“Richard,” Patty said softly, covering her lips with her hand. “Alan? Can you hear me?”
“We hear you, Patty,” a neutral voice answered, sounding like it came from inside her ears. “You don't need to talk out loud. How can I help you?”
“Why—” Why didn't you ever talk to me before? Can I call you Richard?
“Call me anything you like. And because I didn't want to worry you. And the fewer people who knew of our existence, the better.”
What about now?
“The secret's out.” She had a sense of an oblique smile, hands drumming on brown-trousered thighs. “So what can I tell you, Pilot? We'll be working very closely soon, you know.”
I'm tired of secrets. Patty unbuckled her lap belt and stood, pacing the aisle. She stopped and peered from a window. Sunlight gleamed on choppy indigo, far below. The tightness was in her gut again, the old midnight tension. Get good grades. Don't fool around with boys. Succeed. Understand. Excel.
Richard, tell me everything.
“Everything about what?”
Everything you know.
2100 Hours
Thursday 21 December, 2062
PPCASS Huang Di
Under way
“Second Pilot, you are relieved.”
Min-xue looked up from his panels, noticing the drawn expression on the face of the first pilot as he floated behind Captain Wu. “Captain, my duty shift has just begun. The first pilot has just completed a shift—”
“Second Pilot.” Captain Wu lowered his voice and leaned forward. Alcohol tainted his breath, half covered by the scent of ginger candy. “I have received new orders. Pursuant to our earlier conversation, if you recall it.”
Min-xue's hands, moving automatically to release his webbing, trembled. “Yes, sir.”
“There has been an attempt on the Montreal. Sabotage. The results were — incomplete.”
Why is he telling me this? Min-xue's eyes went to the first pilot's face, but it was stony and his vision trained far away. Richard, is this true?
“It's true.”
The captain was still speaking, just above a whisper — a tone for Min-xue's ear alone. “Now, while the Montreal is crippled, we are commanded to incapacitate the corporate leadership of the Westerners. It is the first pilot's duty. You will relinquish your chair.”
“Yes—” Min-xue stammered. “Yes, sir.”
Richard?
A moment's silence, and the AI's level voice. “Min-xue, I think we need to see what exactly is in your forward cargo bay.”
It's just as well that I don't need much light, Min-xue thought, slithering through a narrow service panel and kicking himself loose to drift on the other side. He caught a tether left-handed before his spin turned into a tumble, and checked himself silently against the webbing and the wall. It was colder here, cold enough to sting his ears and the tip of his nose, cold enough to dry the palm he pressed to the unadorned steel wall. Richard?
“Here.”
Which way? Is the Canadian shuttle at the Montreal yet?
An emergency light flickered greenly near Min's slippered foot, just once, and beyond it another, highlighting the number 5 on the door.
“Two pilots are present on the Montreal. Two are headed for the Calgary. It's cold in the cargo hold, Min-xue. You need to hurry.”
Min-xue raised his hand and triggered the irising hatchway. He slipped through it, sliding on a rush of more pressurized air into a stale-smelling chamber. Brief dim light trickled around Min-xue's shadow and illuminated the space in which he floated. His breath clouded on the air, froze, and drifted in flakes. Richard, I need lights. Can you do that?
“Unfortunately, no. There's probably a switch near the door, however.” Min-xue found it. Actinic light rippled across the harsh metal walls, and Min-xue stopped with one wrist wound through a black, webbed strap.
The cargo in the center of the hold did, in fact, resemble several hundred tons of meteoric nickel-iron. What Min-xue didn't understand was the strange apparatus surrounding it: a mess of cables and heavy-duty springs that seemed intended to protect fragile equipment from powerful shocks. Min-xue untangled the grab-tight and kicked off the wall, cruising toward the rock.
It's an asteroid, Richard. Why do these look like quick-release clips?
“Because they are,” Richard said quietly. “Excuse me, Min-xue. I have an evacuation to arrange.”
2230 Hours
Thursday 21 December, 2062
HMCSS Montreal
Earth orbit
Leah and Trevor are already en route to the Calgary to bring her on-line, and Gabe's half a step ahead of me, right on Wainwright's tail, moving fast down the curving corridors of the Montreal. The ship feels colder than I remembered, maybe because she's locked down, crew confined to quarters, most systems at minimum capability to make it easier for Richard/Alan to spot a usage spike — until Wainwright is sure systems are clean.
Wainwright has a strong stride for a little woman; I hustle to keep up, and Patty is three feet behind me. We're all but running for the bridge, where Gabe is supposed to help Richard clean any lingering traces of Ramirez's sabotage out of the ship. “How bad is it, Captain?”
“We've got Ramirez in custody. Koske and Richard tracked him down in one of the biospheres. I make at least one coconspirator, but he claims he acted alone.”
I bite my lip. “What have you done to get him to talk?” Richard—
“That's an exceptionally distasteful suggestion, Jenny.”
If it comes down to it, if we infected him, would you handle an interrogation?
Richard doesn't answer, but I feel him chewing it over. I won't suggest it to Wainwright until he decides if it suits his moral compass. Given his power, I half hope he'll say no.
Wainwright clears her throat. “You know perfectly well that torture is ineffective unless you've already decided what confession you want to force. Meanwhile, we're doing a room-by-room search for transmission devices. They have to have some way to talk to the Chinese — assuming it is the Chinese — to coordinate these attacks. We haven't picked up any transmissions.”
“Ansibles,” Richard says in my head.
I repeat his word to Wainwright. “Richard hypothesizes that they've found a way to use the Benefactor tech to communicate.”
She doesn't look back. “Tell me what you know about controlling the AIs, Master Warrant.”
Oh. “Captain—”
“Yes?”
“You can't.”
“Casey.” Voice cool, but I can hear the strain in it. “That is not an acceptable answer.”
“You can't,” I repeat, making it level and professional. “Captain, what are you going to threaten him with? Do to him? Try on him? What can you offer him?” Richard stirs in the back of my head; I sense his pressure and presence. “You're talking about a consciousness that spans half the Milky Way, Captain. What can you possibly offer him?”
Wainwright stops so short that Gabe clips her heel. I'm ready for it and set myself in a smooth-faced parade rest when she comes around, blazing. “I—”