Amalfi Echo (7 page)

“I don’t have
the strength to do this on my own,” Marion said. “Does the ship
have a learning program that will help me work with the Amalfi side
of me? I don’t mean the weapons,” she added quickly, “I mean the
leadership side.”

“The ship has
no Amalfi learning programs as such. Only the Amalfi weapons can
teach you how to use them and the ship doesn’t have any learning
programs for that. Nor does the ship have any learning programs
that work directly with the Amalfi Echo. Instead the ship has
learning programs which are focused on things military and other
learning programs which are focused on leadership and
administration. Tessa has chosen to learn things military and so
that Amalfi trait helps her do this really well. Similarly with
you. If you enter the leadership and administration learning
programs, the Amalfi trait will ensure that you become outstanding
in this field.”

“Okay. That
sounds like a plan,” Marion said.

Digby reached
out and stroked several of the crimson lines in a pattern. Rich,
subtle chords of music swelled in the room and then died away.
“It’s not all death machines,” he said.

-oOo-

Marion and
Tessa entered the learning programs. For a week Digby was on his
own. He worked with the surveillance data, taking the pulse of the
planet.

He found
widespread sadness and some anger at the continuing toll on
journalists in the front-line although reaction had been muted in
the United States because none of the journalists who had died in
the General Assembly Hall had been United States citizens.
Nevertheless, CNN ran a major piece on American journalists who had
died covering the news in hotspots around the world. Most people
agreed that it was definitely preferable to watch the jellyfish on
television than to be in their actual vicinity.

A New York
Times editorial suggested that President Newman, who had become a
lame duck president well before current events, had only won office
because of the death of Senator O’Brien, Tessa’s mother. The FBI
announced it was reopening the investigation into the car accident.
Digby forwarded these to Tessa.

Countering
these developments was that the D.C. District Court confirmed that
the arrest warrants for Marion and Tessa would remain in place and
international warrants were issued by Interpol, at the request of
several nations, in respect of the deaths of the journalists.

During the
week, the ship picked up some tight beam transmissions directed at
it. One was from the Shanghai Institute of Technology deploring the
launching of the missile, intimating that it had been an accident,
and suggesting cooperative discussions. Another was from an
American organisation, Friends of Diplomacy, offering to open
dialogue with sympathetic Congressional members which appeared to
be genuine, although their funding originated in the
military-industrial complex. Digby forwarded the ship’s digests and
analyses of these and other events to Marion.

Despite the
Shanghai message, the Chinese were considering a full-scale nuclear
strike. At this point they saw a window of opportunity where they
believed that Security Council members, and the United States in
particular, would rather that the ship was destroyed than risk the
technology being made available to everyone. That window would
swiftly close if the Americans managed to play the Marion and Tessa
card to their advantage. Staying their hand was that influential
members of the Chinese leadership were opposed to a strike and the
military chiefs feared losing their nuclear arsenal to the ship,
giving the Americans the upper hand once again. Not to mention the
possibility that failure might result in the ship raining death and
destruction down on them.

Digby decided
to take no chances with this. While the ship could deal with a full
nuclear strike, there would be no catching and parking, and he
would indeed rain death and destruction down on them, which would
not be helpful to Marion’s cause. He sent a gremlin into the
Chinese nuclear command and control systems, forcing the Chinese to
devote all of their time and resources trying to regain control of
their systems, an effort in which they were entirely unsuccessful.
And they did not blame the Americans for the gremlin.

None of this
occupied Digby for very long. He spent much of the week writing
music.

-oOo-

At the end of
the week, Marion and Tessa popped in for a visit. The three of them
had lunch together somewhere nice. An Indonesian gamelan played on
a raised dais. Marion gestured at the musicians with her fork. “The
ship creates real objects, right?”

Digby answered
the unspoken question. “These are real people, yes.”

“Living,
breathing, real human beings?”

“Which are
destroyed when they are no longer required,” Digby said.

“That would be,
‘killed’, you mean,” Marion said.

“Memo,” Tessa
said. “Don’t take up a career as an object on Digby’s ship.”

“But what are
they thinking and feeling?” Marion said, on the verge of losing her
appetite at the implications of this.

“This is a copy
of an actual performance that took place in Indonesia,” Digby
said.

“So we couldn’t
have a conversation with them,” Marion said, relieved. “Like a
video, only with real people.”

“It’s nothing
like a video. You could talk to them, if you wanted. Although they
are copies, these are still real people and this is a real
concert,” Digby said. “Probably, they wouldn’t thank you for
interrupting their performance.”

“That means
they
do
get killed,” Tessa said.

Marion had a
disturbing thought. “That means you could make a copy of me in your
quarters if you wanted and I wouldn’t even know.”

“He could do
anything he wanted to you,” said Tessa. “That’s kinda creepy.”

“Yes I could
but I wouldn’t,” Digby said. “Anyway, what would be the point? It
would still be you and you would behave no differently from the
person in front of me.”

“Yeah, like,
run screaming from the room,” Tessa said.

“I can see
you’re both still determined to cast me in the role of ogre,” Digby
said mildly. He changed the subject and asked Tessa, “How’s
school?”

It worked.
Tessa really wanted to talk about all the amazing and interesting
things she was doing, including, “The Amalfi pistol is armed and
I’ve been on the range for the last two months. Like I thought,
it’ll take out a tank or a small building and even a big ship like
a missile cruiser, if you punch a few holes along the waterline.
That doesn’t mean you
could
take out a missile cruiser
because you’d have to get real close and they would probably object
to that.”

“It’s been
three months for me in subjective time,” Marion said. “Mostly topic
introductions. Has given me some ideas about getting the message
out. I’ve decided to spend another subjective nine months so I can
get a better handle on the topics. That’ll still only be three
weeks in real time. That data you’ve been feeding me adds up to a
stand-off. Another three weeks isn’t going to make any difference.”
She turned to another topic. “I’ve asked the ship to set up a
couple of websites, one for me and one for Tessa, also Twitter
accounts and some other social media. My studies have suggested
that there is a significant chunk of the population who could be
brought on side if we were able to communicate directly with them
through social networks they are comfortable with. Tessa,
especially, may be able to generate a large fan base in an age
group which want to believe in her and are waiting for a
sign—.”

“My own
website!” Clearly that was okay with Tessa. Her Twitter account had
fallen into disuse because she had been cut off from her networks
when her parents had died. Tessa had never been able to find out
what had happened to her parents’ estate so she had very little
money of her own. None of the foster parents would pay for Internet
access or devices so she had been scrounging for crumbs of Internet
access in the underground.

“The websites
are, marion.com and tessa.com.” Marion subjected Digby to a
quizzical expression. “We could also have digby.com…?”

Digby did not
even bother to rise to the bait.

The three of
them chatted idly, finished lunch, and Marion had some time alone
with Tessa before she went back to her quarters and her studies.
She did her best to blot out bad thoughts about the real human
beings who had lived briefly and then died so that they could have
music for lunch.

Alone with
Digby, Tessa created Arlington cemetery about them. “I really want
to visit my parents before I have to go back to school. I wasn’t
allowed to hardly at all when I was in foster care.”

“Now?” Digby
said.

“Whenever.”

Digby created
the mercury alien attack craft. This time Tessa was allowed to sit
up front except that there weren’t any windows although Digby had
arranged human seats.

“No eyes,”
Digby explained. “They used a type of radar to construct a view of
their environment.”

Before they
exited the sphere ship, Digby had a word about the jellyfish. “This
is the last time I want them running on automatic, for you anyway.”
He had arranged for Tessa’s next set of studies to include adding
the jellyfish to her weapons’ kit.

While they were
talking about weapons and seeing as how Marion was not around…

“The pistol
wants me to do live target practice,” Tessa said. “That’s nice talk
for killing actual people. Not any objects here on the ship, the
pistol wants some Marines or Special Forces as targets. I’ve told
the pistol that hell will freeze over before I attack United States
military personnel.”

“You feel
you’re ready for combat?” Digby said. “I would have thought it to
be a little soon.”

“Yeah, tell me
about it. Way too soon. The pistol says that when the training for
the strike is complete, I will be ready. I sure wish I had the
pistol’s confidence.”

“Likely it’s
chosen your own people for the exercise because if you attack the
soldiers of any other nation it could be misinterpreted. Maybe it
doesn’t want to unnecessarily start a war,” Digby suggested.

“I always knew
where this was headed. It’s a little different when you get there.”
Tessa started sweating even thinking about it.

“You could pick
a different target. One that wouldn’t involve United States
military personnel or foreign soldiers.”

“Like?”

Digby reflected
for a moment, searching the ship’s database. “What about this?” He
gestured a screen into being. It zoomed in on a luxurious and
extensive hacienda set amongst lush vegetation. The hacienda was a
scene of intense activity. Trucks and 4WDs came and went. Heavily
armed men guarded the approaches. A large family was having lunch
in an elevated courtyard.

“This is the
home of Fabio Restrepo, a Colombian drug lord,” Digby continued. A
second screen detailed the murderous biography of Restrepo,
continuing on to the sickening biographies of his lieutenants and
some of the rank and file soldiers.

“Yeah,” Tessa
breathed, sitting up. “Those bastards are a waste of space.” Ideas
started to flow. She felt a tingle of excitement in her stomach. “I
don’t have to take them on in close combat. Maybe use a tiny
version of the shuttle to drop onto the mountainside and take a
couple of sniper’s shots. Then exit pronto in the shuttle. I’ll be
gone before they have time to react.” Although she knew it wouldn’t
be as simple as that, she felt she had to save face with the Amalfi
weapon and come up with an alternative plan. As she thought about
it, it did seem feasible. “I could maybe do this,” she said to
Digby. Seconds later, she started feeding data from the ship into
the pistol which, apparently, had no problems with the new
target.

“What do you
call this attack craft?” Tessa said, as they cruised down through
the stratosphere. Digby’s sphere ship didn’t use names for objects,
presenting its image instead.

Digby answered
with a long stream of musical language.

“I thought it
might be like that,” Tessa said. “I’m going to call it ‘Jazmine’
after our cat who was in the car with Mom and Dad when it happened.
They were going to the vet.”

Jazmine, whose
claws were probably the sharpest on the planet, arrived swiftly and
silently at Arlington Cemetery, depositing Tessa in a liquid
mercury swirl near her parents’ graves. Digby backed the craft up
100 metres to give her some privacy and it was a handy place to
keep watch from anyway. Tessa magicked up some flowers, placing a
bunch on each grave, before settling herself nearby on a rug.
Winter clad the cemetery. The day was cold and clear.

By now, two
Blackhawk helicopters hovered at a discrete distance and, sitting
up behind them, a couple of news helicopters, the occupants of
which felt terrifyingly like guinea pigs. Police units worked hard
to clear other visitors from the cemetery without making a fuss.
Everyone watched the jellyfish which, thankfully, stayed where they
were.

There was no
attempt to arrest Tessa.

On the way back
Tessa asked, “Why don’t you use the shuttle? Why do you use this?”
Tessa indicated around her at Jazmine.

“Efficient use
of the ship’s resources. Piloting Jazmine myself, fully controlling
it and its weapons, releases the ship to a role in monitoring only
the distant environment for threats to the craft. After it has
created Jazmine it doesn’t have to do much else. I could also say,”
he added, “that I plain just like flying it.”

Tessa grinned.
“I would to.” She thought about the Starfighter. “Can I sorta
change my mind about my graduation present?”

“I wondered how
long it would take you to get to that,” Digby said.