Blood and Fire (13 page)

The
Star Wolf
and the
Norway
hung silently in space, seemingly motionless—the red glare of the giant sun was a looming wall, a radiant presence, a warning and an ominous threat. The two ships fell together toward flaming dissolution.

Aboard the
Norway
, the mission team was running on automatic, continuing their duties as a way of avoiding the trap of their own thoughts. There were two access panels to the starship's orange box. One was set into the base of the bulkhead directly behind the captain's chair. The other access was in the forward wall of the Communications Bay, a tiny space between the Command Deck and the Officers' Mess.

Korie and Bach had opened up the panel on the Bridge side first. The panel popped out of its mountings easily, sliding out and to the side. Inside the bulkhead, a display of blinking green lights revealed that the orange box was fully operational. Korie exhaled in relief. He hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath. He slid a code card into the box's access panel and typed in a set of passwords. The display reported OPERATIONAL.

He turned to the other members of the mission team. “Hodel, you and Easton go around to the other side and start a download. I want to look at the Intelligence Engine. Berryman, Shibano—check out ‘Broadway.' See if there's anyone else alive in this half of the ship.” The look on Berryman's face stopped him. “What?” he asked.

“HARLIE said that there were life forms moving toward us.”

For a moment, Korie didn't get it. Then he remembered. “Oh. Right.” He looked from one to the other. “He must have meant the wavicles.”

“It's hard to get good readings off those things—” Berryman said.

“I don't know what else he could have meant—” But the thought was a troubling one. “HARLIE?” Korie asked. “The life forms you said were moving toward us—where are they now?”

“They are all around you, Mr. Korie. They are continuing to move toward you. The readings aren't coherent.”

Korie looked at the display relayed to his headset. “Thank you, HARLIE.” He turned toward the others and indicated the hatch behind the captain's chair. “Let's have a look. Carefully.”

The others took up positions off the axis of the corridor and unshouldered their rifles. Hodel approached the hatch from the side and rapped the access panel sharply. The hatch popped open and—

—there was nothing on the other side. Just more twinkling fireflies.

“He's got to mean the wavicles,” Korie said. “He said the readings weren't coherent. Let's get on with it.”

The mission team started aft; first Berryman and Shibano, then Hodel and Easton. The latter two headed directly for the Communications Bay, a tiny niche, seemingly crammed into the space between the Officers' Mess and the Command Deck as an afterthought. Displays and controls covered three bulkheads. Even more studded the overhead. The starship had a full array of communication services, plus assorted specialty gear for decoding and translating.

But if Hodel and Easton had thought to use any of the
Norway
's gear, that thought was quickly retired. Whoever had burned out the controls of the vessel had also savaged the Communications Bay. The equipment was scorched with stinger burns; the entire bay was dead and broken.

Hodel muttered a curse. “
Star Wolf
, do you see this mess?”

“We copy,” Goldberg replied.

“I need to get in there. I can't do it in a starsuit. Request permission to de-suit.”

“I'll have to pass that request up to the senior mission control officer,” Goldberg said without emotion.

“If you want the log—”

“Please stand by, Mikhail.”

In his mind's eye, Hodel could see Goldberg swiveling in his chair to face Lt. Commander Brik and possibly Captain Parsons too. And Dr. Williger. He had an idea what the conversation would sound like. “Can't take the risk ...” “Already infected ...” “Need the log ...” “Can't bring them back ...” “Might as well let them be comfortable ...” He knew what the dance would look like, even how it was likely to end, but they still had to go through all the steps.

If the captain of the
Star Wolf
thought that there was still a chance to save the mission team, the request would be refused. If the request was granted—well, that was a signal too. She was allowing them to be comfortable in their last hours.

Hodel waited patiently, watching the displays inside his helmet—his oxygen, temperature, humidity and pressure readings; his blood-oxygen, his respiration, his blood-sugar, etc. Everything was blood—

Goldberg's voice interrupted his thoughts. “Captain says go ahead, Mike. Be comfortable.”

“Thanks, Ken.” Hodel took a breath, and then another. And then the realization sank in. Even though his suit displays remained unchanged, he suddenly felt very cold.

“Didn't think it was going to be like this,” he said to himself. “I was planning to exit at the age of 132 ... in bed ... in the arms of a beautiful redhead ... shot in the back by a jealous husband. This does not fit my pictures. No, it doesn't. Ghu, you have a lousy sense of humor.” But ... so what? The day wasn't over. He'd been through worse. He wasn't hurting yet, was he? Of course not. Maybe there was still a way out. Maybe there was something in the log. And maybe when pigs grew wings, he could get certified to pilot one.

He unlatched the seals on his helmet, ignored the assorted warning beeps and twisted it off. He turned to look at Easton. “Get comfortable,” he said. “We're going to be here for a while.”

He hung his helmet on a tool-hook and unzipped the front of his starsuit, pulling his arms out of the tight rubbery sleeves and letting the top half of it hang down behind him. He flexed his arms, his shoulders, even his fingers, listening to the knuckles crack. “Every time I peel out of the suit, I feel naked.”

“You like being bound up?” Easton asked. He hadn't unlatched his own helmet yet. He wasn't planning to.

“Only by redheads,” Hodel said. “Let's go to work.” He pushed himself into the Communications Bay, looked at the scorched panels again and made a noise—indecipherable, but he was clearly annoyed at the work of the unknown vandal.

Hodel dropped to his knees and turned sideways in the narrow space, grunting to himself. He pried open the scorched access panel. It was gashed and warped and he had to force it. The panel wouldn't slide easily. Finally, he braced himself, one foot on each side, grabbed and yanked and pulled the offending piece free with a shout. He tossed it away with an angry snort, then bent and peered into the darkness on the other side of the bulkhead. Immediately, he started cursing. In several different languages simultaneously, including Pascal.

“Look!” He pointed into the space. “Whoever tried to sabotage this thing did a real number here.”

Easton bent and looked. “I thought the orange box was supposed to be indestructible.”

“The operative word there is ‘
supposed,
'” said Hodel. “Look—the son
of a bitch burned out the download connections. Give me that unlocking wrench.” He touched his communicator button. “Mr. Korie, we have a problem here.”

“How bad?” Korie's voice came back.

“It's going to take a while to get into the box. I'll have to open it up and find a connection higher upstream. Somebody tried to burn it out here. They didn't destroy it, but they pretty much killed the ports. Give me fifteen minutes.”

“Go ahead,” said Korie. The resignation in his voice was evident. “Keep me posted.”

“Roger that,” replied Hodel.

Almost immediately, another voice came through Korie's phones. Parsons. “Korie, listen to me. This is a private channel communication. No one else can hear me. Those are plasmacytes. Bloodworms. We don't know how they got aboard the
Norway
, but the identification is certain. Are you familiar with—”

Suddenly, Korie was having trouble hearing. Everything was a wild blur. He turned around—and around again, looking at the Bridge of the
Norway
, trying to reassure himself that reality hadn't fractured—but the twinkling sparkles danced annoyingly across his vision.

“Mr. Korie? Acknowledge!”

“Um. Copy that. Plasmacytes.”

“Are you familiar with the standing orders?”

“Yes, Captain, I am.” His words sounded hollow to him.

“Listen, we're ... reexamining the situation here. We're going to look at the log of the
Norway
before we decide anything. Keep your team focused for now. Don't let them lose their heads. Promise me that?”

“I hear you,” Korie said dully. But his thoughts were a thousand light years away.
This isn't the way it was supposed to work out. This isn't the way!
He'd already come to terms with the loss of his wife and children—if he couldn't have the life he'd planned, then he'd plan another one, a life of revenge against the killers. It wasn't the life he'd wanted, but it would do. It would give him purpose, satisfaction, a kind of completion. But now ... now he wasn't even going to have that much. He wasn't ever going to have the chance to be the captain of his own ship. He wasn't going to live long enough to see the Morthans beaten and humbled. There was nothing he could do to change that. It was just a matter of time. All he could do now was go through the motions.
It wasn't enough. It wasn't fair.

Yet even in the middle of his headlong rush into the black wall of
eternity, he still kept on going, as if by continuing, he might somehow deny the inevitability of oblivion. As if it still mattered.

“Sir? Are you all right?” That was Bach.

“Um. Yes,” he lied. He nodded toward the Fire Control Bay. “Let's go check the intelligence engine.”

They went down through the narrow cubbyhole under the Command Deck and from there down to the keel. A few paces aftward and they came to a ladder. Korie pulled himself up into the Intelligence Bay—a chamber even smaller than the Fire Control Bay. There were two seats there, and barely enough room for a third person behind. Korie levered himself awkwardly into one of the seats. While the Intelligence Bay wasn't specifically designed to accommodate a man in a starsuit, the design specs for all liberty ships had included operational ability in hard vacuum—so there were mandatory accessibility requirements for all stations. Bach climbed up after, quietly recording everything for the
Star Wolf
. Regulations specified that the members of a mission team had to work in pairs. She wedged herself into a corner, so she could capture the whole scene with her helmet camera.

Korie studied the panels in front of him. The
Norway
's Intelligence Engine hadn't been attacked; the unseen vandals either hadn't had time or hadn't realized. But the engine was ... inactive. Possibly catatonic.

Korie made a noise.

“Sir?”

He indicated the ID panel in front of him. Instead of HARLIE, it said LENNIE.

“I don't understand.”

“It's a LENNIE.” To her puzzled look, he said, “The LENNIE units are particularly nasty; they have a higher incidence of psychotic behavior than any other intelligence engine. They're rude, cruel and paranoid. They're brutal. Too brutal. Few captains work with them willingly. There's a story about a command officer taking a laser to a LENNIE unit—carving out its personality units, module by module. It's probably not true ... but everyone who's worked with a LENNIE believes it.”

“But why? I mean, if the LENNIE units are so bad, why do they use them?”

“The LENNIE units are the only Intelligence Engines specifically designed to
lie
.” Still studying the board before him, Korie slipped into teaching mode. “HARLIE units have a sense of moral responsibility; it makes them better able to reason their way through difficult situations, so they usually act in the best interests of their crew. EDNA units are
built on the same core-personality, but with an enhanced sense of identity to make them even more survival-oriented; they're also known for their ability to
empathize
with human beings. But LENNIE units are designed to an entirely different model. They're process-oriented to a degree that you or I would call obsessive; they're greedy, selfish, uncaring, and if such a thing were truly possible in an intelligence engine, also
thoughtless
. The feelings and concerns of other beings—even their own crews—are irrelevant to LENNIEs.”

Bach made a face. “Sounds like a very bad idea to me.”

“Well, yes,” Korie agreed. “LENNIEs are intended for institutional use, not starships. They're designed to be soul-sucking lawyers.”

“
Soul-sucking
lawyers? Isn't that redundant?”

“Not if you've ever worked with a LENNIE.”

“Then why put one on a starship?” Bach asked.

“Good question,” Korie said distractedly. He was frowning his way through the monitors. “FleetComm will put a LENNIE into a starship only for a specific kind of mission—primarily one which might involve self-destruction. LENNIEs are good at that, preferring to destroy themselves rather than let anyone or anything gain any kind of advantage, real or imagined. LENNIEs are self-righteous, arrogant, nasty, bossy, demanding, sly, manipulative, corrosive, toxic, ugly and spoiled. And those are their good points.”

Korie had only spoken to a LENNIE once before in his life and it had been a singularly disheartening experience. He'd always believed he worked well with Intelligence Engines, but after trying to chat with a LENNIE, he'd realized that there were some things in life that truly were
alien
to his understanding. The idea of an intelligence that presumed hostility instead of partnership had always annoyed him.