Varken Rise

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “Are you trying to impress me, Mr. Rison, or do you have a point to make?”

  “That was my point,” he said. “Initial analysis pointed toward a suspect, so we pressed on with far more advanced analysis to establish the results beyond doubt. In a situation like this, with so many political ramifications, it is important that no mistakes are made.”

  Catherine just looked at him. She wasn’t going to prompt him to provide the kicker. She already knew what it was.

  “Bedivere’s fingerprints were on the knife,” Rison said. “So was his DNA, as he thrust so hard that cells were transferred to the hilt. Every other biological trace we found is his or Mr. Rodagh’s. He didn’t try to cover up, or remove his traces.”

  Catherine nodded. There was nothing to say.

  Rison got to his feet. “Because of the passive tracking that you fortunately put into place, we know that the three of you are all completely innocent. That leaves no other suspect. I will be advising the gendarmerie to put out a warrant for Bedivere’s detainment. Under the circumstances, because of who and what he is, we will recommend the use of any force necessary.”

  He nodded at them all pleasantly, as if this was a social call.

  Catherine didn’t notice him leave. She didn’t notice Lilly sit beside her and pick up her hand, until Lilly squeezed it.

  “I’m sorry,” Lilly said.

  Catherine shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”

  “You don’t believe he killed Kemp?” Brant asked.

  She took her time answering. There were not many people whose good opinion she cared about. Brant and Lilly were among those few. “I will be deconstructing their analysis down to the pixel, to look for biases. If they are right, if they have been fair in their analysis, then it seems that Bedivere did kill Kemp. I just refuse to believe that he did it for the reasons they think he did.”

  “They didn’t give any reasons,” Lilly pointed out.

  “Yes, they did,” Catherine said.

  “He’s recommending any force necessary,” Brant said. “That means they think that Bedivere will be violent. They think they have a rogue Varkan on their hands.”

  Chapter Five

  Nicia (Sunita II), Sunita System. FY 10.092

  Catherine lost track of the days and nights that followed. She kept the artificial sunlight blazing in the common room, so even when it was dark outside, she didn’t notice.

  Strangers tracked through the complex daily. She assigned the house AI to monitoring and granting entry as necessary. Nearly everyone who wanted access was associated with the gendarmes, or other Oceania authorities. It was simpler to just let them have their way.

  She didn’t want to sleep. She didn’t want to see the empty bed. When she absolutely had to close her eyes, she curled up on the sofa. Once or twice, she asked Lilly to bring her a fresh change of clothes from her room. She refused to step inside the room herself.

  For the same reason she stayed away from the office. The big empty chair sitting at the other desk was too much of a vivid reminder, just as the empty bed was.

  The Oceania authorities managed to keep the news contained for a whole forty hours. Catherine knew the moment the news broke, because Connell sent her frantic message.

  I just heard! Please, can I speak to you?

  Catherine sent for Brant, then invited Connell to visit.

  Connell appeared instantly, startling one of the gendarmes who were just passing through with his abrupt appearance. He moved toward Catherine as if he would either shake her or hug her. His arms were out at his sides, raising up in the air as if he did not know what else to do with them. “This is impossible! I don’t believe he did it.”

  Brant arrived at that moment. “I’m afraid he really did do it,” he told Connell. “We’ve been over the evidence, too. Catherine is very good with biologics. It’s conclusive. Ninety-three percent.”

  Connell’s mouth opened, yet he did not speak. Then he appeared to pull himself together. “Why?”

  “That is a question we would like to answer for ourselves,” Catherine told him. “Until we can speak with Bedivere, we can only guess.”

  “Then talk to Bedivere!” Connell said, as if it was blatantly obvious that this was the next step to take.

  “We can’t find him,” Catherine said. “He’s gone to ground.”

  Connell glanced around the room, taking in the strangers who were working at their own portable terminals, or moving through from the drop shaft to the private wings where Kemp’s room was. He leaned forward and dropped his voice. “I bet I can find him.”

  Catherine realized she was smiling. Just a little. “Not if he doesn’t want to be found,” she told him.

  “He would hide from us?” Connell asked. “We are his friends and he knows that. We can look for him in ways and places that no one else can.”

  Brant raised his brows. “He might be right at that, too,” he said. “Bedivere would feel safe responding to the Varkan.”

  Connell nodded as if the decision had been made. “I will talk to everyone else,” he declared.

  “Carefully,” Catherine urged him. “Only speak to those you trust completely. The Varkan you know. AIs are very good at mimicking awareness, so you should be wary of any strangers trying to talk to you about Bedivere.”

  Connell closed his eye in a slow wink. “I will be careful!”

  Within minutes, the media streams and feeds exploded with the news of the murder. It did not take long after that for speculation to begin about Bedivere’s mental state. Catherine listened to reporters bandying about words like “dementia” and “rogue”, and ancient concepts including “nervous breakdown” and “emotional crisis”. She tried not to listen too closely or take it on board in a personal way. It was difficult.

  Lilly watched with growing disgust. “I wonder how long it will take them to start questioning the safety of any computer?”

  “Not long, I imagine,” Catherine said dryly. She studied Lilly. “When they do, though, they will only be saying what you’re thinking.”

  “That is where you’re wrong.” Lilly gave her a small smile. “In ten years of negotiations with Cadfael College, you haven’t noticed what side of the table I’ve been sitting on? I may have been raised to believe that computers were evil and would kill us all if we let them free. Then I met Bedivere. I no more believe he has gone rogue than you do. I’m beginning to think that computers do not go rogue. I don’t think the concept is a possibility.”

  “Kemp was very convincing,” Catherine said.

  “Enough to have you doubting Bedivere himself,” Lilly said softly. “Don’t give into the doubts, Cat. When Bedivere reaches out for help, you want to be able to help him.”

  “He won’t reach out,” Catherine said. “There’s a reason that he didn’t come to me straight after it happened. As long as that reason holds, he won’t let me find him.”

  * * * * *

  Journalistic fear-mongering incubated for three days, then it seemed as though the entire core world systems started screaming hysterically about computers gone wild and calling for the disassembly or harnessing of every computer before they indulged in genocide.

  Catherine had stopped watching the feeds. She checked them once a day for actual updates, of which there was usually none. Bedivere had disappeared.

  When the planetary governor of Darwin, in the Sykora system, called for the core worlds to cooperate in a universal shackling of computers, Catherine found herself unable to shut down the feeds. She and Lilly and Brant sat around the table watching the display while the food went cold.

  “He’s proposing we all returned to the dark ages,” Brant growled.

  “He’s smart. There are very few people who were not raised by the College who have no childhood prejudices to throw off. He’s tapping into those old fears, for political coinage,” Catherine said.

  “That doesn’t mean he’s right,” Lilly said. “After all, both Brant and I have those same chi
ldhood prejudices, yet we got rid of them. Why can’t everyone else?”

  “You still have the prejudices,” Catherine told her. “It’s just that when you’re making conscious choices, you choose not to listen to them. Fear bypasses conscious choice.”

  Lilly’s mouth turned down. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “They don’t know that,” Catherine said, nodding toward the display.

  Lilly started eating again, looking troubled.

  “I don’t think anyone knows what to think,” Brant said. “Even you, Catherine.”

  The concierge monitor dinged, saving her from having to answer. “What is it?” she called out.

  “Entry requested. Kemp Rodagh.”

  “Glave’s gonads,” Brant muttered. “That was fast.”

  “He had a mule farm here in the Sunita system,” Lilly said. “Actually, he had a mule farm in lots of places. I just picked the closest one.”

  “What a cautious lad he is,” Brant said dryly.

  “I left a message for him, for when he woke up,” Catherine said.

  “Asking him to come here?” Brant clarified.

  “Telling him he had been murdered and that he should come here and help us figure out who did it.” Catherine got to her feet and moved over to the drop shaft. “I knew that would get him here faster than anything else I might say.”

  The Kemp Rodagh who stepped out the shaft was at least ten years younger than the last one they had seen. He was pale and thin. He walked as if it was painful and if he had rushed straight here from his regeneration bed, then it probably was.

  “I would’ve got here faster,” he told Catherine and hugged her, surprising her. “Except that for the last ten hours I’ve been sitting in some asshole’s office, explaining myself.”

  “Let me guess,” Brant said. “A man by the name of Rison?”

  Kemp nodded. “His people snagged me as I got off the shuttle from the gate station. I got marched straight into his office. They only let me go just before sunset. I’ve been trying to figure out how to navigate my way here with one of those public cabs and not get tripped up, because everyone seems to know who I am.”

  “You are as notorious as we are at the moment,” Catherine said. “I’m sorry about that.” She studied him. “I imagine hot food would be welcome?”

  “Like a two hundred-year-old port,” Kemp said with a sigh. “I ache all over. Of course, they warned me about that, when I refused basic rehab. I really didn’t want to wait, or keep you waiting either.”

  “I appreciate your haste,” Catherine told him.

  They settled back at the table again, with Kemp in front of a loaded plate. He dug in, eating with gusto. Catherine still had no appetite and neither Brant nor Lilly continued with their meal. They watched Kemp eat, suppressing their questions.

  After a dozen large mouthfuls, he swallowed and looked at them. “I know what you’re thinking. I’ll put you out of your misery. I don’t know anything. I don’t even know why I came here the first time.”

  “When did you last backup?” Catherine asked.

  He grimaced. “Over a standard month ago. The last thing I remember is beginning a contract on Ey’Liv.”

  “You know what happened on Soward, now?” Lilly asked.

  He nodded as he ate. “I’ve caught up on all the essentials. Is that why I came here?”

  “You said you couldn’t go home,” Catherine said carefully. “I don’t know if that is the reason why you really came here.”

  He frowned. “Ey’Liv is in the middle of nowhere. It’s not even close. I can understand that the news from Soward would make me want to break my contract, but why would I come and see Bedivere? I haven’t seen him for decades.”

  Catherine sighed. “Then we are still in the dark.” She gave Kemp a stiff smile. “We’ll give you a bed for the night and breakfast, of course, then see you on your way. I do appreciate you dropping everything and rushing here, even if there was nothing you can tell us.”

  Kemp swallowed hastily. “I’m not going anywhere. That is, if you have no objections? I want answers as much as you do.”

  “You don’t think that Bedivere has gone rogue, then?” Brant asked.

  Kemp pushed his plate aside with a heavy thrust. He leaned back and looked at all of them one by one. “You were all on the ship when I was. You know that Bedivere and I were close. I was truly stunned when I found out he was a computer in a human body. If I can be intimate with someone and not be able to see such a fundamental difference, that tells me they are as human as me.”

  He grimaced. “Humans can have psychotic breaks, sure. They just don’t wipe out entire civilizations when they do. Besides, Bedivere was the most sane, stable person I’ve ever met, except for Catherine. Do I think he’s having a nutty and trying to destroy the universe as we know it? Not even for a second.”

  He got to his feet, moving stiffly and slowly. “If you could point me toward that borrowed bed? And please tell me that you have a gym here that is as well-equipped as the one you had on your ship?”

  Kemp became the fourth person in the household and the complex seemed to stir and generate energy with him in it. He had to rehabilitate his body, to bring it to normal strength, so his daily routine included gym work and whatever therapies Catherine could provide him from her home surgery.

  In between, they all followed the limited lines of inquiry they could, trying to find Bedivere.

  “All the hysteria in the news is not helping,” Catherine complained. “Everyone thinks they’ve seen him, in a dozen places at once. They’re all false alarms, yet they will have to be investigated. We don’t have time for this.”

  “Who broke the news, anyway?” Kemp asked.

  “Does it matter?” Catherine replied. “It was inevitable that this would break. It’s too big a story.”

  “I was only thinking that whoever revealed the story first might have had a reason to do so.”

  “A conspiracy?” Brant asked with a smile.

  “I grew up on Soward, the world of intrigue. What can I say?”

  They introduced Kemp to Connell, who returned every few days to report that he had found nothing.

  Catherine watched Kemp deal with Connell the first time, to see if he could treat the Varkan as a human. Kemp did not flinch, nor did he alter the way he was speaking when talking to Connell. Yet his behavior toward Bedivere when he had been there two weeks ago had not been any different from when he had been a passenger on the ship. It seemed that in the intervening years, Kemp had thrown off his own prejudices.

  “Of course it was a shock when I found out about Bedivere,” he told Catherine when she asked him. “It was exactly what I needed to start questioning everything I had known about dangerous computers and their ways. The news that the Federation had suppressed computers because they knew about Interspace and it would destroy their shipping monopoly wasn’t nearly as surprising after that.”

  Two days later, the house AI woke her and told her that Bedivere had destroyed the entire southern continent on Barros.

  * * * * *

  “He used nuclear particle beams from a high altitude,” Brant said, reading from the board in his hands. “From that high up, the blast washed over hundreds of kilometers, which is most of the southern continent.”

  Catherine nodded, absorbing the facts. She was deliberately not thinking or trying to speculate. She shoved the shirt that Lilly handed her into the jump bag, wedging it into a corner. She sealed the bag with a swipe, locking it to her prints.

  “Barros is in the Aibosian cluster,” Kemp said. “It will take you weeks to get there. By then, Bedivere will be gone.”

  “He would’ve gone already,” Brant said with a growl. “He wiped half a planet from existence. If he has the brains of a manolilly, he would’ve left that place as soon as he’d done the deed.”

  Catherine turned on him. “We don’t know that it was him,” she snapped. “We don’t know anything for certain. T
he feeds are just giving us wild theories. I’m sick of listening to people’s fears and angst being regurgitated as fact.”

  She looked at Kemp. “There is a high liner at dock at the gate station right now. They can be at Barros in four days. Bedivere won’t be there, but I can find out what happened for myself.” She hefted the jump bag.

  “Then I’m coming to,” Lilly said.

  “You’d better hurry,” Catherine told her. “I’m leaving in ten minutes.”

  When she lifted the zipper off the top deck twelve minutes later, all three of them were squashed into the cabin around her.

  Chapter Six

  Barros IV, Barros System, Aibosian Cluster. FY 10.092.

  Catherine selectively bribed key personnel on the high liner. As a result, the ship used the engines at over-capacity for the entire journey. They arrived at Barros half a day earlier than scheduled.

  Barros’ stationary station was in chaos, with every conceivable emergency service looking for docking space. The high liner was scheduled, however, and slid into its oversized port immediately.

  From contracts he had taken when Barros had first joined the Federation, Kemp knew his way around the station. He found a private ballistic jump car and used more of Catherine’s money to buy them a trip down to the northern continent. No one was going near the southern continent, which was awash with radiation.

  The jump car driver pointed out the continent as they began their slow spiral down to the surface. “People are wondering why it doesn’t glow in the night.”

  Brant, the least space-experienced of them all, exclaimed as he looked through the window. “It doesn’t look the same as it does on the maps.” They had all studied the maps on the way over.

  “Maps are flat,” Catherine said. “Continents at the poles always look much larger on maps than they really are. You’re used to looking at a two dimensional representation. Now you’re seeing the three dimensional reality. It can take a bit of getting used to.”