by Sharon Lee
“I don’t know either, but I’ve got him on a tricky bit right now,” Theo said. “Trying to convince the Old Tech on the Docent to misbehave.” She checked…something internally, and added, “We’re running down to deadline. Is there something else? Joyita, can you…?”
Joyita pursed his lips.
“I can multitask, Captain. But captaining seven ships at once is something even Bechimo might find a challenge. There might be another solution available to us. I will need to do research.”
“Do it,” said Theo.
* * *
Joyita had provided an inventory database, purloined from the Jumble Stop’s computer, no doubt, that listed each ship name and the command password for each. This made Win Ton’s task easier, but, as he quickly discovered, by no means easy.
He had meant to guide all of the operable ships into the fray, to activate the vessels and steer them in the right direction before raising the threat. Joyita managed the narrow beam comm lines, and aimed them with precision.
His first-chosen ship answered sluggishly and required re-entering passwords. He moved to the next, which was sprightly by comparison, and had only recently been recharged, battery and reaction mass. Still it took time to learn the ship’s idiosyncratic remotes, to discover which orientation it enjoyed, how many thrusters and what power…and if they only could bring two to the fray…but there was another close enough to bring about and start, once they had their time set. He moved onto the third…
By the time he had activated the seventh, he was quite exhausted, his shirt sticky with sweat.
“I think,” he said to Joyita, “that what we have here wakened must be our fleet.”
“I agree,” Joyita responded at once. “We’ll inform the Captain.”
* * *
“Captain,” Joyita said; “Bechimo has reserve personalities in storage, which are potentially available for our use.”
Theo considered him.
“Potentially?” she repeated.
“Access requires the captain’s sign-off.”
It was as if he had suddenly placed the information into the middle of her brain. She instantly understood that there were reserve personalities on-board, locked away from Bechimo’s access, nascent, emergency, in case something…went wrong with the primary.
She blinked free of the data and focused again on Joyita’s face.
“But—are they…people?” she demanded. “And—wait. They have to be physically placed. We can’t—”
Joyita’s hand produced the rippling sign that Theo recognized as one Clarence used for yes-and-no or maybe.
“People? No, Captain. They have the potential to become people. They are, as they were stored, unique. Individual. In order to achieve full functionality, yes, they ought to be physically placed. They do not need to be physically placed in order to perform this task; downloading a shadow will suffice. I think.”
“You think?”
“This is a new protocol,” Joyita admitted; “and not…precisely what the Founders intended. But, now that I am stable, and you have bonded with Bechimo, we need not be as conservative as we have been. We can risk one download of one stored personality. There are others.”
There were, Theo acknowledged, checking her new-found facts, others. And they were, at base, computers.
“Yes,” said Joyita, as if he had read her mind. “As computers, they can perform complex tasks, and they can be patient, quickly. What I propose is to download a single shadow-personality to the computers Pilot Win Ton has wakened. The personality may then coordinate a pseudofractal core within the most powerful of those ships—in effect this will produce an extended control cloud rather than a single-source directory.”
“It—she! will think it’s one…person, spread across—how many ships?”
“Seven,” Win Ton said.
“Yes, Captain.”
“Will she be able to…survive?”
Joyita looked doubtful.
“I don’t know, Captain. To the best of my knowledge, and Bechimo’s, no one has attempted…precisely this. The…vocation…of the first Joyita, Bechimo’s teacher, was the waking and socialization of machine intelligences. Whether the personality can cohere and become viable over the long term without such a teacher—there’s no data.”
No data, thought Theo, glancing at the board for the countdown. Time was running fast.
“What do I have to do, to sign-off?” she asked, and immediately understood the protocol.
She spun to her board, her fingers reaching naturally to the new-risen section, and moved quickly.
“Done,” she said.
* * *
“Theo, those devices which listened to my suggestions should begin to seem to malfunction in approximately four minutes,” Bechimo said in her ear.
“Excellent, thank you,” she said, her attention on her screens.
The cluster of seven ships was moving, with purpose, and more quickly than she had expected they would, on a course for the station, and the Docent’s berthing; their progress was on her aux screen.
Second aux displayed a continually updating chart showing three emergency out-system exit routes, one to simply clear the station, one to clear the graveyard’s vicinity, and one to a standard Jump.
“The question is,” Theo said, to the control room at large: “Do we leave them an exit route?”
“Yes,” Bechimo said. “It would be best if they were gone; there are no resources here to hold them securely.”
Theo nodded, and looked to Win Ton, who gave her a small, but determined smile.
“Time to make a call, then,” she said, and reached for the mic.
“Attention, attention. Theo Waitley here.”
The woman she had spoken to before answered the hail immediately.
“Pilot, how good of you to come to your senses with so much time left on our offer. You are, I assume, ready to remove yourself from the ship and join your crew here on the station?”
Theo wished she felt as confident as she wanted to project.
“No, I’m afraid I must ask you to reconsider your proposal. I’ve been working with the Struven unit, here, and I’m pleased to report that it’s operating well. Unfortunately, the unit you have on the Docent is contaminated by having Jumped with live subetherics in place and is likely subverting the other specialized tech on-board. If I’m reading this right, you’re about to have a nasty situation, shipside.”
There was a pause, during which Theo watched the progress of their tiny fleet toward the station.
“Pilot, your concern is touching. Please be assured that we can keep our own ship. The matter that stands between us is the exchange of the ship Bechimo for your crew, whom we hold.”
Theo licked her lips, eyes on the moving ships. Soon, now, somebody on-board the Docent ought to notice that something odd was going on.
“Please give the comm to one of my crew. I have only your word that they are still with you.
“My ship and I are in control,” Theo spoke into the mic, “of the useful Old Tech in this system as well as the the salvage fleet. Discovery process performed by my ship has determined that the Old Tech in your vessel is an uncontrollable threat, and we have activated the local fleet in defense of the station against that threat.”
She paused, then spoke again.
“I’m waiting to hear from my crew members,” she said. “Meanwhile, we are all at risk from the whimsical items in your vessel, the more so the longer you stay within contact range of the fleet. The fleet is mobile and prepared to deal with this issue.”
“Waitley, time shrinks with this foolishness!”
Theo’s eye fell on the Jumpboard. Fourteen seconds, encompassing the time it would take to push the go button, demolish the connection to the station—and a goodly portion of the station as well—and build to Jump power.
“Have you checked with your ship?” she asked the woman.
On her aux screen, the cluster of ships began to separ
ate, some with more radial motion than others. Bechimo’s projection predicted an eventual, and enveloping, bubble. For the moment, it was an oblate sphere of purposeful menace. There was a dimple in the bubble; if Docent crew was quick, they could still undock and leave.
“You will observe that the fleet is in action,” Theo said into the mic. “You still have time to leave in an orderly fashion. Free our crew and that stationers. If you do not act by the time you’ve previously set, the fleet will envelop your ship and your toys will be all the more dangerous because you can’t control them!”
In the aux screen, several of the seven ships showed a flare of shielding. A mist vented from the largest of the group—looked like a mining rig—passing closest to the Docent. Theo’s heart leapt; if the ship was losing life-support—
She shook her head. Life-support, she reminded herself, wasn’t an issue for any of the ships in the cluster.
“Theo?” came a wrenchingly familiar voice from the comm.
Kara. Kara was alive; well enough to talk…
And Kara was Liaden.
“Captain Waitley here,” she said, crisply. “Condition report, Tech?”
“Captain,” Kara said, and repeated, “Captain. Thank you, Captain. Second Board is with me, and some others, also. Bruised, and thirsty. Some of us are a little bloody. There were only four but they hit us with strike string—”
There was noise, like the mic being jiggled, then Kara was gone and the other woman was back.
“Waitley, enough. We have your crew. We have—”
“Time shrinks,” Theo insisted. “You said so. May I point out that the presence of so many ships will make your departure unlikely? Run the math, Pilot. The ships with Jump potential are taking their units live. If you haven’t cast off in five minutes, you’ll be engulfed.”
Theo looked at the screen from the lead ship’s vantage…
“If you damage the station you’ll be within our range, and unable to know where we are. Return my crew their comms, release them, remove yourself, and you have a clear lane out—our ships will not impede you. You’ll note that your ship is not only weapons targeted, but subject to ramming. Four minutes—I implore you to run! You do not wish to meet me again. Give my crew their comms and I will order them not to impede you. They must be on my deck before you leave!”
“Captain! O’Berin here. They’re gone. Running for their ship!”
“Get here, Clarence,” Theo said urgently. “Run!”
* * *
Kara had submitted to having her various cuts cleaned, and antisept applied. Clarence shrugged off skinned knuckles and insisted on brewing a pot of tea.
Beverage in hand, they all watched the screens.
Donihue’s Docent was cast off, and running.
The ships of the fleet held position—more or less held position. The mining rig that had vented drifted a little, but nothing like a pursuit was mounted.
Ten minutes out, the Docent ejected a cargo net. Theo leaned forward, zooming in on the netting, seeing the nacreous shimmer she now knew to be unshielded emanations from Old Tech. The netting seemed to writhe, twist, and change shape as she watched, while the Docent’s lines grew firm, even as it fled.
Fifteen minutes out, a projectile was loosed from the mining rig.
“What was it?” cried Kara.
“Explosive, more like,” said Clarence, shaking his head. “Can’t say it’s a bad notion.”
But it seemed that Clarence was wrong, or, if the miner had thrown an explosive, it was no longer viable.
Clarence finished his tea, asked permission to go off-shift and left the command deck. A few minutes later, Kara did the same.
And so it was Theo, Win Ton, Joyita, and Bechimo who were there to witness it, at twenty-eight minutes, when Donihue’s Docent blew up.
Chapter Forty
Jamiatha’s Jumble Stop
“You’ve done me hard here, Pilot Waitley!” the repair tech said. He’d lost his cap, and his head showed three crusted scrapes.
Kara sniffed.
“Captain Waitley relieved your station of pirate infestation. The entirety of your operation was compromised and Captain Waitley utilized available resources, sir, to give your station back to you.”
He had the grace to look a little sheepish. “Don’t know how to figure this with the bill, though.”
Clarence sniffed this time. “Add it to the credit line, then. Laughing Cat ships get Priority One when they come here, right?”
On screen, the seven ships were visible as a defensive line between the station and the Jump point, holding steady.
“Dunno how to get ’em back, neither,” the tech continued. “Tried the command codes, an’ all I got was a nice piece o’back-chat from the bigrig saying as how she was on-mission.”
“May I?” requested Theo, hand signing talk talk ship talk and taking up the hardwired communicator when the tech glumly nodded.
“Bechimo, who is on comm?”
“Joyita,” said Joyita.
“Excellent. I’m wondering, Joyita, if you have those working frequencies we discussed. There seems to be an issue with the ships we activated to the station’s defense.”
“Rub it in, why not?” the tech muttered. Theo ignored him.
“We are observing this, Captain. We wonder if perhaps you might speak to…the ships yourself?”
The tech rubbed his head, winced. “Yahwell, you programmed ’em, din’t you? Might be they’ll lissen to you.”
Theo put her finger to her lips.
“Give me the channels and frequencies, please, Joyita.”
“Transmitting. Adding, we’ve had no response ourselves, Captain, to the serial number orders, either voice or data. I am requested to inform you that it is six hours to Jump if we leave within the hour; after that it’s eight hours for some days.”
“Thank you, Joyita. Monitor, please.”
Theo indicated stylus pad; the technician accommodated grumpily, and she pointed him toward the comm board, tapping the top frequency.
“This is Captain Waitley, off Bechimo. Am I heard? May I have the courtesy of an answer? Please reply in voice Terran. We have a situation here which only you can assist with.”
Theo looked to the screens, saw the distance, began to count…
“Admiral Bunter acknowledges.” The voice was slow, as if the new personality wasn’t easy with the tongue. It had cadence, for all of that—not a machine voice.
The technician dropped his stylus, his mouth fell open, and he swung toward a monitor at the back of the counter.
“…ain’t held air in fifty Standards,” Theo heard him mutter. “None of ’em!”
“Jamiatha’s Jumble Stop,” Theo said, ignoring the tech, “is concerned about your well-being. We are concerned about the well-being of the station-keep, pirates being just put off. You understand about pirates, I believe.”
“We are still assembling our self,” came the slow response. “We do understand about pirates. We dealt appropriately with pirates. Chase and retrieval was not possible. All units are not yet coordinated nor properly fueled. We may be underpowered. Research is necessary. Inventory is necessary. Repairs may be necessary.”
“Admiral, consider this. I am off Bechimo, and we began this mission. I would like you to know that Bechimo’s programming requires training for safety sake. We will send for a trainer.” She made a mental note to have Bechimo direct a pinbeam to Jeeves. No sooner had she formed the thought than she was certain the beam had been sent.
“We will accept training. Our intent is to guard, to protect the station from pirates. We have purpose. We accept it.”
“Excellent,” Theo said. “Bechimo will be casting off soon. Your contact will be here at the station. I am giving comm to him so that you may coordinate. Do you understand?”
“I understand. Captain Waitley, Admiral Bunter stands by.”
“Thank you for your help,” Theo said. “The next voice you hear will be your co
ntact on-station.”
She flicked the comm off.
“I’m sorry,” she told the staring tech. “We had an old self-adjusting coordination program on board—you know the age of the ship!—and we couldn’t manually run enough of the graveyard at once, so we installed it.”
“Coordination program?” He looked thoughtful. “You’re leaving me a ghost, are you? An AI?”
Theo nodded, hoping she had judged the man right. A tech in charge of this yard couldn’t, she thought, be particularly partial to the Complex Logic Laws.
“Got some old training manuals in back,” he said. “Best you send that trainer, though, if you can.”
He reached for the mic, and flicked it on.
“Admiral,” he said carefully…and laughed self-consciously.
“Admiral Bunter is it? This is Stew, on Jamiatha’s Jumble Stop. You wanna stay together, you want fuel, you gotta talk to me. And you wanna a’just that orbit pronto and station-keep right close here like you was these past years till we get things together for you. Is that clear? We need to talk. Figure out what’s best for all. What do you say?”
“I say it is clear,” came the response, quicker now. “I say we need to talk.”
The tech smiled, and reached to the comm switch.
* * *
Clarence was sitting first, with Kara on second for her first Jump-out on Bechimo.
Crew had decided to retreat to Bechimo’s safe spot, where keys would be manufactured and tuned to both the ship and the Captain’s key. After that, they’d get underway to Surebleak, and after that?
They’d have to see.
Theo had danced, and showered, and laid down in her bunk, lights out, and oxy a little heavy.
She closed her eyes, the murmuring that had never entirely gone away intensifying, bathing her in a sense of safety and love as she slid into sleep.
Chapter Forty-One
Bechimo
Space snapped into being around them—wyrd space, granted, but familiar and therefore homey.
For about six seconds.
“Collision alert! Intruder alert! Ship in peril! Shields on high! Weapons live! Target acquired!”