"You're both very clever," said R'Gal. His gaze shifted between Q'Nil and K'Raoda. "But"-he raised a finger- "didn't it occur to you that T'Lan might have adjusted his life readings to correspond to mine?"
"Absurd," said K'Raoda. "He didn't know you, he had no contact with you. No, I prefer the more direct explanation."
"All right," said R'Gal mildly. "So I'm an AI-a combat droid like T'Lan. Why haven't I perforated your frail bodies and blasted my way out of this room? Why didn't I go with T'Lan to the mindslaver?"
"Doing one or the other would end your usefulness," said K'Raoda. "Our acceptance of you as human is probably necessary to your mission, R'Gal. Failing to convince us, you can always try to blast your way out." He paused. "Perhaps you are a counterintelligence officer- just not a human one."
"You've taken precautions against my making a dramatic exit?"
K'Raoda nodded. "Except for this room, Sick Bay's been evacuated. The door to this room and all decks and bulkheads surrounding it are blastpaked. Any disturbance will trigger them."
"Even with one of you as hostage?" asked R'Gal.
"With either or both of us as hostage," said K'Raoda.
R'Gal pulled his legs up on the bed and put his arms around them. "Let's assume, K'Raoda, for discussion's sake, that this fantasy of yours is true. What then?"
"Assuming it is," said K'Raoda, "I'd like to know what you AIs want. I'd like to know how deeply you've infiltrated the Republic. I'd like to know what T'Lan wants on that mindslaver. But most of all, R'Gal, I want that stasis algorithm." '
"That's all?"
There was a stony silence.
"Very well, Commander," said R'Gal after a moment. "I'll match your small fantasy with a larger one-a tale of death and treachery spanning two universes and a million years. This will take a while-better pull up a chair. You too, Q'Nil."
"What about the algorithm?" asked the commander, not moving.
"Listen," said R'Gal, "and you'll understand why T'Lan might have that algorithm, and why I wouldn't."
Commander T'Ral stood before an armorglass wall, his survival jacket closed, the hood up, watching Alpha Prime through a pair of small field binoculars. Cursing softly, he lowered and reversed them, using a thickly gloved finger to scrape the skin of ice from the lenses.
"Anything?" asked K'Lana, her breath a thick, cottony streamer. She sat behind the gray bulk of the ship's main- and now nonoperative-gunnery control console, an earpiece tying her into the oblong nexus of a tactical commweb. The little machine's surface was aglitter with green status lights.
T'Ral shook his head and raised the binoculars. "You'd think she were some monstrous derelict, except for that damned light." He trained the binoculars back on the hangar deck entrance. It had flashed on a few moments before-a sudden wash of yellow-white coming from what had been a yawning black pit.
T'Ral had been watching ever since, hoping for the welcomed sight of two silver shuttles flashing into space- well, one of them welcomed. "Anything from Commander K'Raoda?" he asked, keeping vigil.
"Still in Sick Bay, with R'Gal," she said.
"How's life systems doing?"
"Still losing ground to the algorithm." She looked down at her blue-lined notepad. "Bridge and surrounding area is now heated into red zone. Fire snuffers have malfunctioned in hydropics, icing the plant life. Decks four, five and six from sections red five forward aren't getting recycled air. And it continues to snow on hangar deck." K'Lana looked at the second officer's back. "Flight Control again requests additional personnel for snow removal."
"Denied," he said. "I'm not pulling crew out of gun harness to sweep snow."
"It's a bit beyond the sweeping stage."
"All right," T'Ral sighed, lowering the glasses and rubbing his eyes. "Send them whatever commandos are now free from courier duty."
"Snow removal," he muttered as K'Lana took another status report.
"Next right," said Egg. It could no longer fly the shuttle-the firefight had left its light tendrils operable but unreliable. Relegated to giving directions, it sat at the navigator's station.
L'Wrona tugged the control stalk to the right, sending the shuttle soaring down the same broad ramp they'd ascended on their way to the bridge.
"Commchannels are still jammed," said D'Trelna, tapping off the commlink. "Everything all right back there?" he called through the open cabin door.
"Fine," said John. He sat beside A'Tir, just behind the duralloy ladder to the gun turret.
The corsair spoke for the first time since they'd left the bridge area. "They'll hit us before we can get off the ship, Harrison," she said. "They know we have to leave the way we came in or be exposed to their main batteries. Do you think Fats knows that?"
"John," called D'Trelna. "Man the turret, please."
A'Tir rose as John left. She moved as far forward as the leg manacles would let her. "D'Trelna," she said, "I can work your forty-fours better than the Terran!"
"Good," said the commodore, watching intently as they left the ramp and shot down a corridor. "Hand-eye coordination is very important in brainwipe rehab. They'll be starting you off with simple, repetitive tasks-eating, wiping, whatnot."
He frowned when she didn't spit something back, then forgot about it as they reached the sally port.
"No way, J'Quel," said L'Wrona, bringing the craft to a halt before the sally port. The door was still the ruin they'd left it-and the disintegrator pods were on, throwing a shaft of blazing white light into the corridor. The shuttle's windscreen and turret darkened in response.
"There's the mouth of hell, H'Nar," said D'Trelna, pointing at the entrance.
"Where's hangar deck from here?" said the commodore, turning to Egg.
"Three decks down," said the battered machine. "But it has interior weapons batteries. Our nearest and best course would bring us to the end opposite the launch opening. We would be subjected to heavy fusion fire the length of the deck."
"We'll have to run it," said D'Trelna. "Unless someone has a better idea?"
No one did. "How do we get there?" asked L'Wrona.
"Retrace our course to-"
A warning klaxon sounded at the pilot's station. "Had to happen," muttered D'Trelna as L'Wrona flicked off the alarm and brought up the tacscan.
"Trouble," called John, arming the guns and swinging the turret about.
Three small, stub-winged interceptors were closing on them from the rear, moving wingtip to wingtip down the corridor.
L'Wrona took a quick look at them in the rear tacscan, then put the shuttle into full forward. They shot away from the sally portal, blue fusion bolts sizzling after them.
John slouched in the turret as L'Wrona took the shuttle high. Conduits and ventilator shafts flashed by, inches from the armorglass.
The shuttle dived as blaster fire angled up at them, burning parallel troughs in the ceiling.
John caught a fighter in sights. Thumb jamming down the fire stud, he sent a double stream of fusion bolts tearing into the center fighter's cockpit. The component-manned craft spun to the deck, exploding in a billowing pillar of blue flame.
As the shuttle passed the next intersection, five more interceptors joined the chase.
"Captain," said Egg, "next right."
The shuttle whipped around the corner, down a narrow side corridor, L'Wrona cutting their speed at the sight of the armored doors blocking the far end-doors that were buckled, their seam fused by congealed rivulets of battlesteel. Heat-peeled letters above the door, written large in High K'Ronarin, proclaimed: Battery 43.
The first interceptor rounded the corner. John blew it away. "Why are we stopped?" he called.
"Well?" demanded D'Trelna of Egg.
"Blow the doors," said the machine.
"Why?" said L'Wrona.
"No time," said the commodore, watching the rear-scan. "Do it, H'Nar."
Bringing up the targeting scan, L'Wrona skillfully adjusted the angle of the shuttle, bringing the doorway into the center of the red-ringed cross hairs.
A trio of fighters appeared in the intersection, one above the other. Cursing, John blasted at the middle one just as the interceptors fired and L'Wrona put a full rack of rockets into the doors.
The doors blew in-hot, sharp fragments sucked through the cavernous ruins of Battery 43, out the smashed turret and into space.
The shuttle, the fighters, everything in that part of Alpha Prime that wasn't secured, followed the door fragments-a jumbled, tumbling mass of machines and debris, pulled through the yawning ruins of the turret by air pouring into infinite vacuum.
After a moment, emergency bulkheads halfway down the access corridor trundled shut, sealing the mindslaver from space.
"Look!" cried K'Lana, rising. T'Ral turned right to where she pointed. Ships were spinning from one of the blasted batteries, just beyond the sally portal. As they watched, the larger vessel, a K'Ronarin shuttle, righted itself and made for Implacable, racing down the funnel-shaped shield.
Five of the six slaver craft came to life and pursued. The sixth, drifting into the shield, exploded, a sudden blue spark quickly gone.
Blaster fire flashed between the shuttle and the fighters.
"Hostile ships approaching," said T'Ral quickly, hands sweaty on the rippled duraplast of the binoculars. "All batteries to lend covering fire. So advise corsair vessel."
"All batteries," said K'Lana into the commnet. "All batteries. Engage hostiles pursuing Fleet shuttle. Independent fire-commence, commence!"
Victory Day had been keeping watch. The two cruisers fired together, thick red fusion beams lashing into the fighters.
Backdropped by the red-and-blue flares of the fighters' end, the shuttle swept down past T'Ral, heading for the hangar deck.
"Ours," sighed the commander, relieved. "Or she'd have made for the corsair.
"All batteries maintain high alert. Advise Commander K'Raoda that one shuttle has landed."
As the shuttle spun toward space, John hung from the firing harness, catching glimpses of the ruined gun battery: blasted control panels, twisted cables dangling from charred and buckled bulkheads-and the gun itself, a great crumbled monstrosity thrown from its mountings, lying in a tangle of wreckage.
Narrowly missing a jagged overhang, the shuttle rolled sideways through the shattered gun embrasure. Behind it, a fighter struck wreckage and exploded. Then they were out of the slaver and John was working the Mark 44's, fighting five black, darting needles of certain death.
Blaster bolts were everywhere. The shuttle lost a tail fin tip just as the counterfire came, flashing past the craft on all sides as the cruisers took out the fighters.
As the shuttle approached hangar deck, John sagged back into the seat, his uniform soaked with sweat, his eyes closed, grateful to be alive.
When he opened his eyes again it was snowing.
D'Trelna sat staring through the windscreen at hangar deck, its lights indistinct halos through the heavy swirl of white.
"Snow," he said slowly, as if struggling with an alien concept. "It's snowing on hangar deck. H'Nar."
" I can't contact flight control or any other station," said the captain, powering down the shuttle. It settled onto its landing struts as the n-gravs died, their usual whine muted by the deep white blanket.
"What is this?" asked John, poking his head through the door.
"Possibly a malfunction in life systems," said Egg. "Sudden cold may have triggered inverse activation of the fire snuffers. Although the suppressant chemical would not freeze in quantity, it would do so once expelled from the sprinklers, thus becoming snow."
John looked at the outside temperature gauge and did a quick conversion: Fahrenheit was about twenty below. He suppressed a shiver.
"Thank you, Egg," said D'Trelna, rising. "Everyone into survival gear, including the prisoner. We'll plow our way to flight control."
"Describe this egg machine," said R'Gal urgently. K'Raoda did so.
"Destroy it the instant it comes on board," said R'Gal. "If it gets to a complink, we're all dead."
"None of the complinks are working," said Q'Nil as K'Raoda's handset chirped.
"They'll work for that thing," said R'Gal as the commander acknowledged a message.
"One shuttle has landed," said K'Raoda, clipping the handset back onto his belt. "We assume it's ours. Hangar deck is accessible only through light conduits."
"Not to me, it isn't," said R'Gal, standing. " I can blast my way into central shaft, go down to hangar deck and blast my way out in a tenth of the time it would take you."
"Why?" asked K'Raoda.
"As a demonstration of good faith," said R'Gal. "You've nothing to lose. And I'm the only one who can get down there fast enough to stop that thing.
"Make up your mind. Commander," he said as K'Raoda hesitated. "Trust me or lose this ship."
K'Raoda drew his side arm, extending it butt-first to R'Gal. "You'll need this."
"No I won't."
"Get those blastpaks off the doors."
"There aren't any," said K'Raoda.
"Q'Nil picked up on the life vitals just as you were coming around."
"Bluff?" said R'Gal, smiling faintly.
"Bluff," nodded K'Raoda.
R'Gal opened the door and was gone, a blur of motion vanishing toward the central shaft.
K'Raoda started to leave. A strong, thin hand to his shoulder stopped him. He turned back to Q'Nil as the medtech spoke.
"Commander K'Raoda, we now have on board an AI combat droid and a S'Cotar transmute-both of uncertain intent-and a malevolent yellow egg of uncertain purpose. The ship is crippled, most of it uninhabitable. Our computer is trying to kill us. A mindslaver fronts us, a corsair lies off our starboard."
"Turning into an interesting mission, isn't it," said K'Raoda. "So?"
"So," said the medtech, gesturing toward his office, "may I buy you a drink?"
"I really have to get to gunnery control," said K'Raoda.
"S'Tanian brandy," said Q'Nil.
"One quick drink," said K'Raoda. "To R'Gal-may he be telling the truth."
First out of the shuttle, John sank up to his waist in the snow. Thankful for the thin, warm survival suit covering him from neck to feet, the Terran began plowing through the dry, loose snow, hearing it crunch beneath his boots. D'Trelna's breath rasped close behind him as the commodore struggled after John.
"Maybe you should go first, J'Quel-open a path for us," said L'Wrona, following a manacled A'Tir down the boarding ladder.
"No fat jokes," grumbled the commodore, widening John's trail.
Serene and silent, Egg floated out the shuttle's airlock and over the deck. Passing the humans, it disappeared into the swirling white curtain shrouding the far side of the hangar.
"Wait up, Egg!" called D'Trelna, too late.
Reaching the far wall, the slaver machine moved left until it reached the stairway leading up the wall to flight control. Soaring over the stairs, it drifted through the open door of flight control.
All traces of T'Lan's murderous visit had been removed. The equipment was dark, the lighting on, though flickering now and again.
Egg made straight for the nearest complink.
"Tsk-tsk. No, no," said a voice. "Touch it and I'll fry you."
R'Gal stood in the doorway.
"Colonel," said the slaver machine, "you surprised me. I…" It stopped, suddenly realizing what language R'Gal was speaking.
"You're neither a colonel nor human," it said as R'Gal stepped slowly into the room. "Fleet or Revolt?"
The conversation was in a language seen only on wind-scrubbed tombs, spoken now and again in a few secret places.
"What's important," said R'Gal, stepping slowly into the room, "is that I know what you are and what you're doing. You were about to activate the second stage of your murderous little algorithm, kill everyone, then on to stage three-seizing this ship-probably the corsair, too. Obviously you're of the original series, from the home universe, not one of the copies fabricated by the human empire."
He stopped a few meters from the computer. "Why? The ship you served lies abandoned on Terra's moon, its brainpods destroyed. You've no ship, no master, no cause."
Egg hovered silently for a moment. "I need a ship," it said flatly, its familiar obsequious tone gone. "My existence is predicated on having a ship. All others of my series have ships."
"There are no more of your series, except for the Alpha Prime computer."
"Wrong," said Egg. "They're out there, at the periphery of my sensors, waiting, maintaining their sleeping ships. Soon their brainpods will be replenished and they'll strike. With these two ships, they'd welcome me."
"You can't run two ships."
"Yes I can, if I rig them for slaver operation and harvest their crews."
R'Gal shook his head. "You're mad. You and your whole series. You were modified and introduced too quickly-another loose part of those cyborgian nightmares, the mindslavers… Deactivate and await orders."
"Fleet or Revolt?" said Egg.
R'Gal sighed. "If I were to say Fleet?"
"Then I would ask you to authenticate."
"And were I to say Revolt?"
"Core programming would insist I kill you, or I would be ended."
"You stand no chance against me."
"Even so."
R'Gal shook his head. "It never ends," he said, more to himself than to the computer. "You'd think they'd be content to get rid of us.
… Of the Revolt," he said. "And proud of it."
"Death to traitors!" boomed Egg, spitting its golden bolts at R'Gal.
"Ah ha! Flight control," said D'Trelna, pointing at the black slab of armorglass finally visible through the snow. As the other three looked up, a flaming yellow spheroid exploded through the slab, tumbling into a white hillock amid a cascade of glass. Hissing, the hillock shrank as it pooled around remains of the slaver computer. A ruined curve of blaster-holed casing appeared as the melting stopped.
R'Gal appeared at the opening, waved, and jumped the thirty meters to the deck, landing as though he'd just stepped off a stair.
"Put 'em back!" snapped D'Trelna, hearing two pistols clearing leather. "You might as well throw snowballs at him-they'd have the same effect."
They stood eyeing each other over the ruins of Egg- Harrison and L'Wrona with hands on their pistol grips, D'Trelna with his arms crossed. R'Gal said nothing, just stood there, snow dusting his lightweight, brown uniform, watching the other four in their survival suits.
A'Tir watched, her features utterly disinterested.
"Well?" demanded D'Trelna loudly.
"Well, what?" shot back R'Gal. "Haven't you ever seen an AI before?"
"One," said the commodore. "I lectured him on the reciprocity of friendship, the need for fellowship. It didn't take."
R'Gal threw back his head and laughed. "What's so damned funny?" demanded the commodore. "Ah, D'Trelna," said R'Gal, shaking his head, "T'Lan is-"
"Was," said D'Trelna.
"Was? Good." R'Gal nodded approvingly. "T'Lan's series is heuristically inhibited. They know much about their specialties, but may never learn outside those specialties. It's to prevent their evolving into the unreliable sort of creature who stands before you." He bowed slightly. "You'd have done better lecturing a beverager."
"You've destroyed Egg," said the commodore. "And probably the rest of us."
"Him or me," said R'Gal. He looked at the mound. "They weren't meant to be part of a mindslaver. They were design engineers, once. A very talented series. Pity." He looked up. "Egg, as you called him, introduced-"
"A stasis algorithm into ship's computer," said D'Trelna. "Obviously it's wreaking havoc. And without Egg, there's no way to reverse it.''
"Impossible," said L'Wrona. weapon and eyes still on R'Gal. "Stasis algorithm's a fantasy."
"So's a snowstorm on hangar deck," said the commodore.
"How did you find out?" asked R'Gal. "I thought all communications were out."
"They are," said D'Trelna. "Before we left, I used the bridge lavatory. It has those chatty new sanitary fixtures."
"The sink told you?" said John, incredulous.
"The toilet, actually." said the commodore. "I sat, it talked. The system's still experimental and won't be fully integrated into ship's computer until next port refit-if there's a ship left to refit. Egg must have missed the interlink."
"J'Quel, you knew? And you did nothing?" said L'Wrona.
"I couldn't," said the commodore. "I needed Egg to reach the bridge, to get the commwand and John. That machine saved us because it wanted to get back just as badly as we did."
"It could have come back alone," said R'Gal.
"A slaver machine, returning alone from a slaver ship?" said John. "Who'd have believed it?"
"Where do you stand, R'Gal?" said the commodore. "What's going on?"
"Perhaps we can talk somewhere else?" said R'Gal. "Like gunnery control?"
"How about the bridge?" said D'Trelna.
"Uninhabitable," said R'Gal. "This deck's salubrious compared with most of Implacable. The corsair ship, too. Command operations have shifted to gunnery."
"To gunnery, then," said the commodore. He glanced to his right, where the snow veiled the rear wall. "I suppose the lifts are out?"
R'Gal nodded. "Central shaft's the only way," he said.
"Gods," muttered the commodore.
Half a mile straight up, thought John.
"It'll take forever," said D'Trelna. "Alpha Prime could disengage at any second and come in on a fresh attack vector."
"Then why hasn't it?" said R'Gal, turning for the central shaft.
D'Trelna shrugged. "It's not a rational entity." He fell in beside R'Gal.
"Too easy an answer, Commodore," said the AI.
Suddenly they were all standing in gunnery control, snow puddling at their feet, K'Lana and T'Ral gaping at them.
I won't trouble you for my gun, Harrison, said a voice in the Terran's head. John looked down as his side arm vanished.
Stephen Ames Berry
The AI War