by Sarah Zettel
Desperately, Dobbs searched for an easy lie. The problem was, one didn’t exist.
“Dobbs,” Lipinski’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “What have you done?”
Her knees wanted to fold under her. She wanted to collapse into the nearest chair, but she didn’t. She ran her hand through her hair.
“It’s run away,” she said quietly.
Lipinski’s pale face turned white as snow. “Run away where?”
She looked at the control boards by his right side. “I don’t know. The Guild Masters are hunting it.”
She stole a glance at him, expecting him to start shouting at the walls any second. He didn’t. He sat stone still in his chair, staring towards her, but not seeing her, or anything else in the room, she was sure of that.
“Are you telling me that thing is in the bank network?” he inquired, almost casually.
“I am telling you that I don’t know.” Dobbs spread her hands. “It’s not on board the Pasadena. It got away from me. I alerted the Guild. It’s being tracked.”
Lipinski’s thin shoulders drooped in jerky stages until finally he buried his face in his hand.
“We’re dead. All of us. We’re all dead.” He looked up and his eyes were shining. “Do you have any idea what that thing could do out there?”
“Some, yes.” Dobbs waved her hands. “Stop acting like I’m some kind of outsider, Lipinski. I’m in this too. I’m breathing the same air you are. I’m standing right next to you. I’m dependent on exactly the same things. If the networks go down, I’m just as lost as you are.” Maybe even more than you are.
“So why didn’t you kill it?” he demanded with some measure of force returning to his voice. Despite his words, that gave Dobbs hope that she might be able to reach him after all.
“You know why,” answered Dobbs calmly. “We had to find out where it came from so we could stop any others. You think one is dangerous, how about one hundred? Or one thousand?”
Lipinski’s fingers raked slow trails against his thighs. “We still might be facing that.”
Dobbs shook her head. “Not with the Guild on alert. The thing’ll be cornered in no time. This is what we exist for.” She pulled a bright red scarf out of her pocket and did nothing but wind it through her fingers. “This and utter frivolity for the sake of ship’s sanity.” She stared at the scarlet fabric. “Not that I’ve been doing too well on that end of my job lately.”
His blue eyes looked nearly grey now. There was nothing in his face but a kind of bleakness. “Are you telling me the truth?”
Dobbs felt her heart twist. “Yes, I am.” Mostly. As much as I can. “There’s never been a break out in the bank network. We’re the reason why. It won’t happen now.”
He met her eyes, and Dobbs was not certain what he thought he saw there. “I’m sorry, Dobbs. I’m trying. I really am.”
“I know.” She nodded. “Believe me. This shouldn’t have gone down like this. I should have seen the danger and neutralized the AI somehow.” Right. And how was I going to tell myself it was all right to not just confine it, but drive a stake through its heart? “It won’t get away from the Guild though.” She hooked her fingers around her necklace. “We’ve kept the peace for a very long time.” She gave him a watery smile. “And you didn’t even know it.”
“You didn’t keep it on Kerensk,” he muttered towards the floor.
She’d been ready for that. “Do you know what happened to the Kerensk AI?”
Lipinski shrugged. “It died with the planetary network.”
She shook her head. “It survived. It would have escaped too, but the Guild sent a Guild Master in to root it out.” The expression on his face told her that this he was ready to believe. He needed to believe the Guild had taken care of the worst monster he knew of, because then he could hope they could do the same this time. “They neutralized it,” she went on. “I’ve seen the records. I looked them up as soon as I became a cadet.” The part of the story she wasn’t telling plucked at her elbow. Dobbs tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t go away.
Lipinski looked at the floor, then at the boards. “Why the hell couldn’t they have gotten there sooner?”
She drew the scarf through her fingers. “I don’t know.” She waving the swash absently in front of her. “I’d just been born.” She pocketed the scarf again.
“Yeah, yeah, right.” He let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry. I am. It’s just…” He gestured at the hold. “It’s been a really long set of days, Dobbs.”
“I know.” She tried to put every ounce of fervor she had into her voice. “Believe me, I know.”
His glance was rueful. “I guess you would.” He shook himself. “I haven’t told Al Shei about this, yet.”
Dobbs stopped herself from biting her lips. “Lipinski, I’m going to ask you a favor.” She stopped until he was looking right at her. “Can you keep this to yourself? Al Shei has more than enough to worry about. I’m afraid of what she’ll do if she thinks this thing is out in the network her family helped build.”
After a long moment, Lipinski nodded. “But,” he raised his hand, “if there’s a glitch, a blip, anything in the network before you tell me your Guild Masters have caught this thing, I’m going to tell her everything I know.”
Dobbs nodded. The bright light behind Lipinski’s eyes told her there was nothing else she could do. “All right.”
I’ve at least won a little time, she tried to console herself. It’ll be enough. She could tell by the set of both his jaw and his shoulders that Lipinski wished she could leave now. Even if they hadn’t had the message to send, Dobbs wasn’t quite ready to let things rest. “Do you think you’ll ever get around to letting me be your friend again?”
He didn’t move. “Maybe.” Abruptly, he swung his chair back around to face the boards. “So, are you going to help me call your Guild?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Dobbs gave him the codes for a fast-time message to the Guild Hall. He wrote them across the board with the signal codes and then called up the credit validations.
“All right,” he confirmed what was in front of him. “Intercom to Record.” He nodded at her.
Dobbs took a deep breath. “This is Master of Craft Evelyn Dobbs, registry number two-zero-three-seven. I am arriving at Guild Hall Station aboard the independent mail packet Pasadena. We are low on fuel and reaction mass and require assistance. Refer all queries to Guild Master Matthew Havelock. We can be reached at…” Lipinski wrote the Pasadena’s address codes on the board and Dobbs read them off. “This is an emergency situation. The safety of the crew is at stake.”
“Intercom to close.” Lipinski directed the recording out onto the lines. “Nicely urgent. You’re good at this.”
“Beginner’s luck.” She gave him the first real smile she’d felt in days. He didn’t return it, but his eyes had lost some of their bleakness.
She nodded, turned and cycled the hatch back open. It’ll be enough, she told herself again. It’ll have to be enough.
Chapter Nine — Guild Hall
Strapped in at her station in engineering, Al Shei watched the Guild Hall growing closer. A rumble traveled up through the deck plates. Yerusha must have ordered a torch burst to bring the ship around a little. The station shifted a little left of center in Al Shei’s view screen.
Guild Hall was a lonely looking place, orbiting on its own around a greasy brown-and-grey striped gas giant. It had been built on the same pattern as Port Oberon, but only had two rows of cans encircling its core. The Pasadena was fifty clicks away and closing, but even at maximum magnification, Al Shei could see only five ships docked against the core. She’d checked the records. The nearest outpost was four days away, and that was a mostly automated gas mining operation.
What made you pick such an isolated spot to train clowns? she wondered, tugging at her sleeve. Even if they are undercover clowns.
She had to conceded that they were well-trained clowns. Dobbs had been everywhere at
once on the run here, calming and cheering whoever she could. She had steered subtly clear of Al Shei herself, Resit, Lipinski and Schyler, only reporting in now and then about the status of morale, which was surprisingly high, especially now that there was the prospect of genuine help.
Genuine but reluctant. Al Shei shook her head remembering the message from Guild Master Havelock.
“Because of the status of extreme emergency, the Pasadena is given permission to dock at Guild Hall Station for refueling purposes. Fuel and reaction mass will be supplied at the price of the recovery costs. No station leave is to be granted under any circumstances to non-Guild personnel.”
She had bridled at the hard line, but tried to keep her temper. Knowing what she did about the Guild now, she could understand, a little, why casual visitors might not be welcome. Especially visitors who might understand what they were looking at, or overhearing.
Dobbs, of course, was insisting to the crew that it was just that the Guild was jealously guarding its custard pie recipe.
The rumble beneath Al Shei’s feet died as the order came down from Yerusha to cut the torch burst. The core drifted toward Pasadena until it filled the entire view screen with a silver-and-white wall of ceramic panels, solar collectors and spidery antennas.
There was a slight jerk as the docking trolley caught them and a familiar, if lopsided, sensation of movement as they were towed into place. After a few moments the sensation stopped. The ship was clamped to the core.
“Intercom to Al Shei,” came Lipinski’s voice. “Routing down a message from the Fool’s Guild.”
The screen above her board flickered from grey to blue. “Receiving,” she acknowledged.
A woman’s head and shoulders appeared. She had a long, pointy face that was somewhere past middle-age. Grey streaked her straight, black hair.
“Good afternoon, ‘Dama Al Shei.” She also had a deep, pleasant voice. A gold star had been threaded onto her Guild necklace. “I am Guild Master Ferrand. I’ll be assisting with your re-fueling and anything else you might need. I’m empowered to negotiate if you need food supplies, or water.” Her smile was friendly, but no more than that. “You’ll excuse us if things are a little clumsy on this end. This is not something we were ready for.”
Well, we weren’t exactly planning it either.
“I understand perfectly, Guild Master.” Al Shei surprised herself by trying to see behind the image of the woman’s dark eyes. What is my problem? They’re helping us. “And as regards to the packet we were bringing you?”
“We’ve been in contact with Master Dobbs. It’s already been removed.”
Al Shei felt a weight slide off her back. “Well then, I’ll get my galley crew on the line to discuss our supply situation. May I reach you at this address?” She drew her pen across the origin code, freezing it in place. “I’d like to transmit our fuel and reaction mass requirements.”
Ferrand nodded. “The sooner I can get that information, the better. I’m on call for you, ‘Dama. I’ve also been instructed to inform you that a message has been sent to Master Dobbs. She needs to report to Guild Master Havelock as soon as is convenient for you.”
“Certainly.” Al Shei scribbled a note on the board and sent it to Dobbs’s cabin. “I’m releasing her for leave now.”
“Thank you.” Guild Master Ferrand lit up her friendly smile again. “Well, you talk to your galley, I’ll talk to my tanker coordinators, and then we’ll talk to each other again.”
“Thank you for your help,” said Al Shei. “We would have been more than lost without you.”
Al Shei expected ‘you’re welcome,’ but Ferrand just gave her a nod that was exactly as friendly as her smile and closed the line down.
Al Shei watched the blank screen for a moment, tugging at her sleeve. You know that I know, Guild Master, why do you still keep up the facade? She shook her head and tried to tell herself it was habit. These were the Fools, the most sought after crew members in Settled Space. What was more, they were watchdogs with a sense of duty that stretched back two centuries. Even as her family calculated things, that was a respectable length of time.
I just need to adjust to their new role, she told herself. I just need time.
But she remembered Guild Master Ferrand’s blank, friendly eyes, and found she couldn’t quite believe that.
She reached up under her hijab and rubbed her temple.
All right, all right. I’ve at least got to put my worries in some kind of priority.
“Intercom to Schyler, Yerusha and Resit.” She slumped back into her chair. “Schyler and Yerusha, you figure out what we need to top up the tanks. Resit, you get us a deal for as much of that as the Fools are willing to part with. Get minimum figures from Schyler and Yerusha. You two be generous with those, all right?”
“Working on it now,” came back Schyler’s voice.
“We’ve already got them committed to market price,” said Resit. “I’ll do my best on the quantities.”
“Thank you. Intercom to close.” Well, that’s in capable hands. She tugged at her sleeve. “Intercom to Lipinski. Has Dobbs told you where the bank lines are around here?”
“Found them fifteen minutes ago,” he answered.
“Good.” That’s one more little victory. “I need that line to Asil as soon as you can get it.”
“On it. Intercom to close.”
Al Shei slumped back in the chair and rubbed both temples with her fingertips. It had been too much, it had been far too much. She was tired. She felt more lost now than she had when she didn’t know where she was.
The screen lit up with a flash of blue. Al Shei straightened up and tried to marshal her strength. The scene in front of her was the Bala House comm room again, with Asil at the main boards.
“I’m glad you’re here, Beloved.” He was not smiling. His forehead was a mass of perplexed wrinkles. “I’ve got some — confusing developments.”
“You too, hmm?” Al Shei rested her chin in her hand. “Mine is that the packet Amory Dane gave us turned out to be carrying code for a rogue AI. What’s yours?”
Asil stiffened in shock.
Beyond further shame and worry, Al Shei described what had happened on The Farther Kingdom and afterwards, including Dobbs part in catching and confining the AI, as well as rescuing the Pasadena when it was lost.
As she spoke, Al Shei saw Asil’s hands tightening around the edge of his board. “Name of God, Katmer, are you all right?”
She nodded. “I think so, Asil. As much as I can be. I am just so sick of this mess.” She tugged at her tunic sleeve. “It should be getting simpler, but it just keeps getting more and more complicated.”
Asil sighed and rubbed his face. “My news isn’t going to help clear it out any, Katmer. Amory Dane is dead.”
Now it was Al Shei’s turn to freeze. “It gets better,” said Asil, his voice heavy with irony. “He died in the can explosion an hour before whoever pirated his name met with Resit to give you that packet.”
“Merciful Allah!” Al Shei raised hands and eyes to heaven. “Uysal said Dane’s movements were conflicted, but this is insane!”
“I had thought of that,” Asil told her seriously. “But there’s too much going on for it to be that simple. I also thought about going to Tully and squeezing the life out of him for getting you into this, but I’m not sure he’d tell me the truth even under those circumstances.”
Al Shei drummed her fingers against the edge of the desk. “It’s possible that Tully doesn’t even know the truth at this point, or that he doesn’t know all of it.”
“It’s possible. All right. What do we know? There were definitely two separate illegal packets aboard Pasadena, the virus and the AI.”
“Yes. And the virus was brought on board by Tully and the AI was brought on board by Pirate Dane.” Al Shei felt her mind begin to clear and quicken. “Who must have known at least something bout Tully’s movements, because he asked Resit whether Tully had anything to do wi
th a raid on the Toric secured sector.”
“Could Pirate Dane have thought you were as cracked as Tully?”
“No,” Al Shei shook her head. “Resit assured him our crews and jobs are totally separate.”
“Could he have known the virus was still on board?”
Al Shei considered it. “Possibly. Say, Pirate Dane was watching Tully, and eavesdropped on a meeting between Doctor Dane and Tully in which Tully assured Doctor Dane he’d be able to get the virus off Pasadena, no problem, because Schyler would bend the transfer rules for him.”
Asil was silent for a moment. “Could Tully have arranged the can explosion to cover up his illegal maneuvers?”
“Could Pirate Dane have done it?” countered Al Shei.
“That’s a better guess. He could have done it to get Doctor Dane out of the way so he could step into his place with you.” He paused. “If he already knew about Tully’s movements, why would he confirm them with Resit?”
Al Shei’s heart fluttered. “Could he have wanted to make double sure the virus would not be moved, that it would still be in the system with the AI. Could that be what did it? Pirate Dane wanted to make sure both components, the AI and the virus were in the system?”
“What for?”
“To create a rogue AI. Dobbs said the Fools were suspect that somebody did this deliberately. I assumed the AI was rogue when it was put on board, but what if it wasn’t? What if Pirate Dane was using Pasadena as an incubator?”
“Why pick Pasadena?”
“Because we’re AI rated, but we don’t carry an AI. If we did, it would have found the quiescent virus.” Wouldn’t Yerusha just love to be in on this conversation.
Asil tapped his chin. “We’re forgetting something. How would the virus have gotten from those junked binary stacks to the system?”
Realization blossomed inside Al Shei. “What if what Tully was paid to put the virus into the Pasadena system? What if he was never after the junked stacks at all? What if he was having second thoughts and wanted to get the virus out of the system?”
“Then why not tell Schyler?”