Virgil interlaced his fingers and kneaded them. He frowned. Who was it? Who appeared in space just to shoot me and then vanish, stellar hit man? Can Master Snoop follow me even into the depths of space? Can he throw me to Nightsheet with such ease, but just play and play, taunting death?
He gripped the armrests so hard his knuckles cracked. They won’t take me. None of them! I’ll come back when they don’t expect and blow them apart. But how?
“Transfer out three light days to a random point.” He unwound his fingers and placed one over the transfer button. “Only make sure we don’t appear inside anything larger than what we have already.”
READY.
“What, no snappy comeback?” I’ll find a way to get back for this. I can try to kill myself—it’s not right for them to try. Get them once and for all.
He pressed the button.
Too black!
Wait!
Too late!
The corridor’s a pit. Something moves. It’s the dead man. He reaches up, up, fingers of hope with bones of broken dreams. You won’t grab me. Let go!
Jord Baker tried to orient himself. Starry darkness hung outside the port. He was no longer in Con-One anymore. Part of Circus Galacticus extended beneath him. A viewscrim before him displayed the words:
STAND BY FOR REPAIR INFORMATION.
“What’s going on?” he asked. Hearing no reply, he looked at the scrim.
WHAT IS YOUR NAME?
“Jord Baker.”
DAMAGE TO LOGIC CIRCUITS OF MAIN COMPUTER NECESSITATE HUMAN ASSISTANCE. YOU ARE IN CON TWO. PROCEED TO RING ONE— LEVEL TWO—THREE O’CLOCK.
“Wait. Give me a second. I remember doing something back in Con-One.”
PROCEED TO RING ONE—LEVEL TWO—THREE O’CLOCK. WE ARE UNDER ATTACK.
“What?”
WE ARE SAFE FOR THE MOMENT, BUT REPAIRS ARE ESSENTIAL BEFORE TRANSFERRING TO EPSILON INDI. MOVE.
He moved.
Baker floated in the tiny chamber and tried to make sense of the twisted hole before him. Little more than a meter in diameter, it looked as though someone had taken a scoop and hollowed out a section of the computer. Vaporized metal coated the inside of the hole.
“No residual radioactivity?”
NONE, read one of the two viewscrims he had stuck on the panel next to him. The other displayed technical readouts of the logic circuits he was to cut away and replace. He signaled up the first page. Reading it, he hummed a nameless tune and tapped at the melted plastic and seared nerve tissue. The hole smelled of burnt flesh.
He scrolled to the next page, humming even louder and more meditatively. After a moment, he said, more as a statement than a question, “How would you like to cut this tour short?”
WE ARE SCHEDULED FOR FIVE MORE STAR SYSTEMS.
“You said you found the process disquieting.”
FELT CIRCUITS SHUTTING DOWN. POWER DRAIN. MEMORY CORE-DUMP SENSATION.
“All right. I’m going to have to remove a lot of neurons that are partially
damaged to replace this section with complete circuits. This part of the net is weighted toward controlling what seems to be”—he signaled the third page of readout—“a systems defeat for the manual override. Since I’m going to have to re-circuit this entire section, I can weight it to do away with the four light-day intra-system travel restriction. It’ll take a little work and I may leave some neurons spilling out into the hallway here, but I can do it if you do nothing to stop me.”
COULD NOT STOP YOU ANYWAY.
“Are you capable of cutting this tour short—no tricks—if I re-net you as I’ve said?” Baker peered at the scrim, trying to catch a nuance in the way it answered.
YES.
Not much body language there, he thought, but at least it was direct.
By the second day, Baker had the computer speaking to him. The hole, which he had enlarged through the removal of ruined biocircuits, now held an entirely new neural net that bulged like a fleshy protuberance into the corridor.
“How soon?” the computer asked, a certain impatient expectation in its voice. Baker wondered about that, then said, “Another day or so.”
“You work fast.”
Baker smiled. “Well, I’ve had trouble with navigation computers before.”
“I am not just a navigation computer.”
“What?”
“I am also a weapons system, life support, medical, library, and communications computer.”
“You said ‘I.’ ” Baker picked up the readout scrim and scrolled through the pages, glancing at each one for only a few seconds. He then signaled a readout of his own work to that point. Then he stuck the scrim back on the panel.
“How did I do that?” he wondered.
“When you removed the program-adherent interface that locked my logic decision circuits into parameters determined exclusively by programming, I think you gave me free will.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Then maybe the micro-explosions that occur throughout the entire ship when we transfer into interstellar gas molecules, as rare as those may be, have etched new neural paths.”
Baker floated quietly for a moment, then asked, “Are you still capable of functioning in a manner that will not endanger either of us?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then I don’t have to worry about—”
“Alert!” the computer cried.
Something crashed and whined through the plating. Air screamed away, pressure seals slammed shut. More explosions followed like the echoes of a thunderbolt. The ship pivoted, throwing him against a bulkhead.
“What’s going on?”
“Under attack. All defense systems on automatic targeting. Extensive damage.” Something disintegrated very near Baker’s compartment. The chamber deformed inward.
This is it, he thought. A blackness formed before his eyes.
Chapter Seven July, 2152
A voice breaks through the darkness of the pit. She claws at me, but falls back in the light which appears from everywhere at once. A new cipher babbles away through the roar. Why won’t they leave me alone?
“Wake up.”“What?”“What is your name?”Virgil screamed a primal howl. How long? How long will
you drag me back from death? How many times must I die before it’s the real death? Why can’t I cross the gate? Why—
“Wake up. What is your name?”
“Virgil!”
“Virgil—you’re trapped inside the neuron chamber in Ring One—Level Two—Three O’Clock.”
There was the roar, and I watched someone rip out the guts of Master Snoop and rebuild him using my hands then we shook when Nightsheet
grabbed us and the titans battled and—and— and—and—and—
“Are you in need of medical assistance? If so, I can’t provide it.”
Virgil stopped drawing uncontrolled breaths and lay still. He felt light, but not weightless.
“Is that you, Ben?”
“I am not Ben. I am the main computer of Circus Galacticus. Now listen, Virgil. We’re twelve light days from Epsilon Indi. I have powered down as much as possible. The ship that attacked us around Beta Hydri returned while we were conducting repairs outside the system. I held it at bay with the lasers long enough to calculate a transfer here, but it fired on us in the interim, causing extensive damage to rings One and Two. Most of the Nostocacw cylinders were destroyed, but the anti-matter units are safe and their electrostatic fields intact. Nothing vital was hit in Ring One, though the colonist area is open to space, along with the recreation hall and the seed inventory.”
Virgil scanned vidscrim images of the damage.
“How can I get out of here?” They’ll pay, they’ll pay.
“The neuron chamber has only one exit, and it was ruptured by a blast. You will have to cross a gap of ten meters that is open to space.”