The Black Fleet Crisis_ Tyrant's Test Part 40

Sorannan leaned his face close to Nil Spaar's, so that the breath of his whisper kissed the viceroy's cheeks. "I don't know how long you will survive there," he said. "I do know that you will die there."

Stepping back, the major watched as the others forced Nil Spaar into the escape pod and sealed him inside.

"Die slowly," Sorannan said hoa.r.s.ely, and slammed his hand down on the firing switch.

With a roar, the escape pod hurtled away into oblivion.

Rendezvous Joto Eckels stared at the sensor display with a degree of awe approaching the religious. In a lifetime of archaeological fieldwork, Eckels had never faced a moment like this one, when a functioning instrumentality of a dead race had appeared to bridge the centuries.

It was an event on a par with the greatest finds of the modern era- -the Shadow Traproom on Liok, the Nojic Beanstalk, the Great Subcrustal Tubeway of the Pa Tho, the Foran Tutha star probe. But at first, there was no joy in it-- only the sudden, numbing weight of responsibility.

Dreiss and Mokem had died in the Shadow Traproom. Bartleton had watched helplessly as the Foran Tutha probe was gutted by a fire his own people inadvertently triggered.

But Pakkpekatt's team did not appear burdened by thoughts of either history or posterity. With matter-of-fact efficiency, they immediately began to deal with the surprise.

"What message should I send to HQ, Colonel?" asked Pleck.

"A contact report only," said Pakkpekatt. "Let us see what sort of greeting she has for us first. Is the satellite prepared for deployment?"

"I'm finished with it. It's set up on the fantail and ready to go,"

said Taisden.

"Recommendation?"

"Penga Rift needs to move to the far side, keep the planet between it and the vagabond until they've collected their people and cleared orbit. If we place ourselves and the satellite a hundred and eighty degrees apart in geosynch, we can get complete coverage of the approaches plus maximum separation."

"Deploy the satellite," said Pakkpekatt. "Doctor?"

Looking slightly bewildered, Eckels shouldered his way forward.

"May I speak with Penga Rift, Colonel?"

"Of course. Colonel Hammax, get the doctor set up at station three."

Eckels gave the recall order, then apprised Captain Barjas of the situation. "Get everyone aboard and everything locked down," he said.

"Have Mazz monitor everything that goes through our satellite. See what you can get on the incoming s.h.i.+p. But don't risk the arti-facts-at the first sign of any direct threat, jump out."

Then he turned his attention back to the others, who seemed to have forgotten him for the moment.

"Let's do one more test cycle on the auto-responder," Pleck was saying.

"When that interrogative comes--" "No," said Pakkpekatt. "The earlier tests were satisfactory.

The interrogative could come at any time.

Bring it up and put it online."

"Yes, Colonel," Pleck said.

"Satellite is away, active, and moving to position," said Taisden.

"Fourteen minutes to station. We can make our station six minutes after the skiff clears."

Pakkpekatt turned toward Eckels and eyed him curiously.

"Doctor, shouldn't you be going?"

"Where?"

"Back to your s.h.i.+p-to Penga Rift."

"To hide on the other side of Maltha Obex? I don't think so, Colonel.

I think you can make more use of me than that."

ment. But the only detectable dialog took place between his determinedly steady gaze and Pakkpekatt's sharply inquiring one.

Against the possibility of an undetected dialog, Eckels held one thought in his mind: I accept your authority. Let me help. Let me be there when the door is opened.

Pakkpekatt grimaced in a manner reminiscent of a yawn. "If Penga Rift does not need you, then we will take advantage of your presence," he said. "Agent Pleck, take Dr. Eckels to the observation deck and familiarize him with the equipment."

Lobot found sharing his interface with the vagabond a seductive preoccupation. After as little as twenty minutes, he began to lose both the will and the ability to respond to Lando or the droids.

It was not that the link was so rich and easy that he experienced what cyborgs spoke of among themselves as "falling down a hole into heaven"--much the opposite, in fact. The link was so difficult, communication so painfully slow, and the data structures so alien that staying in contact with the vessel gradually absorbed all of his attention and resources.

Even switching to Basic to process aural input or formulate and voice a response gradually became an insuperable burden. For the first time in his memory, Lobot found himself single-tasking, surrendering his own internal processes and thinking in the base-six binary algorithms of the vagabond. The cyborg community called that loss of boundaries "turning inside out" and viewed 'it as a danger to systemic integration--one step away from dissociative collapse.

Lando knew only that Lobot was connected to a machine with the power to take him away and no apparent inclination to return him. After observing the phenomenon the first time, Lando set strict limits and appointed himself the enforcer of them. Throughout the duration of the hypers.p.a.ce jump, Lobot spent no more than an hour at a time linked, with at least two hours between sessions.

Even allowing that much was 'a concession to Lobot, who insisted that the most productive part of a session was the part when he was insensible to anything but the vagabond's data structures. That a.s.sertion was one Lando had to take on faith. So far, Lando hadn't seen enough in the way of useful results to justify risking any contact at all. The insights Lobot was gleaning from contact with the vagabond seemed far more meaningful than the ones he was managing to communicate to Lando.

"It doesn't know what it is," Lobot had explained.

"It only knows what it does." But even within those parameters, what the vagabond "told" Lobot seemed all too changeable, subject not only to interpretation but to Lobot's errors of enthusiasm.

The s.h.i.+p was a protect against-harm, a shelter-and-nurture, a heal-and- succor, a flee-from-predators, a maintain-and-preserve, and a welcome-and- teach--which Lobot variously interpreted as egg, mother, creche, repository, and chrysalis. The rounded bodies in the inner tubules were sleepers, keepers, corpses, creepers, sacrifices, and directors--with half of those designations suggesting they were part of the vessel and half suggesting they were something apart.

"I don't think it knows any more," Lobot had said at one point, responding to Lando's frustration. "Its reflexes are complex and elegant, and it has great power at its command. But it lacks even a child's self- awareness or sense of purpose. It does what it knows to do, by stimulus and response, by instinct--it is conscious of those processes but nothing beyond them. I don't think it even realizes where it is, any more than a seed buried in the ground does."

"If you and it make up your mind about anything, make a point of sharing that with me," Lando had answered in disgust. "If it won't obey us, I don't see that we're getting anything useful out of this.

So if you're going to keep communing with it, at least keep Working on that point."

Even as Lobot had found a new focus, Lando seemed to have lost his.

They had access to the entire s.h.i.+p now, but Lando had shown little interest in making use of it. He had powered down both droids, and spent most of his time floating in chamber 229. The near exhaustion of his propellant was only a pretext concealing his loss of heart.

Lobot made one attempt to talk to Lando about what he was seeing.

"In our travels together, I have only seen you leave the table twice," he said. "Once when you found yourself in a rigged game, and once when that woman, Sarra Dolas, came and sat at Narka Tobb's side instead of yours. I have only seen you fold your hand in the face of a game that could not be won, and a game that you no longer cared about winning.

Which is it this time?"

"Neither," said Lando. "I've done everything that I know how to do.

None of it's done a thing to improve our position. Now you say it's headed home. I'm just waiting for the last hand to be played."

But the unprecedentedly violent shaking of the vagabond as it exited from hypers.p.a.ce shook Lando out of his indifference. "Lobot, where are you?" he called over the suit comm.

"In the inters.p.a.ce, aft," Lobot replied.

"Did you hear what just almost didn't happen? On my worst mornings after my worst days, I don't sound that bad trying to get up," Lando said.

"Yes, Lando," said Lobot. "The exit growl was extraordinarily loud and extended here--I had the distinct impression of hearing it from behind, from the stern first, and then a fraction of a second later from the bow. And I could see an oscillation wave with an amplitude of at least a decimeter traveling along the outer hull."

"You're lucky there still is an outer hull," Lando said. "I've figured out why the jumps keep getting rockier.

thing I need you to check on. I'll explain while you're en route."

"Coming," Lobot said. "Please continue."

"I don't know why I didn't realize it sooner. The s.h.i.+p's power reserves-- whatever it's been drawing on--must be way down. Either it's been out too long without topping off the tanks--just like you, me, and the droids--or the damage from the last attack affected either the reserves or the generators."

"The vagabond does not have generators."

"Whatever," said Lando. "Take it as a metaphor.

The s.h.i.+p manages to store and transform energy somehow, for weapons, and motive power, and light, and all the little gadgets in the chambers."

"Granted."

"So whether the tanks are empty or the converters are below minimums, there isn't enough to go around.

That's why it opened all the portals and left them open.

That's why none of the gadgets have worked since the attack, and why the lights went out on us. We're in some sort of energy-conservation mode. It's not just hurting--it's tired."

"Yes. The s.h.i.+p and I have talked about that."

"You might have shared that part with me," Lando said with a touch of annoyance. "Lobot, the transitions have been getting rougher every time out because the s.h.i.+p's right at the edge--at least as far as opening a big enough hypers.p.a.ce portal, and opening it fast enough to minimize the stresses. It's a matter of being able to focus enough energy in a small enough s.p.a.ce in a short enough time. And one of these days, it's not going to be able to do itand either the middle of the s.h.i.+p will jump out and leave the rest behind, or the portal will snap back and crush it."

In the middle of Lando's exposition, Lobot rejoined him in chamber 229.

"That is something I would prefer to witness from a distance."

"Get in line behind me," said Lando. "That's why you have to link up with your friend. We need to know where we are and what's going to be happening--if its home is that planetary system depicted in the orrery instead of next-to- nowhere deep s.p.a.ce, maybe we have a chance."

"What is it you want me to ask it?"

"I was thinking that maybe it could be persuaded to, say, let us have a viewport--under the general heading of being willing to provide us with information."

"I can try," Lobot said, and began stripping off his suit so he could enter the inner pa.s.sages.

"Do you want me to go in with you?"

"No," Lobot said. "But come in after me if I have not returned in twenty minutes."

While he waited, Lando reactivated Artoo and, for the first time since the incident with the beckon call, Threepio.

"Good day, Master Lando," Threepio said brightly, with no apparent awareness of Lando's lingering grudge. "My word, but my circuits are clear this morning. I haven't felt this way since my last defrag-mentation diagnostic. I hope you are feeling well.

Where is Master Lobot? He hasn't been harmed, has he? I see his contact suit, but I don't see him anywhere.

Artoo, my dear friend and companion--how have you been? Please tell me everything. Master Lando, my system controller is still showing a low-power alarm. Have you located a power coupling yet? This s.h.i.+p has a distinctly droid-hostile design, not to have made them more readily available--" "Threepio," Lando said sharply.

The droid's head swiveled toward him. "Yes, Master Lando?"

"Shut up."

"Of course, sir."

Artoo loosed a wheep that might have been an expression of relief.

Lando turned to him and asked, "Artoo, will you scan local s.p.a.ce for comm traffic? We just might be back somewhere near civilization."

"Oh, I do hope so, sir--" Threepio began, until Lando silenced him with a glare.

Before long, Lobot emerged from the forward inner portal and rejoined them.

"Any luck?"

"I am not certain," said Lobot. "It said we should go back to the auditorium. At least, I think that's where we're to go--as best as I can translate, it called that chamber the Reflection of the Essential Infinities."

"But the orrery was destroyed."

"Perhaps not rebuilding it was a choice, not a necessity."

"All right," Lando said, gesturing with both hands.

"Let's go find out."

When all four members of the quartet were clinging somewhere on the auditorium's inner face, the chamber's outer face once again underwent the transformation to a great transparent panel. Once more they found themselves suspended in s.p.a.ce, looking down on the sphere of a planet, and beyond it to the disc of a blue star.

"What's going on here?" Lando cried in dismay.

"Lobot, what did you ask for? This is a different planetary system.