by Mark Wandrey
“Sure!” he said with a little too much exuberance.
“Okay, well, maybe don’t show her any more scars in front of your mom?” Terry laughed and nodded his head. Doc grabbed him around the shoulders and gave him a quick hug. “Good. Now, how’s the program coming?”
“I finished compiling it into language I understand; I’m just trying to piece together what it does and why.”
“You know how much longer?”
“Maybe a couple days. Hopefully by the time you let me go back out.”
“You aren’t delaying, are you?”
“No, sir,” Terry said seriously.
“Good, I didn’t think you would be. Well, we’re going to Extractor #4 today to see how much it has on board. The dolphins found it late last night. They’re treating it like a game with the orcas, and say they’re ahead 1-0.”
“Sounds like them, all right,” Terry agreed. “Good luck.”
Doc left, and Terry pulled out his slate to work on the program while he waited for his friends. A short time later he saw the big submarine and three of the new minisubs pass just within view. A squadron of several orcas and bottlenoses were in closer formation; the cetaceans now all had LED lights mounted on their rebreather harnesses, and they cast beams in the darkness as they swam with the submarines until they were swallowed by the sea.
The machine beeped, notifying him a bottle was full. He switched it for an empty one and went back to work on the slate to forget the fun he was missing out there. He was just changing another bottle five minutes later when Katrina came in.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she said back and immediately came over to help him.
The only thing the leg made difficult was carrying heavy things. The full milk bottles weighed in at over 10 kilos. It was a little difficult. She leaned in to help him, and he noted just how blue her eyes were.
“I saw Doc leaving,” she said.
“He was in here talking to me before you got here,” Terry said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, my mom narced on us to him.”
Her cheeks grew red, and she stood up, smoothing her shirt back down. He enjoyed the effect. “What did he say?”
“Just that we shouldn’t do anything around mom.”
“We weren’t doing anything,” she said.
“I know,” he said, “I tried to tell him.”
“I mean, I don’t even know what you’d want to do.”
Terry didn’t know what to say in reply. What would he want to do? “What would you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
Katrina was so close, just a few centimeters away. She smelled like soap and mystery. “What would we do by ourselves if we wanted to?” It was a stupid question, he realized, when she took a step forward and their lips touched.
Colin, Dan, and Taiki came in talking loudly about a movie they’d watched recently. Terry was helping Katrina lift the last milk jug onto the table. They were both breathing hard and looked a little sweaty.
“You guys alright?” Dan asked.
“Yeah, why?” Terry asked.
“You look worn out,” Colin said.
Terry swallowed and began to panic.
“Of course we are,” Katrina said and he felt his heart leap into his throat. “You assholes are late and left us to do all the hard work!”
The three guys made rude sounds and waved it off. Terry breathed again and glanced at Katrina, who winked back at him. Terry sat down to let the new arrivals move the jugs onto the edge of the moon pool. It helped him wait until something went away.
The boys went into one of the two small changing rooms, Katrina into the other, and emerged a couple minutes later in drysuits carrying respirators and fins.
“We going swimming later?” Dan asked.
“I need to work on the program,” Terry said. He glanced at Katrina, who glanced back at him. Her eyes held something that was better than anything he’d ever experienced. Oh, boy.
The moon pool lock opened, and Pōkole raced in. Moloko followed, considerably slower and more careful. The five teenagers slid into the water and spent a few minutes playing with the excited calf as his mother floated around the pool lazily while keeping an eye on her exuberant offspring. They each took a turn being towed by Pōkole, an activity he particularly enjoyed, and then it was lunch time.
As always, Pōkole was voracious. Dr. Jaehnig discussed the option of increasing his feedings to a four-meal schedule instead of the current three. This would necessitate either automating the process, or having some staff handle the middle of the night. Regardless, there was no doubt the calf was thriving; he seemed to grow every day.
The other researchers were against automation, especially Dr. Orsage. Their only biologist specializing in cetacean psychology stated Pōkole got too much from the interaction between Terry and the other teenage volunteers. For the time being, they would continue on as before.
Terry hadn’t been lying, he did need to concentrate on the program. Only he’d also promised Katrina she could stay. After the brief and exciting moments of kissing, he’d found it impossible to tell her no. Once the other guys were gone, he and Katrina stayed in an unused room next to the moon pool. Outside, several orcas—including Pōkole and his mother—were chasing a local sea creature.
“It looks like they’re torturing it,” Katrina said, pointing. The animal was more like an eel than a fish, with a dozen flippers along its length, and a wide mouth meant to eat plant growth from the ocean floor. It was desperately trying to escape its tormentors, but suffering from a major deficiency without vision. The orcas bit at it from all sides, Moloko encouraging her calf to join in.
“They’re predators,” Terry explained, “called Killer Whales by most people.” He glanced at the drama playing out, the calf biting into one of the eel’s flippers and tearing a chunk out of it. “It’s natural for them.”
Katrina looked away as the orcas began to tear the creature to pieces and feast on it. Terry went back to his slate. The Selroth control program was projected via Tri-V in a series of icons, each representing an element of the program. She watched him quietly, perched on the edge of a table. It was really more comfortable than the Selroth-designed chairs anyway, which was why Terry stood.
“You’ve really gotten used to the leg they made for you,” she said.
“Umm hmm,” he grunted in agreement.
“It makes you look like a badass.”
Terry glanced up at her from the display. She was examining him in detail, her expression indecipherable. He spent a second examining her face, the curve of her chin, the shape of her lips. Her eyes came up and met his. He swallowed and went back to the program. It was just frustrating enough to take his mind away from how it felt to kiss her.
“What is it you’re trying to do?” she asked.
“The Selroth wrote a program on their extractors which controlled their actions after they left. Unfortunately, only part of the program was on the extractor. Part is missing.”
“So it only works if all the parts are there?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Pretty much.”
“It’s an algebra problem, then,” she said.
“No, programming.”
“But I learned programming is like algebra.” He looked at her curiously. “You know, based on the programming, only certain codes and processes could exist. Like a jigsaw puzzle.”
Terry was shaking his head, then he stopped. “Jigsaw puzzle,” he said. She nodded and smiled at him. A short time ago, the smile might have completely thrown him off his line of thought, but her comparison had socked him between the eyes more than her kiss had. “Union standard programming is made up of blocks,” he said.
“Right,” she agreed, “we learned that in school, but nobody really understands them.”
“I do.” He grinned. “Well, kinda. The program blocks are like you said, a jigsaw puzzle. Except a woven jigsaw puzzle,
where pieces fit together with multiple other blocks as long as you line them up right. The original programmers must have thought in ways we don’t understand. It’s practically three dimensional. But you’re right, I think I can extrapolate the missing pieces.”
Katrina was grinning hugely as he set out all the programming blocks from the extractor to create a pallet. After just a minute, he was certain he didn’t have them all. However, he still had the files from the Tri-V simulation he’d sold to the Maki. He set out that pallet, too, and then compared the two.
“Holy shit, a match!” he said. There were three blocks in the Tri-V sim that hadn’t been in the extractor program. There must be hundreds of permutations. He set about figuring out which jigsaw piece set with each hole in the extractor’s programming. It took almost an hour for the first match, then 10 minutes for the second. The final piece snapped into place in just seconds to give him a completed program.
“You did it!” Katrina said.
“No, we did,” he replied. She was leaning over his shoulder. It was only a slight move to kiss her cheek. She turned her head strategically as he move in, and their lips met instead. His finger absently tapped the Initiate icon. He broke the kiss when his slate blanked and a new display came up.
“Oh no, what did I do?” he wondered and frantically tried to stop the process. He knew black programs could wipe out a slate, or even infect an entire network and wreak unbelievable carnage. He needn’t have worried. The coding wasn’t malicious, it was planning in nature.
The program instructed the extractor to operate until its storage tanks were full, then it would move to a specific location, at which point additional orders would be received. A command subroutine would then delete the parts of the program he’d just replaced, and the extractor would blithely return to its task. He looked at the results again. Coordinates were included.
“I know where the extracted minerals are,” he said. “Do you want to go for a swim?”
“Won’t we get in trouble?” she asked.
Terry glanced at the time, then shook his head no. “I don’t have to meet mom for three hours yet. More than time enough to go out, verify the location, and return.” She looked skeptical. “There are two minisubs still; one’s mine, and another that Doc’s people just finished. It hasn’t gone out yet, but I have mine in case anything goes wrong. What do you say?”
“Why not?” she said.
The two young people nearly ran out of the moon pool, heading for the lock where the submarines were kept. Terry had been in such a hurry he hadn’t noticed a tiny icon on his slate indicating it had reached out to Templemer’s communications array with instructions. He could only think of finding the mineral reserves and being named a hero once again. The slate was in his carrying pouch when it flashed the message Communication Successfully Sent, blanked itself, and ended.
* * * * *
Chapter 9
Volcanic Valley, Planet Hoarfrost, Lupasha System, Coro Region, Tolo Arm
April 24nd, 2038
The two minisubs sailed over the ocean mountaintops at a solid 20 knots. They hadn’t intended it, but they’d ended up with a massive escort of orcas and bottlenoses. All of them, actually. Doc and his team went in a full-size submarine, and thus didn’t need protection from Oohobo. The large submarines were tough and armed with lasers. The Oohobo likely had past experience with them under Selroth command, and stayed away from them,
It only took Katrina a few minutes to learn the minisub’s operation. The controls were simple and intuitive, having been designed for Humans, by Humans. While she didn’t have as much dive experience as Terry, she’d gotten more than a little since arriving on Hoarfrost. This was her first time out, though, and Kray had decided they needed a full escort. Not one to be outdone, the bottlenoses had come along.
“We need to get there and back quickly,” Terry said over intercom between the two minisubs.
“The adults will be pissed,” she reminded him.
“I know, but finding the stash will make it all good. It must have thousands of tons in it!”
The entire purpose of being at Templemer was to operate the mines. If they could generate a massive deposit of minerals for the Izlians in the first year of the contract, Doc had said it would ensure their success. Despite possibly getting in trouble, Katrina seemed excited to break the rules. He’d never had a friend quite like her. A little voice in the back of his mind whispered Yui’s name, but the memory of warm, wet kisses made it quiet and distant.
“How much farther?” Katrina asked.
Terry looked at his slate mounted in the minisub’s cockpit. The powerful computer was waterproof. The documentation said it would operate in any environment from 5 to 1200 kelvin, and pressure so deep most life couldn’t survive, the advantage of no moving parts or internal spaces. It was effectively grown from crystals as a single matrix.
“Looks like 3 kilometers,” he said. They were navigating based entirely on the data provided by their reconstructed Selroth program. Since it had provided a destination in the area, he was certain the location must be correct. If it had said the location was on the other side of the planet, he’d have doubted the results.
“Even with the heater, it’s cold,” she said, a shiver in her voice.
“You kind of get used to it,” he replied. The minisubs hummed onward.
Through the glass canopy, he watched Pōkole literally swimming circles around him. Despite not even being a year old yet, he was an incredibly fast, strong swimmer. Adult orca could exceed 25 knots. The calf was having no trouble keeping up with the minisubs’ 20 knots.
One of the bottlenoses came racing back from the direction they were heading, suddenly appearing in the dozens of lights from the many cetaceans and orca. It was Wikiwiki, a female known for her swimming speed. She’d often worked as a scout when the Humans had ventured out to explore Hoarfrost’s oceans. She’d been clocked at an impressive 33 knots.
For a moment Terry was afraid she would tell them an Oohobo was menacingly close, but instead, she had better news. “Machine near!” she said excitedly.
“Take us there, please?” he asked. Wikiwiki bobbed her head up and down, the lights on her harness dancing wildly, then she wheeled about and raced back the way she’d come.
“Wow, she’s fast,” Katrina said.
“Wikiwiki fastest Swift Brother,” Kray agreed, his huge bulk accelerating after the bottlenose with powerful strokes of his flukes.
The two minisubs skimmed through the water in the midst of a squadron of orcas and bottlenose dolphins. Terry wondered if this was how a vital ship felt being escorted by warships through enemy territory. He felt incredibly safe.
A minute later, his minisub’s sonar showed their destination. Another volcano, this one considerably shorter than the others nearby. Terry watched the depth meter descending and accessed the minisub’s built-in dive computer. He and Katrina were already breathing a mixture specially formulated for deeper diving. He entered the numbers and bit his lower lip. It was on the edge of their ability without having to undergo decompression.
“Is it safe to go so far down?” Katrina asked, obviously aware of the issue at hand.
The two minisubs slowed to a stop, and the orca pod circled back to ring them in. Pōkole stopped in front of Terry’s minisub, looking through the canopy curiously.
“What wrong?” Moloko asked.
“It’s very deep,” Terry explained. “You know Humans can’t dive deep and come up as easily as cetaceans.”
“Want go back?” Kray asked.
The bottlenose dolphins were clicking and singing ahead, already at their destination, inviting them to come join in the fun.
“No,” Terry said. “It’ll be okay if we don’t have to go any deeper.” He moved forward, Katrina fell in alongside, and the retinue of orcas did so, as well.
Terry tried not to watch the depth gauge as they continued downward. Despite his attempt, he ended up fixating on it so
much he missed the extractor coming into view. When he looked up, he gasped in surprise.
“What’s wrong?” Katrina asked.
“The extractor,” he said, glancing over at her and pointing ahead. He could see her inside her own minisub looking in the same direction.
“I know,” she said, “it’s huge.”
“No, you don’t understand. It isn’t the same as the others. Doc said they were all somewhat different, but...” He shook his head. “It’s not even close.”
Where the first extractor he’d seen had looked like a motley collection of tanks and equipment mounted on a massive motorized tread-driven base, this one appeared more like a structure built on the surface of the volcano. It was also many times larger than the other extractor. Like five times larger.
“It’s like the extractor fell apart,” Katrina said.
“Or was rebuilt?” Terry wondered aloud.
They finally levelled out as the minisubs and the flotilla of orcas came even with what used to be an extractor. Now Terry could see his theory appeared to be correct. The extractor no longer possessed any means to move about; instead, it was built into the side of the volcano. Also, unlike the volcano the other extractor was working on, this one showed no signs of life, either fish or underwater plants feeding on mineral-rich ejecta.
“Why did it take itself apart?” he wondered.
“Can a machine take itself apart?” Katrina asked.
“Some can,” Terry said. “I think,” he corrected. He’d read about nanites in science. The Union had machines great and small. Some were like the Behemoths, kilometers across. Others were too small to see, so small they could enter your body and change things. Those were nanites, and Earth scientists had been working toward them for a long time. Naturally the Union was way ahead of them, and had been using them for thousands of years.
It wasn’t too much of a stretch to build a machine that could simply take itself apart and rebuild itself to do another job. Maybe lacking the space to store all the harvested material for centuries, they’d taken this extractor apart to create a depot of some kind. Perhaps it had been broken and couldn’t move anymore, or its fusion plant had stopped working. It sort of made sense.