But what if the fracture were intentional? Or, more likely, what if the fracture represented a change from the original construction of the Shivas?
One of the surprises in Shiva V had been the layout of the corridors at the end of the Alabaster Hall. In the previous Shivas, there had not only been a corridor running the circumference of the ship, to the clockwise and counter-clockwise directions. There had also been a corridor running straight down the radius, toward the central axis and the slide chutes. The recon bots and birds that preceded the Angel One assault had been rudely surprised to find they could not go straight down that hall. What had been the shortest path in Shiva IV simply didn't exist in Shiva V.
Now Paolo thought he understood. The repair mechs on board Shiva V had sealed off that corridor! They'd done a great job too, by human standards. But even a great job by human standards did not reach the inhuman standards of Shiva's original engineers. Though the improvised seal had no visible seam, beneath the surface the welding of the new section of wall had left behind an imperfection. That imperfection had all the characteristics of a "crack," a fracture in the ceramic latticework.
Shiva could only have decided to seal that corridor because it knew that the corridor exposed a weakness. It was another indication that supported the oft-posited theory that the Shivas were in communication, that each Shiva learned from the experiences of the previous one.
But from Paolo's point of view, another point was even more important. For his predictions of the layout of the ship, he had to know where the corridors were even if they were sealed—all his team's algorithm's were set up to analyze the unsealed layout. To succeed, Paolo had to know if there were other sealed corridors. He had to know if there were other cracks.
He turned back to his wallscreen and laid out several new items. First, he wrote a forecast on the 'castpoint asserting that the wall fracture was really a sealed-over corridor. Second, he posted a prize on the board for any other fracture forecasts that proved correct. Third, he bought into the original prediction that the crack in the wall really existed. After all, his identification of why and how such a crack could be there was supporting evidence that the crack existed, and significantly increased the odds that the forecast was correct.
Paolo sat back with satisfaction. This had been a very good little piece of work.
* * *
Jessica muttered the demand repeatedly, but no one could hear. Finally she shrieked it, though she knew that even this would not make a difference, "Morgan, ask if there's a crack in the control room wall!"
The situation seemed obvious to her, now that someone had figured out what had happened to the third corridor from the hall. The original forecasts had been right: the Gate to the control room was in its standard location—but the Gate had been sealed the way this corridor had been sealed.
Of course, right or wrong, the stakes were huge. They had to buy the best assessment they could get, probably with a direct subcontract to the person who had made the forecast in the first place.
Why wasn't Morgan acting?
* * *
CJ was still alive! Alive! The pleasure of the thought rolled with thick sweetness in Morgan's mind, like a chocolate caramel yielding its rich flavor across the tongue. Everyone was still alive.
More than anything, Morgan wanted to whisper in CJ's ear. He needed to tell her he loved her. But with over four billion people watching and listening to every word he said, it was quite impractical. He smiled unhappily, remembering how pre-Crash politicians had complained about the public microscope. Those bumpkins had had no idea what real scrutiny was like.
He considered shutting down the cameras so he could talk to her. But the cameras had just saved her life, and would have to save her again. He had no idea what little tidbit picked up as they sped down the halls might make the crucial difference. The cameras must remain inviolate.
Still, he couldn't keep it all bottled up. He spoke softly into the microphone. "CJ?" he asked with all the tenderness he could express. He knew it could not carry the full weight he desired, but he had to try.
He could see her in the view from Akira's vidcam, sitting astride the trailer while Lars sweated for both of them. She looked queenly, perched upon a throne held aloft by her subjects. She turned to the camera, knowing that he would be watching. Her eyes glowed, a reflection of the tenderness in his voice. Her smile caressed him. "Me too," she replied. She turned back, to face the future.
It was so little, but it was enough. He could concentrate again.
* * *
Jessica activated her connection to the General. "Samuels," she said in an urgent voice, "Morgan's losing it. He loves that girl, and he's losing it."
The General looked at her with harried concern. He was closer to showing stress than Jessica had ever seen. "Explain," he snapped.
Jessica ran through her deductions about the control room entrance. Then she voiced her concerns about why Morgan had missed the possibility.
Samuels nodded. "Right or wrong, we need to pursue your analysis."
Jessica pressed on. "So you'll tell Morgan to subcontract with the original forecaster to see if the Gate is sealed up?"
The General shook his head. "Way too distracting if I bring it up."
Jessica considered this, puzzled. "So you want me to tell him? He doesn't know me from Adam."
Samuels made a dismissive wave of his hand. "Personal suggestions are inappropriate in the current context. No, Jessica, I want you to drive this matter to a conclusion. And then use the obvious method to tell Morgan about it." Samuels explained further.
Jessica laughed. "Of course. It is obvious, isn't it?" She pursed her lips. "I can see I still have a ways to go."
"Don't worry about it, Jessica. Just hurry."
* * *
Selpha studied her screen with surprise, pleasure, and a certain amount of disbelief. Earth Defense had just asked her to do a special analysis for them. Seeing the request, the merits of the analysis were obvious.
Was there a crack in the wall where the Gate should have been? Given the new forecast on the 'castpoint derived from Peter's forecast, the question and conclusion were obvious.
Earth Defense wasn't even demanding that she be correct with her results. They were just asking for her best judgment, her expertise, and her confidence level in her results. The contract would take her a considerable distance toward her goal, and she couldn't lose. It gave her a light, airy feeling as she endorsed the contract.
"Okay, Peter, we have a very special job to do," she said in her most gentle, patient voice. She hyperlinked through the Web-stored recordings of the Angel One assault, to last battle where Hikmet had died. The visuals were so violently ghastly, it was hard for her to concentrate while they ran. Peter wouldn't have to deal with the sight of the horrors, of course, but the audio was almost as bad. "I know this is going to be very hard, Peter. I know it is very noisy, and it'll be hard to understand. But it is really important that we listen very carefully, and see if we can tell if any of these walls are cracked like the other one was. Can we do it, Peter?"
Peter bobbed his head. "Okay, Momma."
Selpha handed control of the recording over to Peter, almost as worried as she was hopeful.
* * *
Paolo shook his head at his own inadequacy. Aargh! How could he have missed it? Now that the 'cast was up, it seemed obvious. And it was in his field of expertise. He should have been the one to post that 'cast. Blast it, he himself had made the deduction that led to this next natural conclusion.
On the other hand, with a couple billion active participants, it really shouldn't surprise him if, even in his own field, people regularly beat him to the punch. His failure to draw the obvious conclusion beautifully illustrated the flaw in the Web's foolish gossip about the Predictor: even if you were thousand times more likely to root out good forecasts than anyone else, you would have less than one chance in a thousand of being the first one to invent a new analysis. Of course
, Paolo, thought with a determined smile, he had better than a mere thousand-fold improvement on the average. Nonetheless, the principle still stood.
Paolo alerted the rest of his team to the new forecast. They just had to come up with a good analysis of this issue, not only for profit, but also to save the Angels from a terrible mistake whichever way it turned out.
He looked at the preliminary results coming in from his team and felt a touch of sorrow. It would be a lot easier for everyone if the forecast were correct, and the Gate was just in the same old place, just a little harder to open. But according to his own preliminaries, it wasn't true. Even adjusting the analysis to assume that the third corridor from the Alabaster Hall had been sealed—an assumption that went beyond the confidence level they could assign to the proposition—other anomalies in the construction of this ship suggested that the entrance had been relocated along with the innermost ring of robot repair bays.
Preliminary results weren't enough for something this important. Every reducible doubt had to be removed. Paolo shot off a consulting request to the brand that had first theorized about the fracture, to see what additional information he could buy to fold into his analysis.
* * *
Selpha's eyes glowed in satisfaction. Now that someone had posted the sealed-entrance forecast, requests for information were pouring in from all over the world. She had over a dozen consulting contracts in her hand, all asking for her best answer on the same question that Earth Defense had asked: Was there a crack in the hall where Buzz Hikmet had died?
Unfortunately, Peter's analysis was inconclusive almost to the point of uselessness. Consequently Selpha felt she couldn't charge a lot for the answer—better to set up a quality relationship with these people, in preparation for future contracts—but still, it was almost free money. She sent to each requester the same careful assessment she had made for Earth Defense.
Upon completing the contracts, she realized there were probably other people who would be interested in the results. She posted her assessment as a simple document on several of the EDA-related eMarkets. In the next half hour, she sold almost seventy copies to people and companies around the world. She still kept the price low, though, for her summary conclusion was not very exciting: amidst the noise and vibration of the battle, she could find no evidence of a crack in the wall from the Angel One recordings.
* * *
Jessica drew a deep breath. She watched as the odds seesawed wildly. The trading volume started to stabilize the assessment, but as the volatility waned so did the early enthusiasm for the 'cast. The odds favoring a sealed Gate in the usual location fell below fifty percent, and only leveled off around thirty-five percent.
A soft ping announced the activation of her window to General Samuels. "Don't be disappointed," he said. "You had a brilliant insight, and we had to pursue it."
"I probably shouldn't have bothered to post the 'cast at all, after the initial report from fracture analysts."
"No, posting it was the right thing to do. With as much uncertainty as they had, it only made sense to pursue the matter further, to see if anyone in the assembled multitudes could make a better assessment." He shrugged. "Actually, it looks like the assembled multitudes did make a better assessment, just not the one we'd hoped for." He raised his fist, thumb extended upward in a sign of upbeat confirmation. "Keep at it."
Jessica smiled wanly. "Back to work," she said. She turned her attention back to the seven screens that represented Morgan's world.
Chapter Twelve
The Weapons of the Destroyer
CJ and her compatriots raced counterclockwise around the ship. According to the 'cast, it made little difference if they went left or right at the end of the hall–the forecasts predicted that the distance to the slidechutes was the same either way. A weak prediction held that there were fewer robot storage bays counterclockwise, hence a slightly smaller range of opponents. But the most important feature of the counterclockwise direction was that this was the way Angel One had gone, and they had won through. Angel Two would try to build on that success.
CJ and Lars came to the intersection with a radial corridor that shot straight inward, toward the ship axis. A trio of recon pyramids already lay scattered in the intersection like a child's jacks, thrown earlier by Roni as he turned the corner. CJ looked into the mirrored, curved faces of the pyramids to make sure nothing lay around the corner, to ensure that nothing had gotten between them and Roni. With only the barest pause, she and Lars swept around the corner. Akira scooped up the pyramids on his way past, tossing them casually to CJ, who stashed them in the trailer. Lars lazily threw a laser relay against the ceiling. Their link to the Web remained unbroken.
Half a klick ahead, CJ could make out Roni moving in a staccato rhythm—a quick burst of speed from the bike, followed by a long, perfectly motionless pause as he surveyed the shipscape before him: the next chunk of the hallway, the openings to the various rooms nearby, and the other corridors along crossing the main hall.
These damn hallways were so boring and dull they made CJ crazy. She knew she should be thankful for the empty simplicity of the passage, but it was not in her nature.
Roni stopped again. This time he put his ear to the wall. From CJ's position it looked like a shadow hung in front of Roni, probably a doorway. Roni listened a moment, then went past the doorway and turned. CJ was not surprised when Morgan cleared his voice.
"Expect a dozen or so repair mechs," Morgan advised.
Lars slowed down. CJ hopped to the ground. Everyone unlimbered their spikes.
Morgan spoke again. "Axel, knock on the door."
Axel smiled. "No problem," he said, and slammed the wall with his staff.
The door opened. Half a dozen repair mechs straggled out, blades in hand. Much simpler targets than the roboguards they looked so much like—without breastplates, they would be quick kills.
"Akira, Axel, CJ, take 'em." The two opposing groups charged each other. In a moment, each of the three Angels had taken down an opponent, retreating as they did so to avoid the outflanking maneuver of the other three mechs.
Axel grumbled, "Too easy." He turned with CJ and Akira to the remaining three mechs.
A heavy footfall came from the doorway, and all the Angels looked to see what it was. Axel jumped back, exclaiming, "Holy Christ. It looks bigger here than in the videos."
A Destroyer stepped beneath the arch of the door, weaving slightly as it turned to face the center of the Angel team. It stepped into the corridor, waving its heavy-barreled gun at chest height. The machine's oversized broadsword, socketed directly to its shoulder and elbow, hung limply at its side.
The thing had not seen Roni on the far side of the doorway. Roni exploited the error, jumping the Destroyer from behind. Roni lunged twice, the point of his spike probing for an opening in the robot's close-meshed armor plates. The Destroyer swiped casually back with its right hand, knocking him down the hall. Then it stopped weaving and stood very still. The gun came up, clicked once, and started to fire, straight at CJ.
As the gun steadied on her, CJ was already leaping, up and forward and toward the center of the hall. The bullets missed her. She heard an explosion and glanced back to see what had happened.
The stream of bullets had torn into the trailer, with all their supplies. Secondary explosions, from the caseless ammo stored there, had turned the trailer into a fireball. Lars had been thrown against the wall by the force of the blast; CJ couldn't tell if he was dead, hurt, or ready to play. She realized that the Destroyer hadn't been aiming at her at all; she had merely been in the path of the Destroyer's true focus.
* * *
Jessica's heart leaped in her throat. What could they do? They hadn't managed to kill even one of those things in the Angel One assault. Everyone had known they would face Destroyers again on this round, but not this soon—Angel One hadn't seen any of the things till they'd gotten to center level.
Now the team was split by the Destroyer: CJ
and Roni were down the hall from it, while Axel, Lars, and Akira remained out-axis.
Jessica reviewed the events of the earlier assault. After being hacked horribly by the first Destroyer, Angel One had dealt with the problem by retreating toward the center of the ship. This was not an option for Angel Two, unless they could find a way to circle through the corridors and regroup. Jessica prayed Morgan didn't share her own rising panic.
The Destroyer started to weave again. That was strange; she couldn't remember seeing them do that in the recordings from the first assault. The broadsword still hung limply at its side. Jessica choked down her terror and peered intently at the Destroyer. Something was wrong with it. Inspecting the thing from the safety of her cocoon, she then saw that the left leg was only partly armored.
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