The Engineer Reconditioned (4 page)

In the back of the chalet stairs led down into an underground chamber that had been carved out of yellow rock of Callanasta. It always gave Diana a thrill to come down here. She rated this, her own runcible. The floor of the chamber was dark glass underneath which could be seen the shapes of machines and ducts. At the centre of the floor was a circular dais of black glass three metres in diameter. At the centre of this stood two nacreous bull's horns three metres high between which shimmered the cusp of this Skaidon gate. No living human understood the science. Iversus Skaidon had, for the brief time he survived directly interfacing with an AI. The whole science was created in a matter of minutes. Diana watched the drone shoot into the cusp and disappear. There were people who used it just as casually, but Diana could not. Always there was a moment of reflection before she stepped through. She stepped through.

No time. No space, nor pain. Just a feeling of strangeness that came not from the transference itself but from the dislocation. The air was different, as was the gravity, sounds, smells, tastes. All in an instant.

"Captain, it isn't a drill."

Weapons comp: Eric Jabro.

"I figured that," said Diana, striding away from the gate to the screens that showed Callanasta below. She needed that momentary reassurance. "Is everyone aboard?"

"I'll check."

They would be. Whatever this was, they had trained for it for the last eight years. She stared down at the planet. For eight years the planet had had tides, now it would have to do without for a while. The suit blew cold air up under her hood. Every so often a feather of the air in the room got through. It felt as if someone had passed a red hot iron near her face.

"If the air temperature is taken lower, vision will be restricted." Chapra stood with her back against the lock door. Judd stood a pace or two ahead of her. Was this such a good idea? She looked down at the case of hexagonal containers she held. It weighed heavy on her arm. Would the creature understand the gesture? Would it even recognise what was in these containers?

"Let's do it," she said, her words disturbing the air in front of her face and letting some of the heat in. She started to sweat.

"The creature is aware of our presence," said Judd. The Golem was linked in to Box and to the control room where Abaron sat biting his nails. Box had arbitrarily decided not to speak to them while they were in the isolation chamber as this might confuse the creature.

"There," Judd pointed to where three triangular tentacles broke the surface and zeroed in on Chapra. The fronts of these tentacles were equilateral triangles about ten centimetres on the side. Contained in these triangles was an organic complexity that had something of a lamprey's mouth, the underside of a starfish, and a computer interface plug.

"It is physically motionless now, though Abaron informs me that there is huge sensorium activity."

"Fine," said Chapra. She walked to the end of the jetty, lowered the case to the floor, then walked back to stand beside Judd. There was something strange ... something made her shiver.

"We are being ultrasound scanned," the Golem observed.

Chapra nodded. That was what she was feeling. Her partial catadaption made her more sensitive to some things. She thought about some of the structures they had studied in the creature's head. There had been much they had been unable to fathom, but now they at least knew it used ultrasound. Just by looking at a human's hands, eyes, and the structure of the brain it is not possible to know all of what a human is capable.

"Something like a dolphin," said Judd. "There are also complex pheromones present in the air."

"It's talking to us," said Chapra.

"It is scanning the case," said Judd.

Before Chapra could think of any reply to that the creature propelled itself to the edge of the jetty. A tentacle poised above the case, came down, pulled the lid to one of the containers, hovered above it. Something like a butterfly's tongue flickered from the end of the tentacle. There was a pause, then the creature sampled the other cases so fast its movements were a blur. The hand came out then snatched the case into the water, gone.

"Well, thank you, too," said Chapra, but she was euphoric.

Back in the control room Abaron watched, fascinated as the creature coiled around its strange device and worked upon it in some strange manner. It opened the pots one at a time and fed tastes of the various compounds into it with its tentacles. It reached inside with its long fingers and shifted things, reached deep inside with dabs of the compounds. This was causing reactions inside the device and turning the surrounding water cloudy. Abaron could see it was growing rapidly. When it reached twenty centimetres across, the creature snared more crustaceans, feeding itself on their flesh and their shells into the device, which continued to grow. After one sleep period it lay a metre across, and was like some enormous seashell bearing the shape of a wormcast. Its outer surface was red and rough, but what he could see of the interior was iridescent white, smooth, with the tube ends turned out like lips. Movement was visible far inside, which under scan seemed the interplay of complex mechanisms, or the internal function of a living creature. The line was blurred.

"Have we any idea at all what that is?" asked Abaron.

"Could be anything. It might use it to prepare its food, make drugs, or it might even serve no purpose at all. Imagine an alien watching a human paint a picture ... "

"I think it serves a function."

"It's a step or two beyond complete analysis," said Box in an unusual interruption. "But there are nanomechanical structures in there and as a consequence we must limit scan." Chapra said, her voice flat, "Then its function could be anything, and might even be everything."

"What do you mean?" asked Abaron.

"Nanomechanical — it's likely it can make whatever it wants from the molecular level up. I would guess the only constraint to be materials, environment, and the size of those tubes."

"It might make something to break out of there," said Abaron. Chapra looked at him. "It is not a prisoner. If it wants to leave at any time and shows that capability, then we should allow it to leave."

Abaron shuddered.

"That bothers you?" Chapra enquired.

"It bothers me, but I can live with it ... what's it doing now?" They both turned to the projection. The creature caught one of the larger crustaceans, but rather than eat it, fed the crustacean into one of the tubes of the strange machine, then coiled around it.

"Feeding it?" wondered Abaron.

"I don't think so," said Chapra, and her fingers went reflexively to her console. After a moment she lifted her hands away. "Box, I'm not getting anything on scan."

"Scan is inadvisable at this time. The radiations of scan may damage the nanomechanical structures or interfere with whatever process is taking place."

"Ah, Schrödinger," said Chapra tightly, but she allowed a little smile at the irony.

"You're not letting us look," said Abaron in disbelief.

"Precisely," said Box.

To Abaron Chapra said, "He's right, X-rays and ultrasound could wreck things on a molecular level, and the other spectrums of scan aren't likely to do any good."

"What about underspace?"

Box said, "An underspace scan still requires a real-space medium after gating."

"Oh," said Abaron, and looked embarrassed.

"That's my lot for now," said Chapra, and she stood and left the room. Abaron sat for an hour analysing all extraneous data, but when the creature made no further moves he decided it was time for him to sleep. After he had gone, Judd entered the room and stared at the projection. Communication between Golem and ship AI was silent but long. Eventually Judd leaned forward and turned off the display, then just stood there still as something dead. Once in her quarters Chapra sat on her bed and stared at nothing in particular for a while.

"Box," she eventually said, still staring, "There's huge potential here."

"We have no suitable scale of measurement or comparison," the AI told her.

"I was just thinking," she went on. "The scientific community is not the only group that'll be taking an interest."

"This has been noted."

"I am glad ... you are only a science vessel."

"I am."

"What is being done?"

"As soon as nanomechanical structures were discovered in the device Earth Central was informed and has since taken appropriate action."

Chapra lay back on her bed. "Every world that's in the net but outside of Polity control will be watching, if not doing something. Separatist organisations are almost certainly looking for ways to capitalise on this. What exactly is being done?"

"The dreadnought
Cable Hogue
has been dispatched and will arrive in two solstan weeks." Chapra swallowed dryly. That if anything brought home the seriousness of things; dreadnoughts were not put into action for anything less than interplanetary war.

"Will we come under military control?"

"No," said Box.

Like a million scientists before her Chapra did not believe that.

Kellor watched Conard's reaction with some amusement as the vendor thanked them for their custom and floated on to the next table. Separatists were uniform in their hatred of all machine intelligences. Kellor sipped his cool-ice and waited. He reckoned on the transportation of weapons or as an outside bet a military strike, which was fine by him so long as the target was not actually within the Polity.

"We require your services," said Conard.

Kellor obliged this comment with a, slight tilt of his head.

"There is a science vessel that poses a threat to the Confederation. We need to take it out."

"Polity?"

"Yes."

"Expensive."

"Ten million units of irradiated platinum."

"Behind the Line?" Kellor asked, preparing to get up and walk away.

"What do you mean?"

"Is it in Polity space?"

"No."

Kellor sipped some more of his drink and allowed a chunk of the psychedelic ice to melt on his tongue. That was a lot of irradiated platinum for destroying a science vessel outside of Polity space. There had to be a catch. There always was.

"Where is this vessel?"

"Its last reported position was at the edge of the Quarrison Drift. Entering the Drift. I have that position to within a light year. There must be no survivors; total obliteration."

"For my own sake I have to agree. I don't want the Polity taking an interest in my affairs. What complications might there be?"

"The ship could be planetside by the time we reach it." Conard gave a bleak grin before sipping his glass of mineral water. Kellor distrusted people who made a point of staying sober. It probably meant they needed a clear head to keep track of their lies.

"I don't have the equipment for a large-scale planetary action. All I have is delta wing landing craft adapted for orbital bombardment."

"We will supply soldiers and landing craft for any ground action. You have the hold space." Kellor nodded then tilted his head as the crodorman came staggering into the vending area. The man looked drunk and angry. Kellor shook his head in mock sadness and dropped a hand down to his belt. He felt nothing but contempt for bad losers.

"How soon can you be ready?" asked Conard.

"There are a few loose ends ... "

The crodorman approached their table, pulling something from his bulky garments.

"Trazum speck!"

Kellor knew enough crodorun to recognise the challenge and threat. He stood as the crodorman finally pulled free a cylinder of grey metal. The end of the cylinder shot away to a distance of a metre and hovered suspended, the vague shimmer of field-stiffened monofilament between it and the cylinder. Kellor drew a small flat gun and pointed it. The crodorman paused; that moment again. The gun made a sound like a plastic ruler slapped against a table. The crodorman's arm fell off. The weapon fell with it and sheared in a half a recently vacated chair. On his feet now Kellor aimed again. The crodorman had time only to look down at the blood pumping from his stump. Again that sound. A hole the size of a strawberry appeared in ridged forehead and spattered customers behind the crodorman with pieces of skull and brain. He fell back over the vending machine which whined under his weight and thanked him for his custom. As Kellor holstered his gun he noted Conard clipping a similar weapon back into a wrist holster. He filed the information away for future reference.

"That's one loose end," he said.

"It's female," said Abaron.

"I thought you had females," said Chapra. They were sitting in a small eating area. Chapra was eating prawns and Abaron occasionally gave the plateful a strange look.

"Female ... definitions. I had two sexes and made the fundamental error of assuming that because they were so like Earth crustaceans in every respect they would be the same in meiosis ... it's the trihelical DNA. There are three sexes, all contributing their share of the chromosomes. This is the third." He pointed at the projection. It showed a crustacean little different in outward appearance to its fellows.

"So our friend used the device to conduct a sex-change operation," said Chapra with much amusement.

"Yes," said Abaron grudgingly. He looked at the creature curled around its weird machine. "No doubt it is correcting my error with one of the other species."

"Why don't you do the rest?" asked Chapra. "Help it out." Abaron stared at her for a moment as if trying to decide whether or not she was ridiculing him. He eventually nodded then took up his notescreen and headed out of the room.

"What has it got in there now?" Chapra asked the empty air. The projection flickered and changed, showed the creature harvesting some of the water weed and feeding it into the machine. The projection then flicked back to real time showing the creature uncurling and moving back from its machine. A cloud of small objects gusted from one white mouth.

"What is that?"

"Seeds and spores," said Box. "Initial analysis shows — " Box's voice abruptly cut off.