Parker Interstellar Travels 4: The Trilisk Hunt (18 page)

Cilreth sent Telisa a private
response. “Just a sec. I’ve got to watch him do this…”

Exactly. Good,
Telisa
thought.

Maxsym arrived.

“Is this an original?” she
asked him. Maxsym froze a second, blinked, and then got out the analyzer he had
received from PIT.

“You know what? Let’s not trust
that thing. Just in case,” Telisa said.

Now I’m getting really
paranoid.

Maxsym took her new suggestion
without comment.

“I’ll be back,” he said, and
scrambled away.

“I’ll have to examine this for
a while,” Cilreth said. “What now?”

“Let’s go see what we missed,”
Telisa said. “Wait a sec. Maxsym is coming back.”

Maxsym arrived. Telisa did not
see any new piece of equipment.

“I need your arm out of the
suit,” he said stiffly.

Maxsym needs to relax. It will
take him awhile to know us, I guess.

Cilreth told her suit to
unclasp along the front. One side of her suit fell aside, and she pulled her
arm out. One breast lay exposed, covered only by her super-thin undersheers.

Maxsym looked uncomfortable.
He cleared his throat and then proceeded.

Something of a prude?
Telisa
wondered.

“Lie down, please,” he said.

I feel like a doctor’s
assistant here to observe.

Cilreth looked around for
something to lie on. This part of the ship was mostly empty, so she shrugged
and dropped to the deck.

Maxsym knelt beside her. “I
need your hand,” he said. Cilreth lifted it.

Maxsym took her arm and brought
it perpendicular to the floor. Then he took a device out of a pocket and
touched it to Cilreth’s arm. Telisa heard a soft snap. Cilreth bucked.

“OUCH!” Cilreth yelled. She
recoiled. “Could Cthulhu please perform the examination instead?” she said
sharply.

“This is the original,” Maxsym
said. “An augmented arm would have contracted much more forcefully.” He stood
and took out his analyzer. “The suspect device confirms my informal
conclusion.”

Suspect device.

Telisa nodded. “Okay. Sorry,
Cilreth.” To Maxsym, she said, “It’s not really suspect. But we were bitten by
Trilisk technology recently. As you probably guessed, we produced that with a Trilisk
trick.”

Maxsym nodded but asked no
questions.

Cilreth seemed mollified by his
assertion she was the original. She replaced her arm into the suit. “That’s
okay,” she said. “No hard feelings, Maxsym. I’m not Imanol,” she added with
vitriol.

“I find him very irritating,”
Maxsym said frankly.

“Okay, Magnus is waiting for us
back by his room. Come along, let’s see if any decisions were made without us!”

The three of them walked to
meet Magnus. He looked surprised to see so many of the crew show up.

Maybe he wanted to get me alone
,
Telisa thought.

“What did we miss?” Telisa said
aloud.

“Mostly worry about the other
copy: Shiny2,” Magnus said. He met Cilreth’s gaze. “And some gossip about the
Cilreths. You’re all the rage on the local grapevine.”

Cilreth laughed. “I guess so.”

“Does Shiny know about the
Trilisk control problem?” Telisa asked.

“I doubt it. Suppose you are
Shiny2. Do you want Shiny to know you’re a potential Trilisk mind slave? I bet
Shiny would just kill his copy,” Cilreth said.

“We need to put Shiny2 away and
get Shiny back here,” Telisa said.

“It’s a risk having Shiny2
awake,” Magnus agreed. “One good thing is that our copies didn’t know about
it.”

“Oh, yes. I forgot about that.
Do you think the Trilisk has access to their knowledge?”

“No way to know,” Cilreth said.
“I’m going to try to get a message out to Shiny. Get him to come help us.”

“Don’t hold your breath. He’s a
long way away,” Telisa said.

Chapter
22

Maxsym stared up at the jagged
buildings in the sky. They were amazing.

I’ve seen these before. My
other self. Do I remember that?

Maxsym decided he did not.
Their familiarity came from the scout robot feeds he had watched during his
review.

The rest of the team must have
been having similar thoughts. They stared up at the sky for long moments.
Everyone wore a flat parachute pack on their back. A squad of twenty or thirty
Vovokan attendant spheres flew out of the port behind them and spread out into
the sky.

Our friendly alien searching
for our not-so-friendly alien.

“We don’t know if the Trilisk
moved or not,” Magnus said. “We lost vision in the area after the last battle.
I don’t want to make any assumptions. We’ll move forward to a point halfway
between here and the center of the habitat and gather more intelligence.”

“Learning more about the
Blackvines might help somehow,” Maxsym said. He could not help but try to get
himself some more time to study the creatures. He worried his plug might be too
transparent, but despite his motivation, what he said might be true.

“I agree,” Telisa said. “You
keep learning about them. Cilreth is still learning about the networks of the
habitat, so work closely with her.”

Maxsym nodded enthusiastically.

Anything to focus on these
amazing creatures rather than fight the other, so deadly one.

He heard a new noise. He looked
down into the depression that surrounded the lock. Four large walking machines
stomped up through the entrance. Each was the size of a land car.

“Those don’t look like any of
Magnus’s machines,” Siobhan noted.

“They’re Vovokan walkers. War
machines. Shiny can fit inside, but they can run themselves as well,” Telisa
said. The walkers hopped out of the depression on powerful legs. Then they
jumped into the sky. Maxsym felt a sense of wonder watching them fly up among
the houses, growing smaller and smaller until they disappeared into the
distance.

He looked across the flat, lit
surface on the interior of the habitat.

Those black creatures created
all this? Hard to believe.

Maxsym went over what he knew
of them. Slow moving creatures, seemingly solitary, perhaps phobically so. They
pretended to be sessile in the presence of strangers. Or else they were somehow
gripped by panic or overcome by an instinctual need to freeze. He suspected
from his analysis so far they used both asexual and sexual reproduction.
Obviously, the creatures were intelligent.

“So how does a society function
without communication?” he said aloud.

“They communicate. Not
directly,” Telisa said. “They change the environment around them. That is a
kind of communication, really. They put entries into their shared travel
reservations. They leave behind machines that can be conveniently used or
cannibalized.”

“It seems so very… less
efficient than direct communication.”

“Perhaps. Yes, I think so. The
other creatures we’ve met made more use of communication. I’d say it is an
advantage. Just not one that every type of creature in the universe enjoys.”

“What could be the evolutionary
pressure for such extreme individualism?”

“Disease,” Imanol said. “They
have to stay away from each other.”

Maxsym nodded. “Possible, I
suppose.”

“Perhaps they’re very violent,”
Caden said. “Or maybe there isn’t enough food for all of them.”

“Sunlight? Should be plenty.”

“Here, yes,” Caden continued.
“What if their home planet had only a few sunny spots in dense jungles and they
had to fight to the death over them?”

“If only we could just ask
one,” Siobhan said.

“I bet they don’t even know,”
Maxsym said. “Would any of them serve as historian? They each only acknowledge
and accept themselves. They would have to be immortal.”

“Maybe they are,” Siobhan said.

Maxsym nodded. He doubted the
creatures were immortal, but he had not managed to perfect any models of their
internal metabolism to try to find out. Perhaps if they would let him sit out
the hunt… but they would just assume he was afraid now because his superior
copy died.

And they would be right, to
some degree,
he thought.
But truly, I could do Terra more
good learning about the Blackvines than playing space mercenary. Telisa seems
happy to let me study them. She understands.

Yet Maxsym knew he was also
part of the combat team. In a group so small, everyone needed more than a
specialty. They were each scientist, explorer, soldier, and… entrepreneur?
Maxsym sincerely hoped he would not have to actually play businessman.

I think I’d rather face the
Trilisk than sell an artifact to anyone on the frontier.

Chapter
23

Cilreth received a link request
from Telisa as she showered at the beginning of her shift. She welcomed the
chance to talk, since she was not absorbed in work yet and she had been lonely
since the PIT team had relegated Cilreth2 back to the Trilisk column that
created her.

“Hi, Cilreth. We need to
understand the Blackvine’s systems here better,” Telisa said. “Shiny thinks we
could track the Trilisk that way. Maxsym is studying them as well. Can you try
to find out what Shiny knows so we’re in the loop?”

“Will do,” Cilreth said. “I’ll
put my studies of
Clacker
on hold. I need a break anyway.”

“What do we know so far? Their
technology is kinda mix and match?”

“Yes. I think of a race of
brilliant but isolated geniuses, like a collection of Da Vincis, Einsteins, and
Cardires who hate each other.”

“Not hate each other, really,”
Telisa said. “Because then they would fight or secure their discoveries against
the others. It’s as if they’re plain oblivious to each other.”

“Yes, but not oblivious either.
They use that reservation system to avoid running into each other.”

“Afraid of each other?” Telisa
suggested.

“Maybe. Who knows? Maybe there
isn’t even a human word for what they are to one another. They’re freakin’
aliens
.”

“We can build a model of them
once we have enough information. No matter how strange they are, we’ll figure
out how to predict their behavior better. Right now, I’m thinking they’re
afraid of
anything
alive other than themselves. Xenophobic of anything
other
.”

“Okay. Well, that’s out of my
league. You figure them out, and I’ll just try to understand their networks.”

“You said networks. I’m
guessing there’s more than one because different Blackvines made different
ones.”

“Yes, I believe so. About half
of them use one, and there are two other minority networks and a few other
experiments that probably never took off.”

“Let us know if you find the
Trilisk,” Telisa said and disconnected. The communication was a bit abrupt, but
Cilreth had grown used to that. People in the field had other things to worry
about. They did not mean to be rude or bossy; they were just trying to stay
alive.

Cilreth considered waking
Cilreth2 to help. Then she went even further in her imagination.

Should I make a third copy? She
could study the Blackvine system, and I could stay focused on the Clacker. Of
course, the copy will be just like me and be pissed to get stuck with the other
job.

Cilreth decided it was too soon
to make another copy. Besides, what would the others say when they found out?

They did the same thing. They
just run with one asleep, is all. This is better.

Cilreth left her little control
room to wake up her copy.

***

Only a day later Cilreth
contacted the team to give them an update.

“Shiny has done most of the
work here. I’ve learned a lot, but he’s way ahead. He’s started passive
monitoring of the networks, and he’s analyzing it all real time. We think the
Trilisk is still inside the central buildings of the habitat.”

“No reason for it to leave. It
easily deflected us before,” Arakaki said.

“Can you shut it down? Keep it
out of the Blackvine systems?” Telisa asked.

“Can we take over?” Magnus
said.

“No, and we wouldn’t want to
anyway,” Cilreth said. “We would tip our hand. This way we can track it. The
Trilisk only shows up for a few hours at a time. It’s weird. During those few
hours, it’s all over the Blackvine systems like crazy. Then it goes away for
most of a day. I should add there’s no way for us to keep it from knowing where
we are the same way. It probably saw you coming before.”

“We could time an attack for… when
it’s not there?”

“Well first, we can find its
location. Second, we can use the timing to our advantage. But the clincher is,
these systems are wide open. There’s no stopping anyone from using them. There
simply is no security whatsoever other than through obfuscation, which is a low
initial barrier. These aliens use no security, I guess. See? Their brand of
antisocial behavior really does indicate they are incognizant of one another.”

“How long until we can pinpoint
the Trilisk?” asked Magnus.

“I’m thinking a day or two.
Shiny has made it a priority. I’m trying to duplicate his collection scheme on
our scout robots. Probably not necessary, but it helps me to keep up, and a
redundant collection system couldn’t hurt.”

“We’ll prepare. The Clacker is
still making machines. Shiny has a lot of attendant spheres out here now.
They’re flying around everywhere.”

Telisa and Magnus dropped out.
Arakaki stayed on.

“Cilreth? Can you hook me in to
your duplicate network? I need whatever you have. Even weak clues are good
enough to work with.”

“What are you up to?”

“I’ve hunted this thing before,
and I’m doing it again. I’m just asking for some help, is all.”

“Okay, I’ll set you up with
what I have. It’s going to be confusing. I’ll keep working on making it
better.”

“Thanks,” Arakaki said. For
once, Arakaki’s voice seemed to soften. “I appreciate your help. I really need
to get this bastard.”

“Did it kill… your friend?”
Cilreth asked.

“What friend?”

“Magnus mentioned you lost
someone close,” Cilreth said. “Sorry, I’m too nosy.”

“Oh. Well that Trilisk killed a
lot of my friends. But my… my soul mate was killed by the UNSF.”

“Oh,” Cilreth said in a small
voice. “Say… I have an experiment I’d like to try. I’ve been thinking about
editing out our presence from the Blackvine detectors.”

“Yeah? To keep us from being
picked up by the Trilisk?”

“Yes. I can’t stop the detector
from seeing you, but the system is so wide open, I could tag you through your
attendant sphere or a nearby scout and then drop transmissions related to you
from the reporting network. If it works the way I think it will, you would be
invisible to anything relying on the Blackvine sensors to track you.”

“Sign me up.”

***

Magnus felt stir-crazy waiting
for the next chance at the Trilisk. He sat in a building deep within the
habitat PIT was using as a temporary headquarters for their second attempt at
finding the Trilisk. The only one taking it harder was Caden, who had a similar
need for action. He checked Cilreth’s schedule. He no longer knew when she was
awake and when she was asleep, so he put in a low-priority connection.

“Hi Magnus,” Cilreth answered.

“Cilreth, do we have anything?”

Cilreth laughed. “Of course we
would let you know, Magnus.”

“Well how about some
suspicions?”

“We don’t—wait a second.”

“What is it?” Magnus sat up
straight.

“It’s probably not related.
Shiny says he found an insane Blackvine.”

“Insane?”

“I’m as confused as you are.
Hooking you in.”

Magnus joined a wider channel
in midconversation. Telisa was asking Shiny questions.

“How do you know it’s
interacting with other Blackvines?” Telisa said.

“Tracking, watching, recording
movements,” Shiny answered. “Entering reservations into movement system for
entities other than itself. Storing historical recordings.”

“They have writing?”

“Individual under surveillance,
examination, scrutiny uses special data storage formats for events,
occurrences, incidents,” Shiny said. “Also owns simple texts. Possibly from
previous, earlier, precursor Blackvines.”

“You called it insane?” Magnus
interrupted.

“This individual not within
species norm. Abnormal, dysfunctional, insane.”

“It acknowledges the other
Blackvines, so it’s crazy?” Magnus said.

“Theory: Abnormal, dysfunctional,
insane individual serves vital leadership, coordination, oversight function,”
Shiny said.

“They’re more like us than we
thought,” Cilreth said. “Their leaders are insane.”

“A few brilliant individuals
have made huge differences in Terran society. Maybe it’s not crazy. It may have
made a breakthrough that made it aware of the whole of its race,” Telisa said.

“There’s more,” Cilreth said.
“Shiny and I found it because it’s making a new kind of robot. This new type is
killing off scouts and attendant spheres.”

“Uh oh. We’re not welcome
here,” Magnus said.

“Not surprising,” Telisa said.
“We come in here, fill the place with weird robots, terrorize the populace—”

“Terrorize?” asked Cilreth.

“These creatures are extremely
isolated and antisocial. Just being nearby causes them to freeze. We thought
they were
plants
, by the Five. They’re not. They just freeze up when we
barge in. It could be traumatizing to them, for all we know.”

“Shiny. Could you compose a
message in their language? Tell them we’re leaving soon. We just need the
Trilisk. You could explain we haven’t come to hurt them.”

“Translation too difficult,
challenging, costly,” Shiny said.

“You translated our Englese
within a few days,” Telisa pointed out.

“Existing language corpus miniscule,
tiny, severely limited. Cross-indexable contextual information unavailable.
Very difficult.”

“Ah. Shiny was able to examine
our net filled with billions of Terrans sharing things with each other,
associated with images, video, all sorts of stuff, and he could observe a huge number
of conversations in Englese at the time,” Magnus said.

“You guys are missing the
obvious explanation,” Telisa said. “This is the Trilisk. Or a Trilisk. Think
about it. It’s taken over a Blackvine body and is using it as a social creature
would. It’s manipulating the Blackvines. That sounds like a Trilisk to me.”

After a moment of thought,
Cilreth said, “That’s a strong theory. Maybe we should go in and… do we just
attack it?”

“No. We have to be sure about
it,” Telisa said. “It may not be a Trilisk at all, or it may be a different
one.”

“It’s going to be dangerous.
Let’s just send some attendants or scouts to check it out,” Magnus said.

“Remember the new robots I
mentioned? They’re basically flying lasers about the size of a laser rifle.
They carry enough charge to kill a couple scouts, and one or two attendants or
a soldier machine.”

“How many does it have?” Telisa
asked.

“Twenty to thirty,” Cilreth
said.

“Then we’ll go in and check it
out,” Telisa said.

“Suicide,” Cilreth said.

“We have to know. I’ll use the
stealth sphere.”

“No. You don’t get to use it
all the time,” Magnus said. “I want to do it.”

Telisa sighed. “I have the most
popular toy. Maybe Shiny can pray us up another?”

Magnus waited for Telisa to
make her decision.

“Maxsym can do it,” Telisa
said.

“What!” exclaimed Magnus and
Cilreth at once.

“He’s interested in the
Blackvines. More so than the Trilisk. And he’s green. This will be good for
him. With the stealth sphere, he’ll be okay.”

Well, maybe, as long as the Trilisk
doesn’t know how to sense him some other way.

“If he turns the job down, pass
it to me,” Magnus said.