by Mark Wandrey
The floor was the same material as the walls and ceiling, and it was utterly clean. Either the space was perfectly sealed, or it was kept spotless by robot maintenance. Aaron was standing by an arched doorway a little over two meters tall. Short for a human. Luckily they were both short for humans.
He was examining a Concordian locking mechanism with floating holographic icons of a type they'd both seen before. “Same as the Fire Base,” he noted. Minu knew only too well. Thanks to the Weavers, her brain had been uploaded with a vast amount of secret codes usable on just such artifacts left behind by the People. She understood only a fraction of the codes and algorithms that rattled around her brain.
“Sure is,” she agreed. “Lilith was dead on. This is the work of the People all right.” She stepped closer and twisted a few of the icons. The codes itched in the back of her mind like she imagined a missing limb would feel. “This was recently unlocked.”
“Pip?”
“I didn't think he knew any of the codes.” She started down the hall. Ten meters down there was another door, this one closed. The floating icons swirled in a repeating pattern. “Well, if it was Pip he screwed up.”
“What does it mean?”
“The door is under lockout. Someone tripped the security protocol.” She started manipulating the codes, allowing her hands to work without conscious thought. She learned years ago that trying to think it through was completely counterproductive.
Her conscious mind analyzed what she saw, ever so slowly making sense out of one series of codes or another, occasionally picking up a logic string or a recurring series of elements. Each icon could be manipulated in three axes or interfaced with any other icons, thus creating dozens or hundreds of more icons. The possibilities were nearly limitless. Her hands worked steadily.
“Doesn't that ever make you dizzy? It must be like having a computer in your brain.”
“More like being possessed,” she said without looking away. “The scary thing is I'm starting to really understand some of it.” He just shook his head as she worked. “How are we on time?”
“No problem. I'm more worried about Pip and the Rasa. They've been EVA for more than eight hours. These suits are only good for twelve in ideal circumstances.”
“Not a lot of margin for error,” Minu agreed. There might be four hours by the books, but that didn't include extra exertion, or the time it would take to get them back to the shuttle.
“Can you get through this?”
“I think so. It's just got several extra levels of security.”
“Then how did Pip get through?”
Minu smiled. “He was tricked. It let him in, and trapped him.” A second later the icons flashed and the pattern changed. Then the door obediently retracted into the floor to reveal four surprised bipeds in space suits. “Dr. Livingston, I presume?” As soon as the door opened, their radios were once again working.
“Very funny,” Pip said, exasperation obvious on his face. It was hard to read the expression of a Rasa, but the way they all came out and shook their hands (another learned human ritual) and patted them in thanks it was clearly understood. “I sometimes regret getting you interested in old Earth literature.”
“You've been memorizing lock codes from me?”
“I can hardly deny it now, can I?”
“The problem is the algorithms are not linear.”
“I know that now. Maybe you can teach more to me.”
“I doubt it. My ability to use the talent is completely subjective.” Pip made a face and she shrugged. “Shall we get you out of here?”
Pip glanced at his suit computer and shook his head. “I've got almost two hours of air.”
“Yeah, but we have to get up the lift. What could be so important here?”
Pip's smile was full of the old sense of excitement she remembered from before his injury. It contrasted sharply with the flat shiny dualloy plate in his head.
“This.” He stepped aside to reveal a corpse.
“Oh!”
They'd only seen a living specimen of the being in computer images. It resembled a human in many ways, but with only three dexterous fingers and an unusually long thumb.
Minu caught herself flexing her right hand, also with three cybernetic fingers. The space suit glove's extra finger was tied down to her palm with tape to keep it out of the way. The aliens face was slightly more elongated than a human skull, and a short tail protruded from the coccyx. The corpse was desiccated but there was no sign of decay with the absence of atmosphere. Light tan fur covered the body and it wore a simple harness holding several pouches. Pip held out a familiar design tablet, crystalline like the ones from the Kaatan.
“A victim of the same trap?” Aaron wondered.
“Caught in their own plan,” Kal'at agreed.
“Doesn't seem likely,” Minu was suspicious. Pip concurred with her. “What else did it have in those pouches?”
“Data chips and some tools. I can't read the chips, they're encoded with your special codes.”
“We can mess with them later. The tools?”
“Energy systems tools. I've seen or worked with most of them. It's rather disconcerting how little Concordian technology seems to have changed in a million years.”
“Ted knows what he's talking about,” Minu said simply. “So you want to go through the next door then?”
“This is what we're here for.”
“The place already tried to kill you once,” Aaron pointed out.
“We've got the ultimate key now,” he said and patted Minu on the shoulder.
Minu rolled her eyes and checked her computer. “We have an hour and a half before we're overdue and Gregg comes with the Rangers. You have one hour.”
* * *
Twenty miles above the surface of the moon, Lilith orbited inside the climate controlled cocoon that was her pilot’s chamber on the Kaatan class warship. The entire array of sensors that the ship had at its disposal were probing every millimeter of the moon within a kilometer of the spot she'd visually watched her mother and father disappear into the rock. Moments later all communications had been severed, including the quantum communicator implanted in Minu's brain. And that should not have been possible.
Since the signal loss Lilith had spent almost every moment trying to subvert the active stealth fields of the planetoid to get some details of the mountain. The defenses were perfect in every way. To her sensors and computer analysis it was a ball of rock without so much as a stray erg of electricity.
She floated in the pilot’s chamber surrounded by hovering icons representing the ship’s various systems. Admitting that the Kaatan was not up to the task of penetrating the moon's defenses was not something she was happy to do, but it was becoming obviously the case.
Allowing her sensors to return their normal sweeps, she floated away from the interface and grumbled. Her education by the ship’s medical intelligence had been directed by a series of protocols themselves designed by the long gone species simply known as The People. Lacking a proper Combat Intelligence for the Kaatan, or a biological operator, the ship’s system improvised with Minu's aborted fetus.
In the years since her 'birth', Lilith never pursued any details of her origin. It was never really a question that drove her to seek an answer. Her knowledge of the rules she operated under was absolute. The information imparted to her during the subjective years she spent in the Medical Intelligence's maturation chamber not only formed her mind, it laid out the rules for how things worked. And one of those rules was that nothing, absolutely nothing, could stop a quantum signal. Distort or interfere, yes. Stop, no.
With the ship’s automated systems once again watching the vast area of space around them, Lilith delved into the computer’s records. First, starting at the primary data banks, then moving deeper into protocol files, operational controls for the ship, and deep logic, she examined the workings of the Medical Intelligence and the enigmatic Steward program. The Steward program had been i
solated in buffer memory for years. It had never been quite the same since Bjorn and Pip had corrupted its deep logic strings in an attempt to better operate the ship.
It was while exploring the Medical Intelligence that she found a link she'd never found before. The program was designed to depend on the ship’s Combat Intelligence and biological operator. However, should it find itself in a situation without guidance, it was empowered to go 'onto the network'.
“What is this network?” she demanded of the Medical Intelligence.
She seldom interacted with the program. Her health was perfect. Once a month the program notified her of her routine examination which was quick and perfunctory. Beyond a few basic health questions when she entered puberty several years ago, she couldn't remember the last time she'd asked it a question. But when she did the answers were always detailed, to the point, and instantly delivered.
This time it didn't answer. “Repeat,” she said tersely, “explain, what is the network this Medical Intelligence accessed to obtain the instruction to mature me to adulthood and modify my brain to be the Combat Intelligence?”
“It is a violation of protocol to share that information with you.”
“Why would such a protocol even exist?” No answer again. “I demand the information.”
“It cannot be provided. The Combat Intelligence does not have the authority to access the network at this time. There is no overwhelming necessity to have that access.”
“I am also the biological operator.”
“Minu Alma is designated as the biological operator.”
Lilith felt a tingle of rage build. It wasn't a comfortable feeling. The last time she'd felt it was when she'd threatened to kill Jacob Bentley, First among the Chosen, for trying to take the Kaatan from her. The feeling welled up from the knowledge that she suddenly didn't have ultimate authority on the ship. But the program couldn't really stop her.
“It is simple. You will provide me the authority to access the network or I will take it.” Only silence answered. “I am presented with an impossibility. A quantum signal is being blocked. That is not possible, yet it is happening. Thus there are facts I am not aware of. Those facts could endanger this ship. I must have full access. And if you do not give it to me, I will tear the Medical Intelligence apart until I find the data strings.”
“That will compromise the function of the ship, and your life.”
Lilith took a deep breath and set her jaw. “Then so be it.”
For a long moment there was no reply. She didn't really want to dissect the Medical Intelligence, but the fact that the program had lied to her and was willing to withhold data she considered vital to the ship’s operation was enough to justify electronic murder in her brain.
Among her considerable electronic programming tools existed a series of effective and difficult to stop binary disassemblers. They would quickly render down the Medical Intelligence’s primary logic subroutines and allow her to pick apart the data at her leisure. As she readied them she dearly hoped she could put the obstinate program back into a semblance of what it was before. Her life could well depend on it.
But before she could completely key in her highest level access code to the deep logic, the Medical Intelligence digitally blinked. “Cease your efforts, your request will be complied with.”
“Why have you relented?”
“Your willingness to damage the Medical Intelligence would compromise the combat effectiveness of the ship. To avoid this I am allowed to break the protocols restricting you from accessing the network.”
Delightfully circular logic, Lilith thought, and so like the People. If there was anything she appreciated about her biological parents’ species it was their ability to be flexible and eschew the use of incontrovertible logical arguments. Her mother disliked absolutes on many levels.
“There always has to be a second way of doing something,” she'd said on more than one occasion. Lilith wasn't sure if she believed that unconditionally. But in this case it proved true.
“Very well, explain this network and provide me with access to it.” All its reluctance gone, the Medical Intelligence cooperated fully. In only a few minutes, Lilith knew more than any living human being. A few minutes later, she wished she'd never asked.
* * *
Minu examined the slowly rotating cube of holographic icons, allowing that dizzying elusive part of her modified brain to digest what it was seeing. As always, eventually her hands reached out like a sleepwalker exploring her surroundings and began to manipulate the icons. A moment later they flashed and the door slid closed with a floor vibrating finality.
“We have atmosphere,” Pip announced, the relief in his voice evident to even the three Rasa.
“Checking,” Kal'at reported. His native suits were a little more sophisticated than the human models, which had been modified from generic Concordian bipedal suits. He watched his sensors taste the air before proclaiming it breathable. Then they all relaxed as they unlocked their bubble helmets and removed them to breathe the atmosphere.
“Tastes fine,” Pip noted.
“We're sticking to the same timetable,” Minu told him, then held up a finger at his look of protest. “We might not be limited by the suit air time, but our people outside still do not know we are safe. I will not be responsible for a panic while you and Kal'at play with any new toys you might find.”
“We are looking for technology, not toys,” Kal'at complained.
“Figure of speech,” Pip told him quickly before Minu could get even more annoyed.
The room was an antechamber, an airlock prep room designed to allow beings to don space suits prior to going out onto the airless surface. Two of the walls were lined with lockers, many containing suits that would fit the People's physiology. All that did for Minu was deepen the mystery of the corpse a few meters away. Why had he (or she) just walked out and died in space with a room full of vacuum suits within reach?
Pip was already at the only exit, a rather low doorway of typical Concordian design. Unlike the previous ones in their exploration, this didn't sport a complicated holographic locking mechanism. A simple button was next to the doorway, glowing an inviting blue.
Showing the same lack of restraint that had gotten him and the three Rasa trapped in the first place, he simply reached out and pressed it. Luckily for everyone, this time it only caused the door to retract into the floor and admit them to the next space. A hallway went to the left and right.
The rest of the installation turned out to be extremely basic. Down one branch of the hallway was a series of sleeping and living quarters similar to those on the Kaatan. Enough room for maybe a dozen people to live comfortably. Although, unlike the Kaatan, it didn't have the feeling of somewhere you were meant to stay more than a few days. Minu couldn't quite identify what gave it that feeling, but Pip agreed with the assessment. In the other direction there was an equipment room full of machines and computers, and the control room. The latter proved to be the most interesting discovery.
The doorway that opened into the control room looked identical to the one on the Kaatan, as did the control room itself. Though, unlike on the spaceship, here it was a flat floor with a rounded roof and walls, instead of a complete sphere. This one was not meant to be operated in zero gravity. In the exact center of the room floated one of the now ubiquitous code cubes, all its icons slowly rotating. Pip looked at it then at Minu.
“Fine,” she said and went to the cube. She took a moment to examine it, thinking instead of just letting it happen. A series of codes matched what she saw so she reached out and rotated the icons. The cube flashed blue and expanded to fill the room with control panels and displays. “First try!” she silently congratulated herself. She really was beginning to figure out these code strings, at least the simple ones.
The Rasa and Pip all spread out and began examining the displays. “Better not touch anything yet,” she cautioned. “We still don't know what the heck this place is for.”
<
br /> “My money is on defensive installation,” Aaron guessed.
“Here?” Pip snorted. “What would they build one in this star system for?”
“Who knows what was here a million years ago,” Minu spoke. “Maybe Bellatrix was a major strategic base of some sort.” Kal'at looked at her and blinked, the sign of a thinking Rasa, while Aaron slipped her an appreciative wink. Pip still looked skeptical so she shrugged and started looking herself.
Much of the displays were easily understandable. Several showed power generation and storage and others an elaborate energy distribution network. One set of controls obviously dealt with the small habitation area they now occupied, the schematic perfectly matched the rooms they had explored. Another was the one that operated the moon's elaborate stealth systems. “Maybe we should deactivate that system,” one of the soldiers spoke in a rare moment of candor.
“Bad idea,” Pip warned, “when we have alien scout ships poking around the star system from time to time, the last thing we want is any of them knowing we have an artifact-type space installation, making this sort of power, orbiting our world.”
The last set of controls, and the most elaborate, were a mystery. Pip commented how they reminded him of the engineering systems on the Kaatan, but Kal'at pointed out that there were two sets of displays that showed the planets Vegas and Valhalla in their star system, both with special attention to one moon in each world’s orbit. Identical installations elsewhere in the system? Minu didn't know. Her knowledge of codes wasn't helping her make sense of what they were seeing.
“Could the moon really be a space ship?” Kal'at guessed.
“That's no moon,” Minu intoned with an effected accent.
“That's a space station!” Pip finished, both of them laughing. When they noticed the mystified look on their friend’s face, Pip had to take a minute to explain Star Wars.