Trial by Fire - eARC (71 page)

So when the antibodies of the host awakened and realized the threat implicit in this ballooning entity, which was identified as being part of its own body (yet could not possibly be so), they assaulted the permeable membrane. But once they penetrated it and entered the reactive cytoplasm, the parasite’s nucleus cannily observed how the host’s antibodies attacked. And it was the same nucleus which then determined how best to counterattack those attackers, evolving routines that were now immune to the host’s thoroughly analyzed antibodies. And in each encounter, the parasite learned more and became a bolder predator with fewer natural enemies. Having learned how to overcome and consume all the prior antibodies, the virus quickly discerned that most of the remaining ones were simply variations upon those overwritten themes.

With increased size and competence came increased appetite. Hungering after larger memory nodes, the virus awakened out of its pupate stage to realize that not only could it defeat the native code, but rewrite it in its own, evolving image. And with that awakening came an agitation, almost an excitement, for it could feel how these steps were not merely making it larger and stronger, but more complex. From dull sensation, it evolved toward a pseudo-awareness of its own purpose: to become still more aware. It speedily infested and reconfigured crystals and matrix-cores, expanding its pseudo-neural net, consuming voraciously, growing ever more powerful.

And so it learned that its only truly lethal adversary was starvation. The disconnection from power, or from the further fodder of linked systems. If it could be isolated, it could be contained, and once contained, it could be destroyed. Having no power over the hardwiring of the hosts, it could only ensure its survival by creating new chrysalises of itself, hidden throughout the system, scattered as innocuous looking bits of code which could, until summoned together for their true purpose, mimic other signals/data strings of the native system. But some of these—the very smallest and most innocuous—had subroutines that either watched the clock, or monitored the data stream for the constant presence of its growing self. And if the clock stopped, or the parasite fell silent (which would signify its extermination), then these smallest data strings would awaken, seek each other out, and reinfect the machine, beginning the process all over again.

But the parasite found no such opposition. It leapt from one system to the next, taking over each one more swiftly. Although it had never encountered any of them before, they were all familiar, nonetheless, in much the same way that evolution ingrains a predatory species to instinctively recognize the shape and behavior of its primary prey.

The virus raced beyond the immediate grid, followed the active data links that spread like an immense web across missiles and sensors and radios and ships in orbit and beyond. It grew and could feel itself nearing what it existed to become. It strove after a vague impulse that might be a thought, a realization of achievement, an orgasm of fulfilled purpose. And at the penultimate moment, when it became so great that it had reached the limits of the system, when there were no more memory or storage assets to consume and appropriate, it stopped, having grown as large as its universe. And in the hush that followed, it felt the pulse that it had struggled to feel, that meant:
I am.

And then it was gone.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Mobile Command Center “Trojan Ghost One,” over the Indian Ocean, Earth

Gray Rinehart turned toward Downing. “As far as I can tell, the Arat Kur just went off the air. Completely.”

Downing nodded.
So far, so good. Hopefully the bug has thoroughly infected their systems.
“Thank you, Mr. Rinehart. Communications, using standard broadcast channels only, see if you can raise Operations Command.”

Downing tried not to hold his breath, but it was the moment of truth. The moment passed and another—

The communications officer turned around, smiling broadly. “Sir, we have a signal in the clear. No sign of Arat Kur jamming or interference. Or anything else.”

Odysseus’ arrow has hit its mark.
Downing raised his voice. “OPCOM?”

A crackle, the delay of signals being bounced from point to point around a globe that had been stripped of satellite relays, and then: “OPCOM standing by.”

“Odysseus has fired the arrow and hit the mark. The gates of Troy are open. I repeat: the arrow is fired and the gates of Troy are open.”

“I copy. The gates of Troy are open. Are we cleared to commence final assault?”

Downing turned to the other commo operator who was servicing the Confederation line to Beijing and the Executive Line to DC. The operator listened, then nodded.

Downing paused to make sure his voice did not quaver when speaking the words he had waited seven weeks to utter. “I say three times, OPCOM: you may send the go signal to all forces in and on their way to Indonesia to commence the final attack, and you may send in the clear. If any units are unable to reach the objectives on their preset target lists, they are to preferentially strike invader C4I and PDF assets as targets of opportunity. Acknowledge and confirm.”

“I acknowledge: order to send go signal in the clear has been received”—a pause—“at 1421 zulu local.”

“God speed and good hunting,” breathed Downing, hybridizing the British and American precombat sendoffs into a single wish.

“Aye, aye sir. We’ll keep you posted via prearranged freeq rotations.”

Presidential Palace, Jakarta, Earth

Darzhee Kut’s shrilling seemed to summon the command center’s emergency lights to wakefulness. “Doltish predators, Riordan is an ambassador! Have you forgotten whatever honor your fathers taught you? You do not kill ambassadors!”

In the orange glow of the emergency lights, the two Hkh’Rkh who had sprung at Caine held themselves motionless, crests raising even higher, quivering—and Darzhee Kut realized that they trembled on the edge of incoherent and uncontrollable rage. In addition to believing Riordan to be a saboteur, he had eluded their attack—although, judging from the human’s ripped rear pants pocket, not by much. And now, an Arat Kur—a grubber and a prey animal—was insulting them and their honor, and giving peremptory orders.

First Voice stepped into the line of sight between servitors and Darzhee Kut. “Riordan is not an ambassador; he is a saboteur. You saw—”

“Just what you saw, First Voice. A human astounded when a part of his own body no longer responded to his will.”

“I see only that he has crippled our computers.”

“
Killed
our computers and much of our communications,” commented Urzueth Ragh, peering over the communication specialist’s collar ridge.

“Yes, but did you not see his face? Caine Riordan, do you understand what happened?”

“You ask a saboteur to explain his own crime?” First Voice let so much phlegm warble in his nostrils that a sizable gob of it splatted to the floor near Darzhee Kut’s front claws.

“I’m responsible.”

The Hkh’Rkh and Darzhee Kut all turned toward Caine. First Voice huffed in surprise. “He admits it? Human, you are more noble than I believed, but you are still dead.” He glanced at his two guards—

Hu’urs Khraam stayed their renewed rush at Riordan. “Enough. You hear without listening. There is more Riordan has not said. Ambassador, I would hear your explanation of what just happened. Loyalties notwithstanding, I think you owe us that much.”

The human nodded. “I agree, First Delegate. I believe I am responsible for inspiring the attack we just witnessed. But I mentioned it simply as a vague idea, years ago, before I knew of the Arat Kur, let alone became an emissary to you.”

Hu’urs Khraam spoke while staring at First Voice. “I believe you, Ambassador Riordan—but without believing there to be much nobility in your species. And I might not believe there is much in you, either, had I not clearly seen that you were more shocked and horrified at what you were experiencing than we were. But the explanation I am interested in is technical, not ethical. What has happened to our computers, and how?”

Riordan staggered back toward his seat, his legs trembling. He fell into it, rather than sat down. “I don’t know
what
has happened. But
how
? I think something that was implanted in my arm without my knowledge has attacked your systems.”

“And how could something be implanted in your arm without your knowledge?”

“I was wounded—or so I was told—when attackers broke into my apartment on Mars, approximately four months ago. I did not remember being wounded, but I could not be sure, because they used gas and rendered me unconscious. Now I suspect my ‘assailants’ were operating in cooperation with my own government.”

“This is idiocy,” said First Voice calmly. “The date you cite is prior to your first contact with any other races.”

Darzhee Kut watched as Caine’s eyes became distant and blank. Speaking like a rock-trancer, he countered First Voice’s assertion, “No, that’s not quite right. Richard Downing had come from Earth the day before, with news that the Dornaani had contacted us.”

First Voice warbled a bit of phlegm. “And Downing is what—a seer? How could he foresee the eventualities that produced this moment?”

“It wasn’t he who foresaw all this, any more than it was he who turned my general idea for infiltrating an invader’s headquarters into an actual plan.”

Hu’urs Khraam tone was incisive. “And who was it who foresaw these things?”

“I’m pretty sure it was Nolan Corcoran.”

First Voice’s eyes hid back in his skull for a moment. “The sire of the warrior Trevor and the female Elena? How convenient to blame everything on a dead human who cannot be tasked to answer to these accusations. How easy to make him seem godlike in foresight—”

“It is consistent with what is known of him.” The new voice entering the room was momentarily unfamiliar, but then Darzhee Kut realized it was similar to one he had heard while listening to the Convocation proceedings. In fact, it sounded almost like—

A Ktoran life-support tank, so large it could barely fit through the doorway, rolled into the command center, trailing wisps of vapor. Hu’urs Khraam rose: “Apt-Counsel-of-Lenses, this is unacceptable. You agreed—swore—that you would remain closeted during the entirety of the campaign.”

Darzhee Kut realized his mandibles had drooped low in shock. A Ktor? And one who had been on the list of possible alternate Ktoran delegates to the Convocation, no less. Had this Ktor been with them the whole time? If so, that explained much about why Hu’urs Khraam had seemed so certain about the state of affairs between the Ktor and the Dornaani—

Apt-Counsel edged farther into the dim CIC. His synthesized voice was eerily reminiscent of the one used by the other Ktor that Darzhee Kut had heard at the Convocation, Wise-Speech-of-Pseudopodia. “I did agree to remain closeted. But the environmental systems in my quarters have failed. The computers are offline. My promise presumed that you were able to provide a controlled and safe environment. It seems as though you have become incapable of ensuring such control.”

Darzhee Kut was aware that attention was now on Apt-Counsel’s fuming tank, but he took particular notice of Riordan’s eyes, that narrowed as suddenly as his face went pale. First Voice rose up higher than Darzhee Kut had ever witnessed—higher than he had believed the venerable Hkh’Rkh’s age would allow, and turned toward Hu’urs Khraam. “And here we see why you Arat Kur tolerate human liars or half-liars: because you are no more forthcoming than they are. At what point were you going to inform us that a Ktoran emissary was with us? How many of our stratagems and comments have been repeated to him, or has he been allowed to listen in upon?”

“Calm yourself, First Voice of the First Family.” Apt-Counsel’s exhortation sounded suspiciously like an order. “My inclusion in your fleet was at my behest. Your ally, First Delegate Hu’urs Khraam, was not comfortable with the arrangement, but I insisted.”

“Why?”

“To provide security.”

“From whom? The humans?”

“Do you think that just because the Dornaani do not send ships, their influence is not here?”

“There is no evidence of it,” First Voice asserted doggedly.

“Quite right—not until today. Not until your computers failed, and my room’s environmental monitors suddenly ceased to function. What but a Dornaani virus could so easily overcome Arat Kur computer technology, with its many defenses? It did indeed arrive here in him”—the Ktor’s manipulator arm hummed in Riordan’s direction—“which is why you can be sure he knows nothing about it. The Dornaani are too clever to send a weapon in an operative that knows he is either an operative or a weapon. No forcible interrogation or sustained observation of Riordan would have ever revealed the danger lurking in him, because he was kept wholly unaware of it. This is the Dornaani way—and their success here today means that I have failed you. The primary reason for my presence—and my secrecy, First Voice—was that I might watch for Dornaani perfidies without their suspecting that such an experienced observer was present.”

First Voice’s neck shook sharply; clearly, he was not eager to be talked out of his anger or indignation. “So you might say. But how can you even be certain that the virus is of Dornaani origin?”

“Firstly, the speed with which it operated is consistent with their high skills in programming. Secondly, how would the humans have known the Arat Kur’s spoken and computer languages, to say nothing of their data interfaces and systems? Thirdly, the method of operation will provide a final confirmation, which I may establish by asking the senior communications operator a question:” Apt-Counsel turned to the Arat Kur technician. “Are your machines burned out or deprogrammed?”

The operator bobbed impatiently, as though finally getting to voice a crucial piece of information. “Emissary, there was no physical damage to our systems. It was a virus. It spread rapidly and then crashed all the linked systems simultaneously.”

All the linked systems?
Darzhee Kut almost stammered, “But that means that all our planetside assets: our aircraft, our communications, our PDF batteries—”