by Chris Walley
“Perhaps. This man—I didn’t get the name—why should I trust him?”
“His name is Kezurmati Azeras and his . . . title is sarudar. Among the True Freeborn the first name is . . . was . . . rarely used outside the family. If you meet him, he will respond to Sarudar Azeras. As for why you should trust him, you must decide that. But learn this, you and he have a common enemy, as I now do. The Dominion will destroy us all. That is why we are hiding and that is why this must be kept utterly secret. It is only because the sarudar is close to dying that I have taken the risk of contacting you.”
“I see,” Merral said as he stared at the diary. Can I be sure I’m not hallucinating? Or that I’m not still asleep and dreaming?
“We need your help, and in return we will help you.”
“How?”
“I offer you a deal.”
“What sort of deal?” Merral heard suspicion in his voice.
“In return for the successful medical treatment, I offer you and the Assembly advice and assistance that you will find useful. I expect the sarudar will do the same, if he recovers.”
“What sort of advice and assistance?”
“You have a . . . crisis, Commander.” Betafor paused. “Your worst fears are justified. The Lord-Emperor Nezhuala knows that you exist and that access to you is now possible. You can expect a visit from the Dominion very soon. As a world, you are unprepared for this. I can offer you advice that will help. You need me. Heal Sarudar Azeras, keep us secret and safe, and we will give you help.”
“Betafor, in the Assembly we do not ‘strike a deal’ over injured people. We will do all we can to heal this man. We would do it anyway. I’m interested in any information you can offer, but I won’t negotiate over a sick man.”
There was a pause as if Merral’s statement required thought. “Hardly a rational response, but I accept your offer. But do you agree to the condition of secrecy?”
“Wait.” Merral paused. “A few more people must know. My aide, Lloyd, a biologist, Anya.”
“Anya Lewitz?”
“Yes.”
“As you wish, but no more. That is already seven people. But do you agree to the deal?”
“Wait.” What do I say? Come on, Vero!
“Wait for what?”
“Tell me about yourself. We have no such machin—intelligent synthetic organisms.”
“I know. We Allenix are built to serve. I first served the Dominion and was taken by the True Freeborn and served them. But I am now prepared to serve the Assembly.”
“I see.” I don’t. Not at all. “What does it mean to serve?”
“I may not understand your question correctly. I understand serve to mean that I obey you as long as my own survival is not threatened.”
I need to think about that. To keep the conversation going, he asked, “Where could we meet you?”
“Two hundred meters east of the point where the Monatombo and Keletai Rivers join is a large flat rock big enough for a general survey craft to land on. You may find it easier to land there by daylight. I will be present a hundred meters to the east of your landing spot at exactly 1900 hours tomorrow local time. That is 1500 hours, Central Menaya time. I will reveal my location by a series of short flashes of white light.”
“That’s very soon. It gives us barely sixteen hours.”
“I think you can arrange it. You are, after all, a commander.” There was a trace of sarcasm in the voice.
Can a machine be sarcastic?
Just then Lloyd slipped in and mouthed that Vero was on his way, but would be another ten minutes.
“Betafor, you mentioned Sentinel Enand. Can you call back in half an hour?”
“As you wish. But time is limited.”
The line went dead.
Merral threw a few more clothes on, brewed some strong coffee, and then, his mind in utter turmoil, replayed the conversation. We have a claim that an intelligent machine and a man have survived the destruction of the intruder ship. It is either the longed-for and prayed-for breakthrough or something far nastier. God, give me the wisdom to know which it is.
Merral then called up a map and imagery of Ilakuma on the wallscreen. Zooming to the highest resolution available, he found the rock slab at the river junction. It lay in the depths of a deep westward-facing valley in the heart of a rugged and highly fractured massif, and seemed almost overwhelmed by thick rain forest. It was at least a hundred kilometers from the island’s only settlement—Port Angby.
“Good place to hide,” Lloyd said and Merral could only agree.
Ten minutes after the call had ended, Vero rushed in looking weary and sweating. “A problem?” he asked.
“I’ve had the most extraordinary message. It’s hard to make sense of it. Listen to this.”
Vero listened wide-eyed to the conversation, his jaw moving up and down as if it had an independent life.
When the message ended, Merral said, “So, we have twenty minutes until the next call. What do we do?”
Vero looked first at Merral, then at the diary, and then back at Merral. “I h-had presumed I’d prepared for every eventuality.” There was a stunned tone to his voice. “But not th-this.”
“But is it genuine? And can we trust this . . . machine?”
Vero made no answer, but bounded to his feet and began pacing the floor. “My friend,” he said, his voice almost quivering with excitement, “I feel like my b-brain is bursting. There is just too much here: survivors of the ship, intelligent machines, above all.” He looked up, his brown eyes glistening. “The opportunity of information—information that we vitally need, but we thought we would never have. I think this may be the answer to our prayers. Oh, let it be genuine! And let it be in time.” He paused, raising a hand. “Ilakuma. Of course. That explains that anomaly.”
“But how could they have survived the blast?” Merral asked.
“The social anomalies at Ilakuma predate the destruction of the ship. They must have been there already. We knew there was a ferry craft.”
Merral caught a faint frown on Lloyd’s face and gestured for him to speak.
“Sir, Mr. V.,” the large man said slowly, “look, I hate to say this, but can we rule out that this is a trap? Let’s say they are survivors as they claim, right? But we destroyed their ship. These guys—well this guy and this thing—may wish for revenge.”
“A setup,” Vero said before turning to Merral with a hint of a smile. “Behold, another man who is immersing himself in pre-Intervention literature. I have trained him well. But it is a disturbing point and one that had occurred to me. My friend, what do you think?”
“I was working on vaguely parallel lines. After all, I have already met synthetic creatures who were intelligent.”
“Ah, the Krallen,” Vero said, with an uncomfortable look.
“There is another matter,” Merral added. “This thing wants a deal. Do I have the authority to negotiate with it? Isn’t that something that should be decided by . . . I don’t know . . . the representatives?”
Vero’s face twisted into a look of unease. “Perhaps, my friend, but this is a gray area. Our Assembly habits of open debate and dialogue are not suited for a time of war.”
His troubled tone reminded Merral that a lot of what his friend had done had been without any higher authorization. Then Vero spoke again. “Were Corradon more on top of things, I think you would discuss it with him. But he isn’t. So I think it is best to consider it a military matter. Therefore, it falls under your authority.”
“So being commander puts me above all normal authorities?”
“In matters of security. It is one of the dangers of war.”
“It’s hardly satisfactory.”
“War never is.”
“Very well.” Merral sighed. “When this thing calls back, let’s have a look at it.”
“I agree.”
At that moment the diary chimed.
“This is Betafor. I need a decision.”
�
��Betafor,” Merral asked. “We want to see you; can you go to visual?”
“Yes.”
“Then we will too.”
The wallscreen suddenly lit up with an image of an unevenly mottled green face with large dark gray eyes. Merral struggled to put together what he saw. Whether seen from the side or the front, the shape of the upper part of the face was triangular, narrowing to a point that would have been a nose on an animal. The lower part of the face, below a broad, thick-lipped mouth, was much shallower. The creature’s eyes had a hint of lids. Behind the eyes were set a pair of triangular ears. The overall effect was closest to that of a dog. Yet the mottled skin with its fine bumps and indentations seemed closer to some sort of inorganic fabric than animal flesh.
As the being moved its head around as if to allow them a better view, a narrow neck could be seen.
The view zoomed out to show Betafor sitting on her haunches rather like a begging dog or a kangaroo might do. Merral found it hard to make any immediate sense of her torso, but noted thin arms with long fingers and a tail that tapered away from her body to a fine point. In an instant he saw that she wore a waistcoat or sleeveless jacket made from some heavy, but smooth-textured cloth. It wears clothes!
“Are you a Krallen?” Merral asked, seeing both differences and similarities to the beings he had seen on the ship.
The creature lifted its head with a mechanical smoothness and stared at him. “Krallen? No. I am . . . puzzled how you know their name. No, I am not.” The tone was almost agitated.
Merral glimpsed bare rock behind the creature and the thought came to him that the setting was perhaps a cave.
“If I were a Krallen, I would not have . . . the brains to find you. If I were a Krallen, I would have killed Sarudar Azeras.”
Merral saw the lips move, the one soft feature on an otherwise unyielding face. The creature’s handling of Communal was good. There was a noticeable deliberateness and precision to the phrasing. Still struggling as to whether he should treat Betafor as a machine or a person, Merral had a sudden insight that there was more to this than grammar. All our dealings are founded on whether we relate to each other as things or beings.
“All of you, learn this. We, the Allenix, came first. . . . We were made by men in . . . the earliest days of the Freeborn.” The creature’s tone was firm, almost harsh. “We were created as watchers, translators, and negotiators. We were given intelligence and language so that we might serve and we have developed since. The Krallen came after us. They were modeled on us, but were made to be killers. They are stupid. They do not speak—they have only hatred and cunning. We loathe them.”
Curiously, it was that last phrase, we loathe them, that made Merral’s mind up that he was dealing with a person. There was such a sense of outrage behind it that he felt that what he had said had been taken as an insult. And if you can feel insulted, you are surely a person.
Betafor moved toward whatever was imaging her. “Look at me,” she said, extending her forelimbs to show long, rounded, nail-less fingers. “Do I have metal alloy nails to claw flesh? Do I have sharpened fangs that can tear off limbs?” The creature moved her head forward on her long neck, opened her mouth and tilted it several ways, exposing only tiny, smooth, flat-topped teeth behind her strangely broad and flexible lips. “Do I have a toughened skin to protect me in battle?” She tilted upright, exposing the top of her chest through a gap in the fabric jacket. Although her skin was marked out by the same faint lines Merral had seen in the Krallen, it was very different. While they were covered mostly in semirigid tiles that gave their bodies an angular form, she was wrapped with softer tiles that gave her a rounder shape.
Her eyes opened and shut in a sort of leisurely blink. “Do I look like a killing machine?”
“No.” I do hope I’m right. The chief emotion she aroused in him was curiosity, not fear.
“Good. I am an Allenix, not a Krallen. Now let us proceed. Will you come and help?”
“Show us this man,” said Vero.
“Ah, Verofaza, the sentinel. We too were made to be sentinels.”
Merral caught his friend’s look of alarm. How much does this creature know and if she knows so much, what does this say about our vulnerability?
There was a pause.
“As you wish.” The screen went blank and a few moments later an image of a man lying on some sort of bed appeared. His face was bearded and gaunt, and framed by long, matted black hair. A thin sheet covered his chest and legs and around his neck was some sort of medical dressing. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow and rapid.
“Not in good shape,” Vero muttered.
The image shifted to Betafor.
“Will you come?”
In the silence that followed Lloyd and Vero turned to Merral.
They expect me to make the decision. “Betafor,” he said slowly, “I want an assurance there will be no tricks.”
“I promise. And I trust there must be no tricks from you.”
“There will be none. We do not use tricks.”
He realized that he had chosen. So help me, God. “Very well. I will do my best to be there. I cannot speak for the others. They must make their choice.”
“Good. I will see you later today.”
The screen went blank.
“I meant what I said.” Merral’s quiet words seemed to echo in the silence that followed. “I will go alone. I feel it is a risk that must be taken. We have prayed for help and I believe this may be it.”
“You don’t go anywhere without me, sir.” Lloyd tapped his gun. “And some hardware.”
Vero stared at the diary as if it gave an answer. “I will come too. I have my misgivings, but I too think this is the answer to our prayers.”
“Who do we take as doctor? Felix Azhadi?”
Vero shook his head. “No, he’s busy and he’s FDF. I want to put clear water between us and them on this.”
“‘Clear water’?”
“Distance. The FDF is now too big to keep this quiet. Leave it to me. I’ll call Perena. In the meantime, better get some sleep. Tomorrow may be a long day.”
“You realize, of course,” Perena said at Isterrane airport the following morning, “that Ilakuma is one of the wettest parts of this planet?”
Merral stared at the large image that Lloyd held up against the fuselage of the Nesta Lamaine, seeing confirmation of her statement in the lurid green expanses of jungle and the white meshwork of foaming rivers.
“And that by seven tonight there will almost certainly be torrential rain? And that the Eligotal Highlands are one of the roughest areas on the planet? If I had to hide a ferry craft or a base, it’s a place I would consider. There are cavities and holes here you could conceal a fleet in.”
“Are you saying there may be some rough flying?” Vero asked, his face registering unease.
A look of amused sympathy appeared on Perena’s face. “Only at the end. It’ll be a four-hour flight. I’m staying within the atmosphere and taking it slow. But the seating that we have fitted into the hold is rather basic and doesn’t absorb motion. So as a precaution, I suggest you just don’t eat.”
She turned to the stocky lady with dark brown hair who stood by Merral. “Sorry, Arabella, I should have warned you. Vero here doesn’t travel well.”
A smile spread across the broad face of Dr. Arabella Huangho. “I’ll see what I can find in my bag. Infections and tropical diseases are my speciality but I may be able to help here. Tablet, injection, or suppository, Sentinel Enand? Or just a very large bag?”
Relieved that the newcomer seemed to be fitting in, Merral noticed Anya grinning and his heart gave a turn. For all my resolve, I am still terribly fond of her. For the hundredth time he cursed his public renunciation of relationships. How unspeakably stupid to have taken a vow that, it now turns out, has been witnessed by almost the entire planet! Had I not chosen that route, I might, by now, have ended things with Isabella and been free to pursue my heart’s d
esire. “You will pay a price for today’s words,” the envoy said. Today, seeing Anya, I sense something of that cost.
There was a gesture from the cockpit window.
“Deanna is summoning us,” Perena said. “Time to go.” She shook her head at Lloyd as he picked up a very large and evidently heavy bag whose fabric bulged around a number of ominous looking tubes. “And Sergeant Enomoto, can you keep the safety catches on?”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Perena and Merral were the last left outside. Perena stood back and made what was clearly a last visual check.
“So here we are again, Captain,” Merral said. “A new mission.”
“Just so,” came the somber reply. “I’ve studied the recording of your conversation. I think you made the right decision. It may be an answer to our prayers, but I’m uneasy. I just think . . .”
“What?”
“There’s something not right about this. Machine or not, something doesn’t ring true.”
“If it’s a trap, we’re terribly vulnerable.”
“Yes. I wondered about putting a drone ship down first, but we don’t have the time.”
“Perena, are you scared?”
“Scared?” Perena’s smile was unfathomable. “We talked about this before. There are many types of fear. Fear of failure, fear of not doing what is right, fear of dying. Are these all the same thing?”
“Good question. And what concerns you today?”
“Today? My primary concern is that none of us be killed. My secondary concern is about any loss or damage to the ship.” She paused and when she spoke again she seemed to speak from a vast distance. “Or perhaps, more accurately, I’m most scared about the enemy achieving either of those things cheaply.”
“Cheaply?”
“Merral, by all accounts, war will soon be upon us. We have limited resources. Speaking for myself, if I must lose my ship or my life, I would prefer to do so where it counts most.” She ran a hand through her cropped hair.
“I see.”
“Well then, let’s fly.”
As they flew south at high subsonic speed, Perena explained her strategy to Merral. On arrival at Ilakuma, they would circle high over the island for some time looking and listening for anything untoward. If there were no problems, she would then make a low, ground-hugging approach to the landing zone where she would hover long enough for Lloyd to leap out before taking off again. Only when Lloyd had given the all-clear would there be a full landing.