Deserter

by Mike Shepherd

  “Flattery from Naval Intelligence?”

  “I like to think that truth is my business. Care to make it yours?”

  Kris let her eyes rove out the window. The station with its piers and ships spun above her, then quickly receded as they fell away at one g acceleration. She spotted Firebolt, still in its diminished form. Ship duty! Right!

  “This a job offer?”

  “Mac still doesn’t know where to assign you. You’re one of his many hot potatoes. He offered me the chance to solve one of his problems and one of mine. I can use someone with your skills and unique opportunities. Unlike Hayworth, I don’t mind you using your own pet computer.”

  “For what? Does the Chief of Staff expect me to spy on my father?”

  The admiral rubbed his eyes with one hand. “Tact is not one of your strong points.”

  “I’m not a spy,” Kris said. “Certainly not on my own father.”

  “I don’t want you to be. Mac doesn’t want it either.”

  Kris took that with a grain of salt. “So, what kind of job are you offering me?”

  The Admiral swept a hand out to the black of space and its unblinking stars. “The galaxy is a challenging place. It’s got the most dangerous critters in it: man. It’s got people who want this or that and frequently don’t want other people to have that or this. Latest news reports say Siris and Humboldt are this close to war,” he said, holding two fingers a few centimeters apart. “As a Princess—and yes, I know you hate the word—you can go lots of places an officer can’t or shouldn’t. You can learn and do things Wardhaven needs to know and get done. And I could help you as much as you could help me.”

  Kris turned back to stare out the window. The drop car passed rapidly into the atmosphere, causing fireflies of ionization. The dark of space was rapidly replaced by the haze of atmosphere. Below, Kris spotted the bay Wardhaven City wrapped itself around.

  When she rode the elevator up, on her way to Officer Candidate School, she’d been glad to be quit of the place. Now, having seen a few other places, Wardhaven looked mighty nice.

  Did she want to protect it?

  That’s why she put on the uniform. That and a wish to get out from under a father and mother who left very little air for their daughter. That and a desire to save a bit of this, do a bit of that.

  Which she’d done.

  Did she want to let this man call the shots for her now?

  It had to be better than the Firebolt, she reminded herself.

  But the Firebolt was a job for Lieutenant JG Kristine Anne Longknife. Not the Prime Minister’s brat, or the Princess, or the rich kid. This Admiral, if that was what he was, wanted her for all the things about her that she wanted to escape.

  She shook her head. “Sorry, Admiral, I’ve got this job. A ship depending on me. I wouldn’t want to disappoint my Captain.”

  “I doubt he’d shed a tear if you got new orders.”

  “Yes, but the Chief Engineer loves what me and Nelly do.”

  “My budget can get Dale a very good computer.”

  The bastard even knew the Chief Engineer’s first name. “What is it about no that you don’t understand?” Kris asked.

  “Just wanted to make sure no was no,” the Admiral said, reaching in his pocket for an old-fashioned printed business card.

  Maurice Crossenshild

  Special Systems Analyst

  Call anyplace, anytime

  27-38-212-748-3001

  Kris eyed the card for only a moment. She’d never seen a fifteen-digit phone number. Fourteen, yes. Fifteen! What did the two do? NELLY, YOU GOT IT?

  YES.

  Kris tore the card in half, then into quarters, and handed it back to the man. “Not interested.”

  He gave her a crack of a smile. “Would not have expected anything less from you, but Mac wanted me to try. Have a good evening. Maybe I’ll see you at the ball tonight.”

  “What rank should I look for?” Kris asked to his back, but, despite the sign flashing for all passengers to stay put, the man made his way out of the observation deck. And they say I don’t follow the rules. Kris snorted.

  Harvey, the old family chauffeur, was waiting for her as she left the ferry. Jack, her Protective Service agent, was right beside him. “How’d the test cruise go?” the driver asked as her agent eyed the surroundings.

  “Not good. Looks like we’ll be tied up for the next month while they try something new,” she told him. “So I’m off early. Think Lotty can scare up a bite to eat before I have to dress for tonight’s command performance?”

  “And when hasn’t my wife?” he said with a grin, then added softly, “Tru would like you to drop by when you have the time.”

  Kris raised an eyebrow. Aunty Tru was retired now from her job as Wardhaven’s Chief of Info War. Still, the honorary aunt had been helping Kris with her math and computer homework since first grade—and could cook up a fantastic batch of chocolate chip cookies.

  But when Tru quit trusting her messages to the net, life did get interesting. “Why don’t we drop by on the way home.”

  Harvey nodded. The car, not a limo today, but just as armored, was in a reserved security lot, something new to the area around the elevator since the Society of Humanity self-destructed and Wardhaven doubled its defense budget. Kris settled in for a quiet drive. Maybe she should review the engine room specs for the Firebolt?

  “Test really disappointing?” Jack asked.

  “We were so close.” Kris sighed. “Last benchmark, then bam, we’re back to square one.”

  “Frustrating,” her Agent said, his eyes roving the traffic. Jack had a knack for being both security and confidant. There was talk that a Princess deserved a full security detail. It would probably mean a promotion for Jack. For Kris, it would mean losing times like these. True, somebody—apparently a lot of somebodies—wanted her dead, but no attack had ever been made on Wardhaven. Besides, a Navy Junior Officer couldn’t move in a security bubble. Or maybe she just didn’t want to.

  At Tru’s apartment complex, Jack activated the car’s security system and followed Kris and Harvey into the elevator. Tru had bought a penthouse when she retired. Her view of Wardhaven City wasn’t quite as breathtaking as that from Grampa Al’s lofty tower outside town, but it was still spectacular. More spectacular was Tru’s hug.

  “I didn’t expect you to drop everything and come running just because your old Aunty Tru sent up a smoke signal,” she said as she engulfed Kris in her arms. There’d been a time when all Kris had to hold on to was Tru’s hugs . . . and the bottle. Those times were long gone, but Kris would never pass up a few moments feeling safe in Tru’s arms.

  Hug over, Kris explained that the test ended early.

  “Problem?”

  “I’m still alive. The ship’s still in one piece. Nothing we can’t work around. But it looks like Grampa Al will have a major market for Uni-plex.

  Tru scowled at that. “I turn the evidence of an attempt to kill you over to him and his labs to figure out who did it. Instead, they come up with a whole new product line.”

  Kris shrugged. “If Al makes money off my attempted murders, I figure he’ll make a fortune off what finally gets me.” No one else saw the humor. “So, Aunty Tru, why’d you call in the Navy? Run out of Marines?”

  “Actually, it’s Nelly I want.”

  Kris raised an eyebrow. Tru was responsible for most of the software on Kris’s pet computer; Nelly could do things very few computers could. Still, Sam, Tru’s personal computer, was probably one of those few. “We just upgraded her,” Kris pointed out. “I thought Nelly and I were about as far out on the bleeding edge as you dared go.”

  “You are,” Tru agreed. “The last time I ran diagnostics on Nelly’s new self-organizing circuitry, she was, gram for gram, the best in her class.”

  Kris began drooling over the new, self-organizing computing gel the first time she set eyes on it. Akin to smart metal, this let the computer organize its circuitry at the mol
ecular level as it went along, and modify it as needed. Kris wasn’t sure whether she or Nelly was the most excited by it. “So?”

  “Nelly is greatly underutilized. I wonder if you might like to put her excess capacity to work on a challenge?”

  Kris had learned to cringe when Tru said “challenge.” Yes, at six, Kris would do an excited dance at the word. At fifteen, the thought of having the best personal sidekick at school was primo plus. But Kris was a serving officer. Having her computer go down didn’t just mean a quick stop by Aunty Tru’s on the way home from school for repairs and cookies. If Nelly had locked up today, the Navy might be missing a boatload of people.

  “What’s caught your fancy?” Kris said, taking a step back.

  Tru beamed, unrepentant. “Let me show you.”

  Kris knew the room they headed for. There were clean rooms, and then there was Aunty Tru’s lab. There was no need for special clothes. The airlock into what had been a spare bedroom spritzed Kris with a thin fog of nanos that lifted off the grime and dirt of the day . . . down to the five-nanometer level. The worktable along one white wall might be missing one of the latest gizmos for micro development. If so, the missing device was on order. What surprised Kris was the sight of a stasis box sitting in the middle of the table. Now, that was overkill.

  More surprising, Tru did not flip it open.

  “Your Aunt Alnaba sent that from Santa Maria.”

  Great-aunt Alnaba was a real aunt, Great-grampa Ray’s youngest girl. She’d specialized in zenobiology and devoted herself to studying the artifacts the Three left behind on Santa Maria. She’d spent a lifetime trying to figure out bits and pieces of a technology so far beyond humanity’s present level that they had built jump points in space as highways across the stars. Grampa Ray had worked with Alnaba most of the last twenty years. He’d never met a challenge he couldn’t handle. Kris grinned; cracking the technology of the Three and the present politics of humanity just might ruin Grampa Ray’s perfect score. “What’s in it?”

  Tru did not open the box but pulled a picture from her pocket. It showed a small square beside a penny for perspective. As wide as the penny was across, it was a bit thicker. “That is a piece of rock from the mountain range along Santa Maria’s North Continent. We cut those mountains up pretty badly during the war against the Professor.”

  “Cut them up, hell. That Disappearing Box made them vanish, just vanish.” Kris shook her head. “Navy tried for fifty years to figure out how that little box worked. Don’t know any more now than they did the day it arrived in the lab.”

  “Yes,” Tru agreed. “But maybe they’re starting too high on the tech food chain. You have to know how to use a screwdriver before you can take a clock apart. I don’t think we’ve figured out the Three’s equivalent of a screwdriver. A million years ago, we were using stone flakes for tools. Could that version of the human brain conceive of a screwdriver, even if you put one in its hand?”

  Kris mulled that idea over, could add nothing to it, and waved at the stasis box. “So, what is that?” she repeated.

  “A tiny part of the data storage that was locked up in those mountains.”

  “Is it active?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s it contain?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you know?”

  Tru grinned. “Nothing at all. The question is, what would you like to know?”

  Kris eyed the picture, then the box. “How would we find out if this rock has any data stored in it that can be retrieved?”

  “By trying.”

  “How?”

  “Whatever we tried would have to be very sophisticated . . . or maybe very simple. It would need to be flexible and willing to adjust to just about any requirement. I don’t even know what kind of power this thing operated on. We’d have to construct different power sources, apply them very carefully, and see if the mouse squeaks.”

  Kris rubbed her nose; Nelly was suddenly feeling very heavy on her collarbone. “Self-organizing circuitry, huh.”

  “Self-organizing. Very powerful, and very well integrated with its human. Your Aunt Alnaba and her team tried several, what you might call, standard approaches. You know, the big lab, working long hours, everyone looking over everyone else’s shoulders. No results. Then she asked me if I had any ideas. I told her I did.”

  “And they were?”

  “Ever read how the Professor contacted your Grampa Ray?”

  “It got kind of complicated. Biology was never my favorite science,” Kris dodged.

  “Mine neither. What I found interesting, though, was the relationship between his sleeping brain and the tumor growing in his skull. Do you have any idea how important sleep is?”

  “Only when I’m not getting enough of it.”

  “Newborn babies take in as much of this new and confusing world as they can, then fall asleep to absorb it all. Study, sleep, study, sleep. How many times did I tell you when you were in high school that a good night’s sleep was the best preparation you could do for a test?”

  Kris chuckled, then, as honor required, gave her teenage response. “A test is a test. What you put on the test is what matters, not what you put on a pillow.”

  Tru scowled as she always had, then shook her head. “My suggestion to Alnaba is that we put this in someone’s personal computer who could sleep on it. See what their computer and their sleeping mind can make of it.”

  “So, you’re going to upgrade your Sammy with self-organizing circuitry.”

  “Sadly, I can’t afford it.” So, why was Tru grinning?

  “You didn’t come up with this idea about the time I sprang for Nelly’s last upgrade, did you?”

  “No. Actually, I came up with the idea shortly after you first saw a computer with self-organizing circuits. You’ve never been one to pass up the latest computer whizbang.” Tru’s grin was once again unrepentant.

  “And where did I pick up this bad habit?”

  “Yes,” Tru pouted, “but us old retired folks can’t keep up with every new bit of this and that. I’ve had to learn to live on a budget.”

  Kris knew she was being finagled by the one person in human space who knew where all her fins were to agle.

  “Tru, it might be fun to crack some Three technology, but just three hours ago I was nanoseconds away from being blown to quarks. I can’t have Nelly down with a Three-induced headache.”

  “And you won’t. Sammy and I have come up with a multiple buffer approach that will keep what’s going on around the chip from slipping over into your main processing.”

  “Will or should?” Kris demanded.

  “Young woman, you really should talk to whomever was your teacher. You are far too paranoid about modern technology to survive in this modern world.”

  “That’s exactly who I am talking to. I recall a certain trig exam where I ended up with nothing but my own ten fingers to count on when my pet computer got into a do-loop chasing the value of pi.”

  Tru chuckled. “You will agree, that was a learning experience.”

  “Yeah, right! And one I never intend to repeat.”

  “Why don’t you have Nelly look at the buffers Sam and I worked up?”

  “Nelly?” Kris said.

  “It might be interesting,” Nelly said slowly, as if inviting Aunt Tru to go on.

  “Can’t hurt us to look,” Kris agreed. For a long minute she could feel the silence from Nelly as the computer concentrated on the data transfer and adjusted to the new systems.

  “They go in very smoothly,” Nelly said, “and they include a new interface as well as three levels of buffer between me and the stone. I should be able to view anything going on in any one of the buffers and block it from causing me or you any harm. There is also a smart new recovery mode that would allow me to quickly bring more of my capacity on-line if I did have a major systems failure and had to recover.”

  “You want to try this?” Kris said, before remembering
that want was not a word you used with a computer.

  “I think it would be fun to find out how to build new jump points between the stars,” Nelly answered.

  “Looks like Nelly has organized some interesting circuitry for herself,” Tru drawled. “Bet my Sammie would like to see the specs for them.”

  “Yes,” came in an eager voice.

  “Enough, already.” Kris sighed. “Yes, I’d love it if we could build our own paths rather than being stuck on the ones the Three left behind.” The Paris system came immediately to mind; its scattered jump points almost got humanity into a war. And it wasn’t as if she and Nelly would be doing anything important for the next month. Why not do something extreme? Kris gave her aunt Tru a sigh. “You owe me for this one.”

  Tru grinned.

  “So, what do we do?”

  Tru flipped a button on the picture she’d been holding, and it ran through a process for implanting the stone onto Nelly’s central processing area. “We’ll use a different-colored dollop of self-organizing gel. That should let it build not only connectors but any power supply conversion you need. Also, if we have to scrape it off Nelly, the color marker will help.”

  “Sounds okay,” Kris said, then the skeptical part of her brain kicked in. “Where’d you get the money for the gel?”

  “I won a small lottery pot,” Tru said without looking up from arranging various tools and stasis boxes on her worktable.

  “Won or rigged?”

  “Now didn’t your dad say the last time he reauthorized the lottery that some of the money should go for research?”

  “Yes,” Kris agreed slowly, wondering if Father had this in mind and not at all sure he didn’t. What had Harvey said when Kris first began to question her aunt’s lottery “luck”? “A smart woman knows not to push it.” No question, Tru was smart. Kris loosened her collar to take Nelly from around her shoulders.