Fool's War

by Sarah Zettel

  The streets were crowded with people; men in white robes, or long tunics and sandals. Women in purdah of every color, some not even showing their eyes. Some led or followed powered wagons. Hard-line traditionalists carried baskets on their heads or on their backs. Animals threaded their way between the people. Chickens, donkeys, camels, and drones to clean up after all of them all roamed through the crowds, some with human keepers but some apparently intent on their own errands. The noise was deafening.

  It hardly seemed possible for the market place to be any more chaotic, but it was. It was twice as big as the market on Port Oberon and four times as crowded. Every person, every animal seemed determined to let loose at the tops of their lungs. Not even the swarms of drones underfoot could not keep up with the smells and litter.

  Al Shei had heard that the drones, like most of the trams were guided by the settlement’s central communications complex, a place that was reported to make even the New Medina hospital look primitive.

  The market’s stalls sheltered goods from who-knew-how-many worlds. The traders were dressed in ten dozen different costumes. New Medina silks, coffees and cottons were popular luxury items and its population took pride in its ancient trading heritage. To one side, a group of students hollered at each other about some point of Islamic law that Al Shei couldn’t quite catch. A hot breeze blew down the streets stirring the up the dust. The press and crowd weighted down her movements and, despite her wonder at it all, she began to feel like she was treading water to stay afloat rather than just walking through a noisy crowd.

  Finally, she spotted the sign for the Ksathra Coffee house, one of the few cafes in the city that did not segregate its unmarried male and female patrons. Al Shei got herself a table in the back corner, away from the worst of the street noise and ordered a pot of turkish coffee from the cart-like server. The cafe had a filtration system in its stucco walls that combed out the dust and kept the heat somewhat controlled. While she waited, Al Shei studied the beautiful blue patterned tiles, considering what the cost would be for something similar for The Mirror of Fate, and found she was beginning to breathe easier.

  Dobbs tried not to see the destruction around her. The Live One had managed to keep from shredding the Pasadena’s network, but it hadn’t made any such efforts here. She flew past fragments and loops of programs struggling to knit themselves back together. A whole pathway cave in as the passed. She touched the dead, still ending of a burned out line.

  What happened? Did freedom scare it that badly? Or did it just decide that in a world this huge it didn’t need to be careful?

  The thought was strange and a little unnerving. She sent it down the line to the Guild Masters.

  “It could be, Master Dobbs,” answered Havelock. “It might not even be aware that there are other intelligences outside its world.”

  Wouldn’t be the first time. Dobbs squashed the thought and the others that threatened to follow it. She had to concentrate on the here and now.

  The line behind her was stretched out over twenty miles of Farther Kingdom network and over more light years than she wanted to think about. The data running up and down its length was getting difficult to ignore. Unwanted sounds and sensations dribbled into her private mind, like loud conversations at a party when you were trying to concentrate on the person in front of you. Dobbs shut her private mind up as tightly as she could, but as long as she held onto the line, the unwanted information filtered in. Drips of circular reasoning. Pleas for maintenance that got nowhere. Frozen signals and stalled diagnostics.

  And vanishing signals.

  Dobbs stopped dead still.

  Back along the length of the line, some packet of code dragged itself out from the path the line covered, and vanished. Yards away, it happened again.

  “Agreed, Master Dobbs,” Havelock told her, almost before she formed the thought. “Back there.”

  Dobbs doubled back along her line and flew toward the network’s other mind.

  “‘Dama Al Shei?”

  A heavily bearded man in immaculate white tunic and trousers picked his way between two small tables to stand in front of her. He bowed politely. His head was covered with a beautifully beaded cap and his sandals somehow had managed to repel all the dust. There was a glint in his eye that spoke of a familiarity with money.

  “Peace be unto you,” Al Shei said, dropping into Arabic.

  “And also unto you. I am Fedlifah Uysal.” Al Shei had originally heard about Uysal from friends of hers who crewed a corporate freighter. He had a reputation as a very dependable illegal operator.

  “Thank you for meeting me.” Al Shei motioned him to a chair.

  “You are most welcome, ‘Dama,” Uysal sat in his own chair and lifted the coffee pot. Al Shei pushed the spare cup closer. “Thank you.”

  “You are from Istanbul, then, ‘Dama?” Uysal continued as she filled his cup with thick, black liquid.

  “Not myself, but I have family there.” Al Shei sipped her own coffee.

  “Do you? I have a number of cousins in the city proper…”

  It was an old ritual, going back to the Slow Burn when Islam was in hiding. Both parties would try to determine how they were related. It was a very precise game. If you tried to claim too close a relationship, you risked getting exposed as a liar and embarrassed. If you didn’t know enough of your own lineage, you wouldn’t be able to make any kind of connection, and you might just lose your deal or your contact. Also, by revealing your family connections you made yourself vulnerable and showed yourself as trustworthy. Like snatching off the veils after prayer, it had become part of the tradition of Islam. Al Shei spun the dialog out and sat on her impatience. Eventually, Uysal and she determined they were fourth cousins, by marriage, once removed. It might even have been true.

  “Well then, Cousin.” Uysal poured the last of the coffee into their cups. “Is this your first time in New Medina?”

  “No, but I’ve been away so long it’s a fresh sight.” Patience, patience, she told herself. This one is going to play the game to the hilt and hurrying him will not do any good.

  “The whole world is an amazing place,” he said with proprietary pride. “Built from the bedrock up. We’ve got more controls on our ecology than Earth.” He smiled at Al Shei’s arched brows. “You see, in the First Six treaties it was arranged that each faith would get its homeland.” He swept his hand out toward the palms. “Between us, the Jews, and the First-Faith Christians, it was necessary to create a lot of desert.” He drank down the last of his coffee. “Fortunately, we had some very determined engineers. The heat of this climate is primarily due to the fact that someone re-routed the lava from a volcano out there.” He pointed to the distant mountains. “It’s rather like running a heater filament under pavement to melt snow.” He smiled, obviously waiting for Al Shei to be impressed.

  She was, actually, but she didn’t have the leisure time to hear more about how someone had managed to channel the lava.

  “Cousin,” she said seriously. “I’ve been told you are a man to see about exotics.”

  He smiled deprecatingly. “Cousin, I am the man to see about exotics.”

  She nodded. Arrogance will out. “I’ve come into possession of something I shouldn’t have and don’t want. I need to know what it is and how it got to me.”

  He tilted his cup toward him and looked into the bottom. “May I inquire, cousin, as to what you plan to do with this knowledge?”

  “Wipe the thing out as effectively as possible,” she answered. “It’s making my life very difficult.”

  His eyebrows both went up. “That is not a response I am accustomed to.” The server plowed a path to their table. Al Shei found their tab written on its back. She pulled out her pen and transferred over the credit to pay for the coffee.

  Uysal waited with an air of complete patience until she had finished. “Can you give me the specifications of this…exotic?” he asked

  Al Shei extracted a pair of wafer slivers from her
belt pocket and pushed them across the table. “There’s what I’ve been able to learn.”

  “Thank you.” He pocketed the wafers and stood up. “Allah’s mercy upon you, Cousin. I shall meet you here again tomorrow at this time.”

  “Thank you, Cousin.” She inclined her head. With that, he left.

  Al Shei watched him until his white back blended into the shifting crowd and she couldn’t tell him from the rest of the strangers.

  Well, that was easy. Al Shei tapped her finger against the rim of her coffee cup. I hope the answers come as easily as the asking did.

  Al Shei pushed her cup aside and tried to push her immediate worries aside with it. She gazed at the bustling marketplace beyond the coffee house, considering the possibilities of the day. Definitely she would pray at the mosque. She did not often have the luxury of praying with a large gathering of Muslims. Then maybe a reading or a lecture, and possibly some shopping, and a night in a bed that didn’t need to be folded away in the morning.

  Then back to the Pasadena with the information she needed to chase the ghosts out of her ship. And finally, she smiled to herself, back to work. She had to accept that this might be her last run in the Pasadena, but she refused to believe that her relationship with this ship and this crew had to end with a negative balance and shameful dealings. There were still chances to make up for the bad start.

  If we can pick up a couple extra packets while we’re here, maybe arrange a fly-by data-grab or two, we can still do it. I’ll talk to Resit about getting us access to the advertising lines.

  Confident and comfortable from the combination of warmth, gravity and strong coffee, Al Shei got up and threaded her way between the tables and back out into the market.

  The world around Dobbs shifted. She froze. A new pathway opened underneath her and half a dozen packets erupted out of it. They shoved past her and drove themselves down the line. Dobbs felt her private mind bunch up. Those were virus killers.

  Without waiting for the Guild Masters’ response, she dove after them.

  She overtook them easily and spread herself across the line in front of them. She jolted as they drove into her outer layers. She stretched herself out, examining the architecture of each one as they wriggled against her trying to get through. One of them, realizing she didn’t belong there, began to burrow. Dobbs jerked at the pain and grabbed hold of the thing. It tried to eat into her and Dobbs broke it in two. It became absolutely still. She did the same with the others. She sifted through the fragments, trying to find out where these had come from, and where they were going.

  Central communications. She turned over a broken module. They’re onto it already. They would be. She stretched herself a little nervously down the path.

  “Go cautiously, Master Dobbs,” came back the voice of Guild Master Feazell. “If Central Comm has spotted it, it may have spotted — ”

  The packets hit Dobbs without warning. She recoiled under the blow. They swarmed across her, a dozen, maybe more, crawling, poking things connected by thin streams of shared information. Dobbs snatched at them, but passed right through them. Dobbs swelled herself up, blocking the line and trapping the things in a hollow of herself. They milled around briefly, then they turned and attacked.

  Dobbs screamed. The things scythed through her outer layers. Nerve and sense tore to shreds, leaving nothing but patches of confusion behind. Anger shoved behind the pain and Dobbs held on. The things cut deeper. Her grip faltered as her senses ripped open. She couldn’t hold them, couldn’t feel them, couldn’t even find them anymore.

  “Here, Dobbs! Here!” The line shot through her and pulled together the hole in her outer self. She snatched at the data stream between the foul, tearing things, twisted it tight and pulled it deep into herself.

  …find source of other/harm/pry. Destroy source other/harm/pry. Locate all traveller/spy/destroyer. Destroy all traveller/spy/destroyer. Send back data on location, size, number, needed assistance…

  The data streams snapped and the things scattered. Dobbs flinched and grabbed at them. She pulled about half into her and held them. One scampered down the path away from her, the rest scuttled up the path, toward, presumably, their maker.

  Dobbs wanted to catch the one heading toward central comm. It was alone and couldn’t do much, but some damage would be done. But there was no time to try to stop it. Her best guides to the Live One were already fleeing her, and building new data streams between them as they went.

  Dobbs grit her inner self and raced after them. She buckled the Guild Masters’ line onto one of the things she held and thrust it into the pack. The others absorbed it back into their numbers and did not question it. Dobbs hung onto the line and let herself be pulled along in their wake.

  The sun was well past its zenith, but the market crowds showed no signs of thinning, or of quieting. Al Shei squeezed herself between a stall and a cloth wrapped bundles of something that smelled of vanilla. Her foot kicked something hard that clanked. She winced and looked down.

  A cleaning drone lay on its side, unmoving, like the discarded carapace of some fanciful metallic insect. Along the thoroughfare she saw other patrons, stepping awkwardly over similar obstacles, cursing or just grunting in surprise. Still metal bodies lay scattered across the street. A flash of sunlight glanced off the side of another as it toppled from a wall and crashed onto a tiled awning.

  Reflexively, Al Shei crouched down, and turned over the drone at her feet. There was nothing obviously wrong with it. She tested each of its eight limbs. All of them moved smoothly. She opened the main panel and prodded the wiring. There were no obvious signs of burn-out or corrosion.

  A shadow fell across her and she looked up. Two women had positioned themselves directly in front of her.

  “Peace be unto you,” said the taller of the two, blandly.

  Feeling mildly embarrassed, Al Shei put the inactive drone down and straightened up, dusting her hands off as she did.

  “And also unto you,” she answered politely. Her gaze shifted between the pair. They were neatly dressed in loose forest-green tunics and divided skirts. Their kijabs were plain and pinned in place with silver clasps. Their skin was heavily tanned from long days under a desert sun. “May I ask what your business is with me?”

  “‘Dama Katmer Al Shei you are under arrest for fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud,” said the shorter woman. “You will please come with us.”

  Al Shei’s heart sank straight to the soles of her feet. She tried to speak and realized she’d just start stammering. She smoothed her hijab down and did her best to put a haughty glower into her eyes.

  “Who is accusing me?”

  “Second Administrator Shirar of New Medina Central Hospital,” said Taller.

  Al Shei felt her knees try to give way. She locked them to keep herself upright. “I have the right to legal counsel, I presume?”

  “You do,” said Shorter. “Your ship’s lawyer has already been contacted and will be meeting you at the police house. Now, ‘Dama.” Shorter stepped back and gestured her to a closed in car. “We will be more comfortable discussing this matter there, I assure you.”

  There was nothing else to do. Al Shei climbed into the car. As the two women shut the door behind her, she could just hear the beginning of the call to prayer.

  “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! “ God is great. God is great.

  The car seat was a confining, soft-sided bucket that made Al Shei think of the crash couch on the shuttle. It only took a few seconds for her to spot the slots for the restraining bands. There was a soft ‘snickt’ as the door locked behind her.

  Al Shei folded her hands in her lap to avoid having to lay them on the seat’s arms with their suspicious slits right where her wrists would have rested.

  “Qad Qamatis salah! Qad Qamatis salah!” The prayer has begun! The prayer has begun!

  “Bismillahir rahmanir rahim,” said Al Shei softly to her toward her hands lying in her lap. The car glided forward. Her two guards
did not look back at her. In the name of Allah, the most Merciful, the most Kind. “Alhamdu lillahi rabbil alamin. Arrahmanir rahim. “ All praise is for Allah, the Lord of the Worlds. “Malliki yawmiddin. Iy yaka na’budu wa iy yaka nasta’in. “ The most Merciful, the most Kind; Master of the Day of Judgement. “Inhidinas siratal Mustaqim. Siratalladhina an’amta alaihim, Ghairil maghdubi ‘alaihim wa laddallin. Amin.” You alone we worship. You alone we ask for help. Guide us along the straight way — The way of those whom You have favored and not of those who earn Your anger, nor of those who go astray.

  It was not the right prayer for the time, but she couldn’t help feeling it was right for the circumstances.

  What happened? Al Shei closed her hands into fists. What in the name of merciful Allah happened?

  The police house was a squared-off, copper-glass sided building that looked incongruous in a city of domes, tiles and arches. The sidewalks here were clear of crowds. Catwalks overhead and along the far side of the street funnelled people away from the vicinity of the building. Al Shei felt very alone.

  Her two guards walked Al Shei into the police house. The place was a broad room broken up by fenced-in desks, clear-walled offices and free-standing information stations. Men and women, most in traditional Arabic dress, milled through it, intent on their tasks, voicing their concerns or needs in four or five different languages.

  Her escorts took her into one of the glassed-in offices. Lipinski, slouched in a thinly-padded chair. He looked up and gave her a small, two-fingered wave.

  “We must have goofed,” he said with a humorless smile.

  “Say anything more and Resit will bawl you out once we’re through with this.” Al Shei sat down next to him.

  Lipinski remained dutifully silent while the two officers went through the long routine of registering Al Shei’s arrest. She was full-body imaged from all angles. She had to hold still while they took her finger-prints, palm-prints, retina-prints and shoe-prints. A male officer shepherded Lipinski out of the room and sent in a woman officer to record three separate images of Al Shei’s bare face.