Transhuman

  "I can still veto if I consider you to be irrational or mentally impaired," said Revenge, snidely.

  "And do you consider me to be mentally impaired?" asked Revick, his voice dangerously quiet.

  "No more than any other human," said Revenge, with resignation. "Go on then, get yourself killed, pureed into raw DNA, and converted into a pop-up toaster."

  Revick did not dignify that sally with an answer.

  Revenge coasted up to the puffer fish, decelerating to come alongside. Revick plugged into the cruiser's detectors and watched with fascination; he had never been so close to a bioship before. Waves ran down the outer hull, the skin, of the ship. Fascinated, Revick cranked up the magnification, showing that the surface consisted of hexagonal plates, each of which had a degree of articulation with its six neighbors, such that they could oscillate in complex patterns, and some plates contained structures that might have been receiver arrays or hatches. Revenge matched speeds to come alongside the bioship, where it became clear that it was considerably bigger than the cruiser, even though the Navy warship was a good seven kilometers long.

  "I have prepared a capsule for you in the library," said Revenge.

  "The library?" queried Revick.

  "It was as convenient as any other place," said Revenge, somehow managing to get a shrug into its tone.

  Revick left his study for the library, which was a five-minute walk down the connecting corridor. There, he kept his collection of pre-Singularity English mystery stories shelved on rows of high stacks. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple jostled alongside inspectors Wycliffe, Wexford, and Lindley. He had ensured that the room was carpeted in a thick shag pile, such that he could walk silently between the stacks to select a treasured volume. There was no other person on the ship whose reading he could disturb, but he was a traditionalist so he liked a silent library.

  A circular blue-gray plate lay incongruously on the carpet in the library's vestibule. When Revick stepped on it, boot heels clicking on the metal surface, a tulip-shaped, clear membrane emerged from the plate and rose around his body, closing silently over his head. The plate rose smoothly toward the ceiling, which opened to admit it, and the capsule flew rapidly down a tight corridor, matching its twists and turns. Revick had no physical sense of motion, as the capsule maintained an internal rock-steady one-gee gravity field, so after only a few seconds, his stomach lurched, his head ached, and sweat made his palms sticky.

  "Um, Revenge. My eyes and ears are feeding my brain conflicting sensory information, leading to what we humans lovingly refer to as sea-sickness."

  The walls of the capsule immediately became opaque. "Is that better?" Revenge asked.

  "Well, it solves the problem," Revick admitted, standing in what appeared to be a stationary waiting room. "But I really wanted to see out."

  "It will only take a few minutes before you are clear of the ship, and after that, it won't matter. After all, speed to a human is how you feel about it."

  The capsule walls became transparent again and Revenge was proved right, as there was very little visual sense of movement out in open space. As it happened, Revick was facing backward so he had a clear view of the cruiser, which resembled a slate gray, elongated ziggurat. The hull was smooth except for the rigs of drive plates that projected from the stern. He was thrilled to see the vast machine from the outside as he derived great satisfaction from being the pilot of such a magnificent craft.

  However, he shuffled around in a circle to watch the approaching "puffer fish." The view from his eyes gave a different perspective from the sophisticated detection equipment built into the cruiser. The bioship was colored a dirty, greeny-brown, with sides streaked by fluid stains leaking from puncture holes. There was a biological irregularity to the ship not found in a manufactured hull, so he was unsure whether the holes were purpose-designed vents or combat damage.

  The bioship floated gently toward the capsule, until its hull loomed in front like a canyon wall. Up close, he could see encrusted deformations in the surface causing the skin to look like one large, semihealed scar. The hexagonal plates were at least one hundred meters across, and the capsule headed for one, decreasing speed. An offset section in the plate depressed and slid away, revealing a dark entrance, and the capsule walls opaqued once more, leaving him staring at white walls. The meeting room must have been near the surface of the bioship, because the capsule walls cleared again after only a few moments, showing what looked like a reception room in an upmarket hotel.

  "Revenge?" queried Revick, tentatively. "Can you hear me?"

  "I'm here," said Revenge.

  "I was concerned that our communication link would be cut," said Revick, relieved.

  "I made it clear to the bioship what would happen if that occurred," said Revenge darkly.

  "Are you going to open the capsule and let me out?" asked Revick.

  "In a moment. I have a few more tests to carry out." There was a pause before the capsule's transparent walls sank back into the metal plate. Revick stood for a moment breathing the air, which smelt of nothing in particular. The air on Revenge carried a million earth smells, from the pungent solvent whiff of machinery to the fragrance of flowers. Here, there was nothing that he could identify. He walked around the room, which was remarkable for being unremarkable, sat down in an armchair, and waited.

  Revick expected something exotic to walk through the door, but, when it opened, a perfectly normal woman dressed in a gray business suit emerged and approached him with her hand outstretched. He rose and kissed it automatically, noting that the hand was completely tasteless. Real women, in his experience, tasted of salt with an indefinable trace of interesting pheromones. Whatever his taste buds indicated, his eyes told him that he was in the presence of an attractive woman.

  "Remind me again why we call these creatures Goblins," Revick subvocalized.

  Revenge's voice intruded into his head. "I have no idea why humans do many things. Incidentally, that most definitely is not a human being, whatever it superficially looks like."

  "You have run an analysis from the capsule already?" Revick subvocalized.

  "Of course!" Revenge sounded almost slighted.

  From the angle of his head, Revick could see up the sleeve of the woman's blouse and he noticed that the material grew straight out of her arm. As Revenge had already discovered, the duplication of a human being was quite superficial. This entity must have been created purely as a communication device, shaped to put a human at ease.

  "Please sit down," she said.

  He complied, and she sat beside him.

  "Why am I here? What do you want?" he asked, coming straight to the point. There seemed little point in exchanging social niceties with a foreigner.

  "We want safe passage across Terran Territory," she said.

  "Why?" he asked, succinctly.

  "We have been defeated in a great war," she replied. "Our segment of the clade has been cut off from our home-worlds, so we seek an unoccupied area of space to start a new colony. Unfortunately, the enemy found us and destroyed most of our fleet. This convoy is all that we have left, and it consists mostly of inadequately armed transport ships. We will be annihilated if we leave Terran space by the route that you gave us, so we ask to be allowed to traverse your Territory to seek sanctuary."

  "I must confer with my ship," Revick said, neutrally

  "Can you not make the decision yourself? Who is in command in the Terran Clade, you or your machines?"

  "I have not said that we will refuse you. I merely said that I must confer with Revenge," he said, avoiding the rhetorical question.

  "I see no reason why we should accede to their request," said Revenge in Revick's head. "What does it matter to us if one foreign clade wipes out another?"

  "There is a strategic aspect," Revick subvocalized. "By keeping one clade in the game, we may tie up another."

  "True," Revenge conceded.

  "Also they will owe us a favor. That is always useful."

/>   "What makes you think that a foreigner will reciprocate favors?'" asked Revenge, thoughtfully. Despite its negative reply, the concept clearly interested the mentality.

  "This will be a useful experiment that costs us very little," subvocalized Revick.

  There was a pause. "Agreed," Revenge finally said.

  "We are inclined to grant your request," said Revick out loud to the Goblin.

  "Thank you," it replied.

  "This discussion could have been carried out via ship transmission, so why were you so keen to meet?" Revick asked.

  "We have always been curious about the unique anomaly that is Terran Clade so I have been examining you closely while you talked to your machine. You have a mechanical communication device concealed in your skull. Would it not be easier to design in a biological component that grew with your body?" the Goblin asked.

  "The Terran Council have enacted strict laws against bioengineering humans other than medical improvements. The mechanical device to which you refer can be easily removed if necessary," Revick said, sharply. "It is merely a useful machine placed in a convenient location and is not part of my body."

  "Clades that have strong taboos against bioengineering usually become entirely mechanical during their Singularity, and yet here you are, the only mixed biomechanical clade that we have ever encountered, so naturally we are interested in you." The Goblin leaned forward. "Which is the dominant component, the bioentity or the machine? If the machines are in control, then why have they not eliminated you as normally happens? If you are dominant, then how have you kept your machines in check? Who is in command in the Terran Clade, Pilot Revick?"

  "You've had your fifteen minutes," said Revick, rising to leave.

  The Goblin convoy flew through the low-dimensional matrix at the speed of the slowest vessels, which were a flotilla of large oblong-shaped craft with thick carapaces covering most of their bodies. Slowly waving, anterior tentacles projected from under the carapaces, while stubby projections, shaped like fins, lined the rear, giving them the appearance of fat, armored squids. The Goblins placed these craft in the center of the convoy, suggesting to Revick that they were either particularly vulnerable or unusually valuable.

  Revenge cruised behind and slightly to one side of the Goblins, where it could keep a weather eye on their charges, while analyzing every aspect of them most carefully.

  "They have the most peculiar drive mechanism," Revenge observed.

  "Really, how does it work?" asked Revick.

  "I have absolutely no idea," Revenge replied. "They use some sort of field to polarize the surrounding energy strings. You could say that the strings push the ships along. You were absolutely right, Revick, this is proving to be a most valuable exercise."

  "Told you so," he replied. "Switch me out, please, as I have something I wish to do."

  Disconnected from the ship's detectors, Revick walked from his study to select a book from his collection. At least he tried, but they were not where he expected. "Revenge, where's the library?"

  "I observed that recently you have been visiting it seven point three five percent more frequently, so I moved it closer to your study," said Revenge, proudly.

  "I see," said Revick, with a deep sigh, retracing his steps. Revenge had an irritating habit of monitoring his perambulations and then reorganizing the ship's internal architecture for his convenience. Mentalities tended to get obsessive about efficiency for its own sake and were always complaining about the slapdash attitudes of humans. Revenge meant well, but it could be a bloody nuisance sometimes when it went into mother hen mode.

  When he found the room, he mounted a moving staircase to select his copy of The Lady in the Lake. Admittedly, Raymond Chandler was an American author but, as the man had been educated at Dulwich College in London, Revick was willing to stretch a point and accord him honorary English status so he could include his wonderful books in the collection, which was not something he could have done with Dashiell Hammett. According Hammett honorary English status would require stretching the point until it positively twanged. A great shame to be sure, but that writer was quintessentially American.

  Revick seated himself comfortably in a deep armchair and lost himself in Chandler's perfect prose,"I put my plain card, the one without the tommy gun in the corner, on her desk and asked to see Mr. Derace Kingsley."

  A chime summoned Revick from pre-Singularity California, and a gravity field pressed him back in the chair. Straps erupted around his legs, arms, and chest, and a fold enveloped his head. "We have a situation," Revenge said, somewhat unnecessarily.

  "Plug me in, please," asked Revick. Instantly, he was in the pilot's station ,where he could probe the matrix through the ship's detectors.

  "There," said Revenge, ringing a dot overtaking them on the starboard side. Revenge accelerated up to military speed and turned toward the intruder while Revick focused the ship's vision on it. The dot resolved into a shape as Revenge closed down the range, a boxy hull that was covered in spikes thrusting out at forty-five degrees from the bow and stern.

  "I don't recognize the design," said Revick. "Can you get a match?"

  "Negative," replied Revenge. "I have the Goblins online."

  A window opened in Revick's vision showing the ersatz Goblin woman. "It's the enemy," she said. "They've found us."

  "Understood, terminate conversation," said Revick. The window winked out. "Try calling them," Revick said. "Tell them that this is Terran Territory and that we require them to leave immediately."

  "I have already put that message on continuous loop in a wide variety of machine protocols," said Revenge. "So far they have not responded, but we are, however, being thoroughly probed."

  "You are blocking, of course," said Revick.

  "Of course," Revenge replied, sniffily. The cruiser turned again to run parallel to the intruder, leaving the convoy behind. "I've given them long enough to respond."

  "Perhaps they don't understand the message," Revick said.

  The cruiser powered up the bow gun and fired a salvo at the intruder vessel. Revenge had all the time in the world to plot the shot trajectory. Five bright, yellow-white pulses streamed away from the cruiser, seeming to be aimed well ahead of the intruder but, at the last minute, curling in toward the target. The intruder braked sharply and turned to port, so most of the spread passed harmlessly in front, but the final shot hit the vessel amidships. The charge dissolved into lines of energy that danced across the intruder's hull, causing the vessel to slow noticeably and pitch upward.

  "I expect they understood that message," said Revenge, laconically.

  The intruder was momentarily helpless and ripe for the plucking, but Revenge held its fire and matched speeds, repeating the looped message.

  "I believe that is what they used to call a shot across the bow," said Revick.

  "Why would I want to shoot across their bow when a hit in the hull is so much more effective?" asked Revenge, in genuine surprise.

  "Never mind," replied Revick. Despite their awesome intellectual capability, mentalities could be as literal as a tax inspector.

  The intruder regained control and turned away, diving down into the higher-dimensional energy arrays, where it faded from sight. Revenge slowed down and began to perform slow quarter turns to left and right to allow the convoy to catch up.

  "Incoming," Revick yelled, hearing the chatter of drive-displaced energy strings before he actually saw the craft.

  "There!" said Revenge, placing an arrow in Revick's vision as a pointer.

  Seven or eight light strike craft rose out of the depths, moving quickly in tight formation.

  Revenge tried to turn the cruiser but it wallowed, picking up speed slowly. The cruiser fired salvo after salvo from the bow gun at the attacking formation but the small, rapidly maneuvering craft were a difficult target. Eventually, and quite by chance, a shot hit head on, and a craft disappeared in a silver flash of energy.

  Two of the surviving craft lined up on t
he cruiser while the rest headed for the convoy and began attack runs. The cruiser's point defense weapon spat slivers of silver energy at the pair of closing attack craft. Its main bow gun continued to engage the formation attacking the convoy, with a noticeable lack of success. At point-blank range, the strike craft fired energy lances at the cruiser, the whole lower section of their hulls erupting in blue fire.

  The automatic defense systems released a pulse of energy around the cruiser's hull, causing the lances to detonate early, spraying the cruiser with secondary radiation that disrupted systems all over the vessel. The two strike craft continued in toward to the cruiser, moving too fast for the point defense to obtain a targeting solution.

  The convoy sprayed spores in all directions like tree blossoms blown by the wind. When the strike craft fired their lances into the defensive cloud, it dissipated and diffracted some of the energy; nevertheless, a lance speared deeply into one of the carapace ships, and others were rocked by fire.

  The pair of strike craft skimmed over the cruiser and dived into the cover of the higher-dimensional matrix. The trailing craft was a little too slow in executing the maneuver, and the point defense scored clean hits, knocking fragments off the little boat as it disappeared into the deep, leaving a trail of debris behind.

  Revenge swung to intercept the strike craft streaming off the convoy, but they were too fast, so they easily evaded its fire. The injured carapace ship slowed and floated up toward three-dimensional space-time, turning over on its back as it did so. The damaged bioship turned a sickly color, splodges of brown breaking out on the extremities, and the frontal tentacles hung listlessly. To Revick's inexperienced eye, it was either dead or dying. A small missile detached from the puffer fish and climbed toward the bioship. Striking the carapace it stuck, purple lines spreading out from the point of impact, widening and deepening until the ship split, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces that spun and disintegrated in the dancing energy arrays.

  "What in the name of Holy Terra was that?" asked Revick.

  "Some sort of bioweapon?" suggested Revenge. "I presume that it was a fast-acting virus or toxic bomb?"