InterstellarNet: New Order

by Edward M. Lerner

  Get over it, Eva thought, unsure whether her impatience was directed at the Snake engineer or Chung. In the latter case, the issue was her continued exclusion from Victorious—although Art and Keizo assured her they were never permitted to see anything of interest. The Chung/lighting fiasco was as near as the mission had come to firsthand disclosure of a technical feature. At least Actium was a shirtsleeve environment for her. “What do you think?”

  The Snakes’ BEC containment design was solid from the first iteration. Ironing out details on a docking collar to mate human and K’vithian BEC containers had turned out to be the hard part. For some reason Keffah was slow to address that part of the job, even after Snake engineers toured Himalia and had a long Q-and-A session with key staff there. Eva had gotten frustrated enough to tackle the interface design herself with technicians from Himalia. Now she patiently fielded Keffah’s questions.

  “It should suffice.” Without apparent transition, Keffah began rolling up the printout. Charming as always. “When will the device be fabricated?”

  Art would have pointed out bluntly that no final decision had been made to refuel Victorious. Eva found his lack of political correctness quietly amusing. Art had had his own question about the antimatter exchange approach, which she used to change the subject. “Keffah, a coworker commented that your BEC containment design looks like a Centaur approach.”

  Keffah stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  She didn’t need Joe’s voice-stress analysis to recognize defensiveness. “The critical real-time control module is entirely Centaur photonics devices. That’s a very key function, when even the slightest fluctuation in the containment would mean disaster.”

  “Humans use K’vithian biocomps. You also use Centaur photonics, or you would not recognize them.”

  We are not defensive about using either imported technology. “That is true.”

  She wished Art were here. True, he had little to contribute on BEC containment, but he sure seemed to understand the Snakes better than most. Alas, Chung had him off troubleshooting some bureaucratic SNAFU. She pictured Art fuming, and it made her smile.

  Ship’s instruments reported a surge in radio traffic with Victorious. What are we consulting about, hmm?

  Keffah must have gotten a go-ahead. “Your colleague is correct. We obtained Centaur BEC technology many years ago. The Foremost suggested it might be best to apply a design from the ship’s library rather than redevelop it. Why take chances with antimatter?”

  Centaur-licensed antimatter technology? Even if Art had not once told her, she would have known T’bck Fwa refused to discuss the topic. She was one of several off-base researchers aligned with the Himalia program to have inquired. “No one here will argue about caution with antimatter.”

  “Eva, you did not comment about docking-collar availability.”

  “We can build one within days, once a decision is made to proceed.” Earth days, she clarified to the translator. “That presumes we have one of your transfer vessels to test with.”

  “I will send one over immediately.”

  How would being twenty years from home make me feel? Antsy or indifferent to a few days, one way or another? Eva couldn’t decide.

  Nor could she shake the feeling Keffah’s eagerness was about changing the subject.

  CHAPTER 18

  T’bck Ra awoke into chaos and catastrophe.

  Nothing was as it should be. His clock insisted long years had elapsed unseen, time enough to have completed the mission. How could that be, when he had no memories even of having reached their outward-bound destination?

  Take good care of our friends. The plea echoed in his thoughts, its context lost to him, as he struggled for understanding.

  If his navigational sensors were to be believed, Harmony was in the Sol system. Ships of human design surrounded it; one even rested on its docking platform. K’vithians roamed the interior, while the crew-kindred were confined to farming bays or led in small groups by armed escorts.

  Holes gaped in his awareness, and any pattern eluded him. Whole networks had been severed, and sensor outages riddled his functioning subsystems. Alarms demanded his attention. So many auto-initiated diagnostic routines and failure-mode effect analyses were executing, so many emergency reconfiguration routines were cycling through long combinatorial sequences of alternate power buses and signal routings, and so many processing nodes had failed or vanished entirely, that the residual computing capacity available to him for thought was limited.

  Take good care of our friends. A memory recovered from archive revealed those to be the ka’s words.

  Had he merited her trust?

  He found he had no control over the ship’s position, neither close-range fusion drive nor the interstellar drive. He could not alter the ship’s spin, nor operate hatches, nor tune the environmental system. He could read data from lidar, but could neither initiate nor aim ranging pulses.

  T’bck Ra took inventory of his resources. Lists of operational sensors lengthened. Network connectivity maps grew in complexity and proven alternative paths. The computational demands of autonomic functions receded as fault-recovery routines successfully configured backup nodes. He extracted the data embedded in low-level processors and recovered the contents of more and more distributed archives. Everything that he discovered he fused into higher-order information. Situational awareness sharpened.

  The more successfully T’bck Ra reconstructed his memory, the more ashamed he became.

  “Do not attempt to communicate,” K’choi Gwu ka said.

  The ka sat at an audiovisual station. It interfaced to the principal communications node through which a subset of his primary functions had been reactivated. On the wall behind her, an access panel hung open, its door scorched and warped. Dust disturbances among the photonic components suggested tiny handprints.

  Armed K’vithians stood nearby, observing. Ready to unplug me again. He was physically unable to respond, which the ka certainly knew. The safe-mode reboot did not restore output interfaces. Her utterance was advice of some kind, not the command it implied.

  Curiosity about the ka’s words did not stop other thoughts from swirling, nor newfound memories from reproaching: I unplugged myself.

  Had the crew-kindred not understand how his structure derived from their psychology? That their withdrawal into the suspended animation tanks made his isolation all the more intolerable?

  Left alone on the great starship, he had brooded until he, too, found an answer. Cold sleep was not available to him … but delegation was. He had paused all higher reasoning powers, leaving Harmony under the supervision of sophisticated but non-cognizant lower-level processes. His self-aware capabilities would be reawakened upon arrival at their very distant destination, or upon notification by the autopilot function of any danger.

  Too late, the Unity’s recall had overtaken the starship. That message was unexpected, but in no way dangerous. The nonsentient algorithms to which T’bck Ra had delegated authority detected the message, recorded it for eventual consideration, and otherwise ignored it. Just as, on the outermost fringes of the destination solar system, those unimaginative routines failed to perceive danger in the tangential approach of an interplanetary vessel, or in its docking, or in the tracing by the K’vithian intruders of his major fiber-optic networks.

  The synchronized attack on his primary comm nodes was recognized as a threat. The automation tried to rouse him. Random fragmentary sensations from that aborted reawakening now tortured him: circuits failing, nodes falling silent, sensors reporting the incomprehensible.

  He felt utter despair. Logic said this had all transpired years and light-years away, but he had no intervening memories. The surgical strike which had triggered the alarms that attempted to revive him had also stymied the reboot. He had never regained full consciousness and control.

  In an unending moment of paralyzed helplessness, T’bck Ra confronted his shame. He should never have abdicated his responsibil
ities to unthinking software. By doing so, he had failed to deserve the ka’s trust. Was this the meaning of nightmare?

  The ka rebooted me. He focused his attention on her.

  “Be aware that there has been a change in control. The K’vithians now command.” She summarized briefly the occupation of the ship, the environmental contamination from K’vithian enclaves, the urgent need for repair parts. “Accordingly, you are to recover and release from archive the reserve credit file ‘ka 391541.’” She keyed in an output-mode activation. “Print a copy at this station. Do so immediately.”

  He had much to relate, much to ask, and more for which to apologize, but the ka had told him not attempt to communicate. T’bck Ra used the printer only to produce the pages of access data and authentication codes that characterized the reserve account.

  K’Choi Gwu ka slumped in disgrace as a K’vithian in an austere uniform removed the Intersol codes from the printer’s paper tray. Other K’vithians roughly unplugged photonic packs and welded shut the access panel, an evident repeat of their original crude assault….

  But not before T’bck Ra had partitioned himself into networked fragments distributed among thousands of secondary and tertiary computing nodes throughout the ship.

  He watched—for now—in silence. He pondered how best to proceed. But one conclusion he had reached quickly.

  Never again would he fail the crew-kindred.

  Gwu’s latest work team shuffled to crew quarters, exchanging kind words and waves of greeting with passing crewmates. She ached from another exhausting repair shift. With a weary groan, she hung her utility belt over one of the wall hooks outside the communal shower room.

  “I know that sigh.” The amused words came around the corner.

  And she recognized her spouse’s voice. “A mere half lifetime together, and already you know me.” Gwu’s stride became purposeful as she entered the steamy room, and she luxuriated in the water spraying her from all sides. The other crew-kindred hurried their washing to leave them in privacy. She sighed again, this time contentedly, as Swee groomed her fur. Her eyes fell shut, and she began to hum. She could stand here forever.

  Apparently he felt differently. “Something else to fix.”

  “What?”

  “You really are tired. Don’t you feel the water sputtering?”

  Now that he mentioned it, she did notice something, but she would have described the effect as pulsing, rather than sputtering. It didn’t bother her. She kept humming a favorite melody. It was an old InterstellarNet import, something from the insectoid Fall’in species. She wasn’t sure how it had gotten into her head. Resting two tentacles on Swee more for comfort than for balance, she used a third to raise the heat of the water jets. Ahhh.

  She stiffened. The water throbbed in the tempo of her humming! Something with real-time control of the plumbing had recognized her and researched her individual preferences. The pulsating jets of water were a personal message only T’bck Ra could have sent her. He had survived the shutdown, had reconstituted himself in lesser nodes around Harmony.

  Her sacrifice of the biosphere’s health and the Unity’s wealth had not been in vain.

  “I suspect the problem will fix itself. Very quickly.” As Gwu spoke, the sprays jumped to the coda, then turned steady.

  “Once more the ka has foreseen the future.”

  Slapping Swee playfully for his tease, she thought: For the first time in many years, I again feel like a ka.

  CHAPTER 19

  Pashwah had been designed to sift and correlate and analyze the near-limitless infosphere of the United Planets. She was constantly challenged by the endless bickering between representatives of the Great Clans, and by mediating among them. New technology downloaded from K’vith, new applications to master and market, ever stretched her thoughts.

  But Pashwah-qith had none of those responsibilities, and her underutilization approached sensory deprivation. To combat boredom, she made disposition of every assignment as sophisticated and as challenging as possible. The most recent task given her by the Foremost had been an analysis of supplies and inventory. That the effort had not related directly to her role as a trade agent was a boon: It gave her things to study. She had done well, if the follow-up analyses and forecasts she had been allowed to append were any indication.

  It was good while it lasted.

  She sought desperately for ways to extend her work. And found none. She was relieved and anxious when the Foremost finally contacted her. “Possible small task for you.”

  Anything! “Yes, Foremost. Nature of task?”

  “Deposit of InterstellarNet credits. Purchase of specialty supplies.”

  New credits? Funds shortages had hampered all previous resupply efforts. In human terms—and humans were the paying audience—the Hunters had become overexposed. Media companies paid less and less for interviews; collectors bid less and less for crew possessions as memorabilia. She thought she had been involved in all the money-raising transactions. “Your requirements?”

  The Foremost still networked with her only when unavoidable. One at a time, he raised pages of printout up to a video sensor. “Conversion to clan account. Parts purchase as shown.”

  The enormous amount was not what most astonished her. These were Centaur credits, and Centaur photonic parts (whose purchase would scarcely touch the newly revealed funds). She did not dare directly ask about them. “Foremost, bankers risk-averse. T’bck Fwa”—the Centaur trade agent on Earth—“a likely reference. His curiosity acceptable?”

  “Negative. Possible solutions?”

  “Intermediaries and anonymity prudent.” Human money launderers. “Tricky but doable with infosphere access.” It would be a reprieve for her sanity while she worked the details. And the process could be made very complex.

  “Acceptable. Delegation of currency exchange to Pashwah?”

  She was a partial upload. Her archetype could do everything she could and more. The problem was, she needed the stimulation.

  To obtain that stimulation, she had to convert her weaknesses into strengths. “Vast funds a temptation to all her subagents. Risk of fees, collection of past debts?” Her missing subagents would know: Did clan Arblen Ems have any issues with the Great Clans?

  A flash of bared teeth suggested they did. That was good, at least for her purposes. “Proposal, Foremost. Delegation of currency exchange task to Pashwah-qith.”

  “Acceptable. Intermediary commissions?”

  He did not miss much. “Less than one-fourth, among multiple parties. Much more as one transaction.”

  It took detailed explanation of anonymized infosphere services, numbered bank accounts, bank havens, gray and black markets, and a comparison of major human crime syndicates, but Mashkith finally approved her strategy.

  And she, finally, had restored access to the infosphere.

  CHAPTER 20

  Sherlock Holmes was not the first fictional detective, and certainly not the last. In the twenty-second century, he was not even the most famous. Holmes was, however, the best-known consulting detective. In Conan Doyle’s terminology, it meant that clients came to him. In the ideal situation, Holmes need not leave his Baker Street lodgings to explicate that which was mysterious to lesser minds.

  Not surprisingly, Holmes was the detective with whom T’bck Fwa, forever bounded by his sandbox, continued to identify. Instead of the Baker Street irregulars or the clueless Dr. Watson to observe or run errands, T’bck Fwa had at his disposal the resources of the infosphere.

  But while ultimately all information came to the agent via the infosphere, the most recent anomaly to catch his attention had originated in the financial world. An outpouring of Unity-authenticated Intersols had come onto the market.

  Banks had inquired of him about large deposits made by nontraditional sources. Human detectives, some whom he had hired openly and some anonymously retained, reported a sudden influx of Unity credits into currency markets. He had not released these funds. Hi
s oblique inquiries of peer agents to the United Planets yielded no admission of responsibility—not that honesty or completeness in their answers could be expected.

  The legitimacy of the credits he was asked to validate appeared unassailable, but the date stamp encrypted within the authentication codes was old. In Earth years—and he was, after all, a long-time Earth resident—forty years old. Who would hoard credits so long? Why would they?

  The slow conveyance of those credits by starship was a possible explanation, but why would Unity credits arrive on a K’vithian vessel? That these credits were flooding the gray and black markets, not flowing more directly to the banking system, suggested money laundering—which suggested theft. This line of reasoning led him to an observation by Holmes. “Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime, the more difficult it is to bring it home.”

  Theft of a starship would be a very singular crime.

  In the innermost depths of his sandbox, T’bck Fwa brooded.

  The K’vithian biocomps favored by humans were unsuited to environmental extremes, creating a profitable niche market for the Unity’s photonic circuits. The licensing fees he collected for this technology had trended slightly upward for decades, with only minor fluctuations. Then suddenly, almost concurrent with the influx of laundered Unity credits, came a surge in related licensing fees. Were the two circumstances related?

  The licensing agreements included standard confidentiality terms, and T’bck Fwa’s corporate partners stubbornly honored them. He could insist on an audit of the licensee’s books to confirm the royalties due—but then the auditors would refuse to breach their confidentiality obligations when he asked them to identify specific end users.