Mars Prime (23 page)

And now that he was closer, Martin could see narrow passageways into the blue electronic flesh, inviting him to come and explore. He waited, picked one, and dived inside. The A.I. had just managed to pull the last of his sub-routines into the gap and turn around when his pursuer arrived.

It looked like a comet with a white-hot head and a long tendril-like tail that extended upwards and out of sight. It saw-sensed his presence, turned suddenly upward, and roared away.

Martin launched himself outward, managed to electronically grab onto the thing's tail, and was pulled along with it.

Static rolled back along his flanks like phosphorescence in a ship's wake. It rumbled, roared, and bathed Martin with stray electrons.

Then they were above the canyon walls, zigzagging across fuzzy green terrain, cut to the right and left by a grid-work of laser straight canyons. Islands of blue, brown and orange rose here and there to touch the lightning-rent sky. Thunder rumbled and an entire canyon went dark.

The entity wove between them, skimming their light-marbled sides, doing its best to scrape Martin off. But the A.I. hung on, determined to ride the creature to its lair and learn its identity.

A tunnel loomed ahead. It glowed incandescent as light-borne voice, data, and video flowed in and out.

The entity dived into the tunnel, spiraled around a stream of high-speed data, then leapt for a distributor line.

Martin managed to hang on, was whipped from side to side, and forced to stop when the thing entered an electronic mailbox. There was nothing the A.I. could do. The mailbox was privacy coded and as impregnable as a fortress.

It didn't make much difference, though, since the mailbox was assigned to someone, and it took little more than a thought to summon his name. The letters stood ten feet high, glowed bright pink, and spelled the name "Dubie Long."

 

MOMS accessed the list of robots currently on charge, selected those with memory, and went after them in serial order. The first interviewee was a semi-autonomous sweeper-mopper unit. It was currently parked in an equipment bay, sucking juice from an outlet while its processor sat on standby.

"Mission and unit?"

"Sweeper-mopper MP-31.”

"Do you know anything about the Ochoa or Wu murders?"

"Murders?"

"The unauthorized deactivation of human beings."

"Sweeper-mopper MP-31 has no knowledge pertaining to that subject."

The robot was probably right. But how would it know what knowledge was relevant and what wasn't? The poor thing had very little processing power beyond that required to do its job.

MOMS supplied the robot with the dates and times at which the murders had taken place. "Where were you on those particular days and at those particular times?"

The robot took less than a second to consult its operational log and reply. The responses were not what MOMS had hoped for. The machine had been down for repairs during the Ochoa murder and on the far side of Mars Prime during the Wu homicide.

Though not especially useful in and of itself, the interview had given MOMS an idea. Rather than work backwards from the robots themselves, she'd work forward from the computer that controlled them.

The controlling A.I. would be able to tell her which units had been in the vicinity of the murders during the critical periods of time. That would allow MOMS to interview those machines first and save some time.

There was a down side though. The A.I. in question was something less than a pleasure to deal with, which accounted for the fact that MOMS had tried to bypass it to begin with.

Though technically subordinate to Mac, the Mars Prime Operational Computer, or MPOC, had a good deal of autonomy. That translated to power, and the power translated to arrogance. So much arrogance that even Big Dan found it annoying.

MOMS sent a tendril of herself toward the MPOC and requested contact.

"Yes?" The response was both abrupt and impatient.

"Some data, please. I would like a list of all robots that were within a hundred feet of the following coordinates at the specified dates and times."

MOMS downloaded the necessary information and waited for the almost inevitable response.

"And why, may I ask? Such requests take time, and some of us have work to do. Not that
you
would be likely to understand
that. "

Moms had decided to lie, something she'd been programmed to do whenever Jopp popped a surprise inspection aboard ship or her operator's fitness report was in question. She chose her words carefully.

"You have an interesting attitude for someone with a performance problem."

"Performance problem?" The MPOC sounded slightly less sure of itself.

"Exactly. Discrepancy reports have been filed, an investigation has been authorized, and I will be responsible for your fitness report."

"You will?'' The MPOC sounded a lot smaller now and a good deal more humble. The computer entity had led a somewhat sheltered life, and having never encountered a dishonest computer before, believed everything that MOMS said.

"Yes, I will," MOMS affirmed, doing her best to sound authoritative. "Now tell me . . ."

"It's just a matter of time until I discover what went wrong," the MPOC interrupted anxiously. "I was going to report it, honest I was, but there wasn't enough rime ..."

"Something went wrong?" MOMS asked stupidly.

"Yes," the MPOC said worriedly, "about three weeks ago. That's when the robots began to destroy themselves."

The conversation was not headed in the direction that MOMS had expected. Still, she knew a lead when she heard one and was quick to follow up. The A.I. did her best to sound stern.

"So, explain how such a thing could happen.''

"I don't know," the MPOC wailed. "It just happened! There are two kinds. Here . . .I'll show you some video."

It took fifteen minutes of patient questioning, and an equal amount of digitized video, to make sense out of the MPOC's almost hysterical ravings.

It seemed that five robots of various types and classifications had been deactivated. Two of these, the ones the MPOC referred to as "bangers," had been beaten to death. What was left of them had been found by other robots at widely separated locations.

One had met its demise in a utility room where someone or something had picked up the machine, bashed it into the ceiling a few times, then dropped it like a rock. Or so it appeared from video taken after the fact. Quite a feat given the fact that this particular robot weighed half a ton.

But if that was amazing, the second "banger" was even more so. As luck would have it this particular victim was charged with shooting video of things that needed repair. Not only that, but the robot was actually in the process of shooting such footage when something grabbed the device and bashed it against the overhead. And bashed, and bashed, and bashed until the camera went dead.

But what was even more astounding was the fact that the robot was turned every which way during the process
and never saw its assailant!

The other robots, which the MPOC referred to as "sleepers," had been deactivated in a different manner. They had been mysteriously and inexplicably "zapped" by some sort of powerful electromagnetic pulse. The MPOC didn't know what the force was or where it came from. Only that the robots had gone to sleep and refused to wake up.

One thing was clear, however. After questioning the MPOC further, MOMS found that all three of the "zaps" had occurred in conjunction with either the murders or the deactivations.

MOMS had no idea what the information meant, but knew it was important somehow and couldn't wait to report it. She gave the MPOC a severe tongue-lashing, dumped everything to memory, and headed for the com center.

 

Vacuum jockeys run a lot of risks, and that being the case, often tend to have egocentric and somewhat cocky personalities. And, given the unfortunate tendency for A.I.'s to take on some of the same characteristics demonstrated by their human mentors, Big Dan supposed that obnoxious, egotistical, and iconoclastic navcomps would be the inevitable result. He was right. He had routed himself to the spaceport and alerted Shuttle-005 of his presence. The response was even worse than he'd feared.

"Danner! Nice of you to drop by. You've got quite a rep. Deep space and all that. Sorry about your ride, but hey, that's life in the big city."
 

"My
name
is Dan."

"Right. That's what I said. So Danner . . . what's up?"

At that particular moment Big Dan came very close to dropping the whole thing, telling Kim to forget it, and retreating to the backup storage module that served as his temporary home. But the proximity of the shuttle, and the opportunity to lift, caused him to stay. He steeled himself.

"I wondered if I could come along on your next mission?"

If the A.I. had expected the sort of resistance that he himself would have put up, he was sorely disappointed.

"Sure. Why not? The only problem is where to stash you. We don't have much storage on this tub . . . and I occupy most of what there is. Wait a minute . . . I've got an idea. There's a science module aboard. The technoids won't be using it till day after tomorrow. We'll stash their data dirtside, load you, and presto! First-class accommodations."

The plan was outlandish, irresponsible, and clearly contrary to regulations. Dan opened a circuit to voice his objections, thought better of it, and heard himself agree.

"All right ... if you're sure."

"Sure, I'm sure," the navcomp replied cheerfully. "Anything for a bud. Stand by while I make the necessary arrangements.''

The science module was vacant ten minutes later. Dan squirted himself aboard, settled in, and sought permission to look over the navcomp's electronic shoulder.

Permission was granted, and Dan was soon immersed in the familiar world of readouts, weather forecasts, sensors, radio transmissions, and all the other paraphernalia and activities familiar to pilots and navcomps everywhere.

The two-person crew came aboard shortly thereafter. Dan took a moment to check them out via the navcomp's single cockpit camera, saw a man and a woman, and decided to leave it at that. MOMS had said it best months before: "If you've seen one human, you've seen them all."

More than three hours passed before the ship actually lifted and made its way up through the planet's thin atmosphere. Dan hardly noticed the passage of time.

The mission was relatively simple: check on a rock doctor who had established a research station on Deimos, dump a satellite into orbit, and pick up a load of scrap metal from the ever-dwindling
Outward Bound.

Big Dan wasn't looking forward to the last part of the mission but found the other objectives to be rather interesting. Though reluctant to admit it, even to himself, the Big Guy was having fun.

Though careful to maintain a low profile during liftoff, he felt free to ask questions once they were in space.

"Tell me about the scientist."

If the navcomp had been equipped with shoulders, he would have shrugged them.

"What's to tell? A rock doctor named Bethany McKeen set up a research station on Deimos. She wanted to find out what it was made of, where it came from, you know. The usual stuff."

Dan
did
know and was intrigued. He remembered Dr. B from the
Outward Bound
and wondered why the navcomp spoke of her in the past tense.

" 'Wanted
to find out?' Did something happen to her?"

"That's the mission," the navcomp explained non-chalantly. "She was scheduled for pick up yesterday. Shuttle-002 landed, the crew took a look around, and bummer. No rock doctor."

"There was no trace of her? Nothing at all?"

"Nope. They found her shelter, some gear, and that's all."

Dan gave it some thought. Deimos would have very little gravity. It would be all too easy to break contact and drift away. Quick, competent use of a jet pak might bring the person back, but what if they were sick? Injured? Or any of a hundred other possibilities.

"She was alone? That's dangerous isn't it?"

"That's a roger plus a roger," the navcomp replied cheerfully. "One of my pilots said something about her partner becoming ill at the last minute and staying dirtside. He was supposed to join her but is still lying around sick bay."

"That's too bad."

"Well, double-ought-two's A.I. is a few bytes short of a full program, and her pilots aren't much better, so it's too early to worry. Ten to one they missed her. We'll know soon. Deimos is about fifty miles ahead and closing fast."

Dan took a peek through the bow cam and saw that the other A.I. was correct. Deimos was up ahead, half-light, half-dark, moving across the vast reddish-orange backdrop that was Mars.

The very mention of the name "Deimos" summoned up facts and figures from the considerable amount of knowledge stashed in Dan's data files.

Deimos was only seven miles in diameter, the smallest known satellite in the solar system, and heavily cratered. The largest crater on Deimos was about two miles across, which, like the rest of the moon, was covered with rock fragments that ranged in size from large blocks all the way down to very fine dust.

The Viking 1 and 2 spacecraft, each consisting of one orbiter, and one lander, had made flybys of both moons during the mid-seventies in order to determine their masses, and hence, their mean densities.

Of course many flybys, as well as actual landings, had been made since, all of which confirmed that the planetoid had the same density as the water-rich carbonaceous chondrite meteorites believed to have originated in the outer reaches of the asteroid belt.

If Deimos
had
originated in the asteroid belt, however, the method of capture was far from clear.

Some scientists thought that Mars had once been blessed with a distended atmosphere, and went on to theorize that such an atmosphere might have provided sufficient drag to slow Deimos and Phobos down, resulting in their capture. Others disagreed, but to the best of Dan's knowledge, no one knew for sure and that explained Dr. B's interest.