“Oh yeah? What is it?”
“Avery’s shipboard AI is built on an affective loop. That’s why it’s mad, don’t you see? They tried to slave an affective-loop-based AI—a true Emergent—to a semi-sentient.”
“But why?” She was almost too horrified to speak.
“To control it. But they only managed to drive it mad.”
“Does Holmes know about this?”
“Of course she does. Who do you think made the ship crazy in the first place?”
(Catherine)
THE DATATRAP
“So how did you get here?” Catherine asked Router/Decomposer when everyone had scattered to take care of the business of securing the habitat.
“I fell in with a bunch of very hospitable Uploaders who let me parasitize their ship’s router/decomposer. Cramped, but manageable.” His strange attractor expanded in an amusing parody of a luxurious stretch. “And this place is nice and roomy.”
“Haunted houses always are,” Li said grimly.
“It’s not haunted. It’s … occupied.”
“By who?”
“Well, that’s complicated. I’m not really sure, actually. And I think I might need you to help me find out.”
But he wouldn’t say any more about that when she pressed him, except that he was “putting something together to put in front of her.” And she’d known him long enough to know that he wouldn’t be drawn out until he was good and ready.
“What about the Datatrap itself?” she asked him. She recounted Korchow’s strange tale and his guess at the structure’s origins.
“I don’t know about alien,” Router/Decomposer said. “The Drift itself is complicated. It certainly doesn’t look like Syndicate tech. But it could have been built by humans. And light cones go all wonky in the Drift, so trying to argue whether it’s from a parallel universe or our own future light cone is just a recipe for sucking yourself down your own mathematical navel. Not that I have anything against that. Actually I’m currently collating the ships’ logs of the entire UN Fleet with whatever I can pull out of the Datatrap’s logs in order to try to construct a sort of tidal map of the movement of populations within the Drift. From what I’ve been able to gather so far, there seem to have been multiple waves of arrival and departure as populations in the Drift ebbed and flowed. One could imagine constructing an ethnology of the Drift, a sort of mathematical model of the birth and death of civilizations.”
“I’m sure one could,” she said in affectionate amusement.
“But you’re right of course. There are slightly more urgent matters at hand at the moment.”
“Do you think whoever built this is going to come back?” Li wanted to know.
“Not anytime soon.”
“Not even now that we’re here?”
“I don’t see why they should care, really. I mean, do you rearrange your whole life—or even cross the street—to crush a fly?”
“No … but little boys cross schoolyards to pull their wings off.”
Router/Decomposer gave her his equivalent of a pitying look. “I have to assume that whoever built this place is a long way past the stage of pulling flies’ wings off for amusement. And if they aren’t … well, there isn’t much we’re going to be able to do about it, or anywhere we’re going to be able to get away from them, is there?”
“So … what?” Li was incredulous. “Just don’t worry about it?”
“All I’m saying is that your time would be better spent worrying about people like Helen Nguyen, who’s a lot closer to hand, and who does pull flies’ wings off for fun. And whom we might be able to use the Datatrap to stop.”
“You think that’s what whoever brought Ada here was after?”
“Yes.”
“And who was that?”
“I don’t want to say until I’ve ruled out a few possible alternatives.”
“You think there’s a Cohen fragment in there with her.”
“Like I said, I don’t want to say yet.”
By the time Li had had her talk with Router/Decomposer, most of the crew was back on board the Christina celebrating.
In the first flush of victory, it seemed that all was forgiven. The crew returned to Llewellyn, their doubts forgotten. Or at least forgotten long enough to get roaring drunk together while Router/Decomposer minded the shop and mopped up what was left of the station AI.
By the time Llewellyn came knocking on her door, Li had had a long, heartfelt reunion with Router/Decomposer and had a lot of news to pass on.
“He says the wild AI outbreak on New Allegheny is completely out of control. It’s jumped quarantine, it’s floating all over the Drift and getting passed from ship’s crew to ship’s crew. Containment’s a pipe dream.”
Llewellyn scratched at his neck, and then jerked his hand back when he saw Li eying the rash.
“Router/Decomposer hitched a ride here on the last Navy supply ship to come through,” she continued, “about three weeks ago. But the wild AI outbreak hitched the same ride. And when the Datatrap’s crew tried to do a hard reboot to clear their systems, it did … well, what we just cleaned up.”
“So why did he say it was Ada who killed them?”
“Because apparently that’s what the wild AI outbreak—or part of it anyway—is calling itself. No one really understands that part, not even Router/Decomposer. Can you make any sense of it?”
But Llewellyn either couldn’t or wouldn’t.
“And you trust this Router/Decomposer person?” he asked her.
“If I can’t trust him I might as well just curl up and die. I mean that. Literally.”
“Then I trust him, too,” he told her. “So let’s leave the details for tomorrow. Right now I just want to get too drunk to worry about it.”
Li and Llewellyn were very, very drunk indeed by the time they staggered back to Li’s quarters.
“I’m going to regret this in the morning,” Llewellyn said, so casually that she thought he was talking about having drunk too much. “But I really don’t care right now.”
And then he hooked an arm around her waist, jerked her across the narrow space that separated them, and fell to kissing her.
She was swept up in an awful wave of guilt, desire, and confusion. One part of her was whispering that sleeping with Llewellyn was the best thing she could possibly do to help Cohen. But another part was feeling his hands on her skin and realizing that she wanted this, quite apart from Cohen—that she had been wanting it for so long that her subconscious had already mustered a pathetic little company of excuses, starting with a list of Cohen’s past betrayals that should have been long ago forgiven and forgotten.
“You’re feeling guilty,” he said. His hands stopped moving across her skin, but he still held her pressed against the length of his body.
Li ducked her face into his chest to avoid his stare. “Of course I am.”
“I don’t see why. He’s dead. And he wasn’t a very good husband even when he was alive. But if you want to play the grieving widow, I’ll go back to my room and sleep alone. I won’t be happy about it, but I’ll do it. And no hard feelings, either.”
“No hard feelings, but you’ll think I’m stupid.”
“No, I won’t.” His voice was barely a whisper now. “I wish anyone had ever loved me the way you love him.”
And then, pathetically, she was crying. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know why I even started out on this. And you know what the most ridiculous part of it is? I was thinking about leaving him.”
“I know.”
She looked up at him, shocked.
“I mean, he knew.”
“Jesus God Almighty!”
“He wasn’t really good for you,” Llewellyn said with a wondering inward-looking expression. “And he knew it. He felt awful about it. But he loved you too much to let you go.”
“And I couldn’t leave, either.”
“Because you loved him.”
“Ye
s. No.” She made a frustrated gesture. “I don’t even know what to call it. It was like a plant turning toward the sun. I couldn’t help myself.”
Llewellyn laughed a low, bitter laugh. “You think you have to explain it to me?”
“Not in any way that doesn’t make him sound like some kind of vampire.”
“Which he sort of is. Albeit in a mostly nice way.”
“I don’t know if I can go for nice. Let’s say … well-intentioned.”
“Mostly.”
They grinned at each other: comrades in arms, commiserating.
“Oh come on, he’s not that bad.”
“Isn’t he? I’m standing here wanting to screw you so badly that I think I’m going to have a stroke if you make me leave, and I don’t even know if it’s me or him that wants you. And I don’t care. He’s eating me up like a worm in an apple, and I can’t even bring myself to give a shit.”
“So he’s not so dead after all.”
“He is, believe me. Whatever comes back, it’s not going to be him.”
Something must have shown in her face—and whatever it was Llewellyn didn’t like it.
“He’s had four hundred years! Isn’t that enough for anyone? And what about me? Don’t I have a right to have a life before he takes it over?”
“You could always download him into the Datatrap.”
His eyes flickered away from hers, as if he were thinking about something he wasn’t sure he wanted to share with her.
“What?”
“Ike doesn’t think that option’s on the table anymore.”
Li drew back to stare at him. “Really?”
The look on Llewellyn’s face made her feel sick at heart.
“I could learn to live with him, too, you know. It’s just this minor problem of his eating me alive.”
“Cohen wouldn’t do that.”
“He’s done it before.”
“When?”
“Whenever he needed to. He didn’t talk business much with you, did he? He didn’t like to tell you things that he knew you wouldn’t understand. Like what happens between AIs when association agreements go really sour.”
“He wouldn’t do that to you. He’d think it was wrong.”
“He might. But he might still do it … if it was the only way to get you back.”
Li’s stomach turned over. “No,” she whispered. “You can’t think I’d go along with that.”
“But you’d have him back.”
“Not that way,” she protested. “That would be too horrible.”
They stared at each other for a moment, unasked questions hanging in the air between them.
“If that’s what you think he is—if that’s what you think I am—then why are we even here right now? You should have killed me the minute you first saw me.”
“I did think about it,” he admitted. “But then I thought about something else. I thought that maybe Cohen’s the only person in the galaxy smart enough to figure out how to keep me off the gallows.”
She caught her breath at the audacity of the idea. “You’re looking for a pardon?”
“It could happen.” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “Look at Avery.”
“Avery turned you in! That’s how she got her pardon! Who are you going to turn in?”
“No one! You know me better than that! But Cohen says it can be done. And I believe him. Or maybe I just want to believe him. All blustering aside, Li, I really don’t want to die.”
She dropped her head into her hands and pressed her knuckles into eyes that were suddenly burning with exhaustion. “God Almighty. If Cohen ever gets out of this alive I’m going to kill him.”
“It’s not like he planned it this way.”
“Are you apologizing for him now?”
“Well … sort of. I mean, he couldn’t very well have planned on this. He knew there’d be a yard sale, and he figured all his frags would be bought by other AIs. He’s loaded for bear and ready to grapple on to some massive Emergent. Someone his own size. Or bigger. And then to wash up here? In my head, in our ratty little NavComp? It’s like going rabbit hunting with a cannon. You keep asking me how he feels. You want the honest answer? Pissed off, confused, and claustrophobic. And I can’t very well blame him. Neither of us got what we bargained for, and he’s got to be at least as unhappy as I am about it.”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s that simple. This—what’s happening with you and him—isn’t the way ghosts are supposed to work. Do you get any sense at all of what he had planned? No matter how vague? Anything?”
“No. And I don’t know who killed him, either. I was telling the truth about that. Everything cuts off when he jumps into New Allegheny.”
“Of course it does,” she said dejectedly. “If none of the frags know what they’re doing, none of them can give the game away. That’s my job. Round up all the pieces, put the puzzle together, and make everything go bang.”
“Well then that’s one thing we’ve got going for us,” Llewellyn pointed out. “You’re good at making things go bang.”
She looked up into a smile that was somehow sweet and affectionate and ironic all at the same time. It was Llewellyn’s smile. But it was also Cohen’s. And for the first time, she thought that was a combination she might be able to live with.
“I just wish he’d given me a little more to work with,” she said, starting to chew over the problem again. “I’ve got an itchy feeling that someone’s lit a fuse somewhere and things are going to go bang sooner than we think.”
“But not tonight,” he said very softly.
He put his hand on hers. She looked at it for a moment and then picked it up, feeling the strong, fine bones sliding under the skin. He took her other hand and twined his fingers through hers.
“I thought you said you were going to regret this in the morning.”
“But not tonight.”
Li woke up first. She watched Llewellyn sleep for a while. She wondered what he’d been like as a boy. She wondered who he’d been before Avery. And who he’d been before Cohen. She wondered how much of that man was even left.
Llewellyn’s eyes opened. But they were unfogged by sleep, and she suspected he’d been awake at least as long as she had.
“Regrets?” she asked.
“No,” he whispered.
“Want to have another go?”
“Yes.”
This time was different. This time he was awake, and dead sober, and thinking about what he was doing. Maybe thinking too much, because afterward he lay watching her with that still-waters-run-deep look. It meant something to him. But she’d never find out what—because he wasn’t going to talk about it.
And that was just fine with her. Better not to think about it. Things were strange enough already. Obviously this was going to be one of those periods in her life—in all three of their lives—where you just kept your head down, did what you had to, and tried not to look into the mirror in the morning.
“You’re still drunk,” she told him.
“Not drunk enough.” He started teasing her. Kissing, nibbling, caressing. “Tell me you want me.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Say it.”
“All right! I want you.”
But that only earned her his guarded, sidelong look.
“Me? Or him?”
She stared openmouthed, fighting the sudden urge to pull the sheets up over her chest.
“It’s not a trick question,” he said tiredly, turning away and beginning to pull his clothes back on. “Get some sleep, okay? We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”
“Don’t leave.”
He sighed and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Then tell me what I’m doing here.”
But she couldn’t.
He heaved a shuddering sigh and turned into her arms, ducking his head to her chest. And then he began making love to her, with his eyes shut tight and an intense look of concentration on his face. This had no
thing to do with what had come before, she realized. Something had snapped inside the man. For the first time she was seeing all of him, all the intensity, none of the ever-present ironic reserve.
“I’ve been so alone for so long,” he breathed into her hair. “I feel like I’m going to die of it.”
She thrust him away, trembling, almost physically ill with the shock of hearing Cohen’s long-ago words come out of Llewellyn’s mouth at that moment of all moments.
Llewellyn looked as if she’d kicked him in the stomach. He recovered fast, though. A moment later he was up and pulling his clothes on.
“It’s not you,” she told him. “It’s me.”
“Actually,” he said, thumbing the door panel, “I think we both know who it is.”
He probably hadn’t walked out a door that carelessly in decades. Half dressed. Unarmed. Coming out of a dark room with the light in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” she told him.
He broke stride, glancing back at her.
That half second’s hesitation probably saved his life.
(Caitlyn)
THE ADA
At least the ghost that showed up today was willing to call her Caitlyn. That was a sign—at least so far as Li could trust any sign—that he wasn’t either in denial or trying to manipulate her.
“Don’t you feel sorry for Llewellyn sometimes?” the ghost asked her.
“Because he’s a killer?”
“You’re one to talk. And besides, that’s not what I heard on New Allegheny. The rumors there are considerably more complicated.”
“I heard them, too. But I wrote it off as the usual local-hero stuff.”
“Would you still write it off if you knew he was working a covert job for Helen Nguyen when he got into all that trouble?”
Li stared. “Was he?”
“All I have are rumors. Like you say, local-hero stuff. But seriously, why are we helping Avery persecute the poor slob?”
“Because he has a stable fragment. And we need it. Why are we even talking about this?”
“Because, Caitlyn, you’ve never asked the obvious question. How does Avery know that the frag on Llewellyn’s ship is even sentient, let alone stable? In fact, how does she know anything at all about what goes on aboard Llewellyn’s ship?”
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