The Trilisk AI (12 page)

“Maybe
we could cause a huge debt to appear for them, one they couldn’t pay off, then
find the guy sent out to harass them, and follow him incarnate.”

“I
don’t like that because it makes them hunted by the F-clave as well as the
government,” Relachik said. “For now, divide and conquer. Step one is finding
out where that storage is.”

“Finding
it incarnate may be just as dangerous as snooping around it through the
network.”

“Once
I’m done with these guys, they’re not going to be dangerous to anyone,”
Relachik said.

Cilreth
wondered if she’d signed on for the wrong job. Then she shrugged.
The twitch
is already killing me anyway.

***

Cilreth
appeared beside Arlin and Relachik in the simulation. It was set up to present
them with what they knew of the situation on Brighter Walken. This was their
first practice session focused on the objective of finding the F-clave
headquarters.

The
sun was very bright. Cilreth summoned up a pair of heavy shades. Just ahead lay
the target building, a two-story frontier shack of plastic and metal.

“Okay,
there’s Frankie’s club, the Vain Vothrile. Hadrian works in there. He’s usually
in the back,” Relachik said, mostly for Arlin’s benefit, since Cilreth had
gathered most of the info.

It’s
probably good for me to hear it all again, too
, Cilreth thought.
Besides I didn’t
dig into the info very deeply. Relachik’s a monster for detail; he probably
learned a lot more from it than I did.

“So
let’s just go in there, close the club up, and have a little talk with
Hadrian,” Relachik said.

“How
can we disable the club’s defenses?” Arlin asked.

“Cilreth,
can you do it?”

Before
Cilreth could answer, Arlin snapped his fingers.

“Wait.
Maybe this is another clever way to use our remoras!” he said.

“Maybe.
Or maybe that’s more attention than we want,” Relachik said. “I was also going
to have the club turn new customers away once we got in there. If everything’s
broken it won’t work.”

“I
can close it down. A place like this won’t have top-notch security. Unless this
is the F-clave headquarters, which I’m sure it’s not. It’s just too small.”

“I
thought you said you were a searcher, not a hacker,” Relachik said.

“I’m
not a real hacker, but you hardly have to be a genius to shut a dive like this
down,” she said. “I got this one.”

“Okay
then, let’s hit it.”

They
walked into the club. The place was decked out with drink and drug ads,
pictures of suave spacemen and women, and services offering lists of
sporting-event feeds. It was an assault of sight and sound. There was an
incarnate dance floor and a dozen virtual ones run as services from dozens of
booths. A long bar dominated one wall, with doors there that opened into the
back of the club.

Cilreth
found it mildly interesting, having never been in such a frontier dive before.
It smelled considerably worse than a virtual core world club. But the
grittiness that came with its incarnate charm carried some dark, dirty appeal
that surprised her. Perhaps it was the danger. A virtual club came with little
or no risk, whether it was inhabited by bots or real cyber-visitors.

Relachik
took one look at the busy bar, filled with people dancing, drinking, and making
out. “Not gonna work. I’m taking us back to opening time.”

The
figures in the club flitted in high speed then disappeared. Now, only two
patrons were inside, just arriving at the bar.

“Okay.
Resume,” Relachik said.

Cilreth
started in on the club’s controls. She started by hijacking Frankie’s
credentials, then shutting him out. Arlin and Relachik physically barred the
front door, then stunned the patrons with their weapons. They went into the
back to get Hadrian while Cilreth finished up with the club security.

Oops.
The cameras got Arlin and Relachik. I’ll have to work on that.

Her
allies emerged from the back with a short man in tow. Hadrian. They tied him up
on a chair.

“I
can get it out of him,” Cilreth said on a separate channel. She flashed a
predatory smile.

“Do
you really want to do the coercion when we’re there for real?” asked Relachik.

“Oh.
No, good point. You handle it.”

“Do
you have a plan to get him to tell us what he knows?” asked Arlin.

“I’ll
have to think on it,” Relachik said. “For now, I’ll just wing it.”

Relachik
wound back and struck Hadrian savagely across the face. “The name of your boss.
Now,” he growled.

“You’re
a dead man,” Hadrian mumbled, a stream of blood pouring from his mouth.

Cilreth
got an alarm signal. “Dammit. The local constabulary is approaching.”

“Exit
strategy?”

“Uhm,
that’s TBD.”

“Okay
then. Let’s run it again,” Relachik said. “Or should we do the running
firefight with the cops on the way back to the
Vandivier
?”

Cilreth
sighed. “Run it again,” she voted.

Chapter 10

The
surface looked like colored rock at first. As Magnus examined it, he decided
the huge flat plates of greenish-blue material might be plants of some kind.
They encrusted every boulder nearby. The rocks and growths were taller than
Magnus, limiting his view in all directions. The sky, at least, reminded him of
Earth. It was clear and blue.

Magnus
immediately noticed the isolation. His link picked up only a handful of
services from items they carried. The environment all around was devoid of link
traffic.

It’s
up to us now.

“Those
are like giant mushrooms or lichens or something,” Telisa said.

She
was taking it all in as well. Magnus’s link reported the
Iridar
as out
of range as the ship lifted away from the planet, taking Shiny with it. They
stood next to the cargo container they had unloaded from the
Iridar.
The
landing had been tricky on the rocky landscape, made even more difficult by
Shiny’s insistence for a quick drop off.

“Maybe,”
he said. He walked toward the nearest growth and kicked it. It gave a bit under
the blow.

“Wait.
Is it safe?”

“We’re
going to go down into broken underground tunnels on an alien planet, and you’re
worried about kicking a giant... Okay, yeah, you’re right. It could be
dangerous. Especially if Shiny is used to living underground, he may not have
thought to mention above-ground nasties.”

“He
said the entrance is over there,” Telisa said.

“First
things first,” he said. He opened the cargo container. Shiny’s probes nestled
inside, each one in its own little hexagonal space like bee larvae. Each was
about the size of a human head. As soon as the lid was clear, the cylindrical
probes activated. One by one, they floated into the air. They emitted only a
tenuous whine as they hovered off, each one in a different direction. The last
one waited nearby.

“I
guess that one’s with us,” Telisa said.

“Looks
like it,” Magnus said, lifting the empty holding tray out of the container. He
discarded it to one side, exposing the contents underneath: Scout.

Magnus
activated the machine with his link. Scout clambered out of the cargo container
on long spider legs and stood ready. The body of the machine was rectangular,
rather than the ovoid of a spider, but its legs made it look very lifelike.
Magnus felt frustration. It had to be all Terran technology this time. The
walker machine had offered so much potential.

“Okay.
Which way did you say? Just send him toward the entrance.”

Telisa
gave the command. Scout moved off through the tortuous landscape. Telisa and
Magnus walked carefully over the rocks, keeping well behind Scout. Magnus
routed Scout’s sensors into his PV as they’d practiced on the ship.

The
machine ahead walked up to a huge pipe rising from the ground. The entire thing
was black and scarred. Pieces of debris lay all around among the rocks. The
gaping opening was large enough to accept a car.

“There
it is. Shiny’s module describes how to open it,” Telisa said. “But it looks
like the destroyers made it here ahead of us.”

“You
must have spent a lot of time studying his house,” Magnus said.

“Of
course. Didn’t you? I guess it’s more up my alley.”

“Well,
I was putting the finishing touches on Scout here. You just watch.”

The
machine walked slowly up to the ragged edge of the pipe and looked down. Magnus
saw the tunnel in several different sections of the spectrum: infrared, visual,
and an ultraviolet band. It looked cold and dead. There was wreckage lying
about. Nothing caught his eye as either valuable or dangerous.

Scout’s
tail grew a smart rope. The rope’s end found a strong purchase point outside
the entrance and wrapped itself around it. Then Scout jumped over the edge. The
machine reeled down rapidly, dropping like a spider from a strand of webbing. Telisa
and Magnus were arriving at the opening as Scout settled onto a surface thirty
meters below the ground. The smart rope released its hold above and reeled back
into Scout’s body. Then the machine started to scan its new surroundings.

“Impressive!”
Telisa said. Magnus could tell from her tone she was only a little impressed
but hamming it up for him, so he played along.

“Of
course! Who built it?”

“Now
it’s our turn.”

Magnus
scanned Scout’s vision in his own PV. “Looks clear enough. I agree.”

“So
nice to have him down there, and know we’re not about to be ambushed. We need
more robots!”

“Yeah.
Next time,” he said. He handed her a smart rope.

“I
have my own, thanks,” she said, digging into her pack. Magnus smiled. She
wanted to prove she’d come properly prepared. Of course he hadn’t insinuated
otherwise. It was just her way.

Magnus
chose the same spot Scout had used to anchor his rope. He simultaneously
monitored the feed from Scout, showing a wrecked chamber filled with dust and
garbage. The machine caught a bit of movement to one side.

“What
is it? Did I miss something?”

“Something
down there,” Magnus said. “It was small. Must be a critter.”

“Great.
A critter,” she said flatly. They stood for a moment as Scout rooted about
more, looking for the source of the movement.

“Should
be fine. Just keep practicing. Learn to watch both at once.”

“While
I’m climbing down a pit?”

“Gravity
and the rope are doing all the work for us,” Magnus pointed out. “Doesn’t
matter what you’re doing, we need to see what he sees.”

Magnus
swung out over the pit on his line. The smart rope had controllers that
responded to link commands. Each end had artificial muscles and retractable
claws that could wrap around and latch onto objects, then release themselves at
the top once a climber had slid down the rope. Magnus also had a launcher that
could shoot the rope to high targets, and even a pair of climbing insect
devices that could carry a rope up into areas where it could not be shot with
the launcher.

Scout
continued to patrol in a small circle as Magnus slid down his line. Telisa
followed close behind. At the bottom, they told their ropes to release. The
lines fell gently and rolled themselves back up.

“Sand
everywhere,” Magnus noted. A large beam had smashed through the wall of the tunnel,
sitting at an angle. The grit covered everything.

“Remember
the Vovokan habitat in the Trilisk trap? The tunnels used some kind of sand as
a self-cleaning carpet and transport system.”

“I
doubt it’s either anymore. Whatever system was in place has probably been
disabled.”

“What
if the critter lives in the sand? There could be a hundred of them and we’d
never know.”

“Momma
Veer will take care of you. I doubt it could bite through your suit.”

Magnus
took a deep breath. The air was dry. It smelled like metal. They had brought
masks just in case, but the air was breathable as-is.

“Okay,
I’m sending Scout in down this side passage,” Telisa announced. “We have a long
ways to go through this, so...”

Magnus
sent a short nonverbal acknowledgement. They had only taken a couple of steps
down the new passage before Magnus got an alert through his link. It came from
Shiny’s probe network. He added a pane in his PV to see a map of the situation
beside the feed from Scout.

A
red dot moved toward their position. Magnus assessed what it meant.

“A
destroyer is coming,” he said.

“Damn.”

“Up
against the wall!”

They
curved their bodies to match the circular wall of the passage, facing each
other from opposite sides of the narrow tube. Magnus halted Scout.