Parker Interstellar Travels 4: The Trilisk Hunt (5 page)

Oops. Maxsym looks worried
again.

Arakaki gave them a location
pointer back to the mess just in case anyone got confused. “Telisa will meet
you back at your mess in about an hour. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

***

Arakaki smiled widely as she arrived
on a landing platform inside the asteroid Shiny and the PIT team used as a
secret base. Like the
Clacker
, the place was spacious and comfortable.
Magnus was there to greet her.

“I can’t believe this was
created by an alien. It’s so Terran.”

“We made it that way, mostly,”
Magnus said. “All you have to do is… imagine it how you want it.”

“What the…?”

“Yes. Shiny keeps a Trilisk AI
device here, and it listens to… well, I’m not sure what the requirements are.
But you envision what you want, and it makes it happen. I’ll explain the limits
to you. Nothing complicated, okay? You have to understand things thoroughly.
Sometimes Shiny helps us out. But simple metal, carbon, wood, the design of a
room, you can handle all these things pretty quickly. You know guns and suits
well enough, it will mostly work if you pray some up.”

“Pray some up,” she echoed.
Magnus walked her into a grand atrium of marble and glass filled with images
and sculptures of places and people. Several of the statues were of Telisa or
Magnus, including a large one in the center of the two in an embrace.

“This is crazy beautiful.”

“Try it out. What’s around that
corner over there?” he asked.

“You mean… put something
there?”

“Yes.”

Arakaki closed her eyes for a
minute. Then they walked over to an adjoining room, around the corner.

A gray Guardian machine stood
solidly on the polished marble. It swiveled its primary sensor array to look
down at them from above. Four huge spider legs held it high off the floor, with
four stubby cannon-bearing arms.

“Welcome back, Captain,” it
said.

Arakaki giggled like a
schoolgirl.

“Wow, you don’t hold much back,
even your first time,” Magnus said. “No people. I mean it. You’ll just create
some freaky half-thing that isn’t even close, okay?”

“Okay. Got it. I know Scorn
here well. Repaired him several times.”

“Chances are, his components
aren’t close to spec,” Magnus said. “Unless you’re a cyber block specialist,
too.”

“This is unbelievably awesome!”
Arakaki said. “You can make… it’s like being rich?”

“The advantages of praying up
whatever you want. Give it another try. What would you like your personal gym
to look like?”

“Screw that. I’m dreaming up my
bedroom first,” Arakaki said.

“Suit yourself. Put it over
here.” Magnus walked her into an unused area of the base. “This whole section
can be yours,” Magnus said. “We have a lot of space in this rock.”

She paused for a few minutes.
Magnus let her work. Then she walked through the first door. It opened up into
a corridor. She followed it down to the end, passing many doors. Magnus
followed her. The corridor split into a small T at the end, with a door in each
direction. She turned left and went inside.

“You seem to know where you
want it to be,” Magnus said.

They entered a large room of
perhaps a hundred square meters. Bookcases and cabinets dotted three walls,
leaving one wall as a featureless display wall. It showed the lights of a city
at night, viewed from great height, as if the room were the penthouse suite of
a spacescraper. A huge black bed dominated the far wall. It was only a foot off
the floor.

“Amazing!” Arakaki exclaimed.
She walked up and pushed the corner it with her foot. The waterbed rocked into
motion.

“Would you like to… join me?”

Magnus looked at the vast black
bed and smiled.

“I would definitely take you up
on that, Jamie,” Magnus said. “But I’m only with Telisa right now.”

Yeah, I guess the giant
sculpture of you two out in the atrium kind of gives it away.

“Suit yourself,” Arakaki said.
“Caden is next in line, and I doubt he’ll turn me down.”

Magnus hesitated. Arakaki knew
exactly what he was thinking.

He thinks I’m brewing trouble
on the new team.

“As long as you two can operate
without any theatrics on the job. And you might want to wait until he’s
affirmed his choice to join us.”

Arakaki smiled. She was only
half serious about Caden. He was just a kid. But maybe he would convince her.
He was an exceptional young man.

“Sure, I’ll put it on the slow
burner,” Arakaki said. “I promise.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate
that.”

“So I get to see the secret base.
And use the prayer device. That’s nice. But I’m still not in as tight as you
three.”

“You’ll become part of the
inner group quickly. Give Telisa and Cilreth some time.”

“You three pretty much run
things, then?” Arakaki asked carefully.

“It used to be Jack, but he
died on Thespera. Almost straight out. I’ve told you we had some trouble when
we first met Shiny. Well, he took our leader out almost first thing. There was
a space force guy in there mixing things up, which didn’t help,” Magnus said.
“By the end of the next expedition, you’ll be included in everything from the
start.”

Arakaki nodded.

“And when Shiny takes over the
whole show, you’ll be just another one of the hapless Terrans like me,” Magnus
smiled.

“He does that sometimes,
doesn’t he?”

“I think he might be dangerous.
Yet he’s also the key to most the amazing things we have around here.”

“I think I’ll stay here for
tonight and play around,” she said.

“Definitely recommended.
Remember, only vague details about the base with the new recruits. It’s too
soon. I’ll whet their appetite when we get back, since the
Clacker
is in
range of the Trilisk AI. But they won’t see the base until we return from the
next expedition.”

“What next expedition?”

“Telisa or Shiny will come up
with some amazing thing or other we have to go after,” Magnus said.

“Okay,” Arakaki said, rolling
across her bed. “Well, they can take their time. I have a lot of praying to
do.”

***

“Several of you have broached
the subject of compensation,” Magnus said. “You get a salary. It’s modest, and
it exists largely for the purposes of our cover as employees of Parker
Interstellar Travel. But the bonus is key. The bonus is: you get pretty much
anything you want.”

The four recruits stared at
him, waiting for clarification. They stood in a large cargo hold aboard the
Clacker
.
No one had told the new recruits their position close to their asteroid base,
or the secrets it held.

“I’m going to give you a small
illustration of what I mean by that,” Magnus said. He paced in front of four
large boxes he had set out before the four recruits. “Be straightforward,
imaginative, and honest. If you try to be too cute, you may screw yourself out
of something cool.”

He stopped in front of Siobhan
and pointed at the box. “What do you want?”

“What does the box have to do
with this?” she asked carefully, confused.

“There is something in that box
for you. What would you like it to be?”

“What are the parameters?”

“I would stick with something
morally acceptable to the rest of us,” Magnus advised. “It has to fit in the
box,” he added.

“So the box is not purely
symbolic of what you’re promising me after the first expedition? It really has
to fit in there?”

“Right.”

Siobhan tilted her head.

“You said to be honest, so I
guess I’d like a Von Neumann machine,” she said.

Magnus frowned. “Hrm, morally
on the edge there. I guess we can swing that. Caden?”

Caden answered more quickly.

“I’d like a collapsible Veer
sniper rifle-laser combo. Utterly tricked out.”

“Maxsym?”

“Bio-molecular analyzer. DNA
sequence sampler. A portable version with the very best onboard analyzing suite
and a ton of memory.”

“Imanol?”

Imanol hesitated.

He’s thinking over some kind of
cheat. This should be interesting
, thought Arakaki.

“How about just money?”

“Money exists as data on bank
servers. We can’t put it into the box.”

Imanol licked his lips and
tried again.

“Could it be… rhenium?”

Magnus nodded.

“Very well. Open your boxes.”

They hesitated.

“They’re all checking their
links to see if this is real,” she transmitted to Magnus privately.

“Ha, yes, of course.”

Siobhan opened her box. A
complex metal spider machine nestled inside.

“This is… is it really?”

“Yes,” Magnus said.

“No way,” Caden said, walking
over to peer into Siobhan’s box. Then he eagerly opened his own. “Noooo way!”
He picked up the sniper rifle and began to examine it. “This is sooooo
slickblack.
”

Arakaki was not aware of the
slang, but it did not surprise her, given her isolation in the UED unit and
Caden’s recent arrival from a core world.

“So this is virtual, and we
don’t know it,” Siobhan said. “How did you switch us over without us noticing?
My link doesn’t think this is virtual.”

Magnus nodded.

“That’s a solid guess. And
sensible. You’re wrong. This is the real world. At least, as real as it gets.
The one we were born in.”

“That’s impossible,” Caden
said.

“I told you. Your compensation
includes a salary. But the kicker is you get what you want. Almost whatever you
want. You can’t have your own space fleet. At least, not until you’ve worked
with us a while longer,” he said.

Maxsym opened his box. He took
out his analyzer. “Thank you!” he said. “If it’s real, anyway…”

Imanol had waited until last.

“If it’s in there, it’s proof
this is a virtual environment,” he said. He opened his box. The interior was
flush with silvery bars of metal.

“That’s it! This can’t be
real,” he said. “Your alien technology is able to fool our links and us, is
all. You switched us virtual without us knowing.” He looked concerned.

“That’s not the deal, that’s
not us,” Arakaki said. “This is real.”

“It’s time to rethink what can
be real and what can’t,” Magnus said. “Advanced alien technology. That’s what
we’re here for. This was a demonstration of what it can do.”

“No. This is a joke for new
initiates. A hazing ritual,” Imanol said.

“Well, stuff it in your
quarters for a rainy day then,” Magnus said.

Imanol felt put off. He
expected Magnus to keep trying to convince him.

He already has this nagging
thought: “What if it’s real?”
Arakaki thought. She smiled.
“It’s real, brother,” she said, slapping Imanol on the shoulder.

Imanol remained puzzled. The
others played with their new toys.

“Don’t let the Von Neumann
device loose on my ship,” Telisa said firmly.

Chapter
7

Kirizzo focused on his prayer
interface and cleared his considerable mental slate. He provided a simple
astronomical map and zeroed in on wanting to gain knowledge.

Where did the Trilisks spend
time near Chigran Callnir system?

The answer was surprisingly
sparse. Less than ten systems were indicated. Did that mean the AI was
sheltered from the majority of the answer since it was in operation, or were
the Trilisks relatively few and far in between? Or did they all spend their
time in just a few places?

Kirizzo continued to hone in on
his queries. He added the sites of known Trilisk ruins to the map. Many of them
overlapped. That was good.

How did the Trilisks travel?

A huge surge of data flowed.
Errors erupted. Kirizzo halted the process. That was something he would not be
able to figure out without much more time and resources.

What clues would indicate which
of these places the Trilisk had gone?

Over three hundred pointers
came forward from his massive sensor logs. Kirizzo abandoned the artifact
queries and started to examine the log pointers. He began to assess the
associations between the data at the pointers he received. Hours passed as
Kirizzo stood utterly still like a golden statue. His personal cooling system
activated to remove waste heat from his core, but it did not affect his
concentration.

Slowly, agonizingly, Kirizzo
formed hypothesis after hypothesis. He ranked them, considered them, compared
them against one another. He might have to test them, but if he could find one
or two clear leaders, the Trilisk AI might be able to do the rest. He finally
decided that the sensor logs had data about the energy states of hydrogen atoms
in space around the Chigran Callnir system that provided a clue about the
escape of the Trilisk. Though his programs weren’t set up to analyze the
seemingly random molecules floating through the near vacuum of space, the data
showed a definite pattern. It was a simple line in space passing through the
star system.

He used the prayer interface
again.

How is the line associated?

The answer was clear for once.
The line was directly indicative of the vector of travel. Kirizzo’s line was
vague, but it might be good enough. Kirizzo’s processed data formed a narrow
double cone growing from the system out into the galaxy. Extending the cone
encompassed two of the known Trilisk sites within the reasonable travel
capability of his ships. Unfortunately they were found in opposite directions
from each other.

The closest one was within
three weeks aboard
Thumper
or
Clacker
.

 ***

Magnus cut from a simulation of
combat and opened his eyes in his large room on the
Clacker
. He smiled.
The robots were looking good. Considerably improved from last time. Magnus had
split his design into a soldier and a scout machine. The scout had one weapon
mount and could move great distances quickly with a large endurance. The
soldier was heavier and slower but more durable. The soldier model was equipped
with three weapons mounts. Now he had begun to envision a worker as well,
designed to carry things they discovered back to the ship, but he had not
gotten as far with that. The worker was less exciting, and so he kept putting
it off.

I’ll wish we had workers soon
enough, when I’m lugging twenty kilos of artifacts on my back.

Magnus got a connection request
from Shiny aboard the new
Thumper
. He immediately accepted it. Telisa
was already on the channel, and Cilreth joined shortly after Magnus.

“Greetings, Terrans,” Shiny
said.

“Hello Shiny!” Telisa replied
enthusiastically. “Studying human conversation preambles today?”

“Negative. Proposing mutually
beneficial course of action.”

“Ah, of course. You have an
idea for an expedition? That’s great. I hope it will take awhile to get there,
though. Our new team is green. Real green,” Telisa said.

“Search, hunt, pursue escaped
Trilisk. Subdue, trap, capture. Learn about Trilisk.”

Telisa did not respond
immediately, so Cilreth jumped in. “Last I heard we lost that critter,” she
said.

“Trilisk prayer device enabled
deeper investigation. Revealed, showed, indicated likely line of travel.
Suggest follow one vector for fifty percent chance to discover possible
destination.”

“You have… oh, literally a
line?”

“But we don’t know which way on
the line? Weird,” Magnus said. “But do we really want to find this thing?”

“We can learn more from it than
anything else I know of,” Telisa said.

“And then Arakaki can kill it,”
Cilreth said.

“Die trying, just as likely,”
Magnus said, but he felt he was only arguing against it for the sake of
arguing. If they were going to go out and risk their necks, it might as well be
for a reward worth going after.

No race we know of has secrets
like the Trilisks
, he thought.

 “So I remember you blew up a
ship to keep it from taking over,” Magnus said. “Are you afraid it will take
over if we ‘catch’ it?”

“Propose incapacitate enemy.
Alternate, other, backup course of action: Kill, slay, destroy Trilisk. Confiscate,
steal, salvage its possessions.”

Best get Telisa’s ethical
opinion now rather than later.

“Telisa?” Magnus prompted.

“What? You want to know if I’m
on board with killing it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, yes, if it’s the same
one we encountered before,” she said. “We should not go kill any Trilisk at
random. There may be peaceful Trilisks out there.”

“Do you think it’s alone,
Shiny?”

“Unknown, uncertain,
unanswerable.”

“I’ll need a day to finish up
with the prayers,” Magnus said.

“Acceptable.”

“Okay then, are we taking two
ships again? I see you made yourself a new one.”

“Two ships, affirmative,
correct, verified.”

“That’s great then. We’ll be
ready,” Telisa said. “As you know, we’re training the new recruits. I guess we
don’t know how long it will take.”

“Other options now exist.
Terran operatives may duplicate, copy, improve themselves using Trilisk
machines. Duplicates superior. Faster, stronger, longer lived.”

“Whoa. You just dropped a bomb
here. Duplicates?” asked Cilreth.

“New body, vessel, receptacle
separate from original. Telisa familiar with process.”

“We can supersede… into a new
copy of ourselves?” Telisa asked.

“Affirmative, correct,
agreement.”

“Wait. I want to make sure I
follow you. It’s not a new body for our brains? I just want a new body and my
brain. Me. In a new body,” Magnus said.

“Very eloquent,” Telisa
laughed.

Magnus shrugged. “Okay, that
was harder to say than I thought,” he explained.

“Technically achievable by
Trilisk,” Shiny said. “Not achievable by Shiny using ready-made Trilisk device.”

“It should be easier to just
provide the new body,” Magnus said.

“Improvements apply, involve,
actuate changes at atomic level to brain material. Minority of improvements
possible to body alone, others undoable, impossible, unworkable. Also, furthermore,
additionally: Trilisk machines’ function highly advanced. Modification
difficult.”

“I think he means, he doesn’t
understand how to tinker with the Trilisk machines and alter them to just
implant our existing brain into a new body. All he can do is tell it to
transfer us into a full new body,” Telisa suggested.

“Affirmative, correct,
agreement,” Shiny said.

Damn it. I just want what I
want. Like the prayer device!

“So we have to go to a copy of
ourselves?” Telisa said. “Is it really our consciousness, then, or just a
duplicate down to the level of subatomic particles and their energy states? As
I recall it now, it was as if that creature really was me. But I guess if the
memories were just downloaded from somewhere else, I’d never notice the
difference.”

“Debatable, uncertain, unclear,
but functionally irrelevant,” Shiny said.

“Okay I follow you on the
irrelevant from outside observer part,” Magnus said. “A perfect copy of Magnus
is Magnus as far as anyone else can tell. But if the real me has to go to sleep
forever so a better copy can run around, I’m not sure I’m okay with that, even
though… I guess I would be asleep and never notice.”

“Well it goes both ways,”
Telisa said. “After our expedition, we could go back to our original selves,
sync up, and we’ll wake up with all the memories. So it won’t matter.”

“But then what about the
copies? Do they just die when we go back? They will have the same
reservations.”

Telisa was silent for a moment,
then she nodded.

“It’s complicated. Let’s
discuss it awhile,” Telisa said. “What do you think, Cilreth?”

“I’ll pass and watch you guys
screw it up for a while. Then I want one. But I’m not going to take as many
risks this mission. I’ll let you take the young ones out for a spin.”

“Shall we ask Arakaki about it
first?” asked Magnus.

“Let’s ask all of them,” Telisa
deflected.

Magnus decided that meant she
cared what the others thought. The other part was unsaid:
Arakaki, not so
much.

“Good idea,” Magnus said.
“Shiny, are you going to use this?”

There was a delay. It was only
a second or two, but longer than Shiny usually took to respond.

“Physiological benefits less
for Shiny. Many improvements already made. Possible plan resembles Terran term:
ping-ponging. Subject supersedes one copy, sync back and forth in foreseeable future.”

“Ah. So there’s always two, but
only one going at a time. And you sync back and forth. Cool,” Cilreth said.

“Shiny. How did the Trilisks
coordinate this technology?” Magnus asked.

“Unknown. Clues exist
indicating use of three bodies in standard procedure. Other evidence suggests
used only, exclusively, specifically for inter-species supersedure.”

“Three? They usually used three
bodies. This is just getting more complicated,” Magnus said.

“Terrans have made many
biological improvements to ourselves,” Telisa said. “We have much less disease
now, more energy; we’ve come a long ways.”

“Affirmative, correct,
agreement,” Shiny said. “More improvements occur using Trilisk machines.”

“It doesn’t sound so bad,”
Magnus said. “The original me sticks around for his natural lifespan. Longer,
really, since half the time I would be in stasis. Or whatever the Trilisk
columns use to put you on ice while you’re offline.”

“Yes. Still confusing to have
two of all of us around, though,” Telisa said. “I doubt it will be fifty-fifty.
It would always be tempting to stick around using the superior copy.”

“Only one at a time, and
syncing each transition, it will feel like only one of each of us,” Magnus
said. “How are we going to tell the others?”

“We just tell them,” Telisa said
trivially.

“Okay, you got the job,”
Cilreth said.

“I’ll call a meeting.”

***

Telisa stood before everyone in
a large meeting room on the
Clacker
. Imanol had come to the room with
his fellow recruits wondering what the meeting could be about. They had been
training for days, doing all sorts of things from combat to programming to
learning the ship, so what could the face to face be all about?

This team likes real face-to-face
contact. It does probably work better for getting people to bond faster
, Imanol
thought.

Even though they would not be
able to tell any difference with their senses, just knowing it was real had
some effect. He thought about the rhenium bars.

If any of this is real.

“How’s your rhenium, Imanol?
Still heavy?” she asked. Imanol suddenly felt paranoid.

Did she just read my mind?

“Yeah…” Imanol replied
carefully.

“Well, it’s time to consider
another technological marvel,” she said. “This one’s voluntary. And the rest of
us aren’t ahead of you four on it. We’ve opened up a new possibility.”

The four recruits and Jamie
Arakaki watched Telisa intently, eager to hear the news. Telisa took a deep
breath.

“We have the capability to put
ourselves into new bodies. The bodies are improved. At the least, they’re
strong, fast, and perhaps immortal. There may be more.”

Everyone absorbed that in
stunned silence.

“The thing is, the old you… your
body at least… stays in a sort of stasis when this happens. Inside a Trilisk
column. And you can go back to it.”

“Trilisk? By the entities. I’m
beginning to see how you produced those toys for us. It’s all real,” Maxsym
said.

It makes sense. The Trilisks
are… they were gods compared to us
, Imanol thought.

Siobhan looked skeptical
this time. “You said my old body would be in some Trilisk container? You mean,
except my brain?”

“I’m pretty sure… in fact, I’m
sure,” Telisa said. “I experienced it. But I was in an alien body. I know, it’s
crazy. But my brain wouldn’t even fit inside… the critter I was in.”

“So it’s not really going to be
me, it’s a copy,” Siobhan continued. “The real me, my real consciousness, it
has to be physically connected to my neural material. After all, you can give
me a drug and it affects my consciousness, you can kill me and it ends my
consciousness…”

“Presumably,” Caden said.

“Oh, all evidence points toward
yes,” Maxsym said. “Who you are at the core is linked to your substrate
material, your physical neurons, even if consciousness is partially in the
energy states and electromagnetic fields.”

Telisa held up her hands.