The Medusa Chronicles (4 page)

7

If Falcon had ever doubted that the slim, modest woman in the pale lilac suit really was the President of a united world, the case was proven now. Seconds after that sinister shiver—as red alarm lights flashed, distant sirens wailed, and Captain Embleton called instructions from the stage beside a frowning Matt Springer—it seemed to Falcon that a good proportion of the audience in the Sea Lounge had already swarmed around the President like expensively suited, heavily armed bees. In a moment the swarm had escorted her from the room.

Falcon, meanwhile, turned and rolled at top speed out of the Sea Lounge. Already people were on their feet, pushing their way out of the room—but even now they cowered back from Falcon, a seven-foot-tall pillar of gold.

Hope Dhoni was still where he and Webster had left her, in the Obser­vation Lounge, her glass of iced tea half-drunk on the table where she sat. And she was staring at a white form that clung to the huge observation window.

It was a sea sprite, clamped to the glass, Falcon recognised, with a grim sense of foreboding fulfilled. “I knew it.
Damn
it.”

Webster came hurrying after Falcon. “At least it's quiet in here.
What with the crew shouting and the alarms and the lights flashing ­everywhere—”

“I presume there are enough lifeboats for everybody.”

“Of course, Commander Falcon,” said Captain Embleton, who came stalking into the room, trailed by Matt Springer and a gaggle of her senior officers. “This isn't the bloody
Titanic
. We've already got the President away.”

Webster whistled. “That's quick.”

“A condition of her being brought aboard. I dare say whoever plotted this thing wasn't aware of that. But,” she said more softly, “the problem is time—time enough to get everybody off before the hull implodes.”

The officers were pointing and declaiming, checking minisecs, running through the evacuation plan in high, calm voices. Bizarrely, the little robot Conseil began to circulate among the sudden crowd, as if seeking a role in the sudden crisis. “May I serve you?” It was universally ignored.

Embleton turned from one of the officers to eye Webster. “Adminis­trator, given your own seniority—”

“I'm staying right here,” Webster snapped.

“Idiot,” murmured Falcon.

“Takes one to know one—I don't notice you baling out. Anyhow, the ship might yet be saved, right?”

Falcon, who had gyroscopes whirring in the place his stomach should have been, wasn't so sure. “Not if the ship's list continues to worsen.”

Matt Springer looked at him with respect. “Of course you can feel it. So can I, I think.”

Dhoni looked up at Falcon in alarm. “Oh, Howard—”

“I know.” He forced a smile. “Another great vessel in mortal peril, and here I am in the middle of it.
Not again . . .
”

“Soon enough everybody will feel the list,” Embleton said grimly, glancing at a minisec held by one of her officers. “We've suffered multiple fusion micro-explosions, all around the perimeter of the hull.”

“They blew the ballast tanks,” Falcon said.

“Exactly.”

Hope Dhoni stood, looking bewildered. “Who did this? And why?”

“We don't know yet.” Captain Embleton broke away from her officers to stalk to the window. “But we know how.”

“With the sea sprites,” Falcon said. “Like the one stuck to the window.”

More crew came into the lounge now, carrying technical gear that they fixed to the window, studying the sprite.

Embleton said, “It happened only minutes ago. Suddenly the sprites diverged from their programming. They swarmed around the hull, anchored themselves as this one has, and—”

“Detonated their power packs, I presume,” Springer said, stepping forward to see more clearly.

“Quite. Which ought to be impossible.”

“Evidently not,” Falcon said. “The question is, why
hasn't
this one gone up?”

Embleton took a breath. “We need to be grateful it hasn't. If it had, much of the ship's habitable areas would already be flooded. As it is the ship's in trouble. We were already a little below our nominal cruise depth of sixteen hundred feet, and now we're heading steadily down. Our crush depth is twenty-four hundred feet, but we ought to survive some distance below that—well, it's to be hoped. This century-old bucket has flaws we discover every day . . . We have support in the sea and in the air; the President goes nowhere without cover. This is the weak point, actually. If this window holds we have a chance of getting everybody off in time.
If
.”

Webster asked uneasily, “Is it still the tradition that the Captain's last to leave the ship?”

“To hell with tradition.
This
Captain's going nowhere until she knows who or what has threatened her ship—”

“Simps know.”

Falcon turned to see a party of simps approaching. The Ambassador, Ham 2057a, was in the lead, and a gang of his colleagues were dragging a human with them—a crewman, judging by the uniform.

More crew followed, weapons in their hands, uncertain. One reported, “Captain, we've trailed the simps from the Bosun's compartment. The
simps grabbed Stamp, here, and we weren't sure what to do. The Ambas­sador was very insistent—”

“Stand down, Lieutenant Moss. Ambassador Ham, this is one of my crew. I'll listen, if you release him into my custody.”

Ham shrugged theatrically. “Simps' job done.”

The chimps dumped the man, Stamp, to the deck. At a nod from Lieutenant Moss, a couple of his men took Stamp's arms and hauled him to his feet. Stamp looked young, Falcon thought, no more than mid-twenties, with pale features, red hair. His face was scratched, his ensign's uniform torn from the rough handling of the chimps, but he seemed unharmed.

The great ship creaked as it listed further, helplessly plunging deeper into the depths.

Embleton turned to Ham. “Ambassador? What's this about?”

Ham gave a wide grin, and knuckle-walked up to her. “Simps heroes, that's what. One of my team, her name Jane 2084c. Works computers. Smart. Went to Bosun room, interested, fan tour. There was Stamp, doing what he was doing. Took no notice of her. Kept on doing it. Only a simp, simps don't matter, can't understand. Ha! Jane understand.”

Falcon said, “The sprites are controlled from the Bosun.”

“Quite.” Embleton walked up to Stamp. “Well, Ensign. Suppose you tell
me
what you were doing.”

Stamp straightened up and saluted. “Sir. I was destroying this ship, sir, and killing you all.” He had a strong English accent, probably London, Falcon thought.

“You changed the Bosun's programming—”

“I locked in new commands for the sprites. They were to attach to the hull and self-destruct. Those things are dumb, their programming simple. The safety blocks were pitifully easy to overcome.”

“Were they? And why did you— No, tell me this.” She gestured at the window, the sprite locked in place. “Why has this one
not
blown yet?”

“Because I wanted you to understand,” Stamp said, sneering. “I want you to
know
you will die—and so will the world—because of what this ship is. What it represents.”

Webster frowned severely. “And what is that?”

“The hegemony of the United States.” He glared at Webster. “Which began when you Americans manipulated the outcome of the Second World War to crush the British Empire and alienate the Soviets—”

Embleton sighed. “Oh, for God's sake. A Global-Sceptic. Part of the old independence movements that opposed the World Government.”

Webster nodded. “I remember. I was just a kid. Bombs in London, Geneva, Bermuda.”

Stamp ranted at him, “Then you Yanks used Britain as a missile launch platform in your Cold War against the Soviets. And
then
you suckered us into the so-called ‘Atlantic Partnership.' You wouldn't even back our claim for a seat on the World Government Security Council—”

“I've heard enough,” Embleton snapped in disgust. “You're an embarrassment to a noble history, Stamp. Moss, take him away. I'm damn sure he won't tell us how he subverted the Bosun—or how I can get that nuclear leech off my window—but try to get him to talk anyhow. Keep the evacuation going. And do whatever you can to hack into the Bosun, you never know . . .”

Her crew hurried to comply.

“And meanwhile,” Embleton said softly, “if all else fails, we need to find a way to remove that thing.” She walked back to the window to join Springer, Falcon, Webster and Dhoni. “Any ideas?”

Webster asked, “The escort ships?”

“Are World Navy vessels—surface, subsurface, and indeed in the air. I'm told they are working on options. But the
Sam Shore
is an elderly ship, Administrator, and already destabilised. It would be a tricky operation to get close enough to detach that thing without wrecking us.”

Webster said, “That's assuming the leech isn't rigged to blow if it's tampered with. I'd set it up that way.”

Embleton raised her eyebrows. But she murmured to an officer, who murmured in turn into a mouthpiece. “Stamp says it isn't,” she said at last.

“That's something,” Springer said. “Anyhow it sounds like we need to
rely on our own resources. How can we get at that thing out there? I take it there are no more sprites.”

“All destroyed save this one, as far as we can tell. And with the Bosun subverted we could not rely on them anyway.”

Falcon asked, “Do you have other craft? Undersea boats?”

“Yes: coracles, they're called. For tourist jaunts. They have no means of manipulating their environment, and they are already in use as lifeboats.”

Conseil was still here. “May I serve you?” Falcon stared at it curiously.

Webster asked, “Why not send a diver out? A human, I mean. Or a team.”

Embleton said, “Because we are already—depth, Lieutenant?—already two thousand feet down, and descending quickly. Human divers can only descend to fifteen hundred feet, even with pressurised air mixtures.”

Springer said firmly, “I'd be prepared to try, even so.”

Embleton sighed. “It would be a heroic but futile gesture, Captain Springer.”

Falcon said, “I am no human. And my equipment is designed to function underwater.”

Webster raised his eyebrows. “It's not a bigger-balls competition, Howard.”

“Forget it,” snapped Dhoni. “Your metal shell might keep functioning. Your air supply, your life-support, would not, at this depth.”

“But that might be enough.” He raised his arms and clicked his metallic fingers. “Geoff, there might be some way to rig a remote control. Even if I were—”

Webster looked disgusted. “Dead?”

“Unconscious. Maybe with a link through the neural jack . . .”

“I could work your carcass like a puppet, you mean?”

Embleton had a murmured conversation with another of her crew. “I'm told that might be possible, Commander—given time. But we have no time.”

Conseil rolled up to Falcon, the only one paying it any attention, a drinks tray still held in one manipulator claw. “May I serve you?”

Falcon said, intrigued, “I don't know.
How
can you serve us?”

“Hazard to vessel integrity identified. Rectification options surveyed.” It dropped the tray, which landed softly on the carpeted floor, raised its crude arms, and snapped its pincer-like hands.

Now everybody was staring. Webster asked, “Captain, I don't suppose Conseil is equipped to work underwater?”

Embleton frowned. “Certainly. How else could it deliver cocktails to guests in the swimming pool?”

Falcon asked urgently, “And do you think it really has identified ‘rectification options'?”

Embleton glanced at Moss, who said nervously, “Well, sir, it is a flexible, autonomous unit, equipped to operate in a complex, unpredictable human environment—”

“He means,” Embleton said dryly, “guests are even more difficult to handle than a bomb on a porthole.”

“I'd say it's possible, sir.”

Webster grinned. “It's worth a try, damn it.”

Embleton nodded sharply. “Lieutenant Moss, it's your baby. Equip this toy to get that leech off my window.”

Moss nodded. “Give me five minutes, sir. Conseil! Follow me . . .”

*  *  *  *

From within the Observation Lounge, the party had a grandstand view as the little robot, supported by flotation bags, working a thruster gun with one manipulator claw, loosened the “leech” from the window with the other claw. Robot hands designed for mixing cocktails, detaching a bomb from a nuclear submarine.

Then, when the job was done, Conseil returned to the Observation Lounge—its hull dinged, water dripping from its squat frame—to a round of admiring applause. In a showy gesture, Captain Embleton bent down and shook its claw of a hand. Ham, the simp ambassador, clapped the robot on the back.

Webster murmured, “A shame President Jayasuriya isn't here. We're seeing history being made.”

Dhoni was intrigued by the robot. “Makes you think, Howard. Here's two of the solar system's greatest heroes, and there was nothing you could do when the crisis came. Whereas this little guy . . .”

Falcon grunted. “Maybe we need smarter robots after all.”

Springer nodded sagely. “I think you're right, Commander. My great-to-the-fourth-grandfather was the first true astronaut hero. But maybe because of his feat we've been too dazzled by the human factor to consider other possibilities. We've got marvellous spacecraft and other heavy mechanical engineering, but we've contented ourselves with only modest progress in computing.” He glanced at the minisec in his hand. “Why, our smartest gadgets—aside from experiments like Conseil—are no more capable of independent thought than Grandpa Seth's 1960s slide rule. We've kept our machines subservient.”