Roboteer

by Alex Lamb

  Bryant leaned over and put a hand on his knee. ‘Nonsense, Lieutenant. It’s nothing I wouldn’t have done in your shoes. Let’s look on the bright side. You’ve brought us the plans for the suntap and our engineering labs are already working on it. Though we’ll be careful to use it sparingly, given what you’ve told us. But, even more valuable than that, you’ve bought us a chance to escape. You’re a hero, my boy.’

  John winced. ‘No, sir. Captain Baron was the hero. I was just lucky.’

  Bryant regarded him with something verging on worship. ‘Such selflessness does you credit. You should know, son, that if we survive what’s coming, I’ve decided to personally see to it that you get a ship of your own.’

  John managed a watery smile. ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you.’

  14.4: GUSTAV

  Gustav sat in his cabin and pored over the notes from the interviews he’d conducted. The results were far from satisfactory. Like the two women, Captain Baron had refused to say anything. In contrast, the scientist, Hugo Bessler-Vartian, had rambled incessantly about an alien threat. The man was clearly obsessed with the roboteer to the point of mania.

  Vartian had given his captors a list of demands: the isolation and careful study of Kuno-Monet, the cessation of all hostilities and the complete quarantining of both Galatea and the Relic system. When Gustav had refused to take the man’s claims at face value, Vartian had become emotional, straining the limits of his motor-suppressants until Gustav had been forced to walk out on him. Gustav had his hands full just trying to make sense of it all.

  There was a cough from the open door of the cabin.

  ‘Come in,’ said Gustav.

  Emil Dulan, his head of research, stepped in. Emil looked excited. His long face was split apart with a wide-eyed grin.

  ‘Sir, we’ve found something we think you’ll want to see.’

  ‘You’ve cracked the Galatean security at last?’ Gustav guessed.

  The Ariel’s computers had proven infuriatingly well defended. It was insane that they’d been able to get the crew out of the habitat pod yet were completely unable to access the ship’s most basic records. It was as if the computer had a life of its own. They were learning more simply by cutting through the hull.

  Emil shook his head. ‘Better than that,’ he said.

  Gustav raised one eyebrow. ‘Show me.’

  Emil took him through the habitat ring to a study room lined with wall-sized screens that showed him a view through the eyes of their investigation robots. Hanging in front of them in one of the Ariel’s storage chambers was … something. It towered over them, covered in weirdly shaped sockets and dotted with unrecognisable characters. It looked thousands of years old. And the Galateans had connected it to their own data feeds.

  Gustav didn’t doubt for a moment that it was alien, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up straight. This was the mother-lode. This was what he’d been waiting for. His people had scanned the blank face of the Relic hundreds of times and never found anything like this.

  Which raised an important question: where had the Galateans found it?

  ‘Forget the Ariel’s computers for a while,’ Gustav said quietly. ‘Forget the crew. Focus on this – and be very, very careful.’

  15: LOSING POWER

  15.1: GUSTAV

  Gustav sat in his room, joyfully examining the latest update from the artefact. Life was looking up at last. It had exceeded his expectations. Not only did he have the Galateans, but they’d brought him this wonderful thing.

  Despite some recent damage to its memory cores, they’d managed to work out part of the compression algorithm the alien object used. After ten days of feverish work, data was emerging at last, and there were intimations of secrets in it that would revolutionise the Kingdom. Weapons of unspeakable power. Starship designs like nothing he had ever seen. Star maps for great tracts of the galaxy that man had never visited.

  There were mysteries, too, however, such as the fact that this device looked far less sophisticated than the Relic itself. The builders of the artefact appeared to have a relatively primitive approach to data storage, whereas the fiendishly subtle self-assembling structures that the planet had sent them were nowhere to be seen.

  How could they both be products of the same culture? His best guess was that the artefact came from a far older site. Which suggested that perhaps the Galateans had managed to entice the Relic into giving up the location of the alien home world, and that they’d been there. If that was true, it couldn’t be far away. For all they knew, it was just on the other side of the lobe.

  ‘General,’ said Rodriguez, stepping uninvited through the open door of his cabin.

  ‘Learn to knock, Rodriguez,’ Gustav told him.

  He didn’t bother looking up from his work. He had no time for the disciple now. As soon as they finished unravelling the alien archive, he’d have justification for his project beyond the Prophet’s wildest dreams. Rodriguez would become an irrelevance.

  ‘I have just received word from Admiral Tang,’ said Rodriguez. ‘I decided to bring it to you in person.’

  Gustav suppressed the urge to shout and lowered the tablet he was reading from. After all, there was an outside chance that the message from Tang might actually be important.

  He met Rodriguez’s intensely shining eyes with a steady stare. ‘Go on, then.’

  The disciple looked more cheerful than he had any right to be. ‘Admiral Tang says the fleet can wait no longer. One of the scout runs to the Galatean system has been lost. He is forced to assume that the enemy’s swift and decisive response was intended to prevent our discovery of their defensive manoeuvres. He believes they have wind of our plans and has ordered a general recall of all vessels to attack immediately. He requests that you rendezvous with him at Memburi.’

  Gustav’s lip curled. ‘Oh, he does, does he?’

  That wasn’t Tang’s order to give, but Gustav decided not to jump to conclusions. It could be that Rodriguez had deliberately mangled the message in order to elicit some convenient response from him.

  ‘Well,’ Gustav continued calmly, ‘then I shall tell Admiral Tang that he will have to wait. The value of our work here outweighs his desire for battle.’

  Gustav had begun to wonder if attacking Galatea any time soon was a good idea. It would be far wiser to wring the truth out of the Ariel’s crew first. After that, they might test some of the inventions in the artefact. It had the potential to put their technology generations ahead of the Galateans’. That in turn would render taking possession of the colony world both swift and painless.

  Rodriguez hadn’t stopped smiling. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, General,’ he said. He drew a white and gold data card from the pocket of his ship-suit. ‘I have here a dictate of emergency powers from the Prophet. It transfers control of the military component of this operation to Admiral Tang and jurisdiction over the Relic Project to me.’

  Gustav stared at him. For an awful second, he felt as if his stomach had gone into free fall. Then he caught himself. Rodriguez’s claim didn’t make sense. How could the man have obtained such a thing? It had to be some kind of ruse.

  ‘Oh, really,’ he said, aiming for a tone of dry amusement. ‘And how did you manage that?’

  Rodriguez’s smile became downright predatory. ‘I requested special powers on the same day you sent word to Admiral Tang telling him to deploy his fleet to catch the Ariel.’

  In other words, when Gustav looked the most foolish.

  ‘I simply added a second destination to the messenger drone you sent,’ the disciple continued. ‘The Prophet received a full report, along with word of your decision to use a threat to his person as cover for your blunder. And now his response has arrived at last.’

  The blood drained from Gustav’s face. Now that he thought about it, Rodriguez’s attitude had changed after that day. But Gustav had so much on his mind that he hadn’t even thought to question it.

  A cold sense of certainty se
ttled on him. This was real. He stood up.

  ‘You had no authority to do that,’ he said hollowly.

  ‘No,’ replied Rodriguez. ‘But thankfully the communications officer didn’t appear to realise that. And now I do.’ He pushed his shoulders back. ‘Your commanding officer has issued you with an order. You and your staff will attend Admiral Tang at Memburi and assist him with the battle at Galatea.

  ‘Don’t worry, though,’ the disciple added, raising a placating hand. ‘As head of the Relic Project, I will take responsibility for the prisoners here as well as the new artefact. I have already made a request and a High Church research team is on its way here. They will handle interrogation while I focus on the alien problem.’

  Despite a nauseating feeling of defeat, Gustav refused to give up. He had not survived the brutal days of the early church to have everything snatched away from him at the eleventh hour.

  ‘I won’t let you do this,’ he said simply.

  Rodriguez looked pleased. ‘You have no power to prevent me.’

  Gustav stared at the disciple and thought of the executive automatic still tucked in his pocket. Perhaps he should kill Rodriguez here and now.

  ‘Then I’ll make you regret it.’

  ‘I’m glad you said that,’ said Rodriguez. ‘I had your cabin sensors activated just before I came in.’ He gestured at the cameras in the corners of the room. ‘This conversation and that threat are both now on record. And I warn you, any acts of aggression or attempted subversion of the hierarchy will be considered treason. You may, of course, lodge an appeal with your subsect leader if you so wish. If it succeeds, at that point you may have your object and your prisoners back. Assuming, of course, that there is anything left of them. In the meantime, they will serve my purposes.’

  ‘What do you intend to do with them?’ said Gustav.

  ‘God’s bidding, General, nothing more, nothing less.’ Rodriguez let a little anger creep into his voice. ‘A concept you appear incapable of comprehending. The Gallies will yield their secrets. Then those who can be made to serve the church will do so. The others will be silenced.’

  ‘And the artefact?’

  ‘Its teachings will be extracted to serve the church,’ Rodriguez replied. ‘Then it will be destroyed, along with the Relic world, as originally planned.’

  Gustav’s mouth twisted in bitter amusement. ‘Does it not worry you that I was right?’

  Rodriguez’s brows shot up. ‘About what?’ he sneered. ‘As far as I can see, you have done nothing but mismanage this project since the outset.’

  ‘I said the Relic would prove able to defend itself,’ said Gustav. ‘It has. I said there would be more alien remains. There were. What do you intend to do, Father – wage war against the whole universe?’

  ‘I will answer the call that God has given me,’ Rodriguez snapped. His eyes lit up with zeal. ‘With the knowledge in that artefact, I will make the High Church free,’ he said, thrusting a finger at the images on Gustav’s monitors. ‘No longer shall we have to pander to the lesser churches and their vile machinations. We will be equipped to impose the Law of God directly. The discovery of other remains that concerns you so greatly will never be a problem, as future travel will be under the jurisdiction of the faithful.’

  Gustav stared at him wide-eyed. Rodriguez was mad, he realised. He was talking about doing away with the subsects. He was talking about civil war. He wondered if Tang had the slightest comprehension of what his ally intended to do with the knowledge he’d gained.

  ‘Well, good-bye, General,’ Rodriguez said airily. ‘I can’t say it’s been a pleasure. I have found your arrogant rationalism and contempt for faith equally revolting. I am quite relieved that I shall have to tolerate neither any longer.’

  The disciple stepped to the door to leave and turned back at the last moment. ‘Oh – I almost forgot to tell you. Given that you will no longer be enjoying the benefit of my assistance, I have taken the trouble to assign you two new assistants from the High Church to aid you in your somewhat reduced duties. Let me introduce Brothers Ulkin and Thaud.’

  He gestured and two huge men dressed in High Church white entered the room. They were priests only in the loosest sense possible, being the sort of men used to arguing their beliefs with their fists.

  Then Rodriguez was gone. Gustav stood wordless in the room, considering the brutish countenances before him. His mind raced. How could he win back control? Appealing to the Prophet would be hopeless. The old man had more power within his grasp now than ever before.

  An unlikely notion popped into Gustav’s head. He could arrange escape for the Galateans. If he changed sides, he was sure they’d tell him everything they knew. He grimaced, disgusted with himself. He was not desperate enough yet to throw in his lot with a bunch of capitalist mutants like Captain Baron. Better to play along until he could think of a better plan. He just hoped his prisoners would still be alive by the time he came up with one.

  15.2: WILL

  While his body lay curled on the floor of his cell, Will paced up and down in the seclusion of his home node. For the hundredth time, he debated with himself whether he should have told General Ulanu all that he had. He had no doubt that Ira would be furious with him. And in telling the truth as he saw it, he might have unwittingly given Ulanu a weapon to prise information out of the other crewmembers.

  Why had he done it? Because he had found something that surprised him in the general – a kind of frankness, an urgent desire for knowledge almost as strong as Hugo’s. But in Ulanu, it was tempered and controlled. He had looked genuinely honest, if rather unsettlingly cold and somewhat warped by his Earth-centric perspective.

  Ulanu had kindled a small flame of hope in Will. A hope that perhaps this particular Earther might actually listen and be able to do something about their plight. The ones who’d come afterwards, the members of Ulanu’s research team, had appeared blunt and ineffectual by comparison.

  They certainly weren’t what Will had expected to encounter at the Kingdom’s hands. He’d experienced little more than a cuff across the face and a few days of carefully engineered starvation. Since then, he’d come to feel almost neglected. A week had gone by in which precisely nothing had happened. Even so, Will was determined to be careful. There was no way of telling when the knives would come out.

  On the walls of his personal metaphor space, he’d mapped out his story in graphic detail to keep it straight. It included all the things he wanted the Earthers to know and those he’d rather they didn’t, such as the location of the Fecund star system. It was becoming hard to manage, though. He was running out of space in his interface memory, and without connection to a proper computer there were no other virtual spaces he could reach. He was forced to rely on the resources of his own very human powers of recall.

  Will heard a hiss as the door of his cell opened. He sat up and saw a stranger enter the room. The visitor was a soft, fat man dressed entirely in white with distant eyes and a small, V-shaped smile. The door closed behind him. The stranger appeared to be completely alone and unarmed but Will was not so naïve as to imagine he was unprotected.

  ‘Ah, you are awake,’ the man said. ‘I’m so glad. Let me introduce myself. I am Father Gabriel Vargas. I am your new chief interrogator.’

  A cold wind of unease passed through Will’s body. ‘What happened to General Ulanu?’ he said.

  Vargas made a vague gesture with his hand. ‘He was called away. You and your friends have been passed to the jurisdiction of the High Church Inquisitory Branch. Things will be a little different from now on. But it’s nothing to upset yourself about.’

  He spoke in a mild, slightly condescending voice, as if to a child.

  ‘You’re very lucky,’ said the priest. ‘Disciple Rodriguez has decided that you’re worth keeping.’

  Will didn’t like the sound of that. And who the hell was Disciple Rodriguez?

  ‘What does that mean?’ he demanded. ‘What about my friends?’


  ‘You’ll see them eventually,’ Vargas assured him.

  His voice was no doubt intended to sound reassuring, but to Will it sounded so serene and oily as to be terrifying.

  ‘Lots of exciting things will be happening,’ said Vargas. ‘First you’ll tell us what you know, and then we’d like you to help us. Disciple Rodriguez has decided that you’ll make an excellent leader for a subsect. A very minor one, of course.’ He flourished fingers like well-fed maggots. ‘But a fully fledged subsect nonetheless. We’ll need people like you to help us bring Galateans into the fold after the occupation.’

  Will couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was Vargas out of his mind?

  ‘You’re joking,’ he said.

  ‘Oh no!’ said Vargas, gently inclining his head. ‘I’m entirely in earnest, and leader of a subsect is a wonderful position. You’ll live very well, and get to decide the common laws for your Following. Of course, most of them will be suggested by us, but I’m certain you’ll agree with our recommendations. You’re perfect, you see. The propaganda people are going to love you – a representative of one of Galatea’s oppressed underclass who’s seen the light.’ Vargas’s face glowed with sanctimonious delight as he imagined it.

  ‘I’ll never help you,’ said Will.

  Vargas carried on, apparently indifferent to the remark. ‘You’re going to love your new role. Except of course, we can’t let you keep that interface thing of yours.’ He waggled a finger at Will’s neck. ‘That’s an abomination before God.’

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ Will snapped. ‘I’d rather die. Fuck you, and fuck your God.’

  Vargas nodded knowingly to himself. ‘Of course, a little re-education may be in order. We can’t have you using such terrible language.’

  The priest held up a hand and clicked his fingers. At the same instant, something small and sharp buried itself in Will’s side. Will turned to find the origin of the projectile in time to see a small metal nozzle sliding back into the wall near the ceiling. As he stared at it, his vision began to blur. The room spun.