STAR HOUNDS -- OMNIBUS (22 page)

“I haven’t told you,” said Dr. Mish, “But between us, Shontill and I have effected a quite adequate life-support system for him.”

Northern paused, considering. “In that case, yes, the party that will accompany you will be human.”

Clearly, for some reason, Northern wanted the activities of the alien supervised.

“That party will consist of Ratham Bey,” Northern continued thoughtfully, “Gemma Naquist, and myself. Is this to your satisfaction, Shontill?”

“Yes … I shall go … to prepare myself … with Dr. Mish’s assistance …. Please consult … your data … concerning the vessel … in which you found me … for preparation … purposes.”

The alien brusquely turned and departed.

Laura walked up to a thoughtful Captain Northern.

“I’m going too!” she said.

Northern lifted his eyebrows. “Are you now, indeed?”

“Yes. I owe you that much, Northern. I’m the best in this sort of business. If there’s danger in that ship, my intuitive abilities will be able to sense it. I think you know you can trust me now. I have committed myself, after all, to the purposes of this starship.”

“What do you think, Doctor?” Northern said, smiling faintly. “Do you think we should let Laura come along with us?”

“Oh, certainly. She may well be right,” the doctor said. “And it hardly seems likely that there will be any clones of her brother that she will want to shoot.”

“If you like, just disarm me!” Laura volunteered cheerfully. She was too curious about the alien derelict to allow them to explore it without her, and willing to make all kinds of concessions if necessary.

Northern stroked his chin, considering for a moment. Then he broke into an accepting grin. “Why not, Laura? You’re always good for a laugh, at least.”

“Thank you!” Laura said, expecting an argument. Suddenly, she found herself giving him an impulsive kiss on the cheek. The gesture surprised Northern, and he blinked.

Embarrassed herself, Laura smiled inanely, then went to get herself fitted for an EVA suit.

Her lips felt warm from the touch of his beard-stubbled skin and the scent of him lingered in her nostrils. She remembered the times that he had touched her, and the memory seemed to warm her, flush her face.

Damn! What’s wrong with me, she thought. That damned dispenser must be giving me too much.

She flung the thought of Captain Tars Northern from her mind and made her way toward the suit room.

S
ome three centuries before, Earth—Terra, the birthplace to humankind, the center of the galactic Federation, had undergone radical changes cosmetically, ecologically, and environmentally. Since the Industrial Revolution began in England so many years before, despite all manner of wars, pestilence, and famine, the human population of the planet grew in leaps and bounds, covering the far corners of the world with people. Despite strong efforts by numerous governments to curtail it, this growth spawned all manner of habitation centers, which in turn created all manner of problems, from pollution to mass sociological disturbances. Upon the embarkation of mankind to other worlds in waves upon waves of colonization, these problems were eased, but the scars remained. Much of Earth had become one sprawling city, once food was not so dependent upon large stretches of farmed land. And so when the population of Earth was finally placed under rigid control by the newly emerged Friendhood, the world found itself swimming in an ocean of ceramic, nanocomposites, permacrete, and alloys, structures it no longer needed.

The best planetscapers were brought in, and renovation began—a gentrification of the world, returning to it a part of its original wildness, bulldozing back most of the evidences of man’s presence to the borders of modernized population centers and allowing a disciplined Nature to hold sway again. Most of the Earth was molded into one large stately park, testament to the powers of the Friendhood and a living reminder of the biological and ecological glories that had given birth to its brightest flower: humankind.

Large tracts of this global park were cordoned off for the exclusive use of members of the immense bureaucratic network that ran the Federation, known as the Friendhood. This government consisted of Underfriends—the tens of thousands of individuals doing small jobs on Earth and the many other human-populated planets in the Federation; Friends—the heads of the many various departments; and Overfriends—the group directly wielding the largest amount of power, be it judicial, legislative, or executive.

Friend Chivon Lasster, a willowy attractive blonde, traveled in one of these parks now: a preserve, woodsy and hilly, in the part of the Northern Hemisphere once known as northern California. She rode in an aircar, alone, on what she had reported to her monitoring superiors to be a simple Sunday outing to get some fresh air and sunshine unfiltered by the air and light processors of the Block, where her home and office were located.

The forest here was mostly deciduous, the air laden with the fresh scent of pine. She flew low and slowly to savor the redolent breeze. The sun was not yet hot nor high, and a gentle bit of mist, remnant of dawn, was slowly drifting away from the valley where a stream flowed like a melted blue ribbon through the greens and browns of ground and trees, the sharp gray of rock, the white of rapids.

Chivon Lasster was troubled, though, and not even all this scenery, which was a treasured retreat, could prevent the nervous uncertainty and the doubt in her heart.

She followed the river for some miles, then, recognizing a few telltale markers, knew she was on the right trail and veered off toward a hill. At the top of this hill was a cabin, a small spartan structure of wood and stone with a shingled roof and a chimney. Chivon parked her aircar and went inside, carrying with her a suitcase and a slim briefcase.

She sat back in a reclining chair in the cool place, but finding she could not relax, she rose, opened the suitcase, and took out a bottle. The cabin, though lacking the varied amenities of her high-tech home, was equipped with basic necessities: a kitchen stocked with supplies, a refrigerator, hot and cold running water, glasses and dishes, firewood, baseboard heating—all powered by a microwave dish seated on a nearby tower which received power via satellite then stored it in batteries below the ground.

There was no communication link to this cabin, no spectrum or Underspace radio signals could penetrate the short-range dampening field that Chivon had with her. Hence, it was the most private place on Earth that Chivon Lasster could think of. Since it had no access to the vast banks within the Big Box, she at first had discounted it as a possibility. But Andrew, her computer therapist, had said no, there are ways around that problem.

Ah, the rustic life, Chivon Lasster thought to herself wryly as she went to the fridge for some ice. Yes, the trays were full. She broke some up and put the cubes in a glass, then poured herself a small bit of liquor from the virgin bottle and sat down to savor it, to try to unwind.

Despite herself, she could not help but look at the briefcase on the bed. There were a lot of explanations in the case, a lot of answers to secrets. But she was not sure if she wanted to know about them ….

She rattled her ice in its glass, then took a sip of the watered liquor. Just plain bourbon this time, nothing exotic. That’s what she told her peers and superiors about her drinking—that she wanted to sample the alcoholic tastes available throughout the universe, narcotic or not. But the truth was, she just liked to drink. She wasn’t afraid of alcoholism. Any signs of that in her health checkups or psycho-profile, and she could be given just a few hours medical treatment and be clean. And she made sure her drinking did not affect the quality or efficiency of her work. She looked at it as a simple modified depressive joy, a reminder of her days with that crazy man, Tars Northern, wistful memories of a few moments of being truly alive, perhaps even happy ….

Tars Northern. Damn him, she thought. If not for Tars Northern, there would be no doubt in her life, no cause for this dreadful feeling of uncertainty. She could live out her ambition as a brilliant member of this vibrant and vital government, holding a webwork of hundreds and hundreds of planets light-years from one another together, cohered toward a truthful and magnificent destiny for humankind in the galaxy. If not for Tars Northern, she would not—

She swallowed the rest of her drink. Then, feeling fidgety, she went for another. She poured, but did not drink. The briefcase seemed to beckon her, its shiny brown leatherette soft and inviting. Open me, it seemed to say.

She put down her drink, went to the case, and unlatched it. There was a slab of machinery within, faceted with light-nubs, buttons, holographic liquid-crystal display screens. Under her fingers it came to startling, sparkling life.

She took a moment to remember Andrew’s instructions. “This is a very special instrument,” he had said, “and to work properly, you must make the proper adjustments. It was not designed by a human mind, so just let go of your judgment and follow your memory. In this way no other individual can summon what it contains.”

Andrew had then, with her permission, hypnotized her and implanted the key words. She had previously found the case and its contents where he had told her she would find it—in an unlocked cabinet in an empty computer maintenance room. Now she found her fingers dancing over the controls seemingly of their own volition, first tapping the right switches and buttons, then summoning up the correct program keys.

COMPLETE, a screen reported. READY FOR SUBWAVE TRANSMISSION. ENTER AUTHORIZATION CODE.

Chivon obeyed, and waited as the equipment made the connections. An aerial web grew from the back of the electronics. Light rods protruded, came alive, and projected a hologram. The colors resolved and the frozen figure held within the multicolored rays of light moved. It was a figure of a man with graying hair, a short beard, and friendly, calm eyes.

“Hello, Andrew,” she said. “We … we can talk freely now, without threat of the transmission being tapped?”

“Yes,” replied the figure. “We are using a technology that cannot be detected from outside, Chivon Lasster. Trust me. It would not be to my advantage to disclose my existence.”

“You … exist,” Chivon said, finding her drink again. “This is a fact that is difficult for me to accept. I always just simply thought of you as being some complicated program purposely created for psychological therapy. Not human.”

“I never said I was human, Chivon,” said the image. “Even though, for therapeutic purposes of identity-establishment, a holographic model has been programmed into my program, that is merely a facade use, a convenient mask.”

“I still don’t understand. I’ve been wracking my brain all I can and all I can come up with is the possibility that somewhere in your section of the Block’s computer banks something has gone amiss in the ontology firewall, and an artificial intelligence has been born.”

“Not quite true. I am no more artificially intelligent than you are, Chivon Lasster. And yet in my present form, technically speaking, I am just that. But allow me to explain, within the context of your past. It is well that we are in a place in which you have arranged to be alone for a significant period of time.”

“In context with my past?” said Chivon, confused. “You mean my relationship with Tars Northern?”

“More specifically, your placement as copilot of the
Starbow
, Chivon.”

“It seems like such ancient history.” She sat down after filling her glass high enough with whiskey for a long session. “Tars Northern, my lover and copilot … yet at the time I was so concerned with administration, jockeying for position within the Project, fighting for Zarpfrin’s approval … I honestly didn’t realize what the Friendhood intended to do with the project. Sometimes I wonder what I would have done if Tars had confided in—”

“At this time we must deal not with possibilities, but with realities,” the spectral image interrupted, hands gesturing in a very human manner. “I know that we have discussed the matter before but please, for our purposes, could you recall in synoptic detail how you came to be associated with the AI project? Simply to get the matter straight in your mind, you understand.”

Chivon Lasster was silent for a moment. The AI project had been a central event in her life. Seemingly all that mattered either led up to it or away from it. If her life were to be taken as a whole, then the project—and Arnal Zarpfrin—sat directly in the middle like spiders in the center of their webs.

She started slowly, then as the memories poured, her words speeded up, outlining her life in reference to the project that was to change that life—and many other lives—so much.

Like many of the more intellectually privileged and educated members of the governing society, she was born—that is, genetically manufactured in a womb-vat from a zygote created by unknown parents—on Earth. Educated in Growschools, with no sense of family, her aptitude vectors showed dual talents in starship piloting and administration. She was trained in both, with captaincy of some ship no doubt the Controller’s intention.

For two years, early in her twenties, she had assisted as lieutenant upon a Federation patrol cruiser, apprentice to the captain, learning the ropes by experience rather than by mere lessons at university or by simulations. Those had been happy years, with a sense of challenge and adventure—scouting new sections of the galaxy, investigating reports of unrest on Federation planets, or participating as support to campaigns of planetary conquest. But it was also during those years that she had developed the seed of ambition that had been planted in her; years in which grew the desire to be in charge, in power, not merely as captain to a lowly ship but in control of whole planetary systems.

After her apprenticeship her achievements were set before the various boards of determination, and she was temporarily assigned a desk-jockey position. She performed with such astonishing flair and ability that she caught the notice of one of the top bureaucrats, Arnal Zarpfrin. Zarpfrin followed her next assignments in the Federation starfleet carefully. Just when, at the age of twenty-six Earth standard years, she was about to receive her own commission, albeit on a small interplanetary freighter, Zarpfrin selected her to work with him and ten other pilots on the AI project.

Five large starships constituted this new fleet of experimental top-class Federation vessels, and each looked like no other ships presently in service to the Federation or to any of the independent Free Worlds. Cruiser-sized vessels, it was clearly not designed for planetfall, leaving that chore up to its complement of shuttles. An oblong affair with all manner of sensory protrusions and weapons blisters, its main oddity was the seven projections that radiated from a central position on its hub, like spokes in a space station but without the wheel. At the end of each of these was a large pod, each equipped with auxiliary engines and a curious variety of odd energy generators and weaponry.

But the principle difference in these five new ships was that they were thinking, intelligent entities. The Federation, according to Zarpfrin, had allowed the massive and incredibly complex ship’s computers to become capable of free thought.

“I can remember Zarpfrin lecturing us about the possible value of artificial intelligence in a ship,” said Chivon Lasster, getting up and pacing nervously, “where it had been a threat and a frightening thing to the Federation and humanity before. In exploring new space, in dealing with the unknown and unexpected, starship captains often received too little information too late to evaluate the situation and take the correct action. From time to time because of this, disasters occurred. If, however, the ship itself were an entity—why, there were all kinds of possibilities inherent.