His Majesty's Starship (36 page)

*

Leroux looked at the display of the aide that Peter Kirton was holding out to him.

“What about it?” he said.

“There’s your assassin,” said Peter.

“An AI? Don’t be absurd.”

Peter shrugged. “Fine. I’ll bring the evidence to the enquiry. See you then.”

He was halfway to the door when Leroux spoke. “Very dramatic, Lieutenant. All right, you’ve got a minute to convince me.”

Peter came back and sat down. “You said there weren’t any witnesses. To a shot fired from a highly automated system like the meteor lasers? You had hundreds of witnesses. Several hundred AIs in the immediate vicinity.”

“AI testimony is not valid in court,” Leroux pointed out, in his best you-do-your-job-I’ll-do-mine tone.

“And?” Peter said. “Are you saying they can’t even give useful pointers?” He leaned forward, hands clasped on the desktop in front of him. “Mr Leroux, to fire that laser, at least three AIs of varying degrees of intelligence would have been involved. Now, the testimony of mentally challenged humans might not be admissible in a court, but if a murderer ran through a crowd of them, I’d at least ask if they saw anyone and which way he went.”

“Go on,” said Leroux.

“There are check gates throughout the UK-1 net and no AI can pass through them without its number being recorded. Seven hundred and seventy three AIs were in the vicinity of that laser when it fired. Seventeen, in my professional opinion, could quite reasonably have done it. They were all connected to the laser mechanism in one way or another.”

“Oh, brilliant,” Leroux said. “I’ll just ask those seventeen and of course, the one who did it won’t lie to me, will it?”

“You can’t ask all seventeen,” Peter said, “because I’ve only been able to track down sixteen. The seventeenth has vanished.”

“Vanished?”

“Vanished. Now, every AI on UK-1 has a function, most of them are technical. I scanned the systems and detected a four percent decrease in the efficiency of the air conditioning. Don’t worry, it’s been compensated for, no one’s going to suffocate. But that decrease was caused by the disappearance of-”

“-one of the seventeen?”

“Correct.” Peter paused to study Leroux. The other man’s sceptical expression was still there but perhaps he was getting through. “Some fragments of code were found in the defence net and from their characteristics I’d estimate a 62% chance of them being the remains of the AI that’s disappeared. Of course, that bit’s just circumstantial.”

“That it?”

“That’s it.”

“I see.” Leroux sat back and looked at him through narrow eyes. “You’ve done more than any of my people, Lieutenant.”

“Maybe I’m better than any of your people.”

“Some might say, suspiciously more.”

Peter frowned, then his eyes widened. “You’re kidding! You think I knew about it anyway?”

“You said it. I didn’t.” Leroux smirked. “Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I want you to go over exactly the same steps you’ve described, on my own systems, with one of my own people watching you.”

“Oh, come on! I was hoping you’d let us get back to work.”

“Not possible.” Leroux stood. “Follow me, Lieutenant. We’re going to get to the bottom of this, you and me.”

*

It was indeed a long, hard day but it was almost over. The work had extended well beyond their regular shift but the unusual promise of double time pay kept them going.

Now there was a gaping hole where once there had been a couple of decks and several compartments. For some reason, it reminded Joel of cutting out a tumour from the healthy flesh of UK-1. Every one of UK-1’s wheels was divided into hundreds of separate, airtight modules linked seamlessly together, and the entire module here had been gouged out. The excision extended as far as the outer skin of UK-1 and that was what he was now standing on.

The step-through generator hung a few feet above the outer skin on a hoist. Then came the most bizarre order to date: they were to suit up. The module was depressurised and a hole was cut in the floor under the generator.

A garbage scow was already outside in space, hanging from the underside of the module directly below the generator with its doors open and inviting. A safety net was slung below it to prevent equipment and personnel falling off into space.

“Next job,” said the head of the detail, pointing at the generator and then at the scow. “Put that into that.”

They did as they were told, and then the last job of the shift was to go outside and move the scow round UK-1 to a vacant berth on the docking strake. Another detail was waiting there to take over. Joel’s shift said goodbye to the scow and headed inside, where all memory of the day was banished from the mind of a tired and hungry midshipman by the thought of food and bed.

*

Subhas Ranjitsinhji read from the aide in his hand. R.V. Krishnamurthy sat at his desk and stared silently into space, listening with fingers steepled in front of him.

“The inquiry is still proceeding,” Ranjitsinhji said. “They appear to have deduced that an AI was involved and are busy trying to trace it.”

“Will they succeed?”

“No, Excellency. The AI was introduced to UK-1 by an agent using the identity of a genuine Euro citizen with no ties to the Confederation.”

“Well done. Proceed.”

“You asked for every item of information we had picked up from UK-1 ...” Ranjitsinhji trailed off and Krishnamurthy raised an eyebrow. His junior’s tone verged perilously on the critical; another instance of his slowly emerging insubordination. Ranjitsinhji could not see why his master would want to know everything – and that, Krishnamurthy felt, was why he was an Excellency and Ranjitsinhji was just a Secretary.

“I did,” he said. “What do you have?”

Ranjitsinhji paused just a moment before speaking. “Understand that this has been gleaned by our AIs from uncoded transmissions that we have picked up. It really cannot be taken as a definitive summary of UK-1’s position on anything.”

The man would never learn. Krishnamurthy had picked up a good deal of information in his time from casual, uncoded transmissions. It just needed a little intuition; the ability to glide over a sea of innocuous facts and pick out the ones that felt different. “Proceed,” he said.

“An external maintenance team has been overhauling the fusion tubes. Routine. They have asked for and received permission from the Rusties to fire a scientific instrument package out of the plane of orbit. Discussion in the Admiralty as to whether
Ark Royal
’s captain and crew should be decorated. A slight increase in energy gained from the onboard mass converters. Preparations continue for the king’s funeral; all delegates are invited to attend ...”

It went on; the myriad tiny details that represented the smooth running of UK-1. “Let me see,” Krishnamurthy said at the end. Ranjitsinhji handed him the aide and waited with his hands behind his back.

Krishnamurthy scanned the list of items and waited for the old feeling to return. Something might strike a jarring note. It would all appear quite harmless but something would set off that subconscious reaction. It was like seeing something in the corner of your eye: the secret was not to look at it directly. Look around it, let it grow in your peripheral vision ...

“A scientific instrument package?” he said

“Excellency?”

“They want to fire a scientific instrument package into space? Why? They have access to the entire range of Rustie data.”

“Could they not want to make their own observations and draw their own conclusions, Excellency? I would.”

Krishnamurthy glanced at him. That impending impertinence was there again but this time the man had a point. “So would I ...”

He indicated that one item on the display. “Expand,” he said to the aide, and watched the fuller details replace the bald summary. The package was to act as a solar observatory away from the electromagnetic smog of the system’s ecliptic. The flight plan had been filed with the Rusties. It would boost for an hour under thruster power to get well away from the ships, and then-

He stood up. “Follow me,” he said.

His instinct was growing as they went up to the flight deck. He was no spacer but he prided himself that he knew enough of the realities of life in orbit to get by. Another Krishnamurthy secret of success was to understand how things worked, and UK-1 was going about this business in completely the wrong way.

He hurried onto the flight deck and over to the Ops desk. “UK-1 is planning to launch an instrument package,” he said. “Do you have anything on it?”

“One moment, Excellency.” The operator scanned her instruments. “Yes, Excellency, it is in the last stages of its countdown and all orbital traffic has been alerted.”

“Can we see it?”

“Please wait, Excellency.” A moment later, the package appeared in a display. It was a squat, blunt cylinder with boosters strapped on around it: a triangle of chemical boosters intertwined with a triangle of fusion. The scale said it was about fifty feet long, thirty wide. It hung a safe distance away from UK-1 and a space crew was in the last stages of disconnecting from it. Krishnamurthy looked at it through slitted eyes. Something was wrong.

“Its flight plan says that an hour after departure, it will change to fusion boost at one gee,” he said, thinking aloud. He had learnt that from the aide. “It is intended to establish an orbit 100 million miles above the ecliptic, but we forget how big such a distance is. Even at one gee, it would take several hours to get there.” He turned to
Shivaji
’s captain. “Agreed, Captain?”

Surit Amijee did a quick mental calculation. “Agreed, Excellency. Longer, because it would have to slow down-”

“So!” Krishnamurthy wanted to dance. “A prideship could take it there for them in no time at all and they wouldn’t have to use up time and fuel braking! It is not right, it is definitely not right-”

“It’s firing, Excellency.”

All eyes went to the display. It was a perfectly normal launch: gas flared from the chemical boosters and the package moved swiftly away from UK-1. Even under chemical power it was moving at quite a rate. The image recalibrated itself automatically to keep the package at centre.

“An interesting choice for a container,” Amijee commented.

Krishnamurthy turned quickly to him. “How so?”

“It’s one of UK-1’s garbage scows, no internal bracing at all. They would have had to do substantial internal adjustment-”

“It is not a package.” Krishnamurthy came to a decision. “Follow it.”

For once, Amijee looked unsure. “Excellency?”

“Follow it!” Krishnamurthy snapped his fingers. “The UK is hiding something from us, and if they want it hidden, I want it revealed. I want us under fusion boost in five minutes, following that thing at whatever speed is necessary to pick it up.”

Amijee turned to his executive officer. “Sound the manoeuvring bell, spin down and power up the fusions. Plot an intercept arc. Contact Traffic Control-”

“Five minutes, Captain,” Krishnamurthy butted in. “If they haven’t given clearance in five minutes, we go anyway.”

Turning back to the display again, he caught Ranjitsinhji’s look.

“A problem, Subhas?”

“Only to say that the complexities of what we are doing are completely beyond me, Excellency.”

It was like lecturing to a child.

“I want some way of getting the Ones Who Command to declare us the senior partner,” Krishnamurthy said, “or even better, the only partner. My first preference would always have been to discredit the UK in some way because there is so much less possibility of it blowing back in our faces. Now, after your little mistake, I finally get my chance.”

“You think whatever this is will discredit them?”

“Whatever it is, it is a secret that they do not want revealed,” Krishnamurthy said. “That is good enough for me.”

He saw the gleam in Ranjitsinhji’s eye: it was either the thrill of the chase or the thrill of deciding his master had finally gone mad. Let him think what he would – Krishnamurthy knew who was right.

“Four minutes and forty seconds,” he murmured.

*

Shivaji
had blasted out of orbit without warning, and there was no disguising where it was heading.

Prince James paced up and down in the flight control room of UK-1 and looked at the radar display in an agony of indecision. It couldn’t go wrong now. It couldn’t. They were so close.

“How soon can you blow it up?” he said to Admiral Dyer.

“It’ll blow automatically five minutes after the fusion boosters cut in,” Dyer said.

“How long until that?”

“Fifty minutes.”

“How long until
Shivaji
reaches it?”

“Forty minutes at their present rate.”

“Damn! How could they know? How could they possibly know? It’s not natural! And we have nothing to send after it?”

Dyer said nothing and James came to the only decision that made sense.

“Oh, God.” He flipped his aide open. “Get Gilmore.”

Gilmore’s face appeared a moment later. “Sir?”

“Captain, we’ve launched a scow and we believe
Shivaji
intends to steal it.”

“Yes, sir. We’ve been tracking them.”

“Get after them! Now. I want you to stop that ship, or convince them that to proceed would be a bad mistake. For the UK’s sake, they cannot be allowed to get hold of that package.”

Gilmore frowned. Dammit, the man wasn’t getting the urgency of the situation. “May I ask what’s in the scow, sir?”

“No, you may-” James bit his tongue to control his anger. “Just- just say that it could undo everything we’ve accomplished here. Remember, nothing has been signed yet. We could still be heading back to Earth with our tail between our legs and someone else could get the prize. Captain, you will get a full explanation upon your return, I give you my word on that. And I don’t give my word lightly.”

A pause. “No, sir, you don’t. How would we stop
Shivaji
?”

“By any means necessary. Use your judgement. You still have Plantagenet on board, don’t you?”

Gilmore narrowed his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

“Then use him. Now move!”