Wildcard (49 page)

“Don’t you think LuvRay needs us,
though?”

“No, I don’t. I think he’s got this
situation contained. LuvRay is dangerous to touch. She won’t do
something she would regret. This isn’t where we’re supposed to be,
and if we go in it will be hard to get out.”

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know, the signals are mixed. He’s
in Mansworld, but you notice that you couldn’t make out the
background?”

“Alright, how do we get back to the
heart?”

“I don’t think it’s that far. If I can get
Trident back, which I probably can, we’re going to have to do a
little trick. I need your help. I have to talk to Trident for about
2 minutes in order to revert him to my control.”

“How does that work?”

“I’ll tell you later.” Again, he said it.
“Point is, I need you to scream the whole time. It sounds weird,
but it can effectively block coms. When Trident is reactivated,
Dartagnan might trace him here and find us again before I reassert
control.”

“Are you going to give him counseling?”

“Oh, ha ha. We need to do this. Go.” He
pointed at Karl, then began a long code of letters, numbers and
commands.

Two minutes was a long time to scream. He
stopped long enough to draw in a breath. The Sergeant’s eyes
ordered him to continue screaming, while the mouth continued
speaking to Trident.

“Done, got Trident back.” He talked to
Trident more, issuing sharp, punchy orders, most of which Karl
didn’t understand.

“Isolate all coms. Set 4 million random
point alarms versus Dartagnan extending to 4 kilometer radius.
Cut...no… destroy any nano in same range. Search q-tek on any known
particle sets Dartagnan has used. Focus 85% resources. Also, vector
analysis: Probable entry points for Dartagnan. Locational matrix
relative to following navigational points: Center, Mansworld,
8-Ball world. Possibility locational analysis for Poet. Determine
any possible means of locomotion and any means of Star Portal
attachment, epecially long range attachments. Commence. Trident, do
you have anything left for me?

“Yes, I can do a few more things. I could
build some simple nano-tek. Threads, not complicated stuff.”

“Excellent! Just what I need. Can you build
me the toughest nano sphere you can, with a 50 meter radius.”

“Easily.”

“Why do you need it so big?” Karl asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” he said. Again.

“Stabilize it with cross referenced
nano-lattice work for us to climb on, sit on, lay on, sleep on,
whatever.”

“Boss, the blueprints I received are for a
nano-sphere as you describe.”

“Great! q-link ‘em to me. Wait. q-link the
finished product. Make some changes. Move the clingways a few
centimeters. I want it only partially visible, but I need to know
the hidden stuff. Is that on the prints?”

“Yes. It will take a while for some of the
internals. Too complicated while I do these equations. I can do the
sphere itself, though, in just a few minutes.”

“Give us one clingway when you can. Can you
induce gravity inside?”

“Not readily. I will research it when I have
more resources.”

“How good can you shield us from quantum
attack?”

“I can do much. The blueprint has some
methods. That aspect will take a lot of time to build and a lot of
processing to monitor.”

“Gotta have it, T. Do it as you can.”

He seemed to be finished for the moment.
“Can we get food?”

“No. No way. Trident?”

“Very difficult. But you do not need
it.”

“What happened in the heart?” Karl
asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” said the Sergeant.
Fourth time. “More important question, what do you think the
chances are of Dartagnan getting back in here? By the way, Trident
what was it like to work for Dartagnan?”

“It was quite interesting. I learned some
remarkable things.”

“Not as much as he learned, I bet.”

“I learned interesting facts about jumping
between star portals.”

“What did you learn?”

“You can call them to you almost.”

“I bet that’s not a hard and fast rule.”

“Yes, that’s why I said ‘almost.’ You can
call one to you and you may wind up in a different one, but you can
call one to you and you will wind up in one, probably before too
long. If you are human, and especially Karl.”

“I don’t think we’re meant to be out here
too long.”

“Remains to be seen. Since there are unusual
rates of time we could be out here a long time while two seconds
passes on Earth. Is that about the ratio, Trident?”

“I could not possibly calculate the ratio.
Was that a joke?”

The Sergeant gave a few more orders to
Trident. “Can you make some couches or something like that? Out of
the nano-base? Something soft you can sit on during the day and
maybe sleep on at night, maybe two?”

“Easily. There you are.” They almost looked
real. They could see through them and lay down on them. They felt
real, but like plastic. “Can he do more like a cotton-y
texture?”

It got a bit softer but not much.

“That is the best I can do. I cannot spare
the material. I will lose a lot of nanotic material on this,
Sergeant.”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s worth it. This is
our ship now. We might be going back and forth a lot. We’re going
to use it a couple of times, that’s for sure. I know it’s a lot of
material and we could do it smaller but I have a funny feeling
we’ll need it. And that we needed it built now.”

They waited two days, searching for the
center, waiting for Trident to attach if he found it. Dartagnan
didn’t show. It got very dull. The Sergeant was fine, he just
trained and watched old war movies on a nano-screen Trident
created. Karl asked for some entertainment and Trident said, “We
could play a game.”

“That sounds cool. What do you have?”

Trident managed a chess board. Karl was a
few moves from resigning when Trident made a throat-clearing noise
and said “Got your tits on big boy”?

Karl almost stepped back. “What? Trident?
excuse me?”

“Ha ha. It’s me,” the Sergeant said. “Forgot
about that trick already? Guess what. We’re moving.”

The Sergeant told Trident to plot the points
of Star Portals and determine the differences, time distances, and
probable locations. Not that it mattered, but it was something to
do, and it might prove useful.

“Why didn’t you want to go to the box? ”
Karl tried a jab. “Were you afraid?” He was channeling RJ a
bit.

He got no answer from the Sergeant.

“Where do you think we’re headed?”

“Hey, Trident. How bright was it in that
Star Portal where I was trapped?”

“102,400 lumens.”

“Where does Karl think we’re going?”

“What?”

“Simple strategy exercise I learned from
little big man. Ask each other what a third person might
think.”

“He thinks we’re going to the Poet.”

“Nice trick. How did he know that based on
the brightness of the Portal?”

“Misdirection. That had zero to do with it.
Two unrelated questions.”

“How did he know?”

“I told him earlier.”

“OK, how did you know?”

“It’s obvious. Isolate possibilities. I
agree with you. I believe we’re headed to the Poet and I think you
made it happen.”

“How?”

“Not sure. Wanting to go there, mainly.”

“Interesting. Will it always work?”

“I doubt it’s reliable. I think we’ll be
able to make ourselves move every time, but we’re looking for a
place that we don’t know the location of. I think your connection
to the Poet is quite strong, even though you haven’t met yet.”

“Yeah, I like wildsong, that’s for
sure.”

“Me too, actually. You more so
probably.”

“How about you, Trident,” Karl asked,
laughing. “Do you enjoy the poems?”

“I only enjoy the binary poetry, which I
hypothesize is not wildsong, but was created by Juniper. It
appeared very soon after his death. Juniper always taught the MSI’s
and I believe he still does.”

“Wow.”

Trident had established a tiny nano-grav and
the Sergeant was low-g battle training. “Binary poetry. That sounds
great. Please read me some.”

“You would not understand it.”

“Hmm, better skip it then. Wouldn’t want
that. I need to teach you sarcasm , Trident.”

“You have tried.”

“Did S-1 ever try?”

“No.”

“Probably never got it himself.”

Over the next several days a few Portals red
shifted past.

“Karl, do remember the wizard?”

“Of course.”

“You should have killed him. I would have,
in your place.”

“What? Why? You’re kidding, right?”

“Partially. But he was just an icon. It’s
not really killing. It’s more like target practice.”

“Would you kill a Mans or an M-E?”

“I did kill an M-E. Have you heard of
Juniper? But, no, generally not without some serious thought. When
it’s time to kill, when I’m certain, no hesitation. But if I can
delay it, especially without loss of tactical advantage, then I
will. It’s not so good to kill indiscriminately.”

“Does the first Sergeant think that
way?”

“More so than me. I don’t like to kill. It
didn’t bother S-1 afterward, but he almost never took life unless
necessary. Perhaps he liked to keep people in play, I’m not sure.
He would eliminate icons no problem, though. They aren’t
sentient.”

“How can you tell which are icons?”

“It’s a video game to me. I just look at
them, usually. I could be fooled, I suppose. Briefly. But if I
asked a few questions, I’d know.”

“Questions?”

“Yeah, ‘What is love?’ Tell me about your
kids, or niece, or mother? ‘Why are we friends?’. They assume you
are friends if you state it like that. You just met them, you’re
not their friend, and you say ‘Why are we friends?’ They come up
with some absurd reason like ‘You smell nice’. A sentient would
say, ‘We’re not friends. What’s wrong with you?’ Do you get the
idea? Chess pieces.”

“The Jester? Would you kill him?”

“No way. He’s a shill, sure, that’s obvious,
but it would be a bad idea to kill him. No reason to.”

“To get into the heart?”

“I doubt it would work. I doubt anybody
could kill him. The Center has other defenses, anyway. You’d just
get lost. Maybe forever. Anyway, even with shills, you only kill if
you need to. Especially me. The situation lets you know if you need
to cut a shill.” He pointed at Karl. You could cut a shill at
random. A few times. You should, it would be good for you. You’d
understand something you don’t get yet.”

“Have you ever done it?”

“Of course, but not much. It would change
things if I did it. It would bounce back and mess me up. And alter
the world. I could cut a lot of shills.”

“Your violence must be reasoned,” said
Trident.

“Beautiful. My violence must be reasoned.
Karl, you hear that? I think Trident is actually the poet in
disguise.”

They laughed.

“I am perplexed,” said Trident. “Why is that
funny?”

They arrived at a Star Portal after a few
days.

“How do we get in?”

“Trident, loop it with a nano-thread.”

Trident tried, but the thread pulled through
the Portal. “It is not physically there. It is light without
substance.”

“You pulled through it, right? You actually
went past it and came back through?”

“Yes.”

“Did you feel anything?”

“I will try again and reconfigure the
nanotic array for greater sensor capacity.”

“How does that work?”

“I create a data scoop.” Karl asked
questions about the data scoop until Trident said, “It is complete.
I do not believe I can acquire more data. It is emitting primarily
quantum particles, most of which are not mapped. They are different
in many ways than the ones which have been discovered thus far. Or
at least the ones :3: has described. I can do no more alone. Boss,
I need your help. I think this is not a data problem: it requires a
human.”

“What do you need, T?”

“I will pass the data
scoop through again, with modifications, tying it to your quantum
interface. I will transmit at mid-point of the Portal for
1/50
^th
of a second. It will hurt. Do you wish to try?”

“Whatever. Go ahead.”

“I need five minutes to retool.”

The Sergeant hummed military tunes. Karl
asked Trident questions about the q-link.

“Ready, boss.”

“Go.”

“Three. Two. One.”

The Sergeant blew back, slammed into a
clingway behind him with his legs, spun afterwards, and hit the
wall of the ship. Karl flew to him, bounce-running and pulling
himself along. He was barely conscious, bleeding from the nose.
Karl tilted his head up to look into his eyes. The right one was
gone, leaving a bleeding hole. The old Sergeant’s nanotic eye.

“Holy shit, that hurt. Still does. What can
you do medically, T?”

“Configuring a nanotic cauterization. I can
prevent infection and stabilize the socket so that it will accept a
replacement eye if we can obtain one.”

“Better than nothing, I suppose.”

“What did you feel?” Trident asked.

“Pain.” He sat up. “I’m not too bad,
actually. Except for the eye, I seem to be recovering quickly.”

“Interesting. Perhaps we need to find you an
eye, boss. Maybe that is our mission.”

“Maybe. First we find a way into that
Portal.”

“That’s creepy. Do I have to look at you?
Blood is coming out of where your right eyeball should be. It’s all
over your face. God, it’s gross.”

“I can clean it off. Trident will make me a
patch.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Yeah, it hurts like hell, dumbass. What a
question.”