Parker Interstellar Travels 4: The Trilisk Hunt (17 page)

Chapter
20

Magnus had set up a small camp
in one of the more defensible buildings. It was smaller, with doors on only two
sides. Telisa was there with him. The two senior members of the PIT team were
concentrating on finding the Trilisk with Shiny while the others had become
distracted by the Blackvine mystery.

Magnus looked at video feeds
that had been flagged by his scout army. He saw a very high interest score on
one of them.

This could be it.

As soon as he saw a Terran on
the feed, his attention was hooked. It was short; a Terran walked along the
surface of a building and went through one of the alien trap doors. He had the
location. It was near the center of the habitat. The buildings there were
larger and more complex.

Everyone needs to see this.

He sent out a high-priority
group meeting on a new channel. The team linked in quickly.

“Here is a shot scout nine took
from deep within the habitat,” Magnus said. The others watched a Terran in a
UED uniform leap from one building to another.

“Colonel Holtzclaw,” Arakaki
said.

“The former,” Telisa added.
“Now, our Trilisk.”

Arakaki’s mouth moved slightly,
but she said nothing.

She wants to ask if his mind is
dead,
Magnus thought. He considered it.
Chances are, her
commander is really dead. But you never know.

“We’re in luck! It’s still in
the Terran body,” Magnus said. “This is our chance. Everyone, stunners if you
have them. Terran target signatures. Configure your weapons to wound if you
aren’t using a stunner. We’re half an hour out, or maybe an hour if we try to hang
low.”

Magnus rattled off the orders.
The team was smart enough to figure that all out for themselves, but saying it
out loud could stop a lot of mistakes before they happened.

Magnus took a look at the
scouts and soldiers he had available. He told the scouts to move to points
along a large tube shape moving through the habitat to the center, so their
route would be well monitored. Then he sent over a hundred soldiers from
several stations to the area of the sighting to surround the buildings there.
He cast a wide net; Magnus wanted to encircle the target without alerting it.

Everyone was ready in record
time. The PIT team checked their weapons, closed their packs, and assembled for
action. They poured out of the nearest trap door and jumped off from the
outside like a flock of birds taking flight.

The unification of purpose is
impressive
, thought Magnus.

The group stayed close together
but made good time, hopping from building to building like superheroes. In the
distance, Magnus saw a couple dozen soldier machines on their way along
parallel courses.

“There’s a good chance the
Trilisk will know you’re coming,” Cilreth told the team. “I suspect it’s using
networks running here in the habitat. I’m still learning about how things work
in here.”

Magnus did not envy Cilreth’s
task. For Cilreth, it was learning one alien system after another. Fortunately
Shiny would be able to help her, and he was already familiar with his own
Vovokan technology.

They kept up an incredible pace
for over fifteen minutes. Magnus had overestimated the time it would take them.
When they pressed it, they could outdistance the soldier machines in their new
bodies. Though the Vovokan machines could jump off with impressive force, it
took them longer to move from one side of a building to the other to make the
next jump. But there were already soldier machines out ahead of them that had
taken positions around the buildings where they had spotted the Trilisk’s
Terran body.

“We have an unbroken perimeter
now,” Magnus said. “I doubt it would hold him if he wanted to escape, but at
least we should slow him down and we’ll know where he is.”

They made a last series of
jumps. Magnus slowed down.

This is it. We’ll know shortly
if we’re in over our heads with this thing.

“Bring up your tacticals if you
don’t have them already. You’ll see the building. Soldiers will go in first.”

“Incoming!” yelled Caden.
Everyone checked his feed and turned the same direction.

“Hold your fire,” Arakaki said.
“Those are attendants.”

A small swarm of attendant
spheres approached. No one fired. The attendants arrived and augmented the pair
everyone already had. Now each team member had five attendant spheres.

“Nice! We’ll need them,”
Siobhan said.

“The soldiers are going in,”
Magnus said. One hundred and twenty of the machines lined up around fifteen
doorways and started to assault. It took less than thirty seconds for them to
find resistance. Everyone watched the feeds.

“Machines like we fought
before,” Arakaki said. “I saw the flat disc ones.”

“Beetles,” corrected Caden.
“And the torpedo-shaped laser ones, the cutters.”

“I’ve got the scouts around
here set to alert us for anything. None of the turtles have been spotted, and I
doubt there are any in that building,” said Magnus.

They watched the feed for
another sixty seconds. Robots killed robots inside. No one caught sight of
Holtzclaw in any of the feeds.

“I feel like it’s a trap,”
Imanol said nervously. He kept checking all around.

“It might be. Imanol,
concentrate on the scout feeds from our flanks. The rest of us can monitor the
battle inside.”

“Will do,” Imanol said.

Magnus noticed some of the
robots he thought had been killed were showing up in visual feeds of other
soldiers in the building. They were fighting other soldiers, too.

Dammit.

“Some of my robots are
malfunctioning,” Magnus said.

“Hacked?” Siobhan asked.

Magnus frowned. “Maybe.
Probably. A lot of robots dead on both sides. Time to go,” Magnus said.

“Cilreth,” Magnus sent on a
private channel. “I see some oddities. Please send remote kill commands to all
the soldiers who aren’t online. Repeat, send redundant kill commands to all the
soldiers that are supposed to be dead.”

“Got it,” Cilreth said.

Magnus saw there was a wide
swath of the building’s center that had not been penetrated. He decided that
was where they needed to go.

“Three doors on this side.
These two are pretty close together, and both lead to corridors that go deeper
into the building,” Arakaki said. She had probably made the same observations.

“We’ll go inside in two groups
then,” Magnus said. “Caden and me on point of each group. Arakaki, Siobhan,
Imanol, behind Caden. Telisa and Maxsym back me up. I’m going in this left
door. Caden’s group on the right.”

Everyone moved. They seemed
calm, as if it were another VR drill—another beneficial effect of all the
training. They were at the doors faster than their old selves ever could have
moved.

Let’s hope it’s fast enough
, he
thought.

Magnus sent his attendant
spheres through first. He saw a corridor with no enemies, so he dove through
and joined them. His rifle was up and ready to shoot. He moved down the
corridor, half expecting the gravity to shift on him. He could see the visual
feeds of the others. He paid more attention to Caden’s feed so he would
know if the second group hit trouble.

They accelerated down the
corridor. He had working soldier machines within fifty meters of their
location. They were headed straight into a hotspot.

I bet the Trilisk is dead
ahead.

He sent an attendant ahead to
the end of the corridor. He paused to check a side door.

“Telisa, put an attendant on
that,” he said, and kept going. Telisa sent a nonverbal acknowledgement through
her link. His attendant reached the end.

Gzzzzt. Snap.

The attendant fizzled and
popped as it was hit with a laser. Magnus cursed.

He moved closer to the wall on
his left. Then it pulled him toward it, sticking him in place. He cursed again.
They were almost to the end of the tunnel, but the attractive forces changed
here. He started crawling on the “side” wall.

Booom. Booom.

The sounds of shots somewhere
ahead echoed in the corridor.

“Stay back just a bit,” he told
the others. He contacted the closest soldier and told it to advance into the
room ahead of him from another direction. Caden was almost to the end door of
his corridor.

“We check together. Keep some
of your cover,” Magnus said. Caden sent his assent. Magnus crawled the last
couple of meters. He could see the others about five meters behind him. He came
to the edge of the end of the corridor. His four remaining attendants were
ready to cover him. Up ahead, he saw a couple of the walls of a bigger chamber
and some Blackvine junk clinging to surfaces at odd angles.

Magnus raised his rifle to
fire. Suddenly he realized the enemy was behind him. He turned around.

***

Telisa’s heart was pounding as
they came to the end of the corridor. She wanted to get to the next room and
find some cover. The attractive force shifted, so she started to walk on a side
wall. Magnus dropped to crawl forward. Telisa and Maxsym slowed way down,
crouching.

Booom. Booom.

“Stay back just a bit. We check
together. Keep some of your cover,” Magnus said. The team heard the message but
it was tagged for Caden. Telisa saw Caden was at the end of the other corridor
as well. Magnus crawled the last couple of meters. He took a quick peek back at
Telisa.

We’re exposed out here
.
Magnus got to the end of the corridor. He sent a quick message out on the
channel.

“Our target is here.”

His rifle rose, and then Magnus
turned back toward Telisa and Maxsym.

“Keep him in your sight!”
Telisa yelled. Then she saw Magnus raise his rifle toward her. She felt
confused for a second.

Oh, just like in training.
Something is behind us!

Telisa ducked lower to give
Magnus a clear shot past her. Something was terribly wrong. Why did he turn his
back on the Trilisk? It must be a trap.

Booom. Booom.

Magnus’s rifle thundered.
Maxsym went down beside Telisa. It looked more like a fall than a drop to a
prone firing position.

Who shot him?

Booom. Smack!

One of Telisa’s attendant drones
struck another drone in midair. It had never occurred to her the drones would
ever collide. Another drone whizzed by.

What? Whose was that—

Booom.

Magnus shot Telisa. She felt
the slug hit her high in the chest, going in above her clavicle. There was no
pain. Just a penetrating smack. Then she felt the strength leave her body. She
toppled forward from her crouch and met the floor.

Booom.

Another round came in, piercing
the top of her arm from Magnus’s direction.

Five entities, what went wrong?

Telisa weakly coughed up
bubbles of fluid from her lungs. More loud shots rang out. The last thing she
noticed was the taste of blood in her mouth.

Chapter
21

Telisa awakened inside a
Trilisk column. The clear surface of the inner tube still encased her. She waited
as the tube slowly dropped from the ceiling.

Uh oh. Is something wrong with
the supersedure?

She saw Cilreth standing
outside.

“Hi,” Telisa said aloud as soon
as the barrier had dropped below her head.

“Hello, Telisa,” Cilreth said.

“I don’t like that tone. What’s
up?”

“You don’t… remember?”

“Five Entities, Cilreth, you’re
scaring me. You just stuck me in here, as far as I know. Am I the copy or the
original?”

“It’s been days. Your duplicate
has been killed,” Cilreth said.

“How? Wait. Why don’t I remember
it?”

“I thought you would. I thought…
there was a fight. A bad one. Your copies turned on each other. I think the
Trilisk can control minds. I guess it must have been able to block your memory
upload. Either that, or, it was so traumatic you’ve—”

“No. I would remember,” Telisa
asserted.

Suddenly Cilreth became very
stiff. She had an odd look on her face.

What? Oh. She is afraid the
Trilisk did something to me. Corrupted me instead of doing the memory download.

“It’s really me, Cilreth. Ask
Shiny to see. I’ll just wait here.”

Cilreth relaxed incrementally.

“Original Telisa verified,”
Shiny’s voice announced in Telisa’s link.

Cilreth smiled.

“Crap. For a second there, I
thought…”

“You thought I was about to
turn on you.”

“Yeah.”

“The others?” Telisa asked.

“We saw all the copies die
except Caden2 and Magnus2. But they’re waking up here, too. So I guess it had
them kill each other.”

“I need to catch up. Maybe we
all will, if the others don’t get their memories either.”

“Recordings collected,
organized, assembled for review,” Shiny buzzed. “Ready for perusal, intake,
absorption.”

“Hi Shiny. Thanks. The scouts
saw it all?”

“Yes, a lot of it,” Cilreth
said. “There were some link records and attendant feeds, too. We have it all
ready for you to watch. I’d suggest you go to your room and just soak it all
in? You can talk with the others once they’ve accepted what happened.”

Telisa nodded. She left Cilreth
and retreated to her room to watch her own death.

***

“Telisa?” It was Magnus. Telisa
had been watching the scout feeds for hours. She had skipped over some of it
but took in a lot of the events, including the end.

“Hi. How are you taking this?”
she asked.

“No words,” he said.

“Yes. I think I’ve learned
something, though.”

“Don’t hunt a Trilisk?”

“I think the Trilisk could
control us because we were augmented copies created by the machine. It didn’t
control our minds before. It had ample opportunity. I think this is some kind
of built-in feature of the copies that makes it much easier.”

Magnus didn’t answer for a moment.
“Interesting. But the Trilisks can do almost anything, it seems. Or it may have
discovered something here it could use that it didn’t have back on Chigran
Callnir.”

“It just makes so much sense.
We’re toying with supersedure devices so powerful and complicated. Something
its kind built. I believe the Trilisks could learn to control other minds,
since the columns can move them around between aliens. But this one would have
done that. It’s on the run. It doesn’t have a lot of technology to use, or we
would have had no chance. That’s what we already figured out: it had to hunt
the Terrans one or two at a time. The augmented copies must have loopholes for
any Trilisk to access. Obviously it was able to keep us from getting the
memories of what happened.”

“That’s our only hope at this
point if we continue,” Magnus said. “We might cut our losses and run.”

“We won’t,” Telisa said, though
she heard the reason of his words. “I need to talk with Cilreth about it.”

“Okay. I’ll be around soon.”

Telisa left her room and found
Cilreth in
Clacker
. She had set herself up in a lonely, dark room to
concentrate on the computer interfaces. From Telisa’s point of view, it looked
like an empty space, but she knew Cilreth had it set up to show her a lot more.

“Oh, hi, Telisa. I see you’re
out of the tubes,” Cilreth said. “How are you taking it?”

“You see I’m out? You let me
out.”

“How are you taking it?”
Cilreth persisted.

“It was so strange watching
that video, Cilreth,” Telisa said. “Like watching one of those old action virtuals
that used to be popular, when you’d scan your body in and become the star. It
wasn’t me, but it was me.”

“It was disturbing. At least
we’re alive,” Magnus said, linking into their conversation.

Cilreth nodded.

“We have another… major… problem,”
Cilreth said.

“We do?” Telisa asked.

“Shiny,” Cilreth said. “He’s
not our Shiny. We’re out here with Shiny2.”

Telisa’s mouth literally
dropped open.

“How?” Magnus snapped.

“Shiny copied himself. He
pulled some shenanigans with the copy; I don’t know what. I don’t know how. But
there are two of him awake at once,” Cilreth explained. Magnus dropped several
curses as she spoke. “He has some insurance, I guess, that the improved version
wouldn’t turn on him. Plus, remember, the ‘improved’ version is not as much improved
with him, as I guess his race already has more genetic augmentation than ours
does.”

“He told us he didn’t have the
ability to do complicated things with the devices,” Magnus said. “You see? He’s
not trustworthy.”

Telisa felt anger at Shiny too.
He had lied to them.

“I don’t think he can do it
himself,” Cilreth said. “He… Shiny2 kind of implied that it takes the Trilisk
AI to do it. It was some kind of prayer.”

“Of course,” Telisa said. “The
Trilisk AI is even more than a prayer interpreter and implementer. It’s
invaluable for those alone, but it can also be used to manipulate other Trilisk
tools that we’d be unable to use otherwise.”

“Anyway… if the Trilisk figures
out our Shiny is a superseded copy, then I assume it can take him over, too,”
Cilreth said.

“I see you came to the same
conclusion. The copies are controllable,” Telisa said.

“Honestly, Shiny told me that
was his conclusion.”

“I suppose he wants to run away
then, before he gets taken over,” Telisa said.

“He wants to continue the
mission,” Cilreth said.

“Meet me in the mess,” Magnus
said to Telisa privately.

“I’ll have to think about the
mission,” Telisa said. “We can talk about it once everyone is… I almost said
‘themselves again’.”

Magnus dropped out of the
conversation. Cilreth nodded. She looked worried.

“Is anything else wrong?” asked
Telisa.

“Promise not to be mad?”
Cilreth said.

“What’s up?”

“I made a copy too. I’ve been
working with her to understand Vovokan tech, with a study of the habitat on the
side. We’re on opposite schedules. Every day we sync up.”

“Every day? Wow.”

“Say something.”

“It’s okay. We offered you your
copy before.”

“But we aren’t supposed to run
both at once.”

“Oh, you mean… one is sleeping
while you’re working? I thought you meant the other one is in stasis.”

“That’s not how it worked out,”
Cilreth said.

Telisa shrugged. “At least you
two are… making lots of progress.”

“Good. Okay, that’s it,”
Cilreth said. But Telisa thought maybe she was leaving something out.

***

Telisa met Magnus an hour later
and tried to eat. She could not put much down.

“I’m keeping a man prisoner.
I’m not doing any better than the UNSF,” Telisa said.

“Oh, the old ‘if we do that
we’re no better’ crap? Forget about that,” Magnus said. “Actions are performed
under circumstances. If you do things under a different set of circumstances
than they do, then you’re different. Are you holding him prisoner to stay in
power? Or just to live free? Just to survive?”

“How can we change the world
without killing people? Without imprisoning them?”

“Maybe you can’t. At least
you’re thinking about that guy and feeling guilty. You think one of the hundred
people in charge back home would blink an eye at it?”

“It starts small. Power
corrupts, right?”

Magnus nodded. “When I was a
kid I used to dismiss that line. But the older I get, the more I see it. I say
we just topple the United Nations and let the individual districts run
themselves. It won’t be us. That way, they’ll be just like frontier planets.
Everyone can make their own local rules, and there’s a place for everybody.”

“I try to tell myself those top
one hundred are terrible people. That they deserve what they get.”

“Life is not black and white.
You’re old enough to know it. You can still make an improvement. We’re not
acting lightly. Don’t turn back. Someone has to do something, and we have the
power to do it. And what if you find out some of them are Trilisks?”

“If I knew they were Trilisks,
then I would be able to do it. I could give it my all without guilt holding me
back. And if there are Terrans who know…”

“Probably no Terran back home
knows. Why would a Trilisk reveal itself to a subject?”

Telisa shook her head. “It’s
all crazy. I have to tell you something about Cilreth.”

“Yes?”

“Telisa, Magnus. Come here
please,” Cilreth urged.

“Telisa. Did you know Cilreth
has copied herself?” Imanol sent to her at the same time.

Magnus lifted an eyebrow.
Perhaps Imanol was talking to him, too.

They went to the training
gathering room, where everyone seemed to be having a confrontation. Caden and
Siobhan were just arriving. Telisa saw no sign of Maxsym. Two copies of Cilreth
were present. Even knowing about it already, Telisa felt shock to see both of
them standing together.

When he saw the new arrivals,
Imanol pointed an accusing finger at Cilreth. “As you can see, there are two
Cilreths now,” he said. “And I do mean
now
; they’re both awake.”

“How did you find out?” Magnus
asked.

“Just ask
Clacker
for a
crew manifest,” Imanol said. “You’ll see them both. Wait. Did you already
know?” Imanol’s voice rose.

“No,” Magnus snapped. “But we
all decided for ourselves whether or not to get copies. Our problem is
different from that. We now believe the Trilisk can control the supersedure
copies.”

Caden’s face showed his
reaction to the revelation. He looked surprised, then relieved.

He was wondering why he turned
on us. Feeling guilty about it.

“Put her back into a Trilisk
column!” Imanol demanded.

“We haven’t all had a chance to
think or talk about this,” Cilreth said.

“We’re out there risking our
lives, and you’re in here playing with yourself. Literally,” Imanol said. “She
has to go away!”

Literally? Is he guessing that?
Telisa
thought.
But I guess I figured as much myself…

“I said give us a second,
asshole!” Cilreth said. She turned to confront Imanol. She looked as if she
might attack him.

“Give her some room, Imanol,”
Telisa said sharply. She walked over to Cilreth.

“How do we even know the right
one is going back in?” Imanol persisted.

“Shiny will know,” Telisa said.

“He’s copied too!”

“I’ll verify it myself,” Telisa
said. “We can test the strength of her muscle tissue with an electric shock.
The Trilisk versions of ourselves are considerably stronger, I can spot it. Ask
Maxsym to do the examination if you have to. Surely you would trust his
conclusion?”

Imanol finally seemed to acquiesce.

It is a little odd,
Telisa
thought.
Can you really fall in love with yourself?

Telisa shook her head. Terrans
could no longer keep up with the ramifications of their own technology, much
less when they discovered whole new problems from alien tech overnight.

“We know she has to go back,”
Cilreth said quietly. “You’re right, Imanol. You’re just also a nissniss.”
Telisa had heard the NSNS insult before: a noisy source/null sink. It basically
meant he was a loudmouth waste of air that could not listen or learn.

Imanol is actually none of
those, but he’s rude and insensitive, no doubt about that.

“Maxsym, please meet us in one
of the tube rooms,” Cilreth sent publicly. Telisa walked them to the rooms. The
others remained behind to discuss the situation. Telisa wanted to hear it, but
Cilreth needed her more at the moment. Magnus would fill her in later.

Cilreth embraced Cilreth2.
Finally they parted.

What did she tell herself? Most
likely: I’ll get you back out of there. As soon as I can.

Cilreth2 walked into an open
Trilisk tube. The clear barrier rose, surrounding her. Then the opaque part of
the tube followed suit until Cilreth2 was out of sight and presumably in
stasis.

“Shiny, you have to stay back
here and keep a low profile. If the Trilisk becomes aware of you here, you’re a
threat, and he can shut you down or just have you kill the rest of us—maybe
even yourself.”

“Affirmative, correct,
agreement,” Shiny said.

“Can you lock yourself out of
Clacker
?
If you are enslaved over on
Thumper
, maybe Cilreth can run
Clacker
here.”

“Negotiation, time sequenced
events: Shiny locks out, deauthorizes, disconnects Shiny from
Clacker
;
Terrans kill Trilisk, free Shiny. Shiny access returns.”

“I promise, Shiny.”

“Beginning, embarking,
launching.”

“Cilreth,” Telisa said.