by Vox Day
“I think that would be unwise at this point in time. But, if it will help you restrain your professional urge to pry, I will tell you that the reasons for my interest will almost certainly become obvious to you before long.”
“That's fair. Do you think there is any danger to the ship?”
“Not now, no.”
Benbow nodded and glanced up at the display showing the ship's time. “I'm glad to hear that, at any rate. Now, if you'll excuse me, Miss York, I'm going to turn in, catch an hour or so of sleep.”
“An hour or so?” She gazed curiously at the older man. “Surely you don't sleep so little!”
The doctor grinned, mildly embarrassed. “I hate to see the universe blink out. There's something terrifying about it. But I do like to see it blink back on, and I understand that in just over two hours, we'll be emerging from transit.”
After wishing the doctor a good, if interrupted, night's sleep and returning her small cabin, York went over the records she'd singled out one more time before calling it a day. She'd learned nothing, or almost nothing, she concluded ruefully. But at least she did know all the names and ranks of the six crew members who had some ties to House Dai Zhan. It wasn't much, but it was a start, even if it wasn't anything she could put before Captain Hull.
After slipping out of her clothes, she felt a sharp stinging in her nostrils, then a painful constriction in her chest. She gasped, reeling for support, but the air she breathed in seared her throat. Instinctively she held her breath and groped for the door, her eyes wet and burning. Her windpipe felt as if it had suddenly been transformed into a tube of liquid fire. She found the panel, slapped it, and as soon as the door opened, staggered out into the corridor. Osborn was standing there, to her left, and he whirled around just in time to catch her as she collapsed.
“Door,” she whispered, waving her hand weakly in the direction of the corridor panel. “Close it!”
Although he must have been surprised to find a half-naked woman literally falling into his arms, the young deckhand reacted quickly. Holding her in one powerful arm, he punched the panel, causing the door to slam shut and sealing the poison in the compartment. Then he lowered her carefully to the deck and spoke rapidly into his communicator.
“Ensign Summers? We got an medical emergency at compartment Alpha Zero Four Three. Tell Doctor Benbow to come here at once! And let the captain know. I think he's going to want to see this. Tell him it concerns the passenger, Miss York.”
She leaned against the wall, desperately sucking in great draughts of air, trying to replace the viciously polluted gas with clean, circulated and purified air.
“Miss York, can you tell me what's wrong?”
“Gas,” she croaked.
“Gas?” Osborn barked, alarmed. “Where?”
“In cabin. Don't open.”
“I won't open it.” He kneeled down and cradled her head, then shrugged out of his uniform jacket and laid it down on the cold deck before helping her lie down upon it. It was big enough to permit him to wrap it over her as a blanket of sorts. “Help is on the way, just try to stay calm.”
She closed her eyes and nodded, wincing as each breath seemed to burn her inflamed throat.
Feet pounded down the corridor.
“Osborn! What's wrong with York?”
She opened her eyes and saw the doctor leaning over her. “Gas—my room,” she answered. She could hear more men arriving and recognized Hull's and Tregaski's voices.
“Is she all right?”
“What happened to York?”
“I'm trying to find out,” Benbow snapped as he took her pulse at her throat. He sniffed the air. “Gas? I don't smell anything.”
“What happened, Osborn?” she heard the captain demand.
“I don't know, Captain! I was standing guard here, as ordered, when the door opened and she came staggering out of there, stark naked!”
“Not naked!” she protested. None of the four men were listening to her. Benbow opened a small compartment nearby and drew out a face mask and portable oxygen tank, then slid the mask over her head.
“There's nothing in the corridor,” Tregaski pointed out. “If there's something in the circulatory system, it should be affecting us here as well.”
York pushed the mask off her face. Although her throat still burned, her head was starting to clear. “It's my room,” she suggested. “But be careful!”
When the captain nodded his approval, Tregaski did something to the panel, then tapped it as Benbow pressed his face against the door, sniffing at the crack like a dog. When the door rose a few centimeters, the doctor recoiled as if he'd been shot. A faint almond-scent permeated the corridor.
“Shut it!” he gasped. Tregaski pressed the panel and the door sealed itself closed again. “It's definitely full of gas.”
“Get me Norden or whoever is senior on maintenance,” Hull was barking into the device on his wrist. “Send two technicians down here now in full environmental suits, and in the meantime, start flushing out compartment Alpha Zero Four Three.
Hull looked down grimly at York, who had sat up and was doing her best to cover herself. “When did you notice the gas, Miss York?”
York said weakly, “I caught a whiff as I was getting undressed to go to bed.”
“It's a good thing you reacted so quickly.” He shook his head and slapped his hand against the corridor wall. “Dammit!”
She understood why he was so angry. It wasn't merely that a woman under his protection had been attacked, although given his psych profile, no doubt that bothered him too. It was the obvious implication of the attack, the fact that someone on his crew was a killer, and almost certainly, a traitor as well.
“If there is gas in the room, why didn't it flood the whole system?” Tregaski asked.
“I'll bet the vents were closed,” Benbow said in a grim voice. He turned to the captain. “If you don't mind, I'd like to take Miss York to the lab, see if I can analyze the gas. I believe I know what it is.”
“It was a cyanic,” York broke in. “I'm sure of it.”
“Yes, I believe that's likely. But we'll be able to identify it precisely after we get a tissue sample from you.” The doctor looked at the captain. “If the party responsible was careless enough, we may be able to identify them through chemical analysis.”
Hull nodded and turned to Tregaski. “Have Norden and his men decontaminate that room and get me the name of every enlisted man and officer who had access to this compartment in the last 36 hours.” He glanced at York. “We'll find the meaning of this,” he promised.
“I think you already know what it means.” York eyed the captain steadily. “It means we're definitely going to find survivors in Subsector Zero Seven Zero Two.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
There was general agreement that minds can exist on nonbiological substrates and that algorithms are of central importance to the existence of minds.
—from “Technological Singularity” by St. Verner Vinge
SHE WAS being followed!
The sensation came to her for no particular reason as she strolled down a retail thoroughfare of Faracity, capital of the planet Faraday, third of the orange-yellow sun Anhaus. This was the seventh evening in a row she'd meandered down the street, but the first time she'd picked up a tail.
I'm being followed, she thought. By whom? She never changed her pace nor gave any sign that she knew, but she was certain of it! The intuition that had alerted her had served her too well in the past for her to mistrust the familiar sensation.
She felt the fear mount, her pulse rise, as adrenaline surged through her body. She couldn't be captured. Not now! She was too close and her mission was far too important to accept failure now. Who was following her? An agent of House Dai Zhan? Unlikely. She rejected the idea. The Dai Zhani were clever, but they lacked the interstellar resources and they had no interest in Kasahara Starways, which was owned by House Nishiyama.
Ascendancy Intelligence, on the other
hand, didn't need any such interests. August Karsh's net was deep, broad, and three-dimensional, extending throughout the entire galaxy. There was no planet, to core or to spin, that was beyond Karsh's reach. And after the murder of his primary line into House Dai Zhan, the AID director would be throwing everything he had into finding her.
Then, without warning, it was as if a small gate in her mind opened, and the programmed information locked away by it flooded her consciousness. She exhaled and relaxed. She still didn't know who her tail was, but now she knew it was her contact on Faraday. And, more importantly, she knew what she had to do.
She passed a window that was set at an angle to the street and glanced into it. Almost immediately, she spotted her tracker, a short, portly, inconsequential figure who was walking slowly behind her. He had a limp, she noticed, and she knew why. She didn't know if his artificial leg was the result of military service or an unfortunate accident; the important thing was that for all his mundane appearance, the man was a cyborg.
She reached the entrance to a small park on her left and turned into it. Fortunately, there were few walkers about, other than a few young couples who were focused on each other and all but lost to the world around them. Slowing her pace, she turned up a side path and immediately stepped behind a screen of shrubbery. It wasn't as concealed as she would have liked, but it would do, especially since the wooded path was unlit except for the light of Anhaus reflected from the three moons overhead. Best of all, there were no cams, and the leafy canopy precluded the possibility that any civilian police drones were watching them.
She heard the footsteps as the limping man approached, an imbalanced rhythm that confirmed it was him. When the portly figure drew abreast of where she was standing, she stepped out upon the path and held up an open hand in greeting.
“Ah, hello,” he said in an uncertain voice. He was not an attractive man, and she could see that he was sweating despite the cool air of the evening. “I think, I think I am supposed to give you something.”
She nodded and replied with the coded phrase. “Red six four Alpha six one Lambda.”
No sooner did she say it than his body convulsed, his arms hurled up and his head jerking back as if he'd been shot from behind. He stood there for a moment, jerking, as his eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth fell open. Then he fell backwards without attempting to break his fall, and his body landed heavily on the path with a meaty thud. He spasmed once or twice more as he lay there, his arms splayed out on either side.
She counted to thirty, then kneeled down beside him and withdrew a small pair of nails scissors from her purse. A quick twist and they were converted into a six-centimeter blade that was sharp enough to cut through her contact's trousers with ease. She slid up the left trouser leg and confirmed that she had the right one, then cut a long slit that exposed the man's neo-titanium leg. A second twist at the knee exposed a small screen, under which was a female XSB slot.
Flare grimaced and tugged the red-painted false nail on the little finger of her left hand, which came off to reveal a male XSB plug underneath. She inserted it into the slot and waited expectantly.
A moment later, there was a musical ping and the screen flared to life.
“Hello, Miss Flare,” the machine intelligence stored inside the leg greeted her. “I believe I have the information you are seeking.”
She unplugged her finger and replaced the nail. “I need the name, address, and any security information that might be relevant for the senior Ascendancy operative currently active on the planet.”
“Ask, and you shall receive,” the MI said. Text began spilling down the little screen. She memorized it. Opol. Bethe-Urey. Apartment. Moderate security, a combination of cams and armed droids. Single. Mid-forties. Low profile. Drove a mid-range Zhang-Su. Licensed to carry. Registered Howa Type 23 Compact. Her mind raced over the possibilities. Even before she'd finished reading planetary chief's dossier, an idea for how to safely handle the approach occurred to her.
She withdrew her comm from her purse. It was a burner, but one she'd chosen for its large storage capacity. “We can't leave you here. It's not safe with your cover dead.”
“Are you sure I'll fit in there?”
“You're clever, I'm sure, but you're not that smart.” One of her uploads required three petabytes to be on the safe side, but a minor mobile intelligence like this barely required a terabyte and that was when it was fully expanded. “Can you compress yourself to five hundred gigabytes?”
“Five hundred? I can make it three hundred!” the MI bragged. “So, we're off to Bethe-Urey next?”
“That's the plan,” she confirmed. “Broadcast blue and be careful not to leave anything behind. I want the original, not a copy. 10x redundancy wipe once you're relocated.”
“Roger!” The screen went blank, then began flashing slowly blue.
Flare tapped her comm to approve the pairing, then held it out towards the artificial leg until the transfer was complete.
“All done? Everything wiped?” she asked when the screen went black.
“As if it were factory-fresh,” the same voice declared. This time it came out of her comm.
“Excellent,” she said, rising to her feet. But before she put her comm away, she slid her thumb over it and selected a single very large file with a nonsensical name and today's date. She tapped it once, and then again when the system asked it if she wanted to delete it. The unit vibrated once and the file was gone.
Flare looked down at the electrocuted man, indifferent. Leave no tracks, that was the order. Truth be told, she felt more sympathy for the little machine intelligence she'd just sent to the electronic hereafter. She shrugged. There was probably a copy of him, several copies, in one of Dr. G's gargantuan servers back on Kurzweil. She actually felt a little jealous. With no biological element, an MI's transfers were clean. They didn't leave a quasi-corpse behind.
She turned and continued through along the forest path. She was turning over her approach to Opol. It would require finesse, daring, and an amount of programming skill. Fortunately, she realized as more hidden doors in her mind began to open and the information they'd held locked away against this moment began to spill out, those were three things she possessed in abundance.
Bertrand Opol frowned as he wondered what sort of madness had recently infected the secretive geniuses who ran the intelligence agency for the Greater Terran Ascendancy. He'd worked nineteen years for the Directorate, the last four of them on Faraday as system chief, but he'd never before seen what was usually a smooth-running, if occasionally bureaucratic organization buzzing in impotent fury as if it were a toppled bee hive.
In the last four days, he'd seen more encrypted messages marked Top Secret relayed from the sector capital than he'd received since the day he'd been named chief. Something was up, which meant that something, somewhere, had gone seriously wrong, that much was clear. But what it was, and what it had to do with the cyborg operative who had somehow managed to upset August Karsh's applecart, was a mystery to him.
This Myranda Flare was dangerous, of that there was no question. The information he'd been provided was less than entirely forthcoming, but he'd been playing the game long enough to read between the lines. She was one of the cyborg's premier hitters and for reasons unknown, she'd been turned loose in the Kantillon Sector by Dr. G. Opol doubted she would turn up on Faraday; it was two subsectors away and relatively unimportant in comparison with Rhysalan, which was the closest major world to Weksler, the scene of her last sighting.
But he dutifully ordered scans of all incoming passengers and arranged for no less than ten surreptitious interviews with likely candidates, all of whom were determined not to be Myranda Flare. It was unfortunate that two of the innocent women who'd tripped the scanners had not made it through the interviews with their sanity entirely intact, but his orders had given him no room for maneuver at all. The psych probes were brutal, but they were a necessary evil when galactic security was at stake.
/> He shook his head. What did the madmen on Kantillon expect of him? He had 47 agents with whom he was supposed to cover an entire planet! There were three national governments for every agent! And then, he had been ordered to drop everything on the off-chance that his men might be able to find one woman, one highly trained woman, in a population of 18.6 billion?
It was a complete waste of time and effort. He glanced at the time and saw he could have left for lunch nearly two kilosecs ago. He snapped his fingers three times to shut everything down, and eased himself out of his chair. The office was nothing special, the agency's front was that of a small lending company that specialized in financing pre-natal DNA modifications, which gave him the ability to meet openly with anyone who could scare up a woman capable of stuffing a pillow inside her clothes.
There were no good restaurants nearby, so he decided to take his var. It was parked on the roof, so he took the lift up and enjoyed the warmth of the sunlight on his face as he stepped outside. He noted that the windows had automatically darkened, thus keeping the inside of the var from overheating. This pleased him, for he was a cleanly man and he disliked getting sweaty at lunchtime, then trying to work the rest of the afternoon being distracted by the knowledge that his body was being engulfed in rapidly growing bacteria.
“Open,” he called to the Zhang Su and the door opened. At the sight of a woman sitting in the passenger seat, he froze and dropped his hand to the holster under his left arm.
“Put that away, Bertrand Opol,” she called out to him. It was not an attractive voice, it was strangely flat and unemotional. “I'm unarmed, and besides, it won't do you any good.”
He ignored her demand and drew his Howa from the holster. But when he tapped on the safety with his thumb, nothing happened. He gingerly tested the trigger and found it was locked solid. Confused, he looked from the slug-thrower to the woman, and tried to turn the safety off again. It didn't respond. Somehow, the Howa had been transformed into 600 grams of useless plasmetal.