Neither would I. Damn. Alicia swallowed a half-formed giggle as the AI swore. Who the hell had this brainstorm, anyway? Oh.
Exactly. I wouldn't be here if not for her, and if I've got this straight, that means you wouldn't be here-as the " 'you" you are now, anyway-either. Right?
Right. Silence fell again for a moment, wrapped around the sense of a mental glower at Tisiphone, and then the AI sighed. Well, we're all stuck with it. And as far as names go, that's up to you. Any ideas?
Not yet. Maybe something will come to me. But if we're all stuck here, we all have to get along, right?
I suppose so. The whole situation is absurd, though. I don't even know if I believe she exists.
It would be but courteous for the two of you to cease speaking of me as if I were not even here.
Listen, just because Alicia believes in you doesn't mean I do.
This is intolerable, Little One! I will not submit to insults from a machine!
She's just trying to pay you back for being so pushy, Tisiphone. If I believe in you, she does. She has to, don't you?
As long as there's any supporting evidence, the AI admitted unwillingly, and I suppose there is. All right, I believe in her.
Much thanks, Machine.
Hey, don't get snotty with me, Lady! You may be able to push Alicia around, and you may've beaten hell out of my security systems, but I'm awake now, and I can take you any time you want to try it on.
Forget it, both of you! Alicia snapped as tension gathered again. She squeezed her temples. Jesus! What a pair of prima donnas!
The mental presences separated once more, and she relaxed gratefully.
Thank you. Now, um, Computer-I'm sorry, I really will try to come up with a name, but for now I can't-Tisiphone and I have a bargain. May I assume you know what it is?
"Computer" will do for now, Alicia. I can wait for an appropriate name to occur to you. And, yes, I know about your "bargain."
Then you also know I have every intention of keeping it?
Yes. I just don't like the way she bullies you around, the AI replied with the strong impression of a sniff.
I? I "bully" Alicia?! She would be dead without me, Machine. I did not see you there when she lay bleeding in the snow! How dare you-
It's just a turn of phrase, Tisiphone, but you can be a bit pushy. Alicia felt quite virtuous at her understatement, and the Fury subsided.
Look, you guys, please don't fight. It gives me a hell of a headache, and it doesn't seem to be accomplishing very much. Could you two at least declare a truce until we have time to sort this all out?
If she will, I will.
I do not declare "truces" with machines. If you will refrain from discourtesy, however, I shall do the same.
Alicia sighed in relief and rushed on before anyone took fresh offense.
Great! In that case, I suggest we consider how we get out of here. I take it you had an idea, Tisiphone?
I had intended, working through you and this machine, to take the ship out of this star system and seek some deserted area where we might familiarize ourselves with its capabilities. Now, of course, I see that I cannot do so, since the machine will not allow me access.
You got that right, Lady, and a damned good thing, too. You don't know diddly about my weapon systems, and I wouldn't be too crazy about letting a refugee from the Bronze Age monkey with my Fasset drive, either. I, on the other hand, can scoot right out of here. Where'd you have in mind?
Any place will do for that much of our purpose. Yet eventually we must begin our own investigations, and the data I have amassed suggests that one of the Rogue Worlds in this sector would be a logical beginning point.
You have any preferences, Alicia?
Anywhere Fleet won't come looking for us is fine with me.
Hmph! Let them come-there's not a tub in the ship list that can catch me. Let's see now....
The AI's voice trailed off, and Alicia felt it consulting its memory banks.
Okay, I've got just the spot. A nice little M2/K1 binary with no habitable planets within twenty light-years. That suit everybody?
Myself, certainly. I care not whither we go, so long as we go.
I'll second that. But we've got to get out of here first.
True. Shall I break orbit?
All of your systems are on-line?
Yep. I was due to impress later this morning. Your friend may be a pushy bi-person, but she timed this pretty well.
Then I guess we should get going, Alicia said hastily, hoping to cut Tisiphone off before she reacted to the AI's deliberate self-correction. She bit her lip against a groan. Nothing she'd ever read had suggested alpha-synth AIs were this feisty, but she supposed she should have guessed that anything with her personality had the potential for it. And, she was certain, the AI's hostility towards Tisiphone stemmed directly from its protectiveness towards her.
Under way, the AI murmured, and the ship's sensors were suddenly reporting directly to Alicia's mind. She felt Tisiphone "hitchhiking" to watch with her, but scarcely noticed as the splendor of that magnificent "view" swept over her.
The ship's electronic senses reached out, perceiving gravity and radiation and the endless sweep of space, and converted the input into sensory data she could grasp. She could "see" cosmic radiation and "taste" radio. The ship's senses were hers, keener and sharper than those of any shuttle she had ever ridden, and Tisiphone's own wonder lapped at her, as if, for the first time, she saw what the Fury might have seen at the peak of her powers.
They watched in a triple-play union-human, Fury, and computer-as their Fasset drive woke. The radiation-drinking invisibility of the drive's black hole blossomed before them, swallowing all input and creating a blind spot in their vision, and they fell towards it. But the generators moved with them, pushing the black hole ahead of them, and they fell more rapidly, sliding away from Soissons with ever-increasing speed. This close to the planet the drive could produce no more than a few dozen gravities of acceleration, but that was still more than a third of a kilometer per second per second, and their speed mounted quickly.
Chapter Forty-Five
"No, I don't know where she is," Sir Arthur Keita told the hospital security man on his com screen. "If I did, I wouldn't be calling you."
"But, Sir Arthur, there's no record of her even leaving her room, she's not on any of the security scanners, and none of the outside security people we've talked to so far saw a thing. So unless you can give me some idea where she might've-"
The door hissed open. Inspector Ben Belkassem strode into Keita's office, waving his left hand imperatively and drawing his right forefinger across his throat, and Keita cut the security man off without ceremony.
"May I assume, Sir Arthur, that Captain DeVries has decamped?" Despite his abrupt entry, the Justice man's voice was as courteous as ever, but a strange little bubble of delight lurked within it, and Keita frowned.
"I trust that's not common knowledge. If the local police hear we've lost a deranged drop commando we may start getting 'shoot on sight' orders."
"Somehow I don't think that's going to be a problem for Captain DeVries," Ben Belkassem murmured, and Keita snorted.
"If her augmentation's been reactivated somehow-and, judging by what happened to Corporal Feinstein, it has-it's a lot more likely to get one of their people killed. But why do you seem so cheerful, Inspector?"
"Cheerful? No, Sir Arthur, I just think it's too late for the local cops to worry about her. I suggest you screen Jefferson. They've had an, ah, incident over there."
Keita stared at the inspector, then paled and began punching buttons. A harried-looking Marine major answered his call on the fourth ring.
"Where's Colonel Tigh?" Keita snapped the instant the screen lit.
"I'm sorry, Sir, but I can't give out that information." The major sounded courteous but harassed and reached to cut the connection, then stopped with a puzzled expression as he saw Keita's raised hand and furious scowl.
"D'you know who I am, Major?"
The major took a second look, eyes widening a bit as the green uniform registered, but shook his head.
"I'm afraid it doesn't matter, Sir. We're in the midst of a Class One security alert, and-"
"Major, you listen to me closely. I am Sir Arthur Keita, Brigadier, Imperial Cadre, and one of my people may be involved in your alert."
The Wasp swallowed visibly at the name, and Ben Belkassem smiled. Sir Arthur hadn't even raised his voice, but the inspector had wondered what he sounded like when he decided to bite someone's head off.
"Now you get Colonel Tigh, Major," Keita continued in that same, flat voice, "and you do it now."
"Yessir!"
The screen blanked, then relit almost instantly with the face of Colonel Arturo Tigh. The colonel looked just as worried as the major, but he hid it better and managed to produce a tight smile.
"I'm always honored to hear from you, Sir Arthur, but I'm afraid-"
"I'm sorry to disturb you, Colonel, but I need to know what's happening out there."
"We don't know, Sir. We-Is this a secure channel?" Keita nodded, and the colonel shrugged. "We don't know what's going on. We had a major security breach two hours ago, and things have been going crazy ever since."
"Security breach?" Keita's eyes narrowed. "What kind of breach?"
"Somebody hijacked a forward recon skimmer-at least we assume it was hijacked, though we haven't been able to turn up a missing vehicle report on it yet-and crashed through Gate Twelve. The automatics gave it a transponder clearance, but then the gate sentries-"
The colonel paused with the expression of a man eating green persimmons.
"Sir Arthur, they say they never saw it. Every alert on the base went off when it crossed the sensor threshold, but ten different people, all of them good, reliable types, say they never saw a thing."
He paused again, as if awaiting Keita's snort of disbelief, but the brigadier only grunted and nodded for him to continue.
"Well, the inner sensor net started tracking immediately, and the duty officer scrambled a pair of sting ships while the ready skimmers went in pursuit, but that was one hell of a pilot. He never brought his own weapons on line, but we've got fires all over the western ring access route-all from misses from the pursuit force, as far as I can tell-and then the skimmer went straight up like a missile and the stingers nailed it with HVW."
"The pilot?" Keita demanded harshly, and the colonel shrugged.
"We assumed he was still aboard, but now I'm not so sure. I mean, no one saw him abandon the vehicle, so he ought to've been aboard, but then this other thing came up, and I just can't believe it's a coincidence."
"What other thing, Colonel?"
"Something's gone haywire with one of our ships, Sir. One of our ships, hell! We've got a brand new alpha-synth boosting for the outer system at max without clearance or orders."
"Who's on board?" Keita's strained face was suddenly white.
"That's just it," Tigh said almost desperately. "As far as we know, no one's on board. It wasn't even due to impress until ten hundred hours!"
"God!" Keita whispered. He wrenched his eyes away from the screen to stare at Ben Belkassem, and the inspector shrugged. The brigadier turned back to the colonel. "Have you tried to raise it?"
"Of course. We're trying right now, but we're getting damn-all back."
Keita closed his eyes in pain, then straightened his shoulders.
"Colonel," he said very quietly, "I'm afraid you're going to have to destroy that ship."
"Are you crazy?!" Tigh blurted, then swallowed. "Sir," he went on in a more controlled voice, "we're talking about an alpha-synth. That ship costs thirty billion credits. I can't-I mean, no one groundside can authorize-"
"I can," Keita grated, and the colonel's face froze as he realized just who, and what, he was speaking to.
"Sir, I'll still have to give the port admiral a reason."
"Very well. Tell him I have reason to believe his ship has been hijacked by Captain Alicia DeVries, Imperial Cadre, for purposes unknown."
"A cadrewoman?" Tigh stared at Keita. "I don't-Sir, I don't even know if that's possible! Was she checked out on cyber-synth?"
"No, and it doesn't matter. Captain DeVries has been hospitalized for observation since the Mathison's World Raid. She's demonstrated... unstable and delusionary behavior," Keita's hands clenched out of the screen pickup's field, as if his words cost him physical pain, but his voice held level, "and unknown but highly-I repeat, Colonel, highly-unusual and unpredictable capabilities no one can account for. We have evidence that she's already reactivated her own augmentation without hardware support and despite three levels of security lock-outs, not to mention her apparent ability to hijack the skimmer to which you referred. Given that, I believe it's entirely possible she's somehow penetrated your security and managed to steal that ship, and if she has-"
The brigadier paused and steeled himself.
"If she has, she must be considered deranged and highly dangerous."
"Dear God." Tigh was even whiter than Keita had been. "The only way she could even move it is through the alpha-synth. That means she must've made impression, and if she's crazy-!"
His voice had risen steadily as the awful possibility registered, and now he spun away from the screen and started shouting for the port admiral.
***
I believe they've made up their minds about us, the AI remarked, and Alicia nodded tightly. The tick still trembled in her blood-she didn't dare waste time vomiting just now-and every excruciating second was an eternity. No one had seemed to notice for perhaps a minute, and the first attempt to do anything about it had been limited to efforts to access the ship's remotes.
Even if the AI hadn't been prepared to ignore them, they would have been fruitless. Tisiphone had wiped the telemetry programming early on in her struggle with the computer, but Groundside hadn't realized that. They'd gone on trying to access with ever increasing desperation for five full minutes, during which the alpha-synth's velocity had climbed to over a hundred KPS. Then all access attempts had stopped and silence had reigned for several minutes. By the time the first effort to raise Alicia by name came in, the alpha-synth was up to over two hundred KPS-and a visibly-shrinking Soissons lay over fifty thousand kilometers astern.
Alicia had listened to the com without response, perfectly willing to let them dither while she watched through her sensors, wrapped in fascination and a sort of manic delight, and she and her-allies? symbiotes? delusions?-perpetrated the greatest single-handed theft in the history of mankind. But the voices on the other end of the com link were changing as Groundside got itself together, and now a new, crisp speaker was on the line.
"Captain DeVries, this is Port Admiral Marat. I order you to decelerate and heave to immediately. If you refuse to comply, you will leave me no choice but to consider you a hostile vessel. Respond at once."
They sound a bit upset, the AI observed. Ha! Look at that.
A mental finger guided Alicia's attention to the blue fireflies of a dozen cruisers' suddenly activated Fasset drives in Soissons's orbit and data on their capabilities slotted neatly into her brain. It was an incredible sensation, completely different from an assault shuttle's instrumentation.
How bad is it?
Those hulks? The AI sniffed, and Alicia bit her lip at the scathing tone. It was like listening to herself in what Tannis called "insufferably confident mode," and she felt a sudden stab of sympathy for her friend. I've got a ten-minute head start, and they can't come within twelve percent of my field strength, even this close to a planet.
What about their weapons?
They're some threat, the AI admitted, but I'm not too worried. My data on their fire control isn't complete, but I know enough to screw their accuracy to hell. They'll have quite a while to shoot-maximum beam range is about fifteen light-seconds, and half-charge energy torps have about five more LS of reach-but they're going to be l
ousy shots.
Great, but I think you left something out-like missiles.
So? Cruisers are too small to mount SLAMs. Their Hauptman coil missiles have an effective range of about ten light-minutes, but the best they can reach before burn-out is point-six-cee. Then they go ballistic, and there's no way one cruiser flotilla's gonna saturate my defenses.
You would appear to value yourself highly, Machine. Tisiphone sounded so sour Alicia almost suspected she'd like to see the ship destroyed just to put the AI in its place, but she continued levelly, Still, the capabilities you describe accord well with what I have learned of your kind.
Thanks for the compliment, even if it did sound like pulling teeth.
David Weber - In Fury Born (ARC) Page 67