The Trilisk AI (29 page)

I
can feel the Iridar’s spinner. It should be almost completely off by now.

“Wow!
He’s serious about getting in and out in record time,” Magnus said, pointing
out the debris. Close to the
Iridar
’s landing position, a huge boulder
shifted and bounced away from the thruster’s airstream like a rubber ball.

Magnus
signaled to her and they ran for it. The artifact cache fell a bit behind but
Telisa knew it would take a moment for them to get up the ramp anyway. As they
approached, her own weight and the objects nearby returned to normal. Her
footsteps became sure as the ramp descended ten meters in front of them.

They
entered the
Iridar’s
cargo bay. Most of the parts left behind by Magnus
and Shiny had been packed up; things looked relatively stable inside. Telisa
stood at the top of the ramp to make sure it didn’t retract before her cache
floated into the vessel.
I’ll be damned if anyone is closing that ramp
before my stuff gets in here!

Magnus
let down the industrial seed with a grunt. The sound of takeoff already
filtered in from outside. Telisa steadied herself.

“Mission
successful.”

“I
think so,” Magnus said aloud.

“Stay
alert. This is a possible Shiny swing point,” Magnus sent her on a private
channel.

They
walked out of the cargo bay. Magnus stopped short and unslung his rifle. Telisa
was about to say he was going too far when she took a peek past him and saw a
human body on the deck ahead.

“Five—”

Magnus
clamped a hand over her mouth.

“They
have to know we’re on board,” Telisa responded with her link. She stared at the
form on the deck. Whoever it had been, he was obviously dead now.

“Maybe.
Maybe whoever it is doesn’t have control of the ship,” Magnus said.

“Telisa?”

Telisa
turned. She saw a woman emerging from a crash tube in the other direction.
Telisa leveled her weapon and examined her. The stranger was thin in hands and
face, with silver and black hair. She stood slightly taller than Telisa.

She’s
older than me. How old, I have no idea.
“What’s happened? Why did you attack?”

“Telisa.
Your father is here. I work for him.”

“Liar!
My father is dead!
” Telisa snarled. Magnus remained vigilant, covering
the corridor in the other direction. Telisa brought her stunner out and pointed
it at the woman instead of the Meer. She noted in horror that blood spattered
the deck.

“He
lost his captaincy,” the woman said. Then her voice hardened. “Don’t take my
word for it, kid. He’s around here somewhere. That is if your damn pet alien
didn’t splatter him over the decks like it did to my friend Arlin.”

Telisa
wanted to rejoin the statement but she needed to find her father, or his body.
The thought was unbearable.

“Where
is
he then?” demanded Telisa. “There’s blood everywhere!”

“Calm
down. We’ll find him. We’ll find him,” Magnus urged. “Try the cargo hold again.
Maybe we missed something. I’ll check the storage cabinets down by the spinner,
and my quarters, even though it should be locked.”

Telisa
ignored Magnus’s attempt to divert her to safety and ran into the mess instead.
There was even blood in there. She opened the food storage area and ordered the
interior light on. The large circular rack held a lot of food and the shelves
were too tightly packed for anyone to hide inside.

Her
link received a message from Leonard Relachik.
Five Entities!

She
crouched on the mess floor and read the message hurriedly.

If you can forgive me, I think we could work together. I’ve
figured out our goals are no longer at odds. You want to learn about the
aliens. Especially the Trilisks. It’s no longer my duty to uphold the law, but
I’m still a human and I have a duty to help protect humans. The
Seeker
was destroyed by aliens. We
have to give the Space Force all the help we can to help protect humanity. But
that doesn’t stand in the way of what you want. You can learn about the aliens.
I can pass along what we learn to the Space Force anonymously. Cilreth says
it’s possible.

“Yes,
yes, I agree,” Telisa said. “Who is Cilreth?”

But
her link didn’t see her father’s link so she couldn’t respond directly.

“Yes,
I agree!” she yelled. “I agree, where are you?”

It
might be a trap. It’s too good to be true. There’s blood everywhere.
Telisa started to cry.

“I
agree, where are you?” she called again. She rose and walked toward the cargo
hold.

“I
found him,” came a voice. It was the woman. Telisa came back out to find her,
wary. But the woman was still alone in the corridor, on her knees.

“Where
is Shiny?” Telisa sent to Magnus.

“He’s
right here. Wait a moment,” the woman said.

Telisa
looked again. The woman held her arms in an odd way before her.

“Shiny
is here. He’s not trying to kill me, either,” came Magnus’s reply.

“I
don’t know how to get it to turn off. But he’s here,” the woman said.

“What?”
Telisa snapped urgently. She jumped over to where the woman worked. The light
wasn’t right. Telisa reached out with her hands.

She
felt something invisible. “This is my father?”

“Yes.
He has a stealth suit on. Obviously the monster got him anyway.”

“The
alien was defending himself against you. You came in here armed and tried to
kill him, I’m sure,” Telisa said.

Magnus,
we have him
, she
transmitted.
Magnus, get in here and help us take a stealth suit off him.

Magnus
stepped into the corridor seconds later. Telisa searched for a front release on
the stealth suit. Her hands were slippery with blood.

Chapter 23

Leonard
Relachik slept in a white bed in a small compartment of the
Iridar
.
Telisa sat beside him. She stared blankly at the perfect white sheets. The air
smelled sterile.

His
legs were gone above the knees. Telisa was afraid of what he would say when he
woke up. But she sat and waited.

Relachik
stirred. He looked around. Then he saw Telisa watching him.

“Hi,”
she said in a small voice.

“Telisa!”
He started to get up. She watched the realization cross his face. His legs were
gone above each knee.

“Oh
no. I’m a bit shorter.”

She
tried to laugh at his brave joke, but tears came out instead.

“I
promise, Dad, we’ll get you someplace they can fix you up—”

“I
know you will!” he said dismissively. “I lost an arm a couple years ago. Very
inconvenient. Can you imagine what it must have been like when humans had to
just accept being maimed? There was a time when almost anything could go wrong
and you’d just drop dead, you know.”

Telisa
smiled. “I know. You told me about it when I was a kid.”

A
cloud crossed his face. He took a deep breath. “I came to apologize to you. For
being a lousy father. I know I was gone most of the time, and when I wasn’t, I
ran the apartment like a ship. I treated you like a recruit.”

“You
came all this way to apologize?”

“I
came this way to make amends. To help you. To start to make it up to you.”

Telisa
smiled and squeezed his hand. She felt tears run down her cheeks, though she
still smiled. “I’m so happy. When we heard about the
Seeker
, I thought
you were dead. I realized I wanted to be your daughter again.”

“Now
is our chance,” he said.

“I
got your message. Though honestly, I can barely remember what you said, I was
so freaked out. I guess you said we could work together. I appreciate your
offer. I’ll take you up on it.”

Relachik
smiled, though Telisa saw a bit of fatigue or perhaps the fog of medication in
his expression.

“Earth
needs what you have. It needs all the alien tech it can get. The Space Force
has to protect humanity against these hostile aliens, and we’re behind in the
technology race.”

“Then
I can find some more,” Telisa said.

“What?”

“I
can find more technological secrets. We can pass them on to the Space Force and
help humanity. But I’m not going back. I’m going to keep looking. Keep
learning. Our positions aren’t in conflict. We can be allies instead of
competitors, just like you said.”

“What
about the alien?” he asked. “Is he on another side than the ones who attacked
Seeker
?
Is he from a different race? How many alien civilizations does he know?”

“We’ll
find out. He knows of at least one other active civilization. I can fill you in
bit by bit. It will take days, though. Right now, rest. Know we’re safe,” she
said.

“Are
we? Does the alien still want to kill me?”

“He
should be fine. He shoots first and asks questions later. To survive. His
society can be cooperative, or very competitive.”

“Okay.
Good. That, I can understand,” he said. He sighed and coughed weakly.

“Enough.
Rest now. I’ll be back. I’m going to find out what’s happening now, and I’ll
report back to you what I learn once you’ve started to recover.”

“Are
you in danger, Telisa?”

“Rest
for now. I’m going to go find out what’s happened and where we stand with
Shiny. The alien.”

“Shiny?
I get the name, but not why you’d risk working with it.”

“It’s
a ‘mutually beneficial cooperative relationship,’” she said, parroting Shiny.

“What?”

“Never
mind. Just rest.”

Her
father closed his eyes and fell asleep. Telisa watched him for a while, trying
to absorb the fact he was back into her life.

After
a while, she decided to join the others. Though she hadn’t come to terms with
her father’s awful injuries, so much was going on. Her father’s friend was
still alive on board somewhere, and Shiny had the amazing artifact.

Predictably,
Shiny was in the cargo bay. Magnus was there, already tinkering with robot
parts again.

Telisa
didn’t waste any time. “Shiny. Where are we going?”

“Asteroid.”

“Why?
To hide?”

“Shiny
requires raw materials to fully utilize artifact. Provides easy access far from
destroyer devices.”

“Shiny.
That damn thing you sent us after is a Trilisk artifact, isn’t it? How could
you neglect to mention such an important piece of information?”

“Shiny,
Telisa, compete to control one item.”

“I’m
in cooperative mode, Shiny. I won’t take it from you. Tell me about it so we
can accomplish more. If I trust you, then I provide more benefit to you,
understand? What does it do?”

“Trilisk
mind. Artificial, Trilisk-designed, scientist-constructed.”

Telisa’s
mouth dropped open. Magnus stood in shock as well.

“Five
Holy...let me get this straight: Your giant city-size house—ravaged by alien
machines, filled with suborned members of your own race, crawling with hungry
scavenger bugs the size of my arm—had a Trilisk AI in it?”

I
can’t believe how much we don’t know about Shiny.

“Very
valuable. Very useful. Saved Shiny many times, provided, secured, aided.”

“I
want to talk to it! I don’t see it in my link! What does it know? What has it
taught you?” The questions spilled from Telisa and she only stopped them with
an effort of will.

“Trilisk
AI does not speak, communicate, inform. Only listens, examines, deduces.”

“It
has to be able to tell us what happened to the Trilisks.”

“It
is designed, prepared, constructed for other purposes. It provides, secures,
nurtures.”

“Then
it can
provide
me with some goddamn answers!”

Be
careful, Telisa
, Magnus
transmitted.
Don’t become a liability to Shiny.

“Not
designed for information. Designed to provide useful food, tools, fulfill
material needs. It is an industrial seed.”

“You’ve
enslaved it to work for you? Is that what that Vovokan box is around it? A
prison?”

“Device
designed to provide. No enticement, payment, coercion is required.”

“Is
it dangerous? If it’s smart, can’t it compete with you?” asked Magnus.

“Trilisk
AI stays in cooperative mode. Shiny suspects, thinks, hypothesizes this is
Trilisk intention.”

“What
is the Vovokan part here? You’ve merged something with it.”

“Shiny
limited competitive interference by filtering input. Interface with Trilisk AI
was possible only from within Shiny house. Others screened out.”