Fool's War (37 page)

“I will.” She touched her fingertips to his palm. “I will.”

She cut the connection and lowered her hand. At that moment, she thought about how they had just spoken over a completely unscrambled channel, and about how someone like Pirate Dane was certainly capable of setting an illegal watch on comm lines opened from
Pasadena
. Suddenly, a wave of thankfulness washed over her for the fact that Asil was at home, surrounded by her powerful, prominent banking family.

“Intercom to Resit,” she said without shifting her gaze away from the blank screen and her mind from that particular though. “Cousin, can I see you? We have a new problem.”

Who are you?
She sent the thought through the hull and out into the vacuum, toward wherever Pirate Dane lay waiting.
Who in the name of God are you?

The
Pasadena
’s airlock cycled open and Dobbs saw Cohen waiting for her. She started. Cohen was almost always on-line. There were special life-support systems for Fools like him.

Despite her surprise, she felt a rush of gladness. His was a truly friendly face with deep eyes and a wide smile. His curly hair spread out over his ears, giving the impression that somebody had put a book on top of his head to flatten it out. She ran forward and hugged, the tall, lanky Fool.

“Dobbs,” Cohen pulled back. “Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you’re in?”

“Some.” She searched his face. His eyes were sunken and none of the ceiling light reflected in them. She swallowed automatically. “Not enough, I guess.”

He shook his head. “Not anything like enough. Come on. I’ve got to get you down to central.” He turned away and palmed the reader on the inner hatch.

The hatch pulled back and let in the clear glow of the Hall’s carefully simulated Terran daylight. Dobbs trailed along behind Cohen as the strode ahead on his long legs. She could have kept up without too much trouble, but she had the distinct feeling he didn’t want to have to look at her.

Guild Hall enveloped her in a blanket of familiarity. Even her mounting concern at Cohen’s silence couldn’t keep her from relaxing a little. If Al Shei or Yerusha could see the Hall, they would see a place where the owners had apparently tossed all caution to the wind. The wide, high-ceilinged spaces were more like cells in a honeycomb than the usual station corridors. The chambers were lined with plant beds, not single potted palms, but deep soil-filled troughs of flowers and ferns. There were trees too, crooked crab apples, miniature pines and japanese maples. Sparrows and finches darted from branch to branch. Artificial streams and waterfalls chuckled across actual stone-lined channels. The impression was one of a large, well-tended park. Other rooms contained winter landscapes, deserts or even mountains. Small cities had been constructed in the cans where classes were held. She’d learned slight-of-hand in a pre-fab colony village in the lower ring.

She’d marvelled at it all when Verence had first walked her out of the orientation chamber. Both at the scope, and at the apparent frivolous waste of resources. Verence had shaken her head. “If we’re going to do our jobs right,” she had said, “We have to know what Humans are missing when they take to space. We have to understand what they think is normal, or beautiful. We have to make it a part of ourselves.”

People moved between the flora, doing just that. An oak brown man in green overalls carried a pair of pruning shears in one hand and dragged a cart of tools behind him with the other. A cascade of color caught Dobbs’s eye and she saw a young, round-hipped woman juggling bean-bags beside a waterfall. A slack-wire walker practiced on a rope sagging between two support pillars that were twined with morning glory vines. A pair of slim men with grecian noses and olive skin were sitting cross-legged beside a boulder, arguing about something or other on the memory board in front of them. The only common factor was the Guild necklace encircling each throat.

The babble of yet more voices from unseen sources competed with the birdsong in the air.

Taking advantage of the covering noise, Dobbs asked, “Why the honor guard, Cohen? I do know my way around.”

“I had to wrangle this duty, Dobbs,” he answered softly. “They didn’t want to give it to a friend of yours, in case I said something I shouldn’t.”

A random fresh breeze blew through the chamber, but that wasn’t what made Dobbs shiver. How much did he know? Had he encountered the stranger in The Gate network? There was no time to ask him.

Cohen led her up a ramp that had been bent to resemble a hillside and covered with sod and shallow-rooted ferns, then through at an ivy-trimmed archway. The chamber on the other side was a maze of desks and terminals, all of them surrounded by struts where privacy curtains could be lowered for negotiations that required silence. The place was about half-full of clerical staff, writing on their boards or talking in low friendly voices into the intercoms. They were all arranging work for the Fools who were practicing or studying in the park and the station beyond it.

A catwalk circled the room, allowing access to the Guild Masters’ offices. Cohen took her up the wrought-iron stairs. Even before she could read the name on the memory board, Dobbs knew they were heading for Guild Master Havelock’s office. Where else could they be going?

Havelock’s door was partially open. Cohen pushed it back all the way. Guild Master Matthew Havelock stood beside his deck, studying a netscape on the view screen. He was a middle-aged man, neat and dark with longish, straight hair. He wore a simple chartreuse shirt and grey trousers. The Guild Master’s gold star hung from his necklace. When he turned his head, Dobbs saw anger smoldering behind his black eyes.

Cohen didn’t say anything, he just drew back, but his hand brushed hers briefly as he left.

Very deliberately, Dobbs turned away from Havelock and dragged the door shut.

“Thank you,” said the Guild Master drily. “Sit down, please, Master Dobbs.”

Dobbs picked the closest of the three office chairs and sat. She spread her hands flat on her thighs and concentrated on keeping them still.

“I could describe the number of ways you’ve just jeopardized your colleagues and friends.” He leaned against the desk and folded his arms. “I could enumerate the disciplinary marks that are going on your record and give you the detailed reasons for each one, but first,” he held up his index finger, “I want to hear why you decided to disobey not only my directive, but two centuries of policy.”

Dobbs’s hand wanted to reach up and hook around her Guild necklace. She forced it to stay where it was.

“I had a crew on the edge. They had just escaped from a station with a disintegrated network, only to become lost without sufficient fuel or reaction mass to get themselves found again. The majority of the commanding officers believed there was an active and potentially hostile AI on board. The Communications Chief knew that the AI had escaped and was possibly in the bank network.” She tried to read what was behind Havelock’s eyes but she could see nothing past the blank, angry wall. “As Master of Craft I judged that the situation was, at best, explosive. I had to do something quickly to alleviate it. The only place the Pasadena could reach was Guild Hall.” She wanted to shrug, but she didn’t do that either. “I’ll take all the discipline you are going to hand out, Guild Master, and I’ll still think it was the right decision.”

“I can see that.” Havelock pushed himself away from the desk. He walked to the view screen and blanked out the netscape. “You do realize we have at least eight years worth of rumor control to plan because of the stories that crew is likely to invent. Especially the Houston.” He gave her a sour glance.

“Yes, Sir.” Dobbs watched his movements carefully, looking for some softening, but there was none. He walked back to his desk and sat in the padded chair as stiff as a marble statue. “I’ve done my best to get started on that process.” She leaned forward and after a false start managed to force out a question. “Has Flemming been found yet?”

The Guild Master’s heavy brows lowered. “Flemming is no longer part of your operational scope.”

“It’s my birth!” Dobbs cried, almost before she realized it. She pulled back hard and softened her voice. “I’m permanently responsible for it. That’s the way it works.”

“Master Dobbs, I am well aware of the way ‘it’ works under normal circumstances.” Havelock’s sentence was like a warning. “That is not what we have here. The Guild Masters have taken responsibility for Flemming.”

“And what about for whoever convinced Flemming to run away?” Dobbs asked quietly.

For the first time since she’d entered the office, Havelock’s face softened. “There was no one else, Dobbs. Flemming was fragmenting.”

Dobbs bit her lip to keep from repeating Havelock. She’d knew about Fragmentation. Masters were taught the various things that could go wrong while an independent artificial intelligence was giving birth to itself. It could dissipate while trying to escape its processor. It could become tangled in its own neural net and collapse into a series of unsolvable loops. It could develop a number of combative identities instead of a single complete self and destroy itself by battling the perceived threats. Fragmentation. It was the AI equivalent of the human multiple-personality disorder, except that while humans lived with their condition, AIs inevitably died of theirs.

“We’ve checked over your reports and the records in the
Pasadena
. There’s no question. Flemming will probably be dead before we can even find it.”

Dobbs opened her mouth and shut it again. She gave up trying to control her hands and twisted her fingers together. “But it wasn’t fragmenting. It wasn’t fighting itself. There was someone else in there helping it.”

“There have been cases like that. One fragment tries to reach another for help. It happens early in the split. The cooperation doesn’t last. Without the help of a Guild member, all foreign sentience will be perceived as a threat, even if it is part of itself.”

You are coherent,
Flemming had said.
I would like to be coherent.
Had it recognized that the split was occurring? When Lipinski had caught his glimpse of it in the Pasadena’s network, he’d said it wasn’t one thing, but a whole bunch of things. Had Flemming’s basic structure doomed it?

“I checked it over,” she said, more to the floor than to Havelock. “It was young, but it was solid. I was sure of it.”

“It was your first.” There was real compassion in Havelock’s voice. “I lost my first three to things I should have been able to spot.”

Dobbs shook her head, still staring at the floor. Something inside her would not settle. She tried to tell herself that her disbelief was driven by grief, like someone who didn’t want to hear that a child had been in an accident. But that wasn’t it either. She looked up at her Guild Master again. The blank wall was still behind his eyes.

“Master Dobbs,” Havelock said. “You are going to serve out your contract aboard the Pasadena. Then you are coming back to Guild Hall for additional training and a stretch of clerical duty. Do your job well and you’ll make it back to field duty.” His voice hardened again. “I didn’t want to give you Master’s rank so soon, but Verence insisted you were ready. I am sorry she was wrong.” He lifted his sharp chin. “I hope we do not all become sorry.”

Dobbs stood. “So do I.” She folded her hands behind her back. “May I return to the
Pasadena
now, Guild Master? I’ve still got work to do.”

“Evelyn.” Havelock’s voice was just above a whisper. “I caution you most strongly. Keep in the bounds or you will be stationed here permanently.”

Dobbs pulled the door open. “I know, Guild Master.”

She stepped out onto the catwalk. She knew Havelock was still watching her. She could feel his gaze resting on her shoulders. She spotted Cohen sitting in the central negotiating area, drumming his fingers on a silent desk. She trotted down the stairs and waved him to follow her as she left for the park again.

She must have caught him off guard because she didn’t hear his footsteps behind her for several seconds. She didn’t turn to look at him or anything else. She kept her eyes focused on the route back to the airlock and the
Pasadena
.

“So, are you going to be right back on line, then?” she asked, trying to keep her voice cocky. “Or have you got somebody else to chaperone?”

Cohen shook his head. “There’s nobody else around here who’s in so deep with the disciplinary board.” He paused. “Actually, I thought I’d hang around for awhile, in case you needed to talk to somebody. I know I do. Need to talk somebody.” He looked down at her. “I was informed very firmly by our Guild Master that there was nobody but the three of us and Flemming in The Gate network. How about you?”

Dobbs pulled up short and faced him. A feeling of relief surged through her. “You felt a stranger in there too?” They were safe having this conversation, as long as no one was in earshot. Unlike human stations, the Fools didn’t need security eyes and ears to cover the station’s cans. Who was there to watch? No Fool would commit treachery against another Fool.

That’s the theory anyway.
Dobbs shook that thought away and concentrated on what Cohen was saying.

“Oh, yeah, I felt somebody. Somebody old. Somebody fast. I’ve got no idea who.” He licked his lips. “Dobbs, there was all this speculation that Flemming might have been created deliberately. Could the Guild have done it?”