”
“Break left and what, Napoleon?” No answer. He hazarded a glance sideways. “Napoleon?”
The robot’s LEDs were flickering rapidly. Was he overloaded? Or worse, shorting out? Had the AI gotten to him? Oh shit. Five seconds...
Bandicut frantically scanned ahead, through the lines representing descending dimensions of n-space. There were some patches of darkness in the web, off to the left. Was that where Nappy wanted him to break? Through the gaps in the fishnet? Five seconds...
Drawing a deep breath, he selected a patch of darkness, counted one more second...and, blood pounding, steered hard over. The opening loomed abruptly.
At the same moment, in the other direction, the sullen red aura of the Mindaru object became brighter. The spiny structure grew visibly—and he felt a sharp tilt of the n-space field, trying to reel them back in toward the Mindaru object. For a moment, he couldn’t tell whose strength was greater; he thought they might tumble straight back into the graveyard of ships between them and the Mindaru. A shattered alien hulk sailed by on the right, and another was dead ahead. Terrified, he cut harder to the left and swerved into the gap of darkness.
The draw of the n-space field suddenly diminished. The Mindaru and the wrecked ships drifted away to the right as The Long View dropped into the gap.
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