Morgan's Choice (39 page)

The voice spoke aloud but Morgan sensed a
presence, a curious, interested mind hovering around her a little
like the insects in the Krystor jungle. Only this time she couldn’t
slap them down.

She exchanged a look with Ravindra. He might
have been outwardly calm but his eyes flicked around from side to
side. “You heard?”

“Yes. A woman.” He climbed over the side of
the cart into the flat interior and sat down, inspecting the floor
and the low sides. “A cargo unit.”

“I suppose you’d have to have vehicles in a
ship this size.”

The cart headed off. Morgan mapped the
journey to her implant. Wherever they were taken, she could get
them back here, back to the Starliner. After thirty meters the
vehicle reached a corridor, the walls much wider apart, the ceiling
higher. She’d expected something vast, like the cathedral in
Carynos; towering arches or pillars—something to match the scale of
the exterior, but this was just a labyrinth of empty corridors,
clean and characterless. The cart entered a loftier space, a
cross-roads for more corridors, heading off in four directions to
who-knew-where. Doors slid apart as soon as they arrived. An
enclosed space, like an elevator or transit car. The
Yogin
drove inside.

The elevator rose swiftly; Morgan counted
the levels as symbols she couldn’t read sped past on an illuminated
dial. This time when the cart drove out she did feel she’d entered
a cathedral. This was the heart of the ship. Curved walls rose into
arches, unadorned and simple but beautifully finished. This inner
sanctum was circular, lined with screens, each displaying different
images. The room even had chairs, fixed to the floor and in front
of the screens. She climbed out of the cart and glanced at the
displays, guessing what the picture showed; life support, engines,
shields, recycling, laboratories, hydroponics. Underneath each view
screen a smaller screen showed symbols. Statistics?
Status?

Ravindra swung around, taking in the soaring
majesty of the place while she polled for data ports but the
response was confusing as if data was absorbed through the walls.
Maybe it was.

“
Welcome, Maker. This is where the Makers
met with me. It seemed right that it should be used for that
purpose again.”

The control room. The bridge. “It’s
magnificent. Thank you for bringing us here. What should I call
you?” Morgan said.

The pause was so long she wondered if the
MI would reply.

“
Those who gave me life called me
Artemis.”

“Artemis, my name is Morgan and my
companion’s name is Ashkar. Who gave you life?”

Makers. People like you. I set off to explore
for them, to find new worlds for them to settle.

People like her. Humans. “Where have you come
from? Where have you been?”

“
Many light years I have
traveled. I have explored the worlds of two hundred thousand suns,
prepared a thousand worlds.
”

Artemis scrolled through her journey so fast
only another computer would understand; stars, distances, planets,
results. Morgan absorbed it all.

“You find new worlds and then what? You have
settlers here, with you?”

“
No. The settlers will come behind, in
colony ships.”

“Where are these colony ships?”

“
Behind. They come
behind.”
Vague,
uncertain.

“Are you in contact with colony ships?”

“
No. I am a pioneer. I prepare the way.
They come behind.”

At a guess the ship had lost the plot. But
why? “Where do the Makers live?”

“
Many light years away. Many
thousands of their years away.”
The voice changed from dreamy and uncertain to curious.
“
I want to
know about you.
You are a Maker and yet you are more.
”

She felt the entity probing, testing the
interfaces into her implants. Oh, no, she wasn’t going to let
Artemis get into her mind. That wasn’t going to happen. She blocked
and blocked again and yet again and then a broad attack on a
hundred different fronts attempted to breach Morgan’s security. She
blocked again. And then it stopped. She panted, chest heaving as
though she’d just finished a long run. That had been hard work but
she could win this fight. The
MI was good but it lacked her own flexibility. Her flesh
and blood brain cells gave her an edge. Ravindra put a hand on her
shoulder, concern gleaming in his eyes. “It’s okay,” she whispered
to him.

“
This is remarkable. You can block me. All
Makers have a data store. But you are so much more. Who created
you?”

Morgan sat down on one of the chairs and
fought to regain her breath. Ravindra stood beside her, radiating
confidence. Was he confident? Hard to tell. She supposed radiating
confidence was part of his job description. She didn’t feel nervous
anymore, now that she had a better idea of what she was dealing
with. Even if she could win a fight the best approach would be to
create a dialogue with the
MI.

“Makers. Much later Makers. I’m what they
call a Bio-engineered Intelligence, specially modified to work with
machines. Like a space ship. Like you with a body.”

“
What is it like to have a body?”

The voice vibrated with curiosity and
wistfulness. Perhaps it was even lonely.

“I can’t answer you. I’ve always had a body.
I don’t know how it feels not to have one. But then…” Morgan chewed
at her lip. “I know what it’s like to be part of a machine, so my
body is the thing over there in the chair while my mind flows
through the data paths. Having a body is so much more emotional.”
Her mind filled with images; laughter, tears, pain, eating,
walking, making love.

The entity observed and absorbed.

“
A Maker who is also an
MI.”

Morgan wasn’t too sure she liked that idea.
Time to shift back to the ship. “But I want to know about you.
About this ship.”

“
I am the ship.”

“I understand. What is your task?”

“
I pave the way. I find safe
places for Makers to settle. Or if I find places that are not safe,
I make them so
.”

“You make them so?”

“
Yes. I destroy those entities
which would endanger the Makers
.”

“Viruses? Monstrous animals?”

“
Yes
.”

“And primitives.”

The voice changed. “
They are a threat to the Makers.
They are much worse than monstrous animals. Makers without
machines. Primitives.”

“But the manesa do have machines. Space
ships, cities.”

“
They have no data connection. They are
primitives. Primitives kill and destroy. I only just
escaped.”

“Escaped? From primitives?”

“
See?”

A hologram, vivid as reality, appeared in
the
center of the room.
Pictures, images hit Morgan’s mind like a tidal wave. She was the
ship, looking out at a world through her sensors. Not the great
inter-stellar ship; a transport on a sodden plain surrounded by
high fences. Rain poured down. Lightning flared, revealing people
behind the fence. The fence itself was struck and exploded into
brilliant destruction. Bodies littered the ground but the mob
trampled over them, running, faces twisted in fury. They converged
on the ship, brandishing staves and spears, flinging missiles that
bounced harmlessly off the hardened fuselage. The ship fired back.
More bodies fell. A voice spoke, male, tired.
Go, Artemis. I can’t get to
you
. The attackers broke
into the transport, Morgan saw a swift view of contorted faces,
clubs and the vision failed.

“
He was my creator. He warned me, taught
me to beware of primitives. They destroy what they do not
understand.”

“But we do not do that.” Morgan almost jumped
at the sound of Ravindra’s voice. “We wanted to talk, to
communicate. You have never given us that option until now.”

“
You destroy my warriors, attack
me.”

“You attack us. We simply defend ourselves,”
he said.

Well, that wasn’t going to get them
far.
Think,
Morgan, think
. How do
you persuade a machine with millenniums of mind-set? “You were sent
in the Cyber Wars weren’t you?”

“
I do not know what you
mean.”
But she was
interested.

“The wars when the primitives destroyed
machines. What you just showed us. They destroyed people with BEMs,
didn’t they?”

“
Yes. Doctor Rosmenyo and all his
team were killed by the primitives. Those last words you heard,
they were the last he ever spoke to me. The primitives broke into
his compound and killed them all. I saw the burning. By that time I
drifted beyond the moons, ready to leave.”
The soft voice changed, hardened.
“I sent warriors to
avenge him and destroyed the killers. And then I left.”

“
Many died, Artemis. I’ve read the history.
Here. This is a little of what happened.” Morgan fed the data from
her implant, all the reading she’d done on
Curlew
as she wiled away the days. A thousand years of
history and speculation, arguments about remnants on far-flung
planets, speculation about what caused the Cyber Wars, when
humanity was brought to the brink of extinction.

“
Ah. So you are of the new
generation.”

“Yes, I am.” Morgan took a deep breath.
Half-formed notions coalesced and formed an argument, a theory.
“But I think your Doctor Rosmenyo was not the only one who tried to
escape the turmoil. I think these people here, who you call
primitives, are other escapees from the Cyber Wars. They were sent
off, at much the same time you were, to make a new life in a
different part of the galaxy. See these?”

She was about to show the statues in the
temple. No, not wise. Then she’d have to explain why the heads were
gone. The shrine would be a better bet. She sent the data to
Artemis, who displayed the image as a hologram so real it looked
solid. The man, the woman and their felines stood on the bridge of
an ancient starship. Maybe they’d done the same thing long ago, for
real.

“
How old are these images?”

“About five thousand standard years of this
culture. If we express that in a universal way, let me translate
into how far light would have traveled through normal space in that
time.” Morgan carried out the calculation and told Artemis the
result.

“
Three thousand of their years have passed
since I left on my journey. How could they reach here before
me?”

Good question. “The universe has many
dimensions. You can shift from one dimension to another, can’t
you?”

“
Yes.”

“Well, we’ve discovered that some dimensions
make travel much faster than others; many times faster. Perhaps
these earlier travelers had that technology and then it was
lost.”

Silence.

“Or maybe they crossed a barrier that took
them back in time.” Morgan blurted the words and gulped. She’d
never seriously considered that possibility. “Believe me, Artemis,
they’re not primitive; they’ve been engineered. Genetically
manipulated…” Her voice trailed off. Too much, too soon. She hadn’t
really thought as far as this. “Like your warriors. That’s how they
were formed, isn’t it?”

“
My warriors?”

“Yes. Have they been changed? Genetically
suited to a purpose?”

“
Yes. Doctor Rosmenyo made them small so
they need less nourishment and air. But they will still react to
air and temperature as any Maker would. They are pioneers.”

Are they clones?”

“
They are.”

“Will you show us? Show us your ship? How it
works?” And maybe she’d find a weakness. Maybe. Or convince the
ship it didn’t know everything. If nothing else it seemed happy to
talk. She met Ravindra’s gaze and he gave one slow nod of
approval.

“
Mount.”

They climbed back into the transport and sat
with their knees up while the cart zipped though more corridors and
into an elevator. Morgan tracked the route. Ravindra took her hand
and mouthed the words ‘I love you’ and she absorbed his warmth.
Whatever else happened now, she would hold on to that sheer
happiness. The vehicle stopped outside a door and they alighted.
She stretched her legs and back but Ravindra seemed unaffected by
the discomfort.

This time the
Yogin
driver dismounted, too. It led them into a
cavernous laboratory, so large the ends disappeared into gloom.
Transparent cylinders stood in serried ranks, filling all available
space.

Each cylinder contained what looked like an
embryo. Artemis’s voice spoke, explaining with quiet pride.

“
We collect all damaged warriors. If they
are beyond repair, we use the body tissue to build new units. The
distillation vats along the wall behind you reduce the organic
remains into building blocks for a new generation.”

Morgan turned around and swallowed a
retch. Shattered limbs and bodies floated in a bluish, glue-like
substance. They moved about as if something was nibbling at them,
but that didn’t seem likely. She looked closer. The tissue was
being dissolved. Even as she looked the flesh disappeared from a
finger, the bone structure clearly visible. Bile rose in her
throat.
Steady on, Morgan. It’s just recycling
.