Authors: Jonathan L. Howard
“
A pet?
”
said Lukyan.
“
That’s not a good comparison, is it? It wouldn’t have let a pet go.
”
“
Maybe it had no use for me,
”
said Kane.
“
I thought the whole point of it having you along was…
”
But Kane was walking away and the question was never asked.
The corridor ended abruptly with another hatch much like the one that had led to Kane’s old quarters. He stopped and stood before it as if steeling his nerve. His nervousness communicated itself to Katya.
“
Is that the bridge?
”
she asked.
“
No,
”
he answered in a strange, distracted voice.
“
There’s no bridge.
”
He reached out and touched the door very gently, barely brushing it with his fingertips. Immediately, they heard the hiss of seals being released, the door swung smoothly inwards and to one side. Kane took a deep breath and stepped through the opened portal. After a moment, they followed him.
The chamber they had entered was similar in form and proportions to the bay where they’d left the
Baby
. If anything, however, it was almost more spartan. Here there was no iris valve taking up much of the floor and metal dome on the ceiling housing cable tentacles. There was only one thing of note here, but a thing so extraordinary, it drew their gaze
irresistibly
.
Mounted exactly in the middle of the room was a chair. No,
chair
is too small a word. Mounted exactly in the middle of the room was a throne. An ugly, brutal thing made from dark metals and dark imaginations. It sat… it
crouched
in front of them, grey metal spires rising from its back and its feet merging into a circle of the same materials that seemed almost like a plug thrust into the floor.
Katya allowed a gaping expression of utter disbelief onto her face. The chair was as out of place as it was possible to imagine.
“
What,
”
she said,
“
is that?
”
“
It’s a chair,
”
said Kane, accurately but unhelpfully. Lukyan made a step towards it but Kane grabbed his arm.
“
No!
”
he said, both fretful and fearful.
“
Don’t go near that. It’s the single most dangerous thing the
Leviathan
possesses.
”
Lukyan looked at him as if he were mad; they were aboard a synthetically intelligent killing machine armed with attack drones that were so far ahead of anything Russalka had that they were bordering on magical. It seemed absurd to suggest that these were somehow less dangerous than furniture.
“
It’s the interface. It’s where the
Leviathan
and a human…
”
he looked for a term they might understand, something that explain the horror he felt inside towards the throne. He could think of nothing.
“
…interface,
”
he finished, weakly.
“
And what’s that?
”
asked Katya, pointing upwards.
In the centre of the gently vaulted ceiling, a circular
aperture
had appeared so silently and so neatly that
none of them had even noticed it open
. From the deep darkness within the
aperture
, a sphere was slowly descending. A metre in diameter, utterly black, the sphere came down upon a thin supporting rod as elegantly as a drop of oil rolling down a metal surface. When it
had
descended perhaps
three metres
,
it stopped abruptly
and
without a tremor.
“
What is it?
”
demanded Tokarov, but he demanded quietly. The sphere was so perfect and so utterly inscrutable, it was easy to imagine terrifying levels of violence lurking within.
“
It’s a Medusa sphere,
”
said Kane.
“
Nobody make any sudden moves.
”
“
A
Medusa sphere?
”
“
You asked whether the
Leviathan
had any internal security measures,
”
replied Kane,
“
I can now assure you that it has. The sphere will…
”
He stopped as a ghostly violet dot appeared on his chest. Slowly it moved upwards until it was lying between his eyes.
Katya looked back to Lukyan to point it out but found him rooted to the spot by an identical dot. Tokarov was the same. Katya’s hackles raised and her stomach
tightened
.
“
Uncle,
”
she asked, sounding far more in control of her emotions than she felt,
“
Have I got a purple dot of light on my forehead?
”
Lukyan looked at her sideways without turning his face from the sphere and nodded slightly.
“
I don’t want to be overly dramatic at this point,
”
said Kane,
“
but we have all been targeted by the sphere with lasers. If the
Leviathan
decides it doesn’t like us being here, these beams will intensify inside perhaps a thousandth of a second and the results will be painless, but terminal. Therefore, please don’t do anything to antagonise the
Leviathan
.
”
Katya knew very little about the legends of Earth, but she knew what a Medusa was, and the sphere’s name was well chosen. In the stories, the Medusa was a woman so hideous that to look upon her face turned the hapless observer to stone. Here, the four of them stood there terrified to move, to do anything that the
Leviathan
might consider aggressive. They might not have been literally turned to stone, but they were still petrified.
“
What are you going to do, Kane?
”
said Tokarov, trying not to move his lips.
“
I have no idea,
”
Kane replied in a tone of resignation.
“
No idea,
”
echoed Lukyan, with hollow disgust.
“
No idea at all. I wasn’t expecting garlands and flowers when I came back, but I was hoping for a little tolerance at least. Perhaps I should have come by myself.
”
Nobody answered, but nobody argued. Suddenly more beams sparked out of the sphere, bright reds and blues, the dots travelling across the walls clearly visible against the slightly reflective whiteness. They swept and whirled and then quickly drew together on Kane. They travelled quickly across him like scurrying beetles. The only one that didn’t move was the dull violet dot in the middle of his forehead.
“
You are identified.
”
Katya had no idea where the voice came from, it seemed to be in the air all around. Deep and sonorous, like the dying tones of metal striking metal in a large cavern, the voice was full of incorrect inflexions and emphasis. It was clearly not the product of a human throat.
Kane looked upwards, uncertain how to respond. Finally, he tried.
“
Hullo.
”
“
You were rejected. You have no function here.
”
“
Yes, I know. I was…
”
he shrugged, rolled his eyes looking for inspiration,
“
…just passing. Thought I’d drop in.
”
“
Where is drone six? The object in the retrieval bay is not drone six.
”
Lukyan winced to hear his beloved
Baby
called an
“
object.
”
“
I’m afraid it, drone six, that is, I’m afraid it met with a bit of an accident.
”
Kane waited for an immediate reply, but none was forthcoming.
“
Sorry for your loss.
”
Still no answer.
“
So, I took its IFF unit so I could visit you.
”
“
You were rejected,
”
repeated the voice of the
Leviathan
. Katya wondered what it meant by that. Kane had simply left, not been rejected. At least, that’s the way
he
said it had happened.
“
You have no function here.
”
“
I think I do have a function here. It’s your current activities; they are not within your operational parameters.
”
“
Operations are within acceptable parameters.
”
“
No,
”
replied Kane in a chiding voice,
“
they are not. I’m very familiar with them and you are operating outside them.
”
He crossed his arms – slowly so as not to antagonise the Medusa sphere – and started to lecture the
Leviathan
.
“
You are pursuing a seek and destroy strategy. You know full well you’re not supposed to do anything that is actively aggressive without a human in that seat over there. Self-defence is all very well, but you saw off the vessel that first reactivated you. That should be that. You should have stood down afterwards, because that’s what your standing orders tell you to do.
”
Kane stopped and waited with his chin thrust forward as if expecting an apology.
“
You are incorrect,
”
said the
Leviathan
.
Kane couldn’t have looked more surprised if he’d been told he been spelling his name wrong for the last year.
“
What do you mean,
incorrect
?
”
“
Parameters state that when discovered, strategies of covert offence are to be employed. These strategies are being employed.
”
“
That’s not right,
”
said Kane under his breath. Then, speaking up,
“
What are your targeting priorities?
”
“
Category one combatants comprise the following.
”
The
Leviathan
started to list possible targets in the most abstract ways. Katya could follow them at first, but after a while even Tokarov started to look confused. Then Kane interrupted the list.
“
Hold on, hold on. I need some clarification here. Which target category are we in now? Three? Four?
”
“
One.
”
The colour leeched out of Kane’s face.
“
But you were listing civilian categories. Non-combatants. You were listing babies and the sick.
”
“
Category one targets.
”
Kane spoke as if he didn’t want to hear the answers.
“
What is in category two?
”
“
Category two contains no definitions.
”
“
Category three. What’s in category three?
”
“
Category three contains no definitions.
”
“
What is in category blue?
”
Katya looked sharply at him. During school, they’d seen historical simulations of important battles of the War of Independence. Category blue was the generic name for allies.
The
Leviathan
replied immediately.
“
Category blue contains no definitions.
”
Something was terribly, terribly wrong. The
Leviathan
was prepared to attack and destroy even vessels from Earth. There was only one possible conclusion; the great warship was insane.
Lukyan, Tokarov, and Katya stood in silence as Kane tried to find what had gone wrong. The
Leviathan
answered each question fully and, as far as they knew, accurately, but none of it helped. Synthetic intelligences are complex, but they are predictable at least as far as their motivations and goals, for these are the very things programmed deep into their fibres. An SI simply couldn’t go mad and decide to kill everybody because it felt like it. Nor could a simple malfunction suddenly turn it from a precision weapon into a threat to all sides. The only other possibility was that the vessel had somehow been reprogrammed. Kane was trying to find out by whom in the hope that this might reveal the reasons behind such an irrational act.