By Blood Alone (31 page)

Maylo turned to face him. Her eyes locked with his. “You can’t be serious. Work is the best therapy I could have.”

Chien-Chu saw how thin she was, saw the pain that haunted her eyes, and knew a terrible anger. Time would pass, things would change, and Qwan would pay. In the meantime, she was right. He smiled. “That’s what I thought you’d say. I had to check, though ... just in case.”

Maylo laughed and the stroll continued.

“I’m worried,” Chien-Chu said reflectively. “Worried by President Nankool’s failure to send some sort of peacekeeping force. I think we can assume that Pardo has friends in the senate,
powerful
friends, with agendas of their own.”

Maylo nodded. “Earth might be only part of a much larger picture. What then?”

“What indeed?” Chien-Chu asked rhetorically. “Which is why I spoke with Admiral Tyspin. We lift this evening.”

 

The stairs twisted as they rose. The treads looked worn—a sign that nothing, not even duracrete, can last forever.

Booly emerged from the stairwell and scanned the surrounding walls. Besides the sentries, all of whom were where they should be, there were two additional figures. One raised a hand in greeting. Booly recognized Sergi Chien Chu and his niece Maylo. He waved in return, started his morning walk, and felt conflicting emotions: resentment of the manner in which the other two had invaded his morning routine, contempt for his own lack of flexibility, and a deep sense of sadness.

Though never really close to his parents—they were too busy for that—Booly had always known that they loved him. Now they were dead, he was alone, and there was no place to which he could retreat. A selfish thought—but real nonetheless.

“Good morning, Colonel. It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

Booly stopped and looked up. Her beauty hit him as if it were a physical blow. He stammered like a schoolboy. “Well, yes, it is. Sorry about that—my mind was somewhere else. How do you feel?”

Maylo remembered the sudden splash of light, the sound of his voice, and the strength of his arms. She smiled. “Much better, thanks to you and your troops. I never got the chance to tell you how much I appreciate what you did.”

Booly flashed back to the dust-off, the long, iffy flight, the crash at Kasama, and Nightslip’s death.

The quads had hoofed it from there, carrying the team in their armor-plated bellies until the fly forms could pick them up. A military success, but an expensive one. His face clouded over. “It was my duty ... nothing more.”

The words had a harsh quality ... and conveyed something beyond what Booly had intended.

He wanted to take them back, but, like bullets, they flew straight to her heart. Booly watched the light fade from her eyes, the smile vanish from her lips, and cursed his own stupidity. If only ... But the damage was done, and the moment was over.

Chien-Chu cleared his throat. “The colonel is far too modest. Though costly, the raid was successful. Not just in terms of freeing the prisoners, but in the psychological impact as well. You can be sure that Pardo and her cronies are very concerned.”

Booly forced a smile. “I hope you’re right. Did I hear that the two of you are leaving?”

Chien-Chu nodded. “Yes. Admiral Tyspin arranged for a ship. We are certain that Governor Pardo’s representatives are working the senate—and it’s time we did the same.”

Booly nodded, realized there would be little opportunity for him to speak with Maylo, and wondered if he’d see her again. It didn’t seem likely. “Yes. Well, have a good trip, and good luck with your mission.”

Maylo watched the officer turn away, and felt as if she had lost something, but didn’t know what.

Chien-Chu watched from the corner of his eye and took note of her expression. How, he wondered, could two otherwise intelligent people be so stupid?

“That,” Sola added from out beyond the island of Moucha, “is just one of the things that make humans so interesting. Our form of reproduction is a good deal less complicated.”

Chien-Chu laughed. Maylo looked curious, and he waved it off. “It was nothing, my dear.... An errant thought, that’s all. Come. we have work to do.”

... And fanatics will come, carrying God on their lips, and evil in their hearts ...

Author unknown
The Pooonara Book of Prophecies
Standard year 1010 B.C.

 

 

The Sheen ships dropped out of hyper and swam through the darkness of space. There were planets, six of them, all worthy of investigation. Scouts were dispatched, probes were launched, and samples were taken.

The Hoon was busy, very busy, but nowhere near capacity. The AI had time to make backup copies of itself, plunder the newly discovered star system,
and
run the fleet, all without missing a beat.

The AI also reserved some of its processing capacity for small, unexpected anomalies, especially those that were interesting and potentially dangerous.

This one took the form of a request for information from a unit that didn’t need it—a highly unusual occurrence that set off alarms.

Curious as to why a machine would do something like that, the Hoon assigned a tiny fraction of itself to the investigation and waited to see what would happen. The first question the robot wanted an answer to was rather basic. “Who created the Sheen?”

The answer was classified, and the Hoon responded accordingly. “That information is unavailable.”

The better part of three standard units elapsed before the unit tried again. “To what purpose is the fleet dedicated?”

The Hoon noted an error and was quick to put it right. “There are
two
fleets—and both share the same purpose: to destroy the Thraki.”

The next question came more quickly. “Why?”

“That information is unavailable.”

“What do the Thraki look like?”

“The Thraki are possessed of elongate heads; large, light-gathering sensors; three ventrally located air intake vents; two extensor limbs equipped with malleable tool apparatus, long, slim torsos; and bipedal support organs.”

“Where did the Thraki come from?”

“That information is unavailable.”

There was a pause. The Hoon took a millisecond to trace the inquiry to data input jack 9876934, verified the unit’s serial number, and accessed the machine’s much-annotated service record. That, plus the fact that the robot had been seen in the company of shipboard vermin, settled the matter.

The AI was about to terminate the interaction when the next question came in. “What rules, if any, apply to the pursuit and elimination of the Thraki menace?”

Did the question originate from the unit, or the vermin with whom it was associated? The answer was obvious. Soft bodies of various types and configurations had boarded the ship in the past, but never lasted long, and never asked questions. Not until now. This one was more resilient. Why? The Hoon decided to respond.

“The fleet can kill the Thraki, any species that harbors the Thraki, or any species having resources required to kill the Thraki. Those are the parameters.
Why
do you want to know?
Who
are you?
Where
did you come from?
How
did you come aboard?
Why
should I allow you to function?” The questions came hard and fast.

The corridor was long and empty. The all-purpose unit stood motionless while it relayed messages via the bulkhead-mounted data port. The human crouched next to Sam and waited for the latest response. The sudden flurry of questions sent a chill down his spine. The Hoon was annoyed! Not a good thing.

Still, what if he could befriend the computer? Or find a way to neutralize it? There was a hollow place in the prospector’s belly, but he forced himself to ignore it.

“I was sent by God, to assist with your mission, and to smite the Thraki down.”

“Define ‘smite.’ ”

“To kill them.”

“Good. Who or what is God?”

Jepp glanced around and took the plunge. “God is my descriptor for that which created
you.”

The Hoon compared the claim to data on hand. “There is no evidence to support what you say.”

Jepp felt a sudden surge of confidence. “And there is none to contradict what I say, either.”

The AI checked, verified the truth of the assertion, and agreed. “That is true.”

“So you will allow me to function?”

The Hoon dedicated a millisecond to the deliberation and rendered a verdict. “For the moment.”

Jepp summoned all of his courage. “May I urge your units to kill the Thraki?”

“Of course. Such is their purpose.”

“Thank you.”

The words had no meaning. The conversation was over.

 

The battle units stood in long, gleaming rows, each an empty vessel waiting to be filled. All but
one
.

Henry was tired of the cramped quarters, the long, empty hours, and the futility of its circumstances. The navcomp had a purpose and the need to fulfill it. But how? There was a single entrance with no way out.

That’s why the AI had fixed its hopes on the somewhat tubby diagnostic unit that trundled down the rows, checked the battle units for flaws, and electronically “tagged” those that required maintenance.

If
Henry could overwhelm the unsuspecting machine, and
if
it could effect a transfer, then escape was possible.

The only problem was that the diagnostic robot spent the better part of an hour on each electromechanical patient. Thorough, but maddening, since it took the machine twenty-four hours to process twenty-four battle units.

The task could have been accomplished centrally, by the Hoon or one of its agents, but had been allocated to a highly specialized robot. Why? As with so many things about the Sheen, there was no obvious answer.

The navcomp took another look, confirmed what it already knew, and settled in for a long forty-seven-hour wait.

 

Elated by the nature of his interaction with the Hoon, and eager to test the limits of his newly legitimized status, Jepp took his flock on a journey of discovery.

Alpha, for that was the name the prospector had given the all-purpose unit, proved an excellent guide.

The first thing the human requested was a tour of the fleet.
Not
because he had a real need to see it, but on the chance that he could escape.

Any such hopes were quickly dashed. The human made the long hike to the nano-draped landing bay, boarded one of the smaller shuttles, and waited for it to clear the massive ship. Then, using Sam as his interface, Jepp ordered the vessel to visit the most distant of the system’s six planets.

By rigging a pack for Alpha, and carrying one on his back as well, the human brought thirty days of rations. The outward-bound leg of the trip took four.

Once there, Jepp ignored the planet itself, which amounted to little more than a giant slushball, and ordered the shuttle to keep on going.

There was a moment of excitement when the ship headed out into the darkness of space, but his hopes were dashed when the shuttle circled and headed back.

The human yelled, pleaded, and argued, all to no avail. While the Hoon didn’t care about Jepp, it
did
value the spaceship, and saw no reason to part with it.

The prospector was on a leash—a rather
long
leash, but a leash nevertheless.

 

Because Henry was self-aware, it lacked the means to shut itself down, and had no choice but to endure the long, non-productive wait. The situation was made more frustrating by the fact that humans had programmed the AI to be endlessly efficient.

It made sense if you were
them
, and interested in the best possible return on your investment, but it was impossible to miss the fact that
they
had the capacity to relax and sought frequent opportunities to do so.

Why torture those they had created, then? By imbuing them with the desire—no, the
need—
to work even when that was impossible? It didn’t seem fair.

But such was reality, and the navcomp had no choice but to endure the painful hours until the diagnostic machine broke the link with its most recent client, trundled to the right, and rolled into position.

Henry waited for the connector cables to snake into place, waited for the first sign of contact, and “grabbed” the Sheen’s operating system.

In spite of the fact that there were no outward signs of conflict, the navcomp “heard” the subjective equivalent of a squeal and felt his victim squirm.

Though not empathetic in the true sense, Henry knew how it felt to be jerked out of its “body” and dumped into an electronic prison.

There was no room for mercy, however, not if the navcomp wanted to escape, so it pulled the other entity in, occupied its body, and severed the interface. Silence replaced the squealing, and the transfer was complete.

Ironically enough, the diagnostic unit had a good deal more memory than the machines it served—allowing the navcomp some electronic elbow room.

It took the better part of three minutes for the AI to explore the body’s capabilities and familiarize itself with the alien control systems. Then, when Henry felt that it was ready, the unit turned and rolled away.

The Hoon didn’t know it yet, but security had been compromised, and a prisoner was on the loose.

First and foremost in our arsenal is the spoken word.

Hive Mother Tral Heba
Ramanthian Book of Guidance
Standard year 1721

 

 

The destroyer’s wardroom was empty for the moment, which allowed Maylo to slip inside and admire the breathtaking view. The planet Arballa hung huge against the blackness of space. With the exception of the poles, most of its surface was brown. It had very little water, and what there was flowed deep below the surface through veins in the volcanic rock.