Fool's War (21 page)

Lipinski looked at her with raised eyebrows.

“No thanks.” she wrapped her
hijab
more firmly around herself. “I’m going to walk.”

Lipinski shrugged. “Call me when you need me, Al Shei.” He took his seat. “Ali Farah’s Guest House,” he said, clearly. The tram pulled away and left Al Shei standing on her own, a soft breeze fluttering her hems.

She lifted her face to the sunlight for a moment, letting the heat beat against her eyelids and enjoying the sensation of peace it gave her. They’d had one victory at any rate. Now was the time to see if she could go secure another.

“Intercom to Bridge,” Odel’s voice rang across the bridge. “The packet’s loaded and closed off. We’re done.”

Dobbs leapt to her feet. “Whoopee!” She pulled a gold cloth streamer out of her sleeve and tossed it into the air. The low gravity grabbed it gently and lowered it in lazy waves.

 
“Finally!” exclaimed Yerusha from her station.

 
Schyler watched Dobbs’ streamer settle in a gentle heap.

“Pretty, but not exactly regulation,” he remarked, moving his pen to call up the ship’s log on his board. Dobbs, however, did not miss the relaxation that pure relief brought to his features.

“Your pardon, Watch Commander.” She whisked the streamer off the deck and tied it around her own neck in a big bow. “I forgot, you disapprove of frivolity on the bridge.” She laced her fingers under her chin and began a bad series of pirouettes to take her to the hatchway. Behind her, Cheney whooped with laughter.

When she was alone on the stairway, she pulled the streamer off her neck and stuffed it in her pocket. With a determined stride she seldom let the crew see, she hustled down to the berthing deck.

She should be touring the decks to make sure that the rest of the crew on board had leave plans and good spirits. But there was an urgency tugging at her. By now, Cohen would have news about the
Pasadena
’s condition waiting for her, and she needed it.

Since the ship was down to a skeleton crew, Dobbs had no trouble getting to her cabin without being seen. She locked the hatch behind her and opened up her bedside drawer. The lock on her box came open at her touch.

As she lifted out her hypo, her eye took automatic count of the remaining cartridges. She had enough juice for another two months under normal circumstances. She couldn’t help wondering if she shouldn’t put in a request for more now, before these particular circumstances proved themselves anymore abnormal.

 
Dobbs held up the hypo to measure the dosage. For no apparent reason, the memory of Lipinski in the corridor early that morning drifted back to the front of her mind.

“Dobbs?” Lipinski had come around the curve of the galley deck corridor with an oddly controlled gait.

A warning note had sounded somewhere inside her. She silenced it.

“Houston.” She waved in greeting. “I thought you were off with our fearless leader to make sure we all make a little money this trip.”

He smirked. “In about ten minutes.” His smile turned tentative. “I was wondering if maybe you’d like to take in some sight seeing with me? I hear New St. Petersburg is amazing…
 
Or have you got plans? You must have plans. Sorry. I didn’t mean… ”

Dobbs laughed out loud. “Lipinski, I’ve heard you have better conversations with wafer stacks.”

His smile grew more confident. “They’re less likely to give me answers I don’t want… well on other runs they’re less likely. Listen, if I’m making a mistake, just slap me gently and I’m gone, but, well, I’d really rather have something think about for the twenty-four hours other than how we’re going to get this virus out of the walls.”

Dobbs realized with a small shock she was considering it.

Dobbs, don’t do this. There’s too much going on this run, you don’t need this complication. Especially not with somebody from Kerensk. Come on, Dobbs, use your brains and your training and let the man down gently.

 
Another portion of her felt very strongly that she’d also like something else to think about for awhile.

Not with somebody from Kerensk, she told herself again.

“I’m sorry, Houston,” she said softly. “I can’t leave my post until the crisis is over, and it won’t be over until we’ve got this virus truly and finally sterilized.” She gave him a deliberately watery smile. “Thanks for the offer though, I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well, it was an idea,” said Lipinski to the wall. “I understand though. Fools pull special duty.” He walked away and Dobbs let him.

Special duty.
She sighed to the memory.
You don’t know the half of it, Houston.

She’d had lovers before, some of them Fools, some of them shippers or starbirds. She’d been socialized heterosexual and Lipinski’s pale, exotic good looks teased at her. She liked his wry humor, and even his habit of shouting at the walls. His quirkiness appealed to her as much as his long body did.

You’re daydreaming, she told herself sharply. You want to do Lipinski a favor? Find out what’s wreaking havoc with his comm system.

 
She laid down, jacked the transceiver into the wall and into herself. She injected herself for ten hours. The freedom the network brought washed over her like a wave and she dove gratefully into it.

She decided not to take a chance on working either of the
Pasadena
’s transmitters directly. Both Odel and Schyler would be hovering too close to it. Instead, she slid out into The Gate’s main system.

The Gate’s broad comm channels were heavily trafficked. Dobbs slipped carefully along to avoid disturbing any of the on-going exchanges, most of which, from the brief touches she had of them, dealt either with money or requests for information from the diplomatic corps. She vaulted to the front of the transmission queue and pulled a repeater map out of the processor stack. The route to Guild Hall from the Farther Kingdom was a little tricky. She planned her jumps, checked her first path and set the transmitter jump her through.

Two hours and fifty-six point nine seconds later, she reached the Drawbridge and identified herself. The program opened and she surged forward. To her surprise, she touched not the teeming guild channels, but a completely empty pathway. A pre-recorded signal spoke up.

“This way, Master Dobbs, Priority One.”

Surprise pulled Dobbs up short for a split second, but she recovered and hurried down the clear path. She felt it closing off behind her. This was a private meeting she was being called to then. And Priority One. Fear roiled in her insides. There was a single instance that allowed for the Priority One code to be issued.

It couldn’t have happened. It couldn’t.

 
The pathway branched off in front of her, creating a meeting place at the heart of Guild Hall. Dobbs circled the space quickly to get the feel of it. It was one of the first places she had ever been in the Guild network. Here was where Verence had introduced her to the Guild Masters when she first arrived. Dobbs hadn’t been back since she got her Master’s rating.

A touch reached her from the center of the meeting space. “Welcome Home, Master Dobbs.”

 
“Thank you, Guild Master Havelock,” she replied, trying to be reassured by the solid, unusually slow-moving presence that had been her overseer, as Verence had been her sponsor. “This isn’t what I was expecting… ”

“Me either, Dobbs.” Cohen was there too, shifting restlessly. She touched his outer self, hoping for reassurance, but he just rippled uneasily.

A spasm of fear ran through her. “No,” she whispered, although no one had said anything.

“You picked up a live one, Dobbs,” said Cohen.

“From where?” she demanded, so stunned she forgot who else was with her. “There’s been no hint of activity in the Solar system. The Freers are having their usual lack of success and Tully was smuggling binary board. Binary! “ She backed up reflexively until she reached the limit of the holding space. “How… ”

“How could you have missed it, is what you want to say, isn’t it?” cut in the Guild Master.

Dobbs squirmed before she remembered both her position and her dignity. Guild Master Havelock was known for his extreme lack of tact as much as for his extreme perception.

“Yes, Sir,” she said. “That is what I meant.”

He brushed against her, a gesture of consolation. “It came out of nowhere, Dobbs. Nobody

caught it, and we should have. It’s big, it’s very fast, and it’s remarkably well developed. It may even have been born on board the
Pasadena
. We don’t know.” He paused. “There is some speculation that it might have been created deliberately.”

The implications thronged around Dobbs. Live AIs were accidents of programming and circumstance. If someone could learn how to make them on command, it could be an almost unthinkable miracle. It could also be the greatest disaster since the first bombs fell in the Fast Burn.

Havelock drew back. “What we do know is that we have a new, sentient AI to deal with. Master Dobbs, you are our closest member. I’ve raised the Guild Masters. We’re going to open a line to you and send you in. Cohen will go with you to block records. You will both leave immediately.”

His words sent a shudder all the way through Dobbs. Open lines were used only in absolute emergencies. The constant exchange of packets and the perpetually open transmitter paths took signal delay down to a minimum, and it allowed a field member to keep in contact with Guild Hall. But open lines were highly visible. Cohen would have to position himself in The Gate’s transmitter processors. From there, he would constantly monitor the internal logs and external activities to make sure no one outside the network saw anything suspicious. While he was hiding her, she’d be combing through the
Pasadena
.

 
Dobbs rippled. “I’ve allowed myself ten hours. I only have eight left… ”

“That should be enough for initial contact. You just have to calm it down for now. Tell it there’s no danger. You know what to do.”

In theory,
she felt herself bunching together.
In theory only.

 
She forced herself to remain open. She was the closest member. The Live One had been discovered in the area she oversaw. That made it her responsibility.

It had to be a single presence that met the Live One. If it felt as though it was being surrounded or cut off from its open pathways, it would respond to the Fools as it would to a virus or a diagnostic program. Newborns had to be coaxed out. Trying to compel them cost lives and ruined networks.

That coaxing was now Dobbs’ responsibility. She had to find the Live One and convince it not only to listen to her, but to let whatever hold it had over the
Pasadena
go.

A memory sprang into place and Dobbs felt herself lurch sideways.

“The Live One may be immobilized,” she said. “It may even be dead. Rurik Lipinski… with my help,” she added, as the reality of her work sank in, “managed to neutralize the ‘virus.’ We haven’t had any problems for two days.” She stretched toward Havelock. He slid through her outer layers and absorbed the memory she held out. She stirred restlessly, trying not to reach out for Cohen.

“You may be correct,” Havelock said, with an uncharacteristic amount of surprise pushing at his voice. “You still need to perform a reconnaissance. If the Live One is there and in any way active, we have to deal with it. If this Houston has found a reliable way of neutralizing it… we need to know that too.”

“Yes, Sir.” Dobbs tried to steel herself but she felt as if she were unravelling from the inside out.

“I’ll be monitoring the line, Dobbs,” said Cohen, giving her a quick, reassuring touch. “It’s the Live One’s first time too, remember. Be gentle with it.”

“Ha-ha.” Dobbs held herself still. Cohen anchored a piece of the meeting space in her outer layers.

Then, he reached deep inside her and left her the memory of his wish for luck.

Dobbs let her awareness open around the line Cohen had given her. Down its length she was able to feel not just Guild Master Havelock, but two dozen other presences that she knew only from a distance. These were the Guild Masters and they were all waiting for her to carry that mission out.

Dobbs tried to organized her thoughts and only partially succeeded.

“Ready,” she said anyway.

The pathway out of the meeting space opened up again and Dobbs drove herself down it, playing the line out behind her like a kite string. It was a strange, uncomfortable sensation to be aware of every inch of hardware she passed through. It was as if her inner self was streaming out to be held by twenty-four strangers. At the same time, it was reassuring. Their touch and presence was sure, steady. She was going into the unknown, but she was not going alone. The oldest and most experienced members of the Guild were with her.

The final jump brought her back into The Gate. Dobbs waited in the transmitter stack until she felt Cohen jump down behind her. They touched briefly before she shot back into the
Pasadena
.

 
She passed up the route back to her own body, hunting for an open channel into the
Pasadena
’s cargo stores. She felt her way carefully. Almost without warning, a line opened in front of her and Dobbs jumped down it. She slid past the credit transfer and into the data hold…