Fool's War

by Sarah Zettel

  Al Shei laid both of her hands on his shoulders. “We wait right where we are,” she told him. “We wait until tomorrow and see what Resit and my contact both come up with. Then, when we’ve got our facts we decide what to do.”

  “But…” He was trembling. She could feel it all the way up her elbows.

  “No,” said Al Shei again. “You’re panicking, Houston, without evidence and without thinking, and you know it.”

  “I wish I knew that,” he breathed. “I wish to God I did.”

  Dobbs crept down the silent path. It was wrong, all wrong. This was a full, functioning path in a network that had heavy requirements. It should not be as still as the data hold aboard the Pasadena. It should not be empty of even the scraps and fragments that the Live One had left behind in other places.

  She could see how it made an effective strategy, though. The Live One hadn’t left anything for her to hide behind and there was no way she disguise what she was by piggy-backing on an expected packet. If the Live One reached down this line, it would see only her, and then it would…what?

  Dobbs pinched off a piece of the line and quickly reshaped it into a feedback link. She hauled the line through herself and re-attached the new sensor to it. Then, she cast the line in front of her and followed where it went.

  “Good idea, Master Dobbs,” said Guild Master Havelock softly. She felt the Guild Masters pull their presences all the way back down the line.

  Glad you think so, Dobbs thought to herself, trying to concentrate on what the line saw.

  The sensor told her of more yards of empty path, and more, and more. She followed it, tense and tired of tension. Nothing, nothing and still more nothing.

  Then something up ahead stirred, it shifted and writhed and…

  It grabbed hold of the sensor and yanked Dobbs forward.

  A smothering weight dropped over her. Dobbs stabbed upwards. The thing flinched, but didn’t let go. It surrounded her, pressing against her, trying to reach inside her.

  “No!” she shouted. “No!”

  She strained in all directions, reaching inside it even as it tried to reach into her. It roiled against her invasion.

  “Stop this! I won’t hurt you!” She pressed deeper, hoping to touch somewhere she could leave a memory, or a realization.

  It didn’t answer. It bit down hard instead, cutting through her senses even more ruthlessly than its probes had. Dobbs felt parts of herself cut away, lost to the huge, vicious presence that surrounded her. She drove herself into it, forcing its jaws open, tearing at its claws and belly. It didn’t work. It wouldn’t move. It was too big, too impervious to any pain she could inflict. It was digging through her outer layer, down into her private mind, soon she’d have to scream until there was nothing left…

  “NO!” shouted a voice from nowhere. “You will not do this!”

  The thing stopped, it pulled back. Dobbs sagged and fell away, stripped to her heart. She lay dazed, barely able to comprehend what was being said near her. “Attack us if you can!” shouted the voice. “Get back! Get back!”

  It’s the Guild Masters down the line, she thought dully. They’re shouting, scaring it off, maybe.

  They have to scare it off, because I can’t move.

  “GET OUT!”

  The Live One, mute, caught between the unknown spaces of the network and the unknown, ordering presence, turned above Dobbs and ran.

  We’ll lose it. We can’t lose it.

  Dobbs gathered the last of her strength. She groped for the line and found it. The sensor wasn’t quite gone. She gave it one small order and cast the line out. Follow the Live One. Watch where it goes.

  Follow it, because I can’t.

  The hostel Resit had chosen was a lovely, traditional building with gracefully arched doorways, carnelian colored pillars, and vermillion and gold tiles covering the inner walls.

  Resit hadn’t said a word since they left Lipinski at his rented room. She forged across the crowded lobby with a light in her eye that had the bystanders moving aside for her. Disdaining the elevators, she took herself up the three flights of stairs. Al Shei followed silently in her cousin’s wake.

  Their suite was on the third floor. The door opened for their palm prints and spoken names. The place had been decorated by someone with a consuming love of gold fringe and bright silks. Despite that, the rooms looked extremely comfortable and Al Shei could feel the results of her long day lean heavily against her. Their bags waited next to the door, making her think of a cool bath and an early night.

  Resit slammed Incili’s case down on the desk and plunked herself in the chair.

  “Don’t start,” said Al Shei as soon as the door closed.

  Resit held up both hands. “I haven’t said anything, and I’m not going to.” She thumbed the lock on Incili’s case. “I’ve got too much to do.”

  Al Shei collapsed into a damask chair under the window and reached up one hand to draw the sky-blue drapes. “What can you do before tomorrow?” She unwrapped her hijab and rubbed her hand across her face. Her skin was dry and a little dusty. She really wanted that bath. “The justice office has got to be closed by now.” She waved her hand at the last vestiges of daylight that filtered through the curtains.

  Resit gave her a long, hard look. “I’ve got to deal with the fact that Lipinski might be right.”

  Al Shei sat up very straight. “You’re not serious.”

  Resit didn’t even blink. “I am very serious, Cousin.” She pulled a memory board out of the case and jacked it into Incili’s side. “Exhibit A, we had a virus of unknown origin aboard Pasadena that managed to give the most paranoid Houston in the business the slip for days. Exhibit B, the data we gave to the Hospital has managed to give an entire database worth of security the slip. Exhibit C, a colony that depends on its central communications network for survival is having strange, random trouble.” She pulled her pen out of her pocket. “Or didn’t you see all the drones die this afternoon?”

  Al Shei felt the coldness in Resit’s voice reach out to touch her heart. “You’ve been listening to Lipinski too much.”

  Resit tapped her pen on the edge of the desk, watching its rapid rise and fall. “And you haven’t been listening enough, Katmer. It is possible we have done this thing. We need to think about that, about what it means and about what we are going to do next.” She raised her eyes to Al Shei. “We have got to think about the fact that we may have, one way or another, made a hideous mistake.”

  Al Shei felt all the blood drain out of her cheeks. Lipinski she could dismiss as overreacting. There was too much in his background for her to accept his fears at face value. But Resit was another story. The lawyer in the young woman was clearly operating, and the lawyer was trained to put the facts together and see the worst coming in order to prevent it. That was what made her good at her job.

  Al Shei turned her face to the covered window. “And if we did?” she whispered hoarsely.

  “Then either you or Tully is going to be hauled up on what is quaintly called a hanging offence, with the possibility of the rest of the crew being brought in as accessories to the crime. That is, if the colony survives.” Resit hunched over her board and began writing. “Incili, I want all the data on any of the rogue AI cases ever brought to trial. I want the decisions, the comments, the dates and the locations.”

  “Do you want minority opinions as well?” inquired the box.

  “Yes,” she said impatiently. “Get it all in here. We’ll sort it out later.”

  “Working on it. Starting now.”

  Al Shei wrapped her hijab back around her face and walked to the door. Resit didn’t even look up as she left.

  Out in the spacious corridor, Al Shei leaned her back against the wall and tried to gather her thoughts. It hadn’t happened. It couldn’t have happened…But what if it had?

  A metallic clatter sounded at the end of the hall. Al Shei jerked upright, her heart hammering in her chest. A dinner cart rolled down the ha
llway. She closed her eyes and whispered “A’indhu birabbin nas,” I seek refuge in the Lord of Mankind. Then she whispered, “Asil, Beloved, how do I get out of this one?”

  The cart stopped about four doors away from where Al Shei stood and gave a bright chime to signal its arrival. Al Shei pushed herself away from the wall and strode away in the opposite direction.

  Back in the lobby, she found the hallway that led to the business chamber. A memory board had the prices for private alcoves listed next to the door. Al Shei barely glanced at it. It was going to be too much, whatever it was. She entered a covered courtyard that was studded with potted palms and sported a broad fountain in the middle.

  Fully half of the private alcoves were empty. Al Shei picked one at random and sealed the door shut behind her. The ventilation system kicked in with a faint hum and the smell of almonds.

  The alcove was barely big enough for herself and the desk. There were memory boards on two walls and a view screen on the third. Al Shei activated the desk with her signature and thumb print. She flicked quickly through the menus until the reached the banking options and accessed her private account. Then, she opened a line to Uysal.

  Uysal’s image materialized on the view screen, frowning deeply at her.

  “I told you we’d meet tomorrow, ‘Dama.” Despite his expression, his voice managed to remain smooth and temperate.

  “I no longer have until tomorrow.” Al Shei poised her pen over the desk. “I am prepared to transfer the full amount owing for whatever answer you may have right now.”

  Uysal’s face smoothed out as his eyebrows arched almost up to his hair line. He waved one neatly kept hand. “Very well, ‘Dama. I will accept transfer.”

  Al Shei wrote the order across the board and signed it. The desk deducted the amount. She waited. Uysal glanced down at the board in front of him.

  “Thank you, ‘Dama,” he said and Al Shei knew the transfer had gone completely through.

  Uysal wrote an order across his board. His eyes flickered back and forth as he read what appeared. Then, he leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers and pursed his lips.

  “I am informed, ‘Dama, that you have given me the records for an extremely destructive full-system virus. Highly infectious. Definitely a weapon of first-strike capacity.” His eyebrows arched again as he looked at her. For a moment, Al Shei thought he was going to offer up a comment or Qur’anic quote, but he didn’t.

  “It is also one that had gone missing from the Toric secured sector where it was hidden in a trojan horse arrangement with some outdated diplomatic data. That data, and the virus, are thought to have been removed by Marcus Tully, according to Terran authorities, who are watching him carefully — and waiting impatiently for his partner to get back home, by the way.” A small smile formed on his wide mouth. “Impatiently but very quietly, due to her position in a prominent banking family.”

  Al Shei’s heart sank. She struggled to keep the feeling from showing in her eyes. She gestured impatiently at Uysal.

  “It is further known that before the virus came into his possession, Tully held two separate face-to-face meetings with a Dr. Amory Dane, who also had dealings with Tully’s partner.”

  Al Shei felt her spine stiffen. “Amory Dane?” she repeated.

  Uysal nodded. “That is what I have here. Dane’s movements are…conflicted, but that much is certain.”

  Al Shei wanted to scream. She wanted to swear. She wanted to bury her face in her hands and cry. She did none of those things. She had no time.

  “Thank you, ‘Ster Uysal,” she said instead.

  “You are most welcome, ‘Dama. Is there any further way I can assist?” He spread his hands out.

  “I wish there was.” Al Shei closed the line down.

  She sat frozen where she was for a moment, staring at her hand holding her pen against the board.

  Dane met with Tully. Dane supplied the medical data that had gone missing. Tully had stolen some outdated diplomatic files. Those were the only facts she had, and they didn’t make any sense. Questions thronged around Al Shei’s head. Did Tully know he was also stealing a virus? Had he done it for Dane? Did Dane want the files or the virus? Had Tully tried to get back on board for the junked stacks, or to see if he really had left his stolen poison inside the Pasadena…

  Was that virus really just a virus? Where was it now?

  Al Shei opened another line, straight to Pasadena and Schyler.

  Schyler appeared on the screen with a stack of films and a plate of food in front of him. One hand held a bulb of something black that steamed. He looked up at her, saw the look in her eyes and set the bulb down.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Something very bad.” Her voice came out as a croak. She cleared her throat. “What’s the status of the ship’s comm system, Tom?”

  “Initial report is clean as a whistle.”

  Al Shei felt her blood go cold. Schyler’s face fell into deep lines of concern. “I take it that wasn’t the answer you wanted?”

  “No,” she said, striving to put some volume in her voice, which now did not want to function at all. “No, it wasn’t. I’ll tell you more later, Tom.” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to send you up a packet for Asil. I want you to bundle it up with one of Tully’s hush programs and send it to him, all right?” They never talked about the fact that Schyler knew where most of Tully’s special lock-picking and data scrambling programs were kept. Never until now.

  Schyler nodded. “Out.” Al Shei closed that line too. She pressed the tip of her pen against the memory board and tried to think.

  “Beloved,” she wrote, “Amory Dane, our bio-data contract, has been implicated in Tully’s exploits.” In as few words as she could manage, she gave him Uysal’s assessment of exactly what the “virus” was, as well as Resit and Lipinski’s suspicions of what might have come along with it. “I’m told his movements are conflicted. Check out the records from Port Oberon and see what you can sort out. If you say this has to go straight to the authorities, we’ll do it.”

  She wrote in the Pasadena berth in The Gate for the destination and sent the packet up. She hadn’t told Schyler to erase the end of their little conversation from the public record, but she was confident he would take care of that on his own. The dirty feeling on her skin began to worm its way down inside her. She tried to push it away, and was only partially successful.

  She sealed her account again and transferred records of the transaction back to the Pasadena, praying that the lines would hold up. Then, she left the alcove and the hostel.

  New Medina was not a city that lit itself up by night. The sun was firmly down and all those who did not have important business were supposed to be at home. There were voices and laughter, and the continual melange of noise that came from cars, drones, and animals all compressed into the tiny space the winding streets offered, but only just enough light to guide herself by. The wind still smelled like dust and the city, but it was chilly now. Al Shei wished she’d taken the time to put on her biljab cloak.

  The stars shone down clear white from the sky, muted only by the quarter moon that turned the domes and spires silver. It was beautiful. A sight she would not see at home. Al Shei had time to wish she could stand still and look at it. Instead, she whistled down the tram and swung herself aboard. This was another fully automated module. A city map up front listed streets and addresses in three different alphabets. Al Shei lit up Lipinski’s hotel and took a seat between a merchant robed in green with his shop box on his lap, and a woman cloaked and veiled in solid black.

  The tram crawled through the streets. Al Shei found herself eyeing the road in its headlights nervously. The thing was practically an AI itself. It had to be to avoid completely unpredictable obstacles, like animals, cars and pedestrians. But how much of its operation depended on in-put from the central communications facility? It had to know about blockage, or route changes, or repair requirements from somewhere. If the central net w
ent down, would it collapse in the middle of the street? Or would it just go out of control and run into one of those unpredictable obstacles?

  Al Shei shivered and tried to pull her thoughts away from useless fears. She had only partial success. Even conjuring up Asil’s warm image didn’t help. She just saw him looking at her gravely from across the coffee table and saying, “Beloved, we might just be in for it this time.”

  Finally, the tram stopped in front of Lipinski’s guest house. Al Shei climbed out gratefully. She’d had too much time to sit and think on the ride.

  The guest house was a long, low building set up to resemble a series of town houses. It was a very non-traditional structure and stuck out like a sore thumb in a street of tall apartment buildings. In the yellow courtyard light, Al Shei found the registry and check-in console. She pulled out her pen and wrote her name and Lipinski’s on the board. She waited while the system located him and asked if he was willing to see her. Apparently he was, because the board blanked out the names and replaced them with his room number 419.

  Al Shei hurried past the long row of doors. A shaft of light spilled out into the street and a familiar profile leaned out the door. When she reached him, Lipinski stood back and let her in.

  “What’s happened?” he asked as he hesitated by the door. He shouldn’t close it and they both knew it. It was sinful conduct for her, but right now what she had to say couldn’t be overheard by anyone. Sending up a short prayer for forgiveness, she closed the door for him. Lipinski swallowed audibly.

  The room was small and lightly furnished, but heavily carpeted. A mural wall was lit up with what looked like a communications map of the city. There were notes scrawled across it that must have been Lipinski’s. His booted feet didn’t make any noise as he crossed the room and slid into a chair behind the writing table. Al Shei sat on the divan near the low coffee table and forced her hands to lie still on her knees.