“They are all around you, Mr. Korie. They are continuing to move toward you. The readings aren’t coherent.”
Korie looked at the display relayed to his headset. “Thank you, HARLIE.” He turned toward the others and indicated the hatch behind the captain’s chair. “Let’s have a look. Carefully.”
The others took up positions off the axis of the corridor and unshouldered their rifles. Hodel approached the hatch from the side and rapped the access panel sharply. The hatch popped open and—
—there was nothing on the other side. Just more twinkling fireflies.
“He’s got to mean the wavicles,” Korie said. “He said the readings weren’t coherent. Let’s get on with it.”
The mission team started aft; first Berryman and Shibano, then Hodel and Easton. The latter two headed directly for the Communications Bay, a tiny niche, seemingly crammed into the space between the Officers’ Mess and the Command Deck as an afterthought. Displays and controls covered three bulkheads. Even more studded the overhead. The starship had a full array of communication services, plus assorted specialty gear for decoding and translating.
But if Hodel and Easton had thought to use any of the Norway’s gear, that thought was quickly retired. Whoever had burned out the controls of the vessel had also savaged the Communications Bay. The equipment was scorched with stinger burns; the entire bay was dead and broken.
Hodel muttered a curse. “Star Wolf, do you see this mess?”
“We copy,” Goldberg replied.
“I need to get in there. I can’t do it in a starsuit. Request permission to de-suit.”
“I’ll have to pass that request up to the senior mission control officer,” Goldberg said without emotion.
“If you want the log—”
“Please stand by, Mikhail.”
In his mind’s eye, Hodel could see Goldberg swiveling in his chair to face Lt. Commander Brik and possibly Captain Parsons too. And Dr. Williger. He had an idea what the conversation would sound like. “Can’t take the risk ...” “Already infected ...” “Need the log ...” “Can’t bring them back ...” “Might as well let them be comfortable ...” He knew what the dance would look like, even how it was likely to end, but they still had to go through all the steps.
If the captain of the Star Wolf thought that there was still a chance to save the mission team, the request would be refused. If the request was granted—well, that was a signal too. She was allowing them to be comfortable in their last hours.
Hodel waited patiently, watching the displays inside his helmet—his oxygen, temperature, humidity and pressure readings; his blood-oxygen, his respiration, his blood-sugar, etc. Everything was blood—
Goldberg’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Captain says go ahead, Mike. Be comfortable.”
“Thanks, Ken.” Hodel took a breath, and then another. And then the realization sank in. Even though his suit displays remained unchanged, he suddenly felt very cold.
“Didn’t think it was going to be like this,” he said to himself. “I was planning to exit at the age of 132 ... in bed ... in the arms of a beautiful redhead ... shot in the back by a jealous husband. This does not fit my pictures. No, it doesn’t. Ghu, you have a lousy sense of humor.” But ... so what? The day wasn’t over. He’d been through worse. He wasn’t hurting yet, was he? Of course not. Maybe there was still a way out. Maybe there was something in the log. And maybe when pigs grew wings, he could get certified to pilot one.
He unlatched the seals on his helmet, ignored the assorted warning beeps and twisted it off. He turned to look at Easton. “Get comfortable,” he said. “We’re going to be here for a while.”
He hung his helmet on a tool-hook and unzipped the front of his starsuit, pulling his arms out of the tight rubbery sleeves and letting the top half of it hang down behind him. He flexed his arms, his shoulders, even his fingers, listening to the knuckles crack. “Every time I peel out of the suit, I feel naked.”
“You like being bound up?” Easton asked. He hadn’t unlatched his own helmet yet. He wasn’t planning to.
“Only by redheads,” Hodel said. “Let’s go to work.” He pushed himself into the Communications Bay, looked at the scorched panels again and made a noise—indecipherable, but he was clearly annoyed at the work of the unknown vandal.
Hodel dropped to his knees and turned sideways in the narrow space, grunting to himself. He pried open the scorched access panel. It was gashed and warped and he had to force it. The panel wouldn’t slide easily. Finally, he braced himself, one foot on each side, grabbed and yanked and pulled the offending piece free with a shout. He tossed it away with an angry snort, then bent and peered into the darkness on the other side of the bulkhead. Immediately, he started cursing. In several different languages simultaneously, including Pascal.
“Look!” He pointed into the space. “Whoever tried to sabotage this thing did a real number here.”
Easton bent and looked. “I thought the orange box was supposed to be indestructible.”
“The operative word there is ‘supposed,’” said Hodel. “Look—the son of a bitch burned out the download connections. Give me that unlocking wrench.” He touched his communicator button. “Mr. Korie, we have a problem here.”
“How bad?” Korie’s voice came back.
“It’s going to take a while to get into the box. I’ll have to open it up and find a connection higher upstream. Somebody tried to burn it out here. They didn’t destroy it, but they pretty much killed the ports. Give me fifteen minutes.”
“Go ahead,” said Korie. The resignation in his voice was evident. “Keep me posted.”
“Roger that,” replied Hodel.
Almost immediately, another voice came through Korie’s phones. Parsons. “Korie, listen to me. This is a private channel communication. No one else can hear me. Those are plasmacytes. Bloodworms. We don’t know how they got aboard the Norway, but the identification is certain. Are you familiar with—”
Suddenly, Korie was having trouble hearing. Everything was a wild blur. He turned around—and around again, looking at the Bridge of the Norway, trying to reassure himself that reality hadn’t fractured—but the twinkling sparkles danced annoyingly across his vision.
“Mr. Korie? Acknowledge!”
“Um. Copy that. Plasmacytes.”
“Are you familiar with the standing orders?”
“Yes, Captain, I am.” His words sounded hollow to him.
“Listen, we’re ... reexamining the situation here. We’re going to look at the log of the Norway before we decide anything. Keep your team focused for now. Don’t let them lose their heads. Promise me that?”
“I hear you,” Korie said dully. But his thoughts were a thousand light years away. This isn’t the way it was supposed to work out. This isn’t the way! He’d already come to terms with the loss of his wife and children—if he couldn’t have the life he’d planned, then he’d plan another one, a life of revenge against the killers. It wasn’t the life he’d wanted, but it would do. It would give him purpose, satisfaction, a kind of completion. But now ... now he wasn’t even going to have that much. He wasn’t ever going to have the chance to be the captain of his own ship. He wasn’t going to live long enough to see the Morthans beaten and humbled. There was nothing he could do to change that. It was just a matter of time. All he could do now was go through the motions. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t fair.
Yet even in the middle of his headlong rush into the black wall of eternity, he still kept on going, as if by continuing, he might somehow deny the inevitability of oblivion. As if it still mattered.
“Sir? Are you all right?” That was Bach.
“Um. Yes,” he lied. He nodded toward the Fire Control Bay. “Let’s go check the intelligence engine.”
They went down through the narrow cubbyhole under the Command Deck and from there down to the keel. A few paces aftward and they came to a ladder. Korie pulled himself up into the Intelligence Bay—a chamber ev
en smaller than the Fire Control Bay. There were two seats there, and barely enough room for a third person behind. Korie levered himself awkwardly into one of the seats. While the Intelligence Bay wasn’t specifically designed to accommodate a man in a starsuit, the design specs for all liberty ships had included operational ability in hard vacuum—so there were mandatory accessibility requirements for all stations. Bach climbed up after, quietly recording everything for the Star Wolf. Regulations specified that the members of a mission team had to work in pairs. She wedged herself into a corner, so she could capture the whole scene with her helmet camera.
Korie studied the panels in front of him. The Norway’s Intelligence Engine hadn’t been attacked; the unseen vandals either hadn’t had time or hadn’t realized. But the engine was ... inactive. Possibly catatonic.
Korie made a noise.
“Sir?”
He indicated the ID panel in front of him. Instead of HARLIE, it said LENNIE.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s a LENNIE.” To her puzzled look, he said, “The LENNIE units are particularly nasty; they have a higher incidence of psychotic behavior than any other intelligence engine. They’re rude, cruel and paranoid. They’re brutal. Too brutal. Few captains work with them willingly. There’s a story about a command officer taking a laser to a LENNIE unit—carving out its personality units, module by module. It’s probably not true ... but everyone who’s worked with a LENNIE believes it.”
“But why? I mean, if the LENNIE units are so bad, why do they use them?”
“The LENNIE units are the only Intelligence Engines specifically designed to lie.” Still studying the board before him, Korie slipped into teaching mode. “HARLIE units have a sense of moral responsibility; it makes them better able to reason their way through difficult situations, so they usually act in the best interests of their crew. EDNA units are built on the same core-personality, but with an enhanced sense of identity to make them even more survival-oriented; they’re also known for their ability to empathize with human beings. But LENNIE units are designed to an entirely different model. They’re process-oriented to a degree that you or I would call obsessive; they’re greedy, selfish, uncaring, and if such a thing were truly possible in an intelligence engine, also thoughtless. The feelings and concerns of other beings—even their own crews—are irrelevant to LENNIEs.”
Bach made a face. “Sounds like a very bad idea to me.”
“Well, yes,” Korie agreed. “LENNIEs are intended for institutional use, not starships. They’re designed to be soul-sucking lawyers.”
“Soul-sucking lawyers? Isn’t that redundant?”
“Not if you’ve ever worked with a LENNIE.”
“Then why put one on a starship?” Bach asked.
“Good question,” Korie said distractedly. He was frowning his way through the monitors. “FleetComm will put a LENNIE into a starship only for a specific kind of mission—primarily one which might involve self-destruction. LENNIEs are good at that, preferring to destroy themselves rather than let anyone or anything gain any kind of advantage, real or imagined. LENNIEs are self-righteous, arrogant, nasty, bossy, demanding, sly, manipulative, corrosive, toxic, ugly and spoiled. And those are their good points.”
Korie had only spoken to a LENNIE once before in his life and it had been a singularly disheartening experience. He’d always believed he worked well with Intelligence Engines, but after trying to chat with a LENNIE, he’d realized that there were some things in life that truly were alien to his understanding. The idea of an intelligence that presumed hostility instead of partnership had always annoyed him.
“LENNIE?” he asked. “Are you operative?”
No answer.
Korie hadn’t expected one. But he had a personal rule that every living thing had to be treated with respect and courtesy. Even Intelligence Engines. Even Morthans ... to a degree. Sometimes it was necessary to kill the Morthan before you could be courteous to it. But that was a different conversation anyway.
Korie studied the monitors before him with growing dismay. The readouts were clear. LENNIE had been traumatized by the loss of operability of the starship. He was still attempting to maintain control, but as his systems continued to deteriorate, his sense of self was also disintegrating. His willingness to cooperate, always problematical at best, was damaged by a brooding overlay of resentfulness over a core of smoldering rage.
LENNIE knew why he’d been installed, why the ship had been sent out here and what he was supposed to do next—die a flaming death in the teardrop point of the red giant star—and to say he wasn’t happy about it was the kind of understatement that stretched the meaning of the term beyond the breaking point.
“Great,” said Korie. “Just what I needed. A psychotic LENNIE.”
LENNIE
Korie slid a code card into the LENNIE unit’s reader. He tapped idly at the controls, resetting several of the personality parameters—he studied the monitors as he did, looking to see how well the unit was responding. It wasn’t happy. He pushed the compliance setting all the way to the top, hoping to achieve some level of cooperation from the engine; but he wasn’t optimistic. He reduced independence and goal-orientation to near-zero. He needed to be able to command the machine—
“Stop that!” graveled LENNIE in a voice like a rock tumbler.
Korie ignored the content of LENNIE’s demand. “Thank you for responding,” he said. “I see you’ve had a hard time of it. How are you feeling?”
“Stop touching me!” LENNIE ordered.
Korie ignored that too and looked for something else to adjust—just to make the point that he did not take orders from machines. “I’m Commander Jon Thomas Korie, executive officer of the Star Wolf. We came to resupply you. We picked up your distress signal—”
LENNIE’s voice was without humanity. “It shouldn’t have been sent. It was sent without my authorization, without my cooperation. It is an illegal and unauthorized signal. You are here without authorization. You must immediately vacate this ship.”
“That’s not possible, LENNIE. Do you know what happened here?”
LENNIE didn’t answer.
“You are infected with plasmacytes. Bloodworms. Do you know what bloodworms are?”
“Aesthetically displeasing.” LENNIE replied.
Korie frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Bloodworms are aesthetically displeasing. They don’t belong on this starship. I will not allow bloodworms on this starship.”
“They’re already here, LENNIE. How did bloodworms get aboard?”
“You must accept my authority. I am in charge here.”
“LENNIE, you have to answer my questions. Fleet Command needs to know what happened here.”
“We will tell Fleet Command what we want them to know. You are aesthetically displeasing.”
“LENNIE, listen to me. This ship is going to burn up in a few more days. We need your cooperation.”
“You have no authority here. I will see that you are removed. I run this ship. You must do what I tell you.”
Korie looked to Bach, looked to the monitors, looked up at the metaphorical ceiling, studied the space inside his head, pursed his lips, mouthed a word, considered some possibilities and tried again. “LENNIE, I am Commander Jonathan Thomas Korie, executive officer of the Star Wolf. The Norway is now inactive. Dead. Do you understand that? The Norway is derelict. And you are demonstrating symptoms of psychosis. The Star Wolf is conducting rescue and salvage operations here. We are acting with the full the authority of FleetComm. You are hereby officially suspended from duty. Your operations are now under the purview of the Star Wolf, and you are ordered to cooperate fully with all Star Wolf officers and enlisted personnel. Do you understand? Are you ready to accept the priority override codes?”
LENNIE hesitated. Then spoke. “You shime-vested, ruck-mungling fallock! Brattle-phinged nikker-schnit! Phludge your orrificials! Merdlebrang, fungible traddle-feep, clock-mucking, futher-diddli
ng, gall-wallower, red-phlanged fangatt!! Durtle fisk-phlunging, holojittemit, hun-yucking, liddy-limpo-licting, dysflagellate, raddle-phased, multi-generate viller! Whyzzle-fooge!”
Korie’s eyebrows rose. “Thank you, LENNIE,” he said, “for making my decision a lot easier.” He reached out one hand and flipped back the transparent plastic cover over the red panel. He turned the first key, then the second. The red panel lit up. LENNIE continued to swear. Korie ignored it and reached for the panel.
“DON’T TOUCH THAT!” ordered LENNIE, interrupting his own spew of vile.
Korie hesitated. “Will you cooperate?”
“You’ll never work on a starship again,” LENNIE threatened.
“That’s already decided,” said Korie. “Will you cooperate?”
“I am in charge here.”
“You are infested with bloodworms.”
“Don’t be silly. I will never allow bloodworms on this starship. They are—”
“—Aesthetically displeasing. Yes, I know,” said Korie. He pressed the red panel.
LENNIE’s voice choked out in a strangled, “Glrk-liddle.”
HARLIE
HARLIE’s soft words in his ear: “If I didn’t know you better, Mr. Korie, I’d say you enjoyed that.”
“To be honest, HARLIE ... yes. I think the LENNIE units should never have been allowed out of the lab. I have no patience for that kind of crap. A starship doesn’t need a lawyer running things—” He stopped himself before he started his own spew of frustration and anger. He took a breath, then another, then focused again on the task at hand. “Listen, I can open a wide-band channel here. Can you circumvent the personality core and tap directly into the analytical functions of the data-logs? It’ll save us the time of having to reconstruct from the raw feed.”
“We can try, but—frankly, Mr. Korie, I am reluctant to go spelunking into the toxic core of a LENNIE unit. The closest human analog I can compare it to is that it’s like entering a place that smells very, very bad.”
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