“The AA goes into hiding?” Edison asked.
“Exactly,” Joe said. “The lower data throughput allows a slower computer to detect and delete the Odysseus code before it can complete subsequent attacks.”
“I suspect that Odysseus will adapt to use short range com to upload smaller infiltration segments,” Saf said. “These might keep the overload trigger from activating and allow it to prevent the broadstream from being locked out.”
“There is evidence to support her conjecture. The interference I detected prior to the transmission was covering a foreign AI code element,” Joe confirmed. “I purged it immediately, however it came through other open RF systems.”
“Other RF systems?” Tana asked, turning to face Saf and unloading a dose of anxiety like a tidal wave.
“The standard design for shipwide AA infrastructure is based on internal radio frequency connection. These local-com transceivers are not part of the actual communication systems, because they are hardware dedicated for specific tasks. At close range an attack could overpower them and make them susceptible to attack,” it explained.
“800 kiloklick is close range?” Edison asked.
“Apparently, close enough,” Saf said. She opened a screen and looked at processor flow diagrams. “It looks like Joe’s clean, so we’re safe.”
“I hate to point this out, but there’s a real problem with that,” Edison said. “There isn’t 800 kiloklick between any two stations in Zone One. If FleetCom’s blackwall doesn’t stop this kind of attack, doesn’t that mean they’ve got no hope of keeping it out?”
“And when the ghost fleet gets there, neither does the Armstrong,” Tana said.
Inside the Kanahto: Tacra Un: L-4 Prime:
“Whoa.” Chei gasped as he stopped inside the door and Rocky and Ian both plowed into him. They were also on the brakes or the impact would have sent them all tumbling across the floor. If it was a floor. “I think we’ve found what we’re looking for.”
Unlike the other chambers they’d explored, which were all crammed with unidentifiable hardware and machinery in layers of decks, this one was an open sphere almost 500 meters in diameter. The lighting was dim and the outer wall above their entry point appeared to be a transparent plasglass dome looking out on space above L-4 Prime.
If the center node of the language matrix was an amphitheater, this was the Grand Coliseum of the universe.
“Dutch have you got our location?” Chei asked as he stared overhead at a smaller sphere that hung in the center of the dome. As his eyes adjusted to the lower light levels, he realized it gave off a slight blue glow.
“Is outside?” Rocky whispered, clearing her throat and then adding, “We appear to be on surface of L-4 Prime.”
“Negative. You are forty-seven kilometers below your last position,” Dutch said.
“That’s by far the longest jump from any of the aht-oolawath,” Chei said. “Almost to the center of the Kanahto.”
“Careful,” Ian said as he stepped forward and gravity realigned him perpendicular to the inner surface of the sphere. They’d all gotten used to gravity doing strange things, but the almost ninety-degree shift was shocking to watch him pivot through.
Five-meter wide hemispherical pits, spaced around the interior, covered the entire lower half of the chamber. “Looks ahn control consoles?”
“Might be,” Chei said, swinging upright to the new floor orientation and following him over to the nearest one.
He looked down into it and shrugged. The entire inner surface of the pit was featureless smooth material, like the pedestals in the amphitheater and a console like shelf extended all the way around the inside. “Do we jump?”
“I suggest we survey interior first and determine if there is irregularity in any control area,” Rocky said. “This might indicate a main console position.”
“Yah, there you go being all logical,” Chei said, grinning at her.
“I am communicating with the Tacra Un and it confirms you have reached the main control facility,” Dutch said. “It does however advise that you should exercise extreme caution when accessing the control interfaces.”
“Got it,” he said. “Put a kid in a candy kiosk and tell him he can’t eat anything.”
“It did not say not to access the controls, just to exercise caution,” it advised.
“We can eat any candy we want, but must remember some may be poisoned,” Rocky said. “Is not good.”
“Essentially accurate,” Dutch said.
“Will it give you any clue what things do what?” Chei asked.
“It says you are not ready yet,” Dutch said. “Your understanding of the language is still incomplete.”
“Frag me,” Chei said. “We’ve covered every word it’s thrown at us, what else is there to learn?”
“It has not explained this,” Dutch said. “It said only that there is a level of understanding you still lack. It used a word that is not in the database to define this.”
“What word?” he asked.
“I am not sure.” Dutch paused for almost a full second. “I understand the word, but I cannot articulate it.”
“You cannot articulate it?” Chei asked. “Is it an error in your vocalization processor?”
“Negative,” it said. “This word does not have an audible form.”
“Then how did it tell you this word?” he asked.
“When the Tacra Un and I communicate, it accesses my quantum logic core directly, and there is no language processor in the process,” it explained. “This is similar to the way AA talk on broadstream networks, but is several times more intimate.”
“It is in your brain?” Ian said. “Oolawath nuko-un?”
“Doorway to the greater mind,” Chei said.
Ian nodded. “The proxy chamber worked that way when I first used it on my own. I heard … nuko-un ahn nuko-che.” He shrugged. “My words are bad.”
“Mind-greater equals mind-child?” Rocky translated.
“Yes. Greater mind,” he pointed up at the small sphere in the overhead, “is wath nuko-che.” He pointed at his own head.
“That is the brain of Tacra Un?” Chei asked.
Ian shrugged, then nodded. “Nuko-un wath my mind.”
“Wait. Is it possible that the language is also telepathic?” Chei asked. “If Ian is sharing a brain with the greater mind of the Tacra Un, that might explain a lot.”
“Not sharing,” Ian said. “Sometimes words mean more than one thing. I can know the different meaning inside my nuko-che better than maybe you. Is not clear, but know, not hear things. Ahn?”
“Dutch are you tracking this conversation?” Chei asked. “It sounds like you and Ian are both talking about telepathy. Do you have any way to confirm that with the Tacra Un?”
“It referred me back to the same non-verbal word. I assume this may mean affirmative.”
“So the only way to understand the language completely, is to link the written forms telepathically to some other type of understanding?”
“This would explain the simplicity of the written and spoken forms of the Un Shan Takhu language,” Dutch said.
“Simple?”
“Yes. One would assume that an ancient civilization would have an extensive vocabulary, yet the matrix only contains 22,608 words. Even moderately primitive languages of earth exceeded this word count early in their evolution,” it explained.
“Where does that leave us? None of us are psychic,” Chei said.
“Perhaps not, but we must try,” Rocky said.
Ian jumped down into the nearest pit and grinned as it lit up in response. It was by far the most complex display they’d seen on any system since they entered the Kanahto.
“Can you tell what it does?” Chei asked.
He spun in a slow circle and scanned the readouts. He shook his head and then closed his eyes for several seconds. When he opened them, he reached out and touched one section of the console. The view of the outside world changed,
spinning and then shooting forward like he was driving L-4 Prime through space. Rocky slammed sidewise into Chei and they both hit the floor.
Chei felt his stomach moving, in reverse digestive order. Along with everything above his toenails. “What the frag? Are we moving?” he gasped.
“The inertial sensors on the Jakob Waltz do not indicate movement,” Dutch said. “I believe it is discontinuity in your visual input.”
“Ian, stop!” he shouted, looking down at the floor as he gulped in air and tried to hang onto his insides.
“Yah.” Ian said. He apparently hadn’t felt the sickening twist, but when he looked up, he realized he’d caused it because his face broadcast his apology.
“What the hell did you do?”
“It is the sensor system,” Ian said. “I assumed it was not dangerous. Sorry.”
“Is disconcerting,” Rocky said. “I advise issuing warning before you attempt again.” She was on her hands and knees staring at the deck and shaking.
“That was more than visual discontinuity,” Chei said as he flopped over onto his back and looked up at the sky projected on the vault above him. “Where the hell are we?”
“Near Saturn,” Ian said. “I think.”
“It appears as if we are there,” Rocky said, sitting back on her legs and staring up at the stars.
“Dutch, are you sure we didn’t move?” Chei asked.
“Negative. We are still in the same physical place. The Armstrong and the multicruisers have not changed position. I can confirm the beacon locations if you wish further corroboration.”
“It is a sensor projection,” Ian said. He wrinkled his face as he considered his words. “I told it to show me something, interesting.”
“What is of interest at Saturn?” Rocky asked.
“Look over there,” Chei said, pointing at a faint dot moving against the backdrop of stars. “Is that a ship?”
“I can check,” Ian said, sending the room lurching forward again.
Chei clamped his eyes closed, but it didn’t help. He gasped again as the nausea washed over him in a wave. Rocky fell forward and clamped her hands over her head.
The sensation passed and when he opened his eyes, what looked like a solid apparition of a space ship filled the entire center of the vault above them. Visible on the bow of the ship was its name.
Katana.
“Where the hell is this?” Chei asked.
The room spun and Saturn arced into view and a line connected it to the ship. A string of numbers appeared below the line. Ian translated it. “800 million kilometers from Saturn. On a heading toward us.”
“Is over three billion kilometers away,” Rocky said, flipping down on the deck beside Chei with a groan. “Unbelievable to see such detail.”
“I think I can get greater resolution,” Ian said.
“No!” Chei barked. “Another surge and we’ll be cleaning up the deck for sure. Shut it down until we can figure out what makes us want to hurl.”
The Katana faded, and the stars snapped back to the local view, without the gut wrenching vertigo. Chei shook his head as he pushed himself up from the deck, and tried to get his feet back under him with some degree of stability. “You didn’t feel that?” he asked as Ian jumped back out of the pit.
Ian shrugged and shook his head. “Maybe it da-ahn the pit.” he said.
“Perhaps we lack mental component and this makes us susceptible to effect Ian does not experience,” Rocky suggested.
“I hope not,” Chei said. “Otherwise he might be the only one here that can use the controls.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Gateway Colony: L-4 Prime:
Jeph was sitting at his desk reading the latest update from Chei and Rocky. The control room of the Kanahto was thousands of times more complex than anything they had encountered so far. He knew they would have to assign more bodies to figuring it out soon. After ten days, they still hadn’t located a control group that looked like it would shut down the quantum sink, but they were closing in on identifying what each workstation did, in a general sense.
Dr. Jameson had been after him over it, but the scientist had turned out to be a team player and he left the final determination up to Jeph. Roja and Nakamiru were a lot less forgiving of the slow progress, and he had a status briefing scheduled for firstshift where he knew they were going to want answers. Or blood.
“Jeph have you got a minute?” Anju asked as she popped her head through the door.
“Sure,” he said, relieved at the opportunity for a break. “What’s swinging?”
Glancing over her shoulder and nodding before she came in, she smiled at him. I have something to show you. She was carrying a pile of hardware and tossed it on his conference table. He looked at it for a moment before he realized what it was.
“Something wrong with Alyx’s mobility gear?” he asked. “I can call Rocky to come take a—”
“No the gear is fine,” she said with a strange smile.
He got up and bounced toward the table, the yellow ring on the floor around him extending as he moved. “What’s wrong then?”
She swallowed hard and looked at him as if something choked the words out of her. Finally she nodded toward the door.
He turned to look, expecting to see anything except what was there.
Alyx stood just inside the door. Wearing a thinskin and a smile. And nothing else. It took several seconds for the reality to break through to him.
She stood.
Without her exosuit.
In earth normal gravity.
His mouth fell open, and he collapsed back into the chair at the head of the table as she walked over and stood beside Anju.
Walked. In full gravity.
He shook his head trying to wake himself up. This can’t be real.
“Surprise,” Alyx said, grinning.
“How?” he asked, staring at her in total disbelief.
“Remember the proxy chambers they discovered a few weeks ago?”
“Vaguely,” he said. “I’ve been focusing on the control room, so I haven’t been keeping up.”
“I figured,” she said. “What I did is against your orders not to experiment with any Shan Takhu technology until we’ve had a chance to study it I know, but this seemed worth it.”
Alyx sat down and reached out to take Jeph’s hand, her grip impossibly strong. “I volunteered to help her study it,” she said.
“You should have talked to me about it,” he said, fighting a conflict inside himself. “This was an incredible risk.”
“It might have been, but Ian walked me through the interface and showed me the basics,” she said. “I spent every day since they discovered it, to learn what it could do, and then I decided it wasn’t that dangerous.”
“Obviously it worked but …” He paused, stared into Alyx’ eyes, then shook his head. “You should have talked to me about it.”
“I know,” she said. “But if it went sidewise, I didn’t want you to carry that responsibility. We chose to try.”
“That device is the most amazing thing I have ever seen,” Anju said.” It took less than ten minutes to set it up and then it only took a few seconds to do the repair to her spine.”
“I stayed awake the whole time,” Alyx said. “The scariest part of the process was that I had to get out of my exosuit before we could start. Once I got laid down, I felt nothing at all until suddenly I realized I could move my body again.”
“She’s also got real bones again, and a mesomorph physiology,” Anju said.
“It was harder learning to coordinate my body to the full grav than anything else,” she said. “I feel like I’m in a new body.”
“You are,” Jeph said, nodding.
“We are on our way up to MedBay so I can scan her over with gear I know, but if she checks out, I think this upgrade is something you and Shona should consider doing too.”
“It’s … unbelievable feeling … to walk around naked in the same world a
s everyone else,” Alyx said. “It’s like a dream.”
“Who’s seen you?” he asked, realizing that this might cause problems if he tried to keep it under wraps.
“Everybody’s at thirdmeal in the other stack,” Anju said. “We made sure to come here first.”
“Lie low until I can talk to Jameson and we can figure out how to justify why you got to break the rules.” He leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Don’t take this wrong, because you know I am thrilled for you, but this will unload a pile of worms to sort out with the Armstrong people.”
Cell A-106: Security Detention Center One: Galileo Station:
Tomlinson walked into the small cell and, pushing an uneaten meal to the side, put a box on the table. Sitting down, he placed his hands flat on the surface and took several deep breaths while Paulson sat on his bunk motionless.
Curiosity overpowered Lassiter’s desire to remain detached from reality, and he slid forward to put his feet on the floor. “What are you doing?”
Derek nodded at the chair on the opposite side of the table without explanation. Once Paulson had taken the seat, he opened the box and tapped a blue button on the device inside. Gasping as the sensation of disconnect ripped through his brain and body he nodded.
“You’ve screwed me so many times I should let Odysseus add you to the list of others he’s killed,” he said.
“I am surprised that hasn’t happened already,” Lassiter said, the reality of the situation draining the life out of his words. “I don’t know why you haven’t had me vented.”
Derek flipped the box upside down and the contents spilled on the table. Three items sat in a pile, the device with the button, a small derma-syringe and a security passchip. He spread them out and pulled the device toward him. The other two things he left in the middle of the table.
“What’s this?” Paulson asked.
“It’s your escape plan,” he said.
Surprise played over Lassiter’s face in gradual stages of increasing intensity until it reached a level of serious skepticism. “Why would you do this?”
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