Via ScoutDrone1 in our rooms, I was watching Iris tell the others to not contact me directly now if they had a suggestion; she wanted all communication with me going through her feed connection because she didn’t want me distracted. I can’t be distracted with multiple inputs like a human (okay, I absolutely can, but I wasn’t going to be right now), but I appreciated the gesture.
Leonide’s whole affect was skeptical. “Then what are you doing here? Why send a tool to what was supposed to be a negotiation between equal parties?”
So her plan was also to get me to talk so I’d reveal our plans unintentionally. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to work out for either of us. Also on Sanctuary Moon, the Colony Solicitor will act skeptical when she questions people, because it makes the humans talk more, trying to convince her. I’d seen feed journalists do the same thing in interviews, so it was a real thing, not just for the show. It doesn’t work if you’d really rather not be talking at all. I said, “The University has a contract for sustainability evaluation and mapping with the Pan-Rim Licensing Agency and this system was listed as a priority.” It was the exact same answer Arada had given her, the last time she had asked that question.
One of Leonide’s eyebrows tilted. Arada had done kind of a shit job with that whole negotiation, so maybe a callback to that wasn’t my best move. “And why is a SecUnit part of that evaluation? Aren’t your kind used only for enforcement and imprisonment and attack?”
Unfair, considering she was exactly the kind of human who had made sure there was a market for us to be doing those things, and was actually here with two of her own SecUnits right now.
I could have said I was a member of the Preservation Survey team on the responder or that I was part of Mensah’s staff, but that contradicted the other lies we had already told or implied to Leonide. The only thing that was keeping the stalemate between us and the B-E task group in balance was the University’s legitimacy and recognized authority with the other corporates that were signed up with the various licensing agencies the University did evaluations and testing for. If the B-E task group found out we were big liarheads, then they could claim we were raiders or that they thought we were raiders or whatever, and they might attack us. And they wouldn’t win.
ART had run the numbers. Killing a whole bunch of humans and augmented humans, some of whom you had rescued previously, most of whom were just doing jobs they or their families had been indentured into, was not a great solution.
From the rapid eye movement and grimaces going on in our room, the humans were trying to come up with an answer, too, just slower, because of organic brains.
I said, “That’s proprietary information.” Not great, but all I could come up with before I ran out of time. Then I made it worse by attempting a counterattack. “You have two SecUnits with you. Why did you bring them here?”
She did a sad smile thing with her mouth, like she gave a shit about SecUnits. It seemed out of character. “The only thing that can stop a SecUnit is another SecUnit.” Not true, actually, but it was like a rhetorical question, but not a question. Also a logic fallacy, or a logic something, since she hadn’t known there was another SecUnit here until just now. Before I could think of something else pointless, she added, “And what will that evaluation be? Is this planet still viable for a colony?”
I was relieved by the change of subject for .05 seconds. In the room, Ratthi mouthed the word shit. Tarik was squeezing the bridge of his nose like he was trying to will something to happen. ART-drone hadn’t reacted but I could tell it was on a private feed with Iris. On our secure connection, Iris said, When the report is ready, it will be released to the colonists. Which was a good call, I had been about to lie and say it was great.
Because it wasn’t great, that had been increasingly obvious. Ag-bots were vital to the survival of the colony and they kept turning up infected with the remnant contamination. It was still a possibility that there were other sites on this planet with possible contaminants.
I said, “When the report is ready, it will be released to the colonists.”
“Hmm.” Leonide folded her arms and looked down, paced a step to the side, like she was deep in thought. It looked performative. (I’d watched enough performances in my shows to know one when I saw one.) Performative like the sad smile. I thought it was meant for me, since her opinion of SecUnits’ intelligence could not be that high, let’s be real.
(Since the thing happened, I had been relying a lot on threat assessment, which has a high success rate. But Leonide’s body language here was not threatening.)
(I should have paid more attention to Iris’s body language, her increasingly worried expression, and the way she had folded her arms tightly. All three humans were alerting to something, some unconventional evidence of hostile behavior, that threat assessment was not set to pick up on.)
(I’m going to have to code a patch for threat assessment.)
Still playacting thoughtful, Leonide said, “Barish-Estranza’s evaluation has already concluded that this planet is not viable for continued inhabitation by any kind of colony. It could be a research center for the effects of alien contamination, certainly.”
Uh. Yeah, I didn’t like that she’d mentioned that. The research center in the drop box station was one of the more feasible ideas for keeping corporates off the planet and giving the colonists more time to decide what they wanted to do. The colonists hadn’t been approached about it yet because without more muscle from the University, there was no way to make B-E agree to it.
The humans didn’t like it, either. ART-drone said, Our comm and feeds are always secure. Barish-Estranza could have employed audio surveillance while our teams were in the field. It was pissed off.
They could just be good guessers, Iris said. It’s a good idea, that’s why we thought of it. SecUnit, ask her if that’s Barish-Estranza’s intention.
Yeah, I should have thought of that. “Is that Barish-Estranza’s intention?”
“I think we both know that isn’t the case,” Leonide said. “It’s been clear to us since arriving here that the University, an institution that researches alien contamination and makes a great deal of profit off its evaluations, is planning to turn this planet into a testing laboratory—”
Uh? “No. The University doesn’t own this planet. The colonists own it. That was in the Adamantine charter.” Probably not, we had no idea, because we didn’t have a copy of that charter. It was in the charter we were in the process of forging, to get the colony listed as an independent entity under the ownership of its inhabitants. Iris passed me an answer on the feed and I said, “The University submits evaluations for multimember licensing agencies for set fees. There’s no bonus for finding alien contamination. For any kind of ongoing research here, there would have to be a leasing and licensing agreement with the colonists.”
But Leonide was talking over me, ignoring the smart answers Iris was giving me and saying, “Yes, the colonists own this useless, dangerous place. The University wants them to stay here, where they will be trapped, turned into laboratory subjects during the next outbreak. That’s the plan, isn’t it?”
Threat assessment wasn’t spiking, but it should have been. I said, “No, that’s not the plan. That’s a stupid wrong plan.” The only response I could think of was that the evaluation and testing thing was also a cover for the University’s side business in freeing lost colonies from permanent indenture and exploitation by predatory corporations. Yeah, even I wasn’t stupid enough to say that out loud. “You’re the one with the plans.”