Dragons In The Stars Part 16

"Yes? Yes?" The bird hopped about excitedly on her shoulder, then jumped to the nearest branch and began prancing in front of her. "Good! Good! Ed happy! Rawwwk!""Ed, wait a minute!" She thought furiously, heart pounding. How could she explain her way out of this?

"Ed, stop that a minute. Please!" The parrot became still, except for his darting eyes. Jael drew a breath and exhaled noisily. "Look, Ed. I said I'dlike to take you with me to see the dragons. I didn't say I could do it."

"What? No?" Ed's feathers ruffled, a blaze of scarlet and green, and slowly drooped. His eyes turned down.

"I just don't know how, Ed. I don't even know ifI can ever see the dragons again." Her throat tightened as she said that, as she thought of Highwing. She kept talking, more rapidly. "Even if I could - the thing is, Ed, I wouldn't know any way to take you along with me. You live here, in this world. And I can't take it with me." But even as she said that, she realized that, in principle, at least, what she'd said was untrue.

This was a cyber-world and Ed a cyber-bird, and in theory there was no reason why it couldn't all be carried in a tiny software nodule that could be tied into the rigger-net. But she had no idea how, in practice, she could obtain a nodule containing Ed.

She gazed at the parrot. With head bent and neck feathers askew, he looked about as dejected as a parrot could look. Her heart sank for him, and for herself. She'd certainly miss him. "Maybe there's a way," she murmured. "Maybe. I'm not sure. I'm not even sure when or if I'll be flying again. But if there's a way ...if there's a way ..."

Ed's head came up a fraction of an inch.

She sighed. "I'll see what I can do, okay? That's the best I can offer. Will you accept that?"

Ed hopped back onto her shoulder and pecked affectionately at her hair. "Ed happy. Happy as can be,"

he said - not quite with the same joy as before, but with hope, at least, in his voice.

"Good." She stroked the side of his head with a finger. "And now, old friend, I think perhaps I should see if I can find my other friend, Ar. Be here when I come back?"

"R-r-right here! Right here! B-bye!" With a flash of color, Ed launched himself up into the thick tree cover.

Jael waved, and then the rainforest dissolved around her.

She didn't have to look far to find Ar. He was sitting at a nearby station, playing with a screen-display game that flickered s.h.i.+fting colors onto his face. He looked up, crinkle-mouthed, as she approached.

"Jael," he said.

"Am I interrupting you?"

He pa.s.sed a hand over the display screen and it went dark. "I was just waiting for you. I thought you were probably - well, that maybe you'd rather not be interrupted." His luminous eyes met hers.

She blinked. "It would have been okay. Actually I was looking for you earlier."

"Oh? Do you have news?"

"Me? No, not particularly. I just thought maybe -"

"I have news," Ar said brightly. He gestured to the seat beside his.

Startled, she sat. "What is it?""That depends somewhat on whether you are free to take a rigging job. And whether you want to."

Jael opened her mouth, dumbfounded.

One corner of Ar's mouth went up; the other corner went down. "Does that mean that you are? That you do?"

"Well, I -yes - I mean, of course, I'd have to apply for clearance." She stammered, only half sure of what she was saying, because she was trying to absorb all of the possible implications of his question.

"There's that whole legal thing." Still, she remembered, Commander Gordache had implied that they'd allow her to work.

"I understand," Ar said. "But if they're willing to let you go, there's an opening on a flight coming up, for a two-crew." He hesitated. "I know this is awfully quick. But would you be interested in rigging with me?"

The rush of thoughts made her dizzy. "Yes - that is, I think so. Yes. But ... Ar? There's one other thing I have to ask you." This was going to sound ridiculous, but she had to say it. "Do you remember Ed, the parrot? in the rainforest environment?" Ar's eyes glimmered as he nodded. "Well ... Ed sort of asked to come along with me the next time I flew."

Something funny happened in Ar's eyes. They brightened, then darkened. "Hewhat?" The left corner of Ar's mouth formed a zigzag.

"He, uh - he wants to see dragons, he said."

"Dragons!"

She raised a hand hastily. "Okay, okay, don't say it! I know. I told him I didn't know any way to do it.

But I ... well, I promised to try to find a way. And - I just found out that they're taking him out of the system soon. The whole rainforest. He's going to be - " she swallowed " - terminated."

Ar made a soft wheezing sound, which might have been a laugh, or a sign of distress. "Ed? Dragons?"

"I know. I know. I told him I might never get to fly that way again, anyway. But he wants to come along.

In theory it ought to be possible, right? It's just a technical question, isn't it?"

"Well - I don't know, really." Ar's eyebrows flexed, dusty silver against his bluish forehead.

"It must be. Okay, so you don't believe in the dragons. I suppose you'll say that Ed isn't real, either."

Jael looked down at her clenched hands. She could hardly blame him. Certainly she had given him enough impossible things to believe already.

Stroking the ridge of his head, Ar answered, "I wouldn't say that exactly. Ed is a cyber-parrot, yes, so in one respect he is an artifact. But if he's based upon a real parrot, and if his personality has been allowed to evolve naturally, then I would have to say that he is real. Even if he doesn't exist outside of the psychetronic environment."

Jael felt an impulse to ask how, then, he would distinguish Ed from the dragons he thought unreal, but she thought better of it. Time enough to argue about that later. Instead, she asked, "If I can get clearance, and we rig together, will you help me try to get a copy of Ed onto our s.h.i.+p?"

Ar stared at her for a long time. His eyes seemed to flicker, as though very fine lines of fire were dancing upon the violet wool in their clear depths. Then his face broke into a broad, cracked zigzag. "You havemade yourself," he said, "a deal."

Nineteen.

Cyber-rescue.

Getting clearance from the police took just one visit with Commander Gordache. The police were no longer interested in restricting her movements, and Gordache encouraged her to find work so that she would not have to continue drawing housing credit from the s.p.a.ceport administration. It seemed likely that her claim for flight pay against the Mogurn estate would be held up in the legal process for weeks or months.

With Ar, she went to the rigger offices and applied for the posted two-crew position. They were hardly the only riggers looking for work, but the situation was far less grim than it had been on Gaston's Landing. As it happened, most of the present compet.i.tion was vying either for larger s.h.i.+ps or solos.

However, since she and Ar had never crewed together, they were required to take a simulator test to demonstrate compatibility. They did that in the afternoon, in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the rigger hall.

They were installed in linked rigger-stations, where they rehea.r.s.ed all normal checkout procedures for flight. Computer-generated Flux simulations were fed into the sensory net, along with randomly selected flight problems. It was strongly reminiscent of her training simulations, and Jael felt in the groove almost from the beginning. She and Ar developed a quick rapport, trading images back and forth as they zipped through the synthetic landscapes. With surprising ease, she put her fears aside, closing off those areas that she wished to keep private, and testing only the imaging powers that she needed in the net with Ar. But then, of course it was easy: she knew it was only a test. That was both the beauty and the weakness of tests of this sort; they were useful enough as a gross measure of competence, but they could not really show how a team would function in the actual tricks and twists of the Flux. Only starflight itself would reveal that.

With their partners.h.i.+p rating in hand, they were left to await word on the position itself, which could easily take days. That gave them time to think about other matters - among them, Ed. Rescuing the parrot was not going to be easy. She knew, even as she planned to do it, that her desire was not entirely rational. But the parrot had somehow found a place in her heart - quite unexpectedly - a place of warmth that in a strange way reminded her of Highwing. Could a cyber-parrot give the same kind of friends.h.i.+p as a person - or a dragon? She supposed he would be closer to a pet. But she didn't care; she just knew she didn't want to lose Ed, not now, not without giving it her best try to rescue him.

Unfortunately, she could not locate the young man who had helped her last night, and the people who worked in the back rooms today either couldn't or wouldn't tell her exactly when the Environment Alpha system would be removed, or even whether the rainforest element would be left intact until then. She did learn that the data grains were all imported from off planet and allowed to grow and mature in place. The Ed that she knew was a unique denizen of this particular artificial intelligence "data garden." If she couldn't save him before he was removed, there was virtually no hope of recovering him. There also seemed little hope of her obtaining a data readout of his personality in any straightforward manner. Her spirits were low as she reported back to Ar.

Ar told her that he had an idea or two. The rest of the afternoon, while Jael worried, Ar did some asking around the s.p.a.ceport. That evening he met her in the dining hall. "I might have a method," he reported.

"It's not foolproof. But it's the only thing I could come up with." With a surrept.i.tious glance each way, he held up a small black case. He opened it carefully. Cus.h.i.+oned on red velvet was a pair of thincerametallic disks, each about a centimeter in diameter. "These could be Ed's ticket out," he murmured.

Jael peered at them curiously. "What are they?"

"System probes. They have data grains sufficient to hold Ed's ident.i.ty matrix, plus the AI growth medium, plus at least some of the ambient data that convey the rainforest environment." Ar's voice was a husky whisper. He seemed actually to be enjoying this. "You'll wear these on your temples when you go into the environment. They'll take control of the input/output circuits in the helmet. Once you're in the environment, they'll send probing commands back into the AI system itself." His voice dropped lower.

"They're actually security-breaking probes, which makes them ... well ... don't ask me where I got them, okay?" He hiccupped and continued, "I don't expect that this system was designed with extensive security, so the penetrating AI modules in here should be able to get in and set up the readout without too much trouble. I hope so, anyway."

Jael cleared her throat. "We're going to hijack him right out of the system?"

Ar smiled in his peculiar way. "We're saving his life, yes? Anyway, his existence in the system will continue, until they pull his plug - but we'll have him, too, and we should be able to load him into a nodule that you can connect with the rigger-net systems."

Jael nodded hesitantly. She hadn't expected quite such a clandestine operation.

"Are you ready to give it a try, then?"

Her breath eased out in a sigh. They rose and walked to the rigger lounge.

Both Environment Alpha I/Os were occupied. Jael shot Ar an uneasy glance. He shrugged and gestured to the nearby seats. They would have to wait. Jael tried to relax, staring alternately at the ceiling and at her fingernails. Don't worry, she thought. Ed's still there; he's safe. But she might as well have been trying to hold back an avalanche. What if they pull the rainforest again before I get in there? What if they already pulled it? What if they turn off the whole system? By the time one of the riggers in the Environment Alpha seats stirred and lilted the I/O helmet from her head, Jael's nerves were a wreck. She tried not to stare as the other rigger rubbed her eyes and readjusted to the outer reality. Finally, an eternity later, the woman rose and vacated the seat.

Jael hurried to take her place. Ar caught her arm as she was about to set the helmet on her head. He held out the open case containing the probe disks. Right. Don't forget your tools. She sat quietly while Ar fitted one disk to each of her temples, then checked, as she lowered the helmet, to ensure that its probes rested on the disks. She took a deep breath, aware of the lingering smell of the woman who had just worn the helmet. She felt like a criminal. Remember, she thought, you're trying to save his life.

"Go on," Ar murmured in her ear.

She squeezed the trigger.

The rainforest, blessedly, was still in the system. But Ed was nowhere to be found. The forest was damp and misty, and strangely quiet. The light seemed odd, grey and flat somehow. Apparently it was early in the morning in this place, this world.

She wondered if the AI things in the probes were already in the system, recording. She didn't want them to fill up on the wrong things.Leave room for Ed, she thought hopefully.If I can find him.

**Scanning and recording ambient data. Please state when primary data matrix has appeared.**The instructions appeared in her mind, rather like a voice in the net. Good, she could deal with that.It has not yet appeared. Searching for it now, she answered.

Did Ed have some way of knowing when she had entered his world? she wondered. She could only hope so. She walked toward a break in the underbrush. It seemed to be the beginning of a path. There was a patch of dense mist hugging the ground in the break, but she didn't think much of it as she stepped through - until something grabbed at her ankle, and a spike of pain shot up her leg."Ow!" she cried, jumping back, rubbing her ankle. She glared down at the little bank of fog and kicked at it.

A small bush ran out of the fog, screeching nastily. It swiped at her leg again with a th.o.r.n.y branch, but she jumped clear and watched warily as it retreated across the open ground. Before it had gone far, it plopped down with an indignantwhuff. "Fine. Now stay out of my way," Jael snapped. The plant gave no response, but a moment later, began issuing fog from its thorns. Within seconds, it was completely hidden by a new bank of vapor.

Jael curled her lip at it. Suddenly it occurred to her that the thing was probably being recorded. Great, she thought. All I need is something like that popping out in the net.If you can understand me, she thought to the system probes,don't keep that plant!

**Deleted.**

Relieved, she stepped onto the path from which the plant had emerged. More wisps of mist rose from the branches, curling about her face. Fearful of meeting more hostile life, she moved with extra care. What was going on here? she wondered. Why was it so foggy, anyway? She walked for some time, encountering only mist-shrouded trees and occasional scuttling creatures - heard, but not seen. "Ed?"

she sang softly. "Are you here?" As the minutes pa.s.sed, she began to worry that something might have happened to him. Was it possible that a part of the environment had been removed, and Ed with it? She searched the mist with growing anxiety.

A branch brushed her neck, startling her, and something red fluttered with a shriek in her face."Gah!"

she cried, jumping, as it flew up out of sight.

"Yawk!" cried the red thing, fluttering down again.

"Ed!" she shouted, hope and fear pounding in her heart.

A patch of mist cleared. Ed was flapping his wings on a perch less than an arm's length in front of her face. The path, hidden by the fog, had taken a sharp left turn. She had nearly walked into a thicket of branches. "Jayl!" Ed squawked, hopping up and down on one of the branches.

"Ed - thank G.o.d! I was beginning to think you were gone."

"Nope. Ed here. Right here." His wings folded closed.

"Didn't you hear me calling?"

"Yawp! Woke Ed. Early - it's early!"

"Early! Is that where you were - asleep?" The parrot nodded and let his eyelids fall shut for a moment; then they sprang open again. She laughed. "Well, good. Don't move. Don't go anywhere. There's something we have to do." Ed c.o.c.ked his head and at once began to pace nervously side to side on the branch. "I mean it," she said. "Don't move at all."

"Urkk." The parrot became still. He blinked once."Great. Stay right there."This is it. This is Ed, she thought to the system probe.Primary data matrix.

Can you find all of him, or do we have to do anything?

**Probing now. Recording. Please do nothing.**

She nodded again, almost imperceptibly. "Ed, this has to do with your coming with me when I leave. Do you still want to come?"

"Awwrrrk. Yes! Yes!"

"Good. Then please stay very still. Don't talk."

The parrot obeyed so completely that he looked dead. His eyes grew wide and dark, and remained unblinking. He appeared to have fallen into a trance. Jael waited. She wasn't sure what she expected, perhaps that he would simply sit there while his memory was drained, or copied. But she wasn't prepared for what happened next.

Ed's eyes seemed to grow larger. His dark pupils appeared to expand in his head, at first looking a little odd, then grotesque, as they grew out of proportion to the rest of him. Soon his pupils threatened to swallow his entire head in darkness. The final expansion happened very quickly, a great circle of blackness ballooning out to absorb not just Ed, but the entire forest. Jael was uncertain whether the darkness had actually expanded, or her own viewpoint had zoomed into the pupil of Ed's eye.

In the darkness, she began to glimpse images of a brightly colored, fluttering parrot winging through a forest; of the same bird, smaller, pecking its way out of a sh.e.l.l; of it eating seeds and berries in the wild, and flocking with others of its kind. And more confusingly and fuzzily, images of being enveloped in a net, and captured; of being confined and wired at the head; of being drained off, poured off, and let loose in another and altogether different place, which at first seemed to have little reality or substance. But eventually that world became clearer and more solid, until it resembled the original. It was a world of curious inhabitants, where people appeared and disappeared, where the bird could speak articulately, where it could learn, where it could converse and get to know these people called riggers. A world where, in time, it met someone named Ar and someone named Jayl.

The images became a blur, past and present merging. Eventually Jael could see nothing but a grey fog.

Then the fog cleared, and she was staring at Ed, seated on his branch. The bird c.o.c.ked his head, one way and then another, looking puzzled. "R-r-r-k-k-k," Ed sputtered.

"You okay?" Jael asked.

"Ukk." Ed stretched his wings. "What - awwk - happened?"

"I'm not sure," Jael admitted.Did you get him? Were those his memories?