“We need him,” Lanoe insisted. “Just give him a chance. I know him, Candless. I’ve fought by his side. I would have died at Niraya—and so would about a hundred thousand other people—if it hadn’t been for Valk.”
“This wasn’t my choice, either,” the machine said.
Candless felt like her blood had turned to engine coolant. It was right behind her, the thing, the devil himself was floating behind her left shoulder—
“Let me take it from here,” it said. It climbed into the navigation officer’s chair and her display spun away from her, her controls vanishing from under her fingers. Lanoe was letting the thing drive the damned ship.
She slapped at her restraints and they retracted into her seat. Pushing herself up into the air, she kicked toward the rear of the bridge, where Lanoe waited by the hatch.
His face was calm. He didn’t show any of the terror she was feeling. He’d lived through the attack of the Universal Suffrage himself. How could he not be petrified by being so close to an AI? How could he let it take control of the ship?
She stared at the black opaque dome of the thing’s helmet, where it sat in the navigator’s position. She couldn’t force herself to look away.
“I know what I’m doing,” Lanoe said. He must have seen the look on her face.
She shook her head and pushed past him, out into the corridor. She waited until he followed her out before she spoke.
“I trust you,” she said. “I believe I have proven that more than once. Back when we were squaddies, I followed you into hell on a semiregular basis. Now I’m doing it again, and not asking nearly the number of questions I’d like to. Because I know you need to keep some things secret.”
“Sure.”
“I respect that,” she told him. “I respect you, Lanoe.”
“Right. This is going somewhere, I presume. There’s a but coming.”
Candless centered herself. She was an old woman, old enough to think she’d seen everything. That she had some idea of how the universe worked. This was definitely a new one, though. “Perhaps if you give me something,” she said. “Anything. Any manner of explanation.”
He nodded. For a moment she thought he would actually follow through, that he would say something revelatory and it would allay all her fears.
He did not.
“At the end of the battle at Niraya,” he said, in hushed tones, “Valk interfaced with an alien computer. Not another AI, just a very, very sophisticated drone. He was able to talk to it, learn its language. Learn everything we know about the Blue-Blue-White.”
“The aliens you fought there.”
“Yes,” Lanoe told her. “And I’m not done with them, yet. I need him.”
“Is that—is that where we’re headed? To their homeworld? Lanoe, my cadets—the ensigns, I mean—they aren’t prepared for—”
“No,” he said. “We’re not headed there. Not directly anyway.”
Candless shook with frustration. “Damn you, Aleister Lanoe,” she said, too angry to be civil anymore. “You’re keeping him around because he might possibly be useful in the future. But in the meantime, the risks involved—Lanoe, your machine is in there right now flying this ship. It’s keeping us all alive. You know how AIs think—logically, above anything else. You told it to fly to a given destination. What if it decides that we can get there faster by not wasting energy on life support? It has control of the bridge. It could turn off our air anytime it likes.”
“Valk wouldn’t do that,” Lanoe insisted.
Candless shook her head. “That is only one of a million ways it could kill us. It could—”
“He,” Lanoe said.
“What?”
“He’s a he. Not an it.”
Candless put a hand over her eyes. “I do not see the value of arguing about pronouns, here, when an AI is—”
“Stand by,” Lanoe whispered.
She whipped her head around and saw why he’d forestalled her. Two people were coming up the axial corridor, kicking fast off the walls. When she saw that it was Bury and Ginger, she let out a deep sigh.
The two ensigns came to a halt right before them. Bury was scowling—well, that was hardly unusual. Ginger looked deeply anxious. Her face was pale and she kept swallowing, as if her salivary glands were overactive.
“What is it?” Candless snapped.
“We have certain demands,” Ginger announced. Then she bit her lip, as if waiting for a response before she said anything more.
“This isn’t the time,” Candless muttered, under her breath. “This is perhaps the worst possible time.”
Marjoram Candless was a woman of deep equanimity and poise. But even she had her limits.
“If you prefer not to talk,” the robot dog said, “I’m happy to just spend quiet time with you. Remember: I’m here to help!”
Maggs tapped away wildly at the virtual keyboard on the thing’s face, ignoring its cheery voice. I’m not sure I understand, precisely. What is it you’re trying to accomplish?
His input broke up as soon as he typed the final question mark. The characters flew apart into line segments that re-formed as the machine replied to him.
A SERVICE PACKAGE
WAS INSTALLED ON THIS
SHIP BUT WAS NOT
ACTIVATED
Service package? he typed. Presumably some kind of software module, he thought. Something grafted on to the ship’s programming. What’s it meant to do?
FUNCTIONS OF SERVICE
PACKAGE INCLUDE
SHUT DOWN ENGINES
SHUT DOWN WEAPONS
SHUT DOWN COMMS
SHUT DOWN COMPUTERS
SHUT DOWN HANGAR SERVICES
LOWER CORRIDOR LIGHTS
REDUCE OXYGEN OUTPUT
In Maggs’s head, his father laughed boisterously. They’re going to leave us dead in the water, my boy. Adrift and sleepy from lack of air. Ripe for boarding.
Quite. There must have been a spy onboard after all—damn his eyes, but Lanoe had been right to be paranoid. The spy must have installed the “service package”—most likely a suite of exquisitely tailored information viruses—to render the cruiser defenseless and allow Centrocor operatives to simply sweep in and seize it for their own. Maggs considered it for a moment and realized they must want Lanoe. It sounded like the package was quite capable of killing everyone onboard but they didn’t want that. They wanted to capture and interrogate Lanoe. Learn all about his secret mission.
Maggs braced himself and kicked the wall. Thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump.
I’m still not entirely sure how I come into this, he typed.
THE SERVICE PACKAGE WAS
NOT ACTIVATED
ACTIVATION OF THE SERVICE
PACKAGE REQUIRES
CENTROCOR ID NUMBER
Oh, there it was. He grinned down at the robot dog. Always nice to feel essential. The spy who installed the package had never had a chance to switch it on. As a safeguard, or simply due to some misguided company policy, doing so required someone who worked, or had worked, for the poly. Someone in the corporate database.
Maggs had been a Naval liaison to Centrocor, once. He had one of those magic numbers. He was likely the only person on the ship at this point who did.
Thump. He kicked the wall three more times. Thump-thump-thump. Then again. Thump.
Perhaps, he typed, something could be negotiated. Though I do not come cheap, as you will know if you check my personnel file.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO
WRITE FULL SENTENCES
SIMPLE COMMANDS
ARE ACCEPTABLE
“Cheeky,” Maggs said, and laughed. Many things in this life are not strictly necessary. Proper grammar and spelling are a mark of breeding, however. They indicate
He stopped because the keyboard flashed and disappeared for a moment.
PLEASE ENTER YOUR
CENTROCOR ID NUMBER
WE DO NOT HAVE
MUCH TIME
“
Patience, little one,” Maggs cooed. “All good things come to those who wait.”
The robot dog moved its ducted fans as if it were waving legs. “Did I hear you speak? I’d love to talk about your problems. I’m very easy to talk to.”
Maggs kicked the wall. Thump. Thump-thump-thump-thump.
“I notice you are physically agitated,” the dog said. “Are you feeling violent? I can administer a number of medications that might help with that.”
“Just getting some exercise,” he told the dog. “Exercise is good for one’s mental health, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely! If you’d like, I can recommend a routine that will minimize bone loss and keep you feeling fit and happy.”
“Oh, I’m starting to feel much happier now, thanks,” Maggs said.
On the dog’s face, the letters broke up and formed new characters.
PLEASE ENTER YOUR
CENTROCOR ID NUMBER
EVERYTHING ELSE
CAN BE DISCUSSED LATER
But I’m just starting to enjoy our conversation, Maggs typed.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump. Thump.
“I’m sorry,” Ginger said, her eyes cutting sideways. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think we should wait on this. I think we need to hash it out right now.”
Candless looked over at Bury, where he clung to one wall. The Hellion stared back at her. Resolute. Determined.
Apparently this couldn’t wait.
“We didn’t volunteer for this mission,” Ginger said. “We were dragged into it. So far we’ve attempted to make ourselves useful. We assumed that we would be treated like officers if we acted like officers.”
Lanoe hovered in the hatch leading to the bridge. Even knowing him as well as she did, Candless couldn’t read his stony face. When you were as old as the two of them were you learned how to keep your feelings guarded.
“Instead,” Ginger said, “we’ve been shunted off at every turn. Your briefing, Commander, failed to include a number of things that we should have been told. There are all kinds of weird things going on here—there’s a Navy officer locked up in the brig who’s never been formally charged with any crime. We’re operating under a severely curtailed crew roster. You’ve got an illegal AI in your cabin, right now! We’re simply asking to be given full information. If our lives are at stake, we deserve to know why.”
“That isn’t how the Navy works,” Candless said. “As you would know if you had paid more attention during my classes back on Rishi.”
The girl shook her head. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but this stopped being an official Navy mission a long time ago.” She turned to look at Lanoe. “Didn’t it?”
Lanoe didn’t bother denying it. He just shrugged.
“Until such time as we’re fully briefed, Bury and I refuse to do any work. We won’t attend training sessions on the bridge. We won’t help you with navigation or communications duties. We will confine ourselves to our bunks and wait.”
“You’re going on strike,” Lanoe said.
Candless half-expected to see the beginnings of a smile curl his lips. Or maybe for him to explode with wrath.
“We have another word for that in the Navy,” Candless pointed out. “Don’t we? We call it mutiny.”
Ginger’s mouth collapsed. “Wait, no—we aren’t—”
“Naval regulations allow the commanding officer of a ship in space to take such actions as they deem fit to deal with mutinies,” Candless pointed out. “Up to and including summary execution of mutineers.”
“But—we can’t just—”
“Naval regulations,” Bury said. If he hadn’t been a Hellion, genetically modified to prevent it, he might have spat the words. “You’re going to play that card.”
“Sure,” Lanoe said. “Now. The two of you can return to your regular shift rotation, and we can forget this ever happened. Or—”
“There’s another regulation,” Bury pointed out. “One that allows an officer—even an ensign—to remove their CO from command. By force if necessary.”
Candless wanted to reach over and grab the young man by the ear. Give him a very good shake. Instead, she said, very calmly, “What exactly are you implying?”
“Why don’t you just tell us one thing?” Bury asked. “Why don’t you tell us what this mission has to do with the Blue-Blue-White?”
Lanoe’s face was too wrinkled to give much away. Perhaps his head shifted back, as if he’d been struck. Maybe his hands came up a centimeter or two and then he put them down again right away. Regardless of what subtle cue she’d picked up on, Candless could tell that Lanoe had just been caught completely off guard. And he didn’t like it.
“You seem to have figured things out for yourself,” he said, his eyes fixed on Bury as if they were glued to the Hellion’s face.
Bury wasn’t as old as Lanoe, nor as experienced. He hadn’t had time to learn to be any good at poker. His eyes stayed defiant but his lip trembled.
Candless understood. The boy had no more arrows in his quiver. However he had learned the name Blue-Blue-White, he didn’t know what to with it. He’d thought that simply mentioning it would force Lanoe’s hand.
Lanoe’s mouth did curl up in a smile, then. Seeing it seemed to make Bury angrier than before. Candless wondered how long it would take the two of them to come to blows.
She was 90 percent certain—though only 90 percent—that Lanoe would smear her former student across the walls.
Lanoe didn’t seem to want it to come to that, though. “I have to say, I admire their backbone,” he told Candless. “Though you’re wrong about one thing.” This addressed to Ginger. “You said I had an AI in my cabin. I don’t.” Then he moved out of the hatch and gestured inside, at the bridge. Where both of the ensigns—judging by the looks on their faces—could see Valk sitting in the pilot’s seat.
They pushed forward through the hatch. Candless moved to stop them, but Lanoe shook his head and she let them through, then followed along behind them.
“Hello,” Valk said, and lifted one hand in a cheery wave.
It was enough, at least, to shut the ensigns up. Which—as far as Candless was concerned—was a welcome victory. If, inevitably, a temporary one.
“Looks like smooth sailing for a while,” Valk told them, gesturing at the display in front of him. Ghostlight stretched from the walls of a particularly wide section of wormhole. So far, at least, the AI hadn’t steered them directly into that annihilating radiance. Perhaps it just hadn’t come up with a good reason to do so, yet.
“See?” Lanoe said. “I’ve got every confidence in M. Valk. And I never intended to keep his presence aboard this ship a secret. Anyway, you would have figured it out soon enough. Now. As to your other demands—”
“Hang on,” Valk said. “What’s that?”
Every eye in the room turned toward the polarized helmet. Candless’s eyes certainly among them.
“None of you hear that? That weird thumping sound?” Valk asked.
Chapter Sixteen
It’s like a fan has come off its hub, maybe. Or something’s loose on the outside of the ship and it’s flapping back and forth.” Valk shook his head. Given the fact that he didn’t, strictly, have a head, he ended up shaking his whole torso. “I can’t pin it down. Hold on. Maybe I can do something—yeah.”
He couldn’t have told them how he did it, but he isolated the sound, then routed his own auditory input through the bridge’s speakers. He could see right away that they all heard it.
Thump. Thump-thump-thump. Thump. Thump-thump.
Lanoe narrowed his eyes. “You think there’s something broken, somewhere? Call Paniet, the engineer. Tell him to take a look.”
“Nah, that’s the funny thing,” Valk said. “I don’t think it is mechanical, now that I’ve listened to it repeat a couple of times.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ve got a mutiny to resolve, here,” Lanoe said, and turned to look at the others.
“Just a moment,” C
andless said. “You said it repeats? Like a signal?”
That seemed to get their attention. Lanoe moved to the vacant position where the information officer should have sat and called up a comms display. Much as might be expected when they were in the middle of a wormhole, nothing showed up. “You have any idea where it’s coming from?”
Valk concentrated on the sound. “Inside the ship,” he suggested. But the comms board showed no unusual traffic on the ship’s own connections. Valk thought about it for a second and grunted in surprise. “From the brig,” he told them.
“There are no outside connections in there,” Candless pointed out.
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s electronic.” The thumping sound kept playing through the bridge’s speakers. It repeated every five or six seconds, and while the sequence of thumps was always the same, the timing between individual thumps was different. “It’s … organic, I guess. Like somebody beating on a wall with their fist.”
“From the brig? So it’s Maggs trying to communicate with the outside world,” Lanoe said. “Or maybe he’s just gone crazy for real and he’s beating that morale drone to pieces.” He shrugged. “Let him, as far as I’m concerned. It’s the only friend he’s going to get. If he wants to destroy it, then—”
“Wait,” Ginger said.
Valk didn’t need to turn around to see the others. He could see out the back of his head just fine. Doing so made him a little disoriented, but he was getting used to it. Now he saw them all staring at the young woman. Ginger had turned bright red from all the attention, but she clearly had something important to say.
“It’s barracks code,” she told them.
Lanoe frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s—you know, barracks code,” she said, as if repeating the words would make them make more sense. Bury, at least, seemed to get it.
“Yeah,” the Hellion said. “Yeah, now that she says it—definitely. It’s barracks code.” When the older officers on the bridge failed to accept his premise, he almost growled in frustration as he explained. “Back at Rishi, at the flight school. It was lights-out every night at twenty-three hundred. We all had to be in our bunks, they would check on us—”
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