They were to be interrogated then, at least to some degree, which was more or less as Chir would expect from an overwhelmingly powerful enemy. There was still a certain advantage, however, in continuing to let it believe in Adrian’s divinity, and the consequences of it being informed otherwise might be too lethal to consider. “Of course,” he said, playing along for now, “it’s natural that any true believer would ask such a question of his closest allies.”
“You understand completely,” the voice approved.
“No doubt you’ve heard of his abilities beyond those available to the rest of humanity?” Chir asked, though it was essentially rhetorical. “Incredible strength, amazing resilience and a regenerative capacity beyond any other?”
“Such ‘powers’ are available to any human provided with Cruezzir in sufficient quantity,” the voice replied, much to Chir’s surprise. The effects of Cruezzir on humanity were not public knowledge, and he strongly suspected efforts had been made to cover the whole situation up, but this only confirmed that this person, whoever it was, was very well informed.
Chir delved into his memories, back to the time when he had been a slave alongside Adrian, and the days that had followed thereafter, and was surprised to find that only a few memories truly stood out. “I saw him survive an extended period in vacuum. I’m afraid anything else would just be hearsay.”
As little as this was, the stranger did not seem displeased by the scrap of information; if anything it was glad to have it. “New data has been recorded. Does either human have further information?”
“We picked him up at the edge of a black-zone,” Keffa added, “that’s an area made unnavigable by presence of a singularity. He said he was close enough that his starship had been torn apart by tidal forces… I just don’t see how he survived it.”
The same way he survives anything, Chir supposed, but kept the thought to himself. The stranger recorded the data, noting it was new even if it was not actually substantiated, and seemed content to leave it at that.
“What about the Uman-hay?” Darragh asked.
“A hairy species with only one known member,” the voice replied. “Corti records have no known homeworld for this creature, but there are several documented instances of it undertaking terrorist activities against corporate and government facilities, including the savage killing of a rogue human on a factory station. How does it relate?”
Darragh shrugged. “Yeah, well… that was Adrian as well. Look, I’ve got to ask: are you some kind of robot?”
The stranger paused, marking the first sign of any hesitation they’d seen thus far, and it was long enough for the pieces to fall together in Chir’s own mind. This was what he had been missing, some slight oddity in how the thing had been speaking that simply didn’t align with the natural speech of humans he’d known.
“I am more correctly known as an artificial intelligence,” the thing replied, “or an ‘A.I.’ as your species more commonly term it. What brought you to this realisation?”
“You don’t talk like a normal person,” Darragh said with a shrug, “and it’s a bit of a strange accent. Something just seemed off.”
“This ‘strange accent’ is better known as ‘cultivated Australian’,” the intelligence replied sharply, though it sounded as though it had needed to answer this question before. “It is a reminder of your homeworld that Mister Saunders might appreciate.”
“Good luck with that,” said Darragh, with no trace of irony, though Chir suspected he simply wasn’t human enough to see it. Such suspicions were confirmed a moment later, whereupon making eye contact with Darragh, Keffa barely stifled an amused snort.
This wasn’t an uncommon experience by any measure, and was prevalent amongst most species just entering the galaxy at large—most Gaoians still communicated non-verbally by habit, even in the presence of non-Gaoians—though older species became adapted to use a greater verbal aspect. Humans were more nuanced than most, however, and Chir doubted he’d ever fully understand every expression in the way they managed by instinct, but at least the intelligence aboard the Zhadersil had the same difficulty; it had not noticed the subtle exchange, and took Darragh’s words at face value. “Luck is not required, only knowledge and ability. This conversation is over, and you will now be landed in the vicinity of Mister Saunders.”
This was not an optional journey, and the Devastator’s systems, completely controlled by this computer-mind, guided the starship down into the atmosphere towards its ultimate goal. They did so in silence, wary that anything they said might be overheard by their enemy, and Chir wondered if he would ever trust the computers aboard his starship again. Probably not, he judged, and looking around his command deck he wondered why it was that every ship he possessed seemed to come with an expiration date; of all the habits to inherit from the Human Disaster, it had to be this one.
The only person who could fix it—or at least had any chance at fixing it—was the Corti hacker, and even then he’d be paranoid about some last vestige of maliciousness that had gone unnoticed.
But it didn’t end there, and following the line of thought to its logical conclusion meant that even their translators could be compromised, and the very idea that every word they spoke was being sent, stored and analysed by that thing aboard the Zhadersil was anathema to every strategic bone in his body. How could they ever hope to devise a plan when it knew their every utterance? The whole situation was nothing short of a nightmare scenario.
The tension only elevated as the starship descended, and Chir was grinding his teeth by the time the Devastator was passing through its landing procedures. Only when they had the chance to leave did the tension begin to break, but none of them would be happy until they were away from the Zhadersil’s influence.
“What are we—” Keffa began, only to stop short as Chir raised a hand and coughed sharply.
“Translators,” he said, shaking his head determinedly, and they seemed to get the picture. Silence reigned as they worked to get themselves out of the starship with as few words as possible, gestures taking the place of speech and short, sharp coughs to gain attention; if the Zhadersil was monitoring them, it wasn’t learning much.
Disembarking the Devastator proved its own surprise, as both humans found the deathworld’s gravity overpowering for even human muscles. Chastened by the experience they made a second attempt with the aid of the same enviro-gear that Chir employed, and set off in the direction where Adrian had landed his own vessel.
The surroundings were lightly forested woodlands, graced by a balmy breeze and the smell of a salty sea. Chir found it comfortably temperate, not drastically unlike Gao, though there was a weight to the air he had not expected, and the scents were richer than anything his homeworld had to offer. This was not unlike the last time he had visited a deathworld, that time alongside Adrian, though that particular world had been warmer and the scents earthier than they were floral, and it was only mildly worrying to know that the contents of the air would likely kill him if anything happened to the enviro-gear. As to animals there was little to be noted, only the screech of distant birds and the cheerful chirp of insects, and no sign that anything more dangerous lurked beyond the tree-line. That was dangerous in itself, Chir reasoned: it was far too easy to forget this place was still a deathworld, and his hunting experience had taught him all he needed to know of deathworld predators.
They did not need to walk for long before they came upon their destination—not that it was difficult to find a refurbished Hunter vessel set in the midst of an otherwise pristine landscape—and Chir was pleased to see that it remained in surprisingly good condition in spite of the battles it must have seen. More concerning was the way it sat at the heart of a clear-felled area, surrounded by a barricade of roughly worked lumber, and was patrolled by a group of tall, hairy creatures universally armed with fusion blades. That these creatures had seen them was soon apparent when a handful broke away from their encampment and set to intercept Chir’s little group. Again Chir was more wary than scared, the presence of Irbzrkian stunguns was reassurance enough, but he might have retreated without them.
Keffa and Darragh’s own behaviour was of greater interest to him. They were of markedly different heights, and it was therefore natural for them to fall out of step with each other, but it wasn’t until this moment that Chir realised that Darragh had barely drifted from his position to his front and right, and Keffa from her own to his left. They had been spread out, but now that there was a threat they fell into step beside Chir with an animal tension not unlike a predator that guarded its lair. It must have been a deathworlder thing, because while he could name nothing specifically dangerous about their movements, and while their hands never settled on the stunguns holstered at their sides, he knew in his core that if these tall and hairy strangers were set on violence they’d get more than they bargained for.
The hairy creatures seemed to take the same meaning from these subtle movements, and drew to a stop several strides away as the humans ceased moving forward. It was as though there was an invisible line that divided the two groups, and though nothing was being said, Chir could sense a communication far older and deeper than the spoken word. From this vantage both groups could observe each other in detail, without risking unwanted conflict, and the two groups regarded each other for several moments before any further action was taken. These creatures were not as naked as Chir had first thought, but were clad in garments of similar colour and style that had been torn short rather than cut to their current design. Amongst the three of them there was one whose ragged garments were adorned with strange trinkets, and it was ultimately this one who stepped forth to speak on his fellows’ behalf.
“Hello,” it greeted them, unmistakably male, and curiously in the tongue of the humans. “I am Lord Groddi. The small grey fiend said we must meet you, and take you to the Chosen One.”
“Ten credits he means Adrian or Jen,” Darragh murmured.
“No bet,” Keffa murmured back. “Small grey fiend?”
“Askit,” Darragh determined. “No doubt about it.”
Taking his cue from this deathworlder, Chir imitated the way he had stepped forward, and matched the distance, lest they assume one of the humans was in charge. Since it was practically impossible that this primitive being would have a translator implant, however, he turned to Darragh to act as interpreter. “Tell him that I must speak with the ‘small, grey fiend’ first. It is of vital importance.”
Darragh did so, without comprehending the need behind it, and only when he was done did Chir give his reason. “Askit and I both speak Dominion standard.”
It might have taken a moment for understanding to set in, but neither human argued now that they were one more reminded of the hazards of speaking freely. They remained quiet and watchful as Lord Groddi and his hairy folk led them back towards Adrian’s starship, passing though the small compound as they did so. The scene behind the barricades was of interest to Chir, and he studied it carefully, noting several primitive shelters of recent construct, populated by a handful of the hairy deathworlders who were currently engaged in some variety of friendly gambling.
They were escorted past all of this, and straight to the door of the starship whereupon Keffa and Darragh took up position either side of the door. The former leant against the outer hull in a pose that might have passed as relaxed if you didn’t notice she’d kept her footing, while the latter stood apart in a more observant stance, and neither of them were swayed by Groddi’s claim that nothing here would endanger them.
Chir stepped inside with a certain sense of foreboding, and it was to his great relief that he found Askit really was waiting inside the starship and had gone so far as to meet Chir in the corridor. He looked worn and weary, and far from pleased to see Chir again. “Those primitives really can’t do anything right.”
“Before you say anything else,” Chir said hurriedly, switching over to Dominion standard, “I wish to have my translator checked.”
Askit inclined his head, studying Chir with that renowned Corti intensity, and finally nodded approvingly. “Wise of you. Wiser still that you came to me. This way.”
Gesturing towards the rear of the vessel, Askit did not wait for Chir before he started down that direction, and the two of them soon stepped into the cargo bay where a mess of components and cables were loosely assembled on top of a crate. “Take a seat.”
“You’re working out here?” Chir asked, finding a comfortable set of boxes to sit down on. Normally the Corti hacker worked at a terminal, with no shortage of comforts; far different to what he found out here.
Whether or not Askit found it important was never to be revealed, for he worked in silence for several [minutes] before the need for an update became intolerable. “Well?”
“Not good,” Askit replied, frowning as he looked up from his screen. “It seems that it bypassed my upgraded protections; there’s additional software installed, and transcripts of everything you’ve said and heard. They’re all in a cache, pending connection via a starship communication link, so we still have a chance to deal with the problem.”
Chir frowned as well. “You’re saying that like you haven’t removed it.”
Askit smiled in the unsettling way that only a Corti could manage “Why destroy what you can use? I’ve disabled it for now, but I can turn it back on at any time.”
There was a cunning in the idea that Chir could appreciate, even if he didn’t like the idea of leaving the malicious software inside his head. “I’ll agree to this for the time being, but I want it removed when it is no longer useful.”
Askit agreed to that without argument; he plainly had other things on his mind. “Bring your humans inside so I can set them up as well. There’s no need for them to mingle with the locals, and it’ll save repeating myself later.”
Chir went and collected the pair of humans from where they still waited as he’d left them, and led them back to the makeshift computer workshop in Spot’s cargo bay. They greeted the Corti with varied amounts of enthusiasm, finding seats of their own amongst the many crates displaced for his working area, and allowed him to make the necessary adjustments before the conversation proceeded.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m back here,” the Corti said when his work was complete. “This is the backup computer core we’ve kept in case of emergencies, and in case we ever needed something to experiment on. I have a log of the Artificial Intelligence’s attempts to access our active computer system, and have been developing defences against it.”
“It took complete control of our ship,” Keffa said, “and landed us nearby, but we can’t be sure it doesn’t still have access.”
“It almost certainly does,” Askit replied, a strangely predatorial smile spreading across his face, “but that will just give me more data to work with. This thing thinks that Adrian is a god, and it’s not going to be happy when it finds itself mistaken. We think it’s better if it never gets that chance.”
“Speaking of Adrian…” Chir began, letting the question ask itself. It seemed extremely unlikely that he’d be seeking wisdom in a cave, as the A.I. would have them believe, and even mentioning it would make Chir feel just as foolish.
“We’ve placed him in stasis,” Askit explained. “He took some serious injuries from the last battle and we’re not confident he will survive without additional assistance. Jen and the V’Straki, however, are out hunting the indigenous fauna—meat-eating seems to be ubiquitous amongst the deathworlders encountered thus far—while Trycrur is attempting to decipher the scans of the Zhadersil’s weaponry so we know what we’re dealing with. Oh, and then there’s Layla, who is traumatised and hiding in a dark room by herself.”
“What?!” Chir cried, and looked at Darragh and Keffa in confusion, only to have them respond with expressions that were just as confused. “How… is she here?”
“Difficult question,” Askit replied, not answering it. “Let’s consider Adrian instead: he was hit by three Nerve Jam grenades.”
“Impossible,” Chir blurted. “I mean no disrespect, but humans are not invulnerable to Nerve Jam, and he should be dead. I take it that the situation was not as simple as you made it sound?”
“I would not call the situation ‘simple’, no,” Askit agreed. “We placed him in stasis after a cursory examination revealed that none of us knew anything about medicine, and we do not have medical facilities aboard this ship.”
“But mine does,” Chir said, understanding. “But the A.I. invasion will need to be defeated first. Until then there can be no hope of taking Adrian aboard; I have no doubt it would prove disastrous.”
Askit nodded unhappily. “Indeed. I was hoping against it, but there is nothing to be done about it now, and I have already formulated a plan to deal with whatever situation presents itself.”
“How long is that likely to take? Darragh queried, and they all looked to Askit as he mulled over the answer.
Eventually he shrugged, and replied with a phrase undoubtedly borrowed from Adrian. “How long’s a piece of string?”
++++++++
THE TROPICAL WILDS OF AGWAR
JENNIFER DELANEY
After their descent from orbit, Jen had given the Agwaren soldiers the orders they needed to keep themselves out of trouble, and had taken the richly deserved nap required to deal with the mountain of shit she’d just been handed. Most of it was outside her control, or could be put off until the issue with Adrian was resolved, or it could be handed over to Askit and Trycrur for as long as they remained on this verdant world. That had given her little to do, and when Xayn had suggested they go hunting together she had practically leapt at the chance. It wasn’t shirking her duties, not when there was nothing much for her to do in the first place, but she was well and truly glad to get away from stewing in her thoughts, or keeping company with a group of deathworlders who practically worshipped her. Out here she could put it from her mind, and there was nothing to focus on but the hunt.
“You were correct, Jennifer Delaney,” Xayn said quietly, his rasping voice almost a whisper as he relayed the message just received from the starship, “it was a starship you heard earlier: Chir has arrived.”
“That’s at least three more mouths to feed: all the more reason for us to take home something worth eating,” said Jen in an equal whisper. Neither of them wanted to disturb the six beasts that grazed nearby, too dull and stupid to flinch at the proximity of predators unless they actually saw them. They were the size of pigs, though much huskier and ill-equipped for quick movements, and Jen had come to call them ‘hogwarens’ despite them tasting more like rabbit. There was nothing to prey on them out here, and they were numerous enough to provide for the entire group, but they would spook if they were fully disturbed and scatter in all directions. “Tell Askit we’ll be back after we’re done out here.”
Xayn did so, then turned to Jen and gave a short nod. “I will slay the three on the left.”
She smiled slightly. “Suits me just fine,” she said, licking lips that had dried with anticipation. Hunting alongside the V’Straki had been surprisingly enjoyable, though she’d had no such expectations when they’d first started; but he had proven himself an asset and not only because of the silent and deadly weapons which he brought with him. He was a carnivore, and hunted with an instinct not far removed from his raptor-like ancestors, and he’d had plenty of experience in replenishing food supplies on the world he’d called home. That experience showed in his skill, but Jen still proved the better shot; chalk one up to Cruezzir-boosted humanity.
It had taken them no more than ten minutes to creep up on this group of hogwarens, moving slowly and crouching below the scrub where they could not be seen. Jen had not known much of hunting—her experience on Cimbrean had been akin to a fox amongst the chickens—but Xayn had shown her how and where to move, and how to keep her scent from giving her away. She was a quick learner, however, and had quickly adapted her techniques whenever instructed, and after more than a dozen such trips they each knew the readiness in the others’ poise. Here and now they were squatting behind the brush, deadly still and listening to the movements of the hogwarens as they snuffled around the undergrowth, picking out the general direction of the beasts marked for them. So it was that when Xayn’s muscles twitched to send him springing towards the hapless beasts, with twin guns firing, Jen reacted with even greater speed, and snapped off a single deadly shot at each of her three hogwarens. Every beast was dead before Xayn had even landed.
“Once again you are too fast for me,” Xayn said, releasing a dissatisfied snort, although his own quarry had barely lasted a second longer than Jen’s own.
“This is about the food, Xayn,” Jen chided, though she could not suppress a self-satisfied grin. “Well… maybe I’m a little bit competitive. The main thing is we’ve got them all, and that’ll give us enough to eat for another couple days.”
Xayn did not respond, except for an incoherent muttering, and set about the second part of the work: cutting away useless body parts. They had discovered this after the first time they’d hunted the creatures, finding that much of the beasts were weighty and effectively inedible, and so they had decided to save themselves some effort and only return what could be used. A fusion blade made quick work of the bony, oversized head, the hooves, and other superfluous growths, and ultimately left each beast at about half of its former weight. From there it was just a matter of retrieving the hover platform—already prepared with a solid crate—and then fitting the bulky remains inside. This also proved more art than science, and it eventuated that the limbs were packed in atop the rest of the bodies.
The hardest part of the process, however, was actually getting the damned thing back to the camp; all that dense, deathworlder flesh weighed enough to make steering a total nightmare, and it took their combined efforts to keep it moving in an agreeable direction. What she wouldn’t have given for a basic cart with wheels! Hover technology, as it turned out, was not always the ideal solution.
Five hours must have passed before they finally returned to the hastily erected compound that housed the Agwarens and protected the starship, and they drew much attention from the two bored Agwaren soldiers tasked with defending the entrance. More of them arrived as they passed through the gate, and Jen was glad to release it into their care. Jen and Xayn were responsible for bringing home the bacon, but it was the soldiers who butchered it, treated it and cooked it up on cobbled-together hotplates.
With her work done, however, she could turn her attention towards the pair of humans sitting near the entrance to the starship. Neither had moved during her arrival, but they both watched on with interest. One she recognised, there was no way she’d have forgotten Darragh’s boyish face, but the other—a young woman—she found unfamiliar, and both of them were wearing enviro-gear.
She approached them, and Darragh rose as she grew near, recoiling only slightly as she embraced him with a grin.
“Darragh!” she greeted him brightly, and laughed at his reaction. She was still covered with the dried blood of several hunts, and there’d not been much chance to find a clean pair of clothes. “It’s good to see you again! Alive as well! I brought dinner, so I hope you like rabbit.”
“Glad to see you as well, Jen,” he replied, the familiarity of his Irish accent vaguely comforting. “We were worried for you, after you vanished like you did, and I’m still not sure we’ve got the whole of the story; Askit’s a cagey little bugger.”
She laughed again; he’d be hearing no argument from her on that matter. Then her eyes slipped to the girl nearby, who was yet to approach, and Jen waggled her eyebrows at Darragh. “Girlfriend?”
He blushed. “That’s Keffa and… not really. I mean, things have not eventuated as I might have hoped in that regard.”
“Pity,” Jen said with a wink. “She’s pretty.”
He frowned at that, and Jen thought she’d maybe gone too far; it was too long since she’d been around proper humans, and her social senses were a complete mess. “Sorry,” she apologised, “I just thought… anyway, what’s with the enviro-gear?”
“Atrophy I think,” he said unhappily, but there was a deeper concern he wasn’t voicing. “We’ve been in lower-grav for too long, so Earthlike is way too strong.”
Jen had heard about that sort of thing before, though she struggled to recall the details. She knew that astronauts had needed frequent exercise to stay healthy in space, but Jen doubted that either Darragh or Keffa had been doing anything of the sort. Until now she’d barely lent it a moment’s thought, and it was likely that both she and Adrian had been protected by their constant exposure to Cruezzir.
“Times like this you need a doctor,” she said. “I heard what happened to your Corti surgeon, it’s a shame. He was the one who installed my own damned implants.”
That was a matter Jen had been more than a little shocked to learn about, and the continued presence of her own translator now filled her with a slight sense of dread. She was protected by Askit’s upgrades, but only to whatever degree that was possible, and she wouldn’t feel right until she’d had the whole thing removed in favour of external devices.
Darragh scratched his nose, discomforted by the topic. “Couldn’t be helped, and the whole thing was just fecking mental.”
“You must be Jen,” Keffa said, finally making an awkward approach. She had a hard but feminine voice, with an accent that was vaguely American, and did not seem the friendly type. “I’ve seen pictures, but there’s nothing like reality for putting a face to a name.”
Jen smiled in return, though it seemed this girl held something against her. There was probably no fixing that, not right away, and while Jen decided to be civil there was certainly no need to be overly friendly in return. “Askit was lax on details, so it seems you’ve got me at a disadvantage, Keffa.”
“I doubt it,” the younger girl said flatly.
She offered no further comment, and when Jen glanced to Darragh for attitude or explanation she found none to be had; maybe he wasn’t aware of the reason, but knowing lads it seemed more likely he wasn’t even aware of the problem. Any opportunity to press the issue vanished with the sudden appearance of Chir.
He stepped out the moment the starship door opened, ambling slowly from the ship towards the three of them gathered several paces away, and making good use of his own enviro-gear. He was pleased to see her, but he carried a greater darkness as well; this was clearly a Gaoian who had seen some shit.
“You look well, Jen,” he said upon joining their circle, but his voice held an unsteadiness not usual for his character. “You are recognisable even if your hair is short, or if you’re covered in… all that blood. I admit fearing the worst.”
“Are you alright, Chir?” she asked, and from the attention paid by Keffa and Darragh she realised it must be a new condition. Whatever had brought on this mood had done so recently, and the only cause she could think of was either Adrian or the female Gaoian they had recently held imprisoned: Layla.
The black-furred Gaoian straightened slightly, bringing himself up to his full height, but quickly deflated thereafter. “I am… not. Today has tested me, and I fear it found me wanting. Askit will not explain this matter with Layla, and she is incapable of making any sense whatsoever! We left her behind in safety to care for her children, but now she not only fails to remember such things, but believes me her enemy and oppressor!”
He grew quiet, and the atmosphere grew uncomfortable. None of them knew what could console him, and none of them had any explanations to offer. Jen guessed that maybe—just maybe—it had something to do with this ‘breaking of history’ that nobody would tell her about. Maybe it’d been worse than Askit had led her to believe; suddenly it seemed more than likely.
Shit, she thought, just how in the hell do you break a whole universe anyway?
“Best to just leave her to her own recovery,” Darragh suggested. “I’m sure she’ll be ready to talk about it eventually, and from the sounds of things we’ve got nothing but time.”
It was probably bad advice, but Jen wasn’t sure how these things worked for Gaoians. If Layla was in the middle of a complete mental breakdown, though, Jen was more concerned with preventing Chir from sharing the same fate.
Rather unshockingly, Chir did not look convinced. “Thank you Darragh, but I shall have to consider what to do. Perhaps once the Corti has finished his full system sweep we can put her through the medical suite as well.”
“System sweep?” Jen asked. Had something happened in orbit?
“That fecking A.I. took over our ship,” Darragh explained. “Translators too. We’ve got them under control, but it’ll take longer for him to make sure our ship isn’t going to kidnap us again, and Adrian’s treatment is going to have to wait as well.”
The mention of Adrian reminded Jen of the cold knot that had grown in her gut over the past several days; the one she’d done her outright best to completely ignore. It had been her greatest relief to discover that Adrian was still alive, but the great weight of survivor’s guilt had only been lifted for a moment before she’d learned what saving her again had cost him. She still had plenty to say to him, and she’d never forgive him if he really did go and die without giving her the chance.
“So I’m told your ship is decent enough to have some automated medical systems?” Jen asked, confirming what Askit had already told her. She might have taken a look at it for herself if not for coming from the other direction and the burden of the hunt making that kind of detour so impractical. Xayn had also done his best to describe the ship on their return journey, though ‘clean’, ‘military’ and ‘bigger-than-Spot’ were not the best descriptors. It was apparently a very capable ship in its own right, but Adrian had built Spot to be as damned strong and fast as conceivably possible.
“It does,” Chir replied, though with a waver of uncertainty that led into the provisos. “The automated suite is not extensive; if it is lacking we shall have no choice but to hope for the best; I somehow doubt any of your deathworlders are medically trained.”
“They are only soldiers,” Jen replied, leaving it at that. Any medically-trained Agwarens she’d met had died in the anti-matter explosion, and what they had known was really only relevant to other of their kind.
From there the conversation steered towards Askit and his work, such as when it was supposed to begin and end, but for Jen there was no answer that could please. She wanted to see Adrian healthy again—of course she wanted that!—but she also dreaded the conversation that would follow, and there was no plan to be made for it. It all felt more like a trashy soap-opera than real life, and if trends continued she wouldn’t have a year before discovering a secret twin with a diabolical plan kill her and steal her life.
“Well, we’ve not got all the time in the world,” Jen said once the discussion had come to a close. “I don’t imagined Mister Thinky up there will wait forever, and after what happened to the Hunters I have to assume it’s only a matter of time before they send scouts to find their missing swarm.”
“Then the people here are doomed,” Chir said fatalistically, although it was the most realistic outcome. “These deathworlders are not like humans, they will be overpowered and devoured, and there will be nothing to stop them when they do.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m just going to let it happen,” Jen told them; she wasn’t going to abandon them after saving them twice. “They don’t deserve to be wiped out by those monsters.”
“Obviously,” Darragh replied. “Nobody deserves that, but rescuing a whole species from the Hunters by ourselves? That’s a big fecking task without even knowing how many there are. A few more than the ones you’ve got milling around here, I imagine?”
“There are more,” Jen said, “but I don’t know where. They build their cities underground, which is about the only thing they’ve got going for them if the Hunters come back.”
Groddi had given her an overview of their people after realising how completely ignorant she was, telling her of his people and their ways, and the few major cities that he knew about. They were all underground, and each was effectively self-ruling because no city could conquer another with the threat posed by the Dark One.
“Well, there’s this big fuck-off ship in orbit,” Keffa noted, breaking from her self-imposed silence. “You could probably fit a few in that, if we can get it working for us.”
They all regarded her as they pondered the idea, and she shifted awkwardly under the attention. The challenges were not insignificant, but neither were they insurmountable, and when they had Adrian back perhaps he’d manage to convince the A.I. to help of its own volition. For a prize such as this it seemed worth the risk.
“It seems to me,” Chir said, stroking at the side of his ear as he considered it for himself, “it could work, but any plan would need Adrian involved, simply because he is the focus of the A.I.’s fixation. Perhaps, however, somebody else might do the talking.”
They all agreed to that unanimously; whatever good might be said of Adrian Saunders, his particular brand of diplomatic skills were unlikely to make the list.
“So let me get this straight,” Darragh summarised, “we’re going with a plan where an all-powerful robot-mind shows up and saves everyone from the terrible menace of space? Are they familiar with the concept of a Deus Ex Machina?”
“If they’re not,” Jen said, “they soon will be.”
++++++++
DATE POINT: 3Y 9M 3W 5D AV
ABOARD THE DEVASTATOR, AGWAREN DEATHWORLD
ASKIT
It was no easy feat to purge a starship’s computer systems from an unknown digital influence—a fact that Askit knew better than most, although he was usually taking advantage of the fact—and he had spent considerable time preparing for the effort. This was a project that would require he actually venture aboard the starship, and shut down major parts of the computer core while he scoured it piece by piece for any fragment of suspicious code. This was not something he expected to happen easily, but he was not ready to uncover the infestation he found. Whatever the artificial intelligence was, it had produced a piece of programming that had subjugated every major system aboard, and pieces of it lurked in even the most unimportant database.
With Xayn’s help he had disconnected the computer core before even beginning the process, shutting down every additional ship system that might pose a hazard to his health and powering the core itself through a backup power-supply. It took a full day to just prepare the starship for the investigation, but significantly less to establish the sheer hopelessness of any attempt to fix the problem.
“You’re saying you can’t do it?” Jen asked, her face set without expression but her poise holding more tension than Askit liked. “I was under the impression you were some kind of computer genius.”
Askit glared at her; he didn’t like having his technical abilities questioned by anyone, especially not somebody whose best technical advice was ‘turning it off and on again’. “Even the best doctor can’t bring the dead back to life. I cannot fix those systems, but I do not have to fix when I can simply replace.”
“The extra computer core,” Jen inferred and nodded her approval. “What needs to be done?”
“It needs to be moved,” Askit explained. “Then it needs to be connected. Xayn here is more than capable of managing the latter, but moving the core is harder work that will require yourself and two of the natives to add their muscle.”
The core itself wasn’t heavy, it was actually quite a small part of the entire setup, but the support systems would also need replacing and it was easier to do it all at once than a piece at a time. That meant he needed muscles, and the local deathworlders were powerful even by human standards. What they lacked was speed and agility, neither of which were necessary for moving heavy objects, and Jen could assist by ensuring they didn’t bump it around too much in the process. Adrian had managed the job on his own, of course, but that had been helped by his ridiculous physique and the greatly reduced gravity of Cimbrean.
Jen didn’t argue, instead promising him all the help he needed and making good on it immediately; the morning wasn’t even over before a group of Agwarens were carrying the equipment under direction of Jen’s guiding hand, and Askit was privately impressed at how well she translated the techno-jargon into something the primitives could understand.
Not that they were stupid, Askit reminded himself. He knew that they were merely ignorant, as might be expected of any species in its technological infancy, and though it was setting the bar low, they were clearly smarter than any Vzk’tk. It was only their ignorance of… well… damned near everything that made it hard to tell just how smart they might be. Either way, Askit was glad to have someone around with the patience needed to deal with that while he stood out of the way and in another room entirely.
Only once all the heavy lifting was complete, and after Jen had escorted the Agwarens out of the starship, that Askit emerged to begin his work.
Xayn glanced up from where he was connecting the cables of the replacement core. “I am glad you could join us.”
“You seem to be getting the hang of sarcasm,” Askit replied.
“I’ve nearly completed the first connections,” Xayn advised, disregarding the comment. “We will be ready to test it momentarily.”
To Askit’s surprise this wasn’t an understatement; Xayn had managed to connect the new core in surprisingly short order, and little time had passed before it was starting its initialisation sequence.
Xayn observed the monitoring equipment that tracked the health of the system. “Energy levels are adequate, and there were no unexpected errors in start sequence.”
They had sent the Devastator’s own reactor into a hibernation state, locking down its computer systems until they could wipe the software and roll out a new version. That was the first thing on their to-do list after making sure the core systems were under control. There were, as Askit had expected, attacks from them almost as soon as the core was done initialising, but it would take them longer to overcome his upgraded security than it’d take him to resolve the infection. Already the security software was identifying the sources of infection and quarantining them for study, and it wouldn’t be long before there was more than enough data for him to work with.
“It works so far?” Xayn asked after several quiet moments.
“It works so far,” Askit replied, not yet willing to be enthusiastic; he knew there was a lot of work to be done before he could call this a victory. “Once I’ve cleared these systems I’ll adjust my security software, and then we can start on the reactor.”
“And this will take as long as a piece of string?” Xayn queried.
Askit almost chuckled at the broken phrasing. “Precisely.”
That piece of string turned out to be very long indeed, and about as tangled. The core systems had been cleaned, but when Askit had started to study the infection in detail he found that every instance was subtly different, and that the programming behind it made no sense whatsoever. It was not logical, or at least not in the way that a Corti was logical, but seemed as messy as anything else in nature. This, he was forced to concede, was as much a life-form as it was code, and it would require new methods to counteract it.
So it was that he found himself putting the situation before Jennifer Delaney. “I want to know how things are made on Earth. Digital infections, and the computer security needed to defeat them.”
She regarded him with some surprise, and frowned thoughtfully as she considered the question. “When I worked in the industry, my department mainly provided technical support to our own company. Our security was total shit, because nobody locked down the computers, and we were always cleaning up all sorts of messes as a result. I can’t say I miss it.”
“The Galaxy has thousands of malicious software programs,” Askit replied, “with several permutations to each; I may have come up with a few of those myself. Security works by cataloguing those threats so that they can be found on a scan.”
Jen laughed, first a little and then a lot. “Ah, my poor little Corti… I remember reading that Earth produces around a million new malware threats on a daily basis.”
Askit paused. “You are lying.”
“Like your security,” Jen continued, ignoring his accusation, “we have a whole load of companies putting together security software, with constant updates to their database, and the best security software uses something called a ‘heuristic’ method. That’s where the software figures out threats on its own.”
That seemed to be about as much as Jen knew on that topic, though Askit was still astounded at how data could ever be made safe with so many threats lingering in their networks. If he ever had the misfortune of visiting that planet, he resolved he would never connect to their computer networks.
Her answer had not been detailed, but Jen had ultimately pointed him in the right direction. It was a step beyond what he had been used to, and fell more in line with the production systems that took a request and intelligently assembled an item that met its buyer’s needs, most common in assembly technology. Turning that same narrow intelligence towards identifying malicious software would take some work, but it was indeed the only proper method to identify suspicious processes based on their behaviour rather than pre-registered markers.
Askit was so pleased with himself that he smiled as he worked. The A.I. had produced a weapon that he had not seen before, and he had responded with a tool that would destroy it. This was a digital arms race, the survival of the fittest: deathworlder evolution in the digital world.
“You’re smiling,” Xayn noted from his own instruments.
Askit snorted. “Because I am a digital god and my creation will win! This ‘artificial intelligence’ has only taught me to do things better, and this software it has created has only improved my understanding of how the intelligence itself may be destroyed.”
Xayn arched a reptilian eyebrow. “In other words, we’re ready to fix the reactor?”
Askit leaned towards the lizardman with a conspiratorial leer. “We are ready, my V’Straki companion, to fix everything.”
With the notable exception of Earth, he mentally added; there probably wasn’t enough code in the universe to fix that computerised mess. At those rates, did they even have any code that wasn’t malicious?
Despite his boasts, they began the process with only the reactor as they had originally planned, and the heuristic diagnostics began detecting the many sources of infection almost as soon as everything came online. It froze each item as it detected it, generating a list of hundreds in mere moments and thousands soon after, and with every item scanned the security database expanded its understanding of what this virus was and how it may be found. By the time it was done it hardly seemed necessary to roll out replacement software, but there had been an agreement and Chir would insist they abide by it.