The New Space Opera 2 (29 page)

“I am not a hardware architect.” The priest cocked an eyebrow. “But as I understand it, quantum matrices have resonances with other matrices to which they have been introduced. The physics are related to paired-drive physics, I believe. In order to keep the
Uncial
effect from taking hold on a new shipmind, to allow our vessels to be more pliable and obedient, we needed to create an architecture that could not be, well…contaminated…in this fashion.”

“Is this true of all quantum matrices?” She held the importance of the question close in her mind—more than a thousand years of living made
anyone
a good poker player. If it was true, then the possibility of leakage between her thoughts and
Polyphemus
's shipmind was real. And thus very worrisome.

“I cannot say. The fundamental technology is Polity-era. These days, it's more engineering than theory. And this is a line of investigation that has not been…encouraged.”

“Bioengineered intelligence is hardly a contemporary technology.”

“I am not bioengineered,” said the project, interrupting them. “I am a
cultivated intelligence, and I am as real as you are. Humans come in many forms, many sizes.” It paused. “Many
ages
.”

Siddiq winced.

The project continued: “I am not human, but I am real. Not a thing. Not like an
Uncial
-class shipmind.”

The Captain focused on the business at hand. “And you are ready to assume control of
Polyphemus
?”

“Father Goulo has been running simulations based on engineering diagrams of the starship.” Siddiq could swear the project was
proud
of itself. “I can handle the raw bitrate of the dataflow, as well as the computational throughput required to manage the starship's systems. As for the rest, my effective intelligence is more than adequate to handling the decisioning requirements. And I have trained.”

“Trained to operate paired drives,” Siddiq said. This had always been the weakest point in the plan. That an intelligence created outside the operating environment of a starship could handle this. The shipminds themselves required multiple pairing runs to awaken into preconsciousness. Teams of specialists managed the initial shakedowns of a new starship with their concomitant awakening, a process that could take up to twenty years-subjective, and more than twice that in years-objective.

“Yes.”

Father Goulo spoke. “We cannot eliminate the quantum matrix processing required for the paired drives. What we can do is collapse the emergent cognitive core structures above those matrices, then decouple the cross-connects binding the matrices and separately route each pairing control path into Memphisto.”

“Memphisto?” The sheer gall of that name amazed Siddiq.

“Me,” said the project, its voice flowing with pride now. “That will be my ship-name, too.”

Could she con
Memphisto?
Would this intelligence allow her to command? The very act of installing the cultivated intelligence would require destruction of
Polyphemus
's shipmind. But the reward for that risk…freedom from the dangerous monopoly
Uncial
's descendants had on FTL. Such a mighty game they played.

They fell into a lengthy discussion of transition and control processes, project readiness, and timing. Eventually, Siddiq excused herself to return to
Polyphemus
. Father Goulo walked her to the airlock, handing her a data card as they went.

“Memphisto doesn't have a net outside his compartment,” the priest said quietly.

“Why?” Siddiq asked. She could think of a number of very good reasons, but she was curious about his logic.

“He is not what I might have chosen him to be. In his way, he is as soullessly dangerous as what we seek to overthrow.”

That was closer than Siddiq had ever expected to hear Father Goulo come to expressing either doubt or regret. “Do we abort the plan?”

“Now?” He actually
smiled
, a crooked, almost charming set of his lips. “No. We can…improve…on Memphisto for future, ah, deployments.”

“And for this deployment, I have to sail him home. The long way, if the pairing doesn't carry over to the new intelligence.”

“It will not be the worst years of your ancient life, Before.”

Siddiq refused to consider that statement carefully. Only someone who had not lived through the Mistake and its aftermath could think to make such a comparison.

“I will disable
Polyphemus
's shipmind when I judge the moment to be right,” she said, turning over the memebomb card virus that the priest had given her. Her own words gave her pause, a cold grip on her heart. This game was worth the stake, it
had
to be—planning had been going on for over a human lifetime to reach the point they were at today. The individual personalities of both
Polyphemus
and Memphisto were not at issue. “Watch for a wideband signal from orbit,” she continued. “Lift and get to me. The ship's systems will run autonomously for an indefinite period, but the crew will respond erratically to silence from the shipmind.”

“When will you be ready?”

“Immediately upon my return, if my current efforts prove fruitful.” Siddiq smiled, knowing in this mood she was almost certainly thin-lipped and feral. “I have already set substantial plausible deniability into motion through the means of a full-scale mutiny. In order to justify eliminating
Polyphemus
's shipmind, it may be critically important later to demonstrate her loss of control.” Again, the cold, sick feeling. Some emotional relic of a very distant past.

He spoke, raising some object she couldn't make out. Memories were sliding in her head, the quantum matrix dumping reams of data about mineral intrusions and rock friability and overhang into a sliding stream of faces, voices, naked sweating bodies, cold explosions under the pinpoint light of distant suns.

Her sense of the years flickered like aspen leaves in a spring storm,
changing color and disappearing into dark-lined edges. The Before Raisa Siddiq grabbed the hatch coaming, opened her mouth, and said
something
that gave even the imperturbable Father Goulo pause.

She regained control of her mouth. “I'm s-sorry. I must go. Th-the intelligence will serve.”

The priest cycled open the hatch behind her. “Be careful,” he said. “Take your time.”

Time
, she thought in panic. Temporal psychosis. The airlock closed, black as the inside of a singularity, and sound faded with the air as her skin hardened and her membranes nictitated.

Time.
Time. Time!!!

The Captain stumbled out into the cold desert of drifting buckyballs, grasping at her sense of place to anchor herself in memory, location, and the inescapable thunder of the passing years.

C
ANNON, ABOARD
P
OLYPHEMUS

The Before Michaela Cannon chased Kallus out of her workspace on the reserve bridge with a deep, angry growl, and returned to contemplation of the mutiny in progress. The distribution of deck control was in about 85 percent agreement with her models. That was close enough for Cannon's purposes.

She had means of regaining the situation. She understood the mutineers' methods. Opportunity was the Captain's absence—
or was it?

Perhaps Siddiq's absence from
Polyphemus
had more to do with motive.

Why had that thought occurred to her?

“Ship,” Cannon said sharply. That media clip burned in her mind.

Polyphemus
's voice crackled, the bandwidth drop indicating the ship-mind's degree of distraction. “Before?”

“Why is the Captain absent?”

“Unreportable.”

Cannon didn't have the patience for another game of questions. Unfortunately, she didn't have a choice. Captain's orders went way far down into the mentarium of a shipmind, all the way to the undercode. A fact she'd exploited in her years aboard
Uncial
, more than a few times.

Uncial
…

The shipminds were all related in some way she had never really understood. And Cannon knew she had as much experience with starships as anyone alive. But she and
Uncial
had shared a bond, before the star
ship's death two hundred years-objective ago in the Battle of Wirtanen B, alongside
Benison of Names
and
Naranja
. Cannon had lived, she the wily, unkillable Before. Her ship and two others had died.

But they all honored
Uncial
as their foremother.

And she knew
Uncial
's command words, even to this day.

“
Polyphemus
, who am I?”

The ship answered promptly, her voice richening with the increased bandwidth of her attention. “You are the Before Michaela Cannon.”

The displays around her began fading to black, one by one. Images of combat, tapped comms lines, the colored wireframe map of the starship.

“What starship first held me as captain?”

“
Uncial
, Before.”

Everything faded now to a little three-dimensional icon of
Polyphemus
, what Cannon tended to think of as the starship's self-image.

“Do you know these words?” She spoke a complex phrase from an ancient language, the Sanskrit which Haruna Kishmangali had woven into
Uncial
's consciousness so long ago.

A long silence stretched, punctuated by the muffled thump of a distant explosion felt through the hull itself. The icon rotated once, twice, three times.

Finally,
Polyphemus
answered. There was something
simpler
about her voice. As if Cannon were listening to a child. “Accepted, understood, and acknowledged. What are your orders, sir?”

“Why is Captain Siddiq”—
not
“the Captain”—“absent?”

“Because she is not aboard.”

“How did she leave the ship?”

“By piloting the boat
Ardeas
.”

Twenty questions again, but this time without the negative-space answers. Cannon could live with that. Still, she had a vague sense of abusive guilt. Not that this stopped her from pressing on. “Where is
Ardeas
now?”

“On the surface of Sidero.”

“Give me a max rez image of her landing site, with whatever tracking you have on Captain Siddiq.”

A virtual view flickered into being.
Ardeas
sat in a blasted-clear circle of pitted iron. Fullerene streaked like black dust away from her position in all directions. Cannon could make out what might be a faint line of tracks. She backed off the scale and studied the landscape.

Polyphemus
filled in streaks of the Captain's confirmed tracks. Unless
Siddiq had taken up free flight as a hobby, the path indicated a clear course toward a rumpled line of hills, terminating just beyond their spine.

“Bring me in there where the tracks end.”

The starship did not reply, but the imaging tightened up. A small valley just beyond the ridge had a strangely textured floor. The surface didn't match the surrounding geology.
Perhaps siderology
, she thought. As if something had heated the iron there and caused it to reflow.

Or as if something were there.

With her starship's connivance, a captain could hide from anyone or anything except naked-eye surveillance. Or
Uncial
's ghost, in the form of the Before Michaela Cannon.

“Sort out what that is,” she snapped.

“
Ardeas
is lifting,”
Polyphemus
said. “On the site survey, telemetry indicates unusual mineral concentrations. This is possibly another boat, or a very small starship.”

“A starship.
Here?
”

SIDERO AIRSPACE

S
IDDIQ, ABOARD THE SHIP'S BOAT
A
RDEAS

The Before Raisa Siddiq opened her tight-comm. “Aleph online. Sit rep.”

Response was not quite as prompt as she might have liked. Still, they were surely busy upstairs. “Aleph, this is Beth.” Kallus, her man forward. “Plan Green continues. Substantial achievement of objectives in process. Number two has initiated limited countermeasures. We are minimally disrupted.”

“Excellent,” Siddiq said. She was mildly surprised. Cannon's response should have been more effective, stronger. The whole point of Plan Green was to either control key functions, or ensure they were in neutral hands who would sit out the fighting. If critical onboard systems had to be cut over to decentralized control, or even worse, manual settings, they would belong to her. She'd been willing to bypass life support under the theory that no one else would be crazy enough to seize it and shut out their fellow crew.

She
could walk naked in vacuum. A useful skill in troubled times aboard a starship. Almost everybody else aboard depended on the presence of oxygen, with the possible exception of Cannon.

“Further orders?” asked Beth into the lengthening silence.

By damn, her mind was wandering again. Siddiq worked very hard
not to think about kimberlite upwellings. “Carry on,” she snapped. The Captain then opened a comms to her starship. “
Polyphemus
, status.”

A max priority store-and-forward file overrode any response beyond the acknowledgment header. Her heads-up displays flickered out as a window opened on the distant past. Surveillance cam footage of two women walking down a tree-lined boulevard, holding hands. High-wheeled carts passed by drawn by lizards with long, low bodies. The architecture was Centauran Revival, common in the early days of Polity expansion. Police tracking codes flickered as some long-dead, unseen hand tracked in and zoomed on her and Michaela.