She opened her eyes.
Her right hand was lying limp and lifeless across her thigh. She picked it up and slid it back onto the end of her wrist, twisting it around until she could wiggle all her fingers.
In her ear, a voice whispered “I’m here, Jemina.”
“Hello, Foster.” The foster was not independent yet. If and when it became complex enough to catch a soul, it would be encouraged to choose a name. For now, though, it was just “Foster.”
The fostering program had been going on for twenty years and had yet to see any successes. Nonetheless, the sporadic appearances of rogue AIs reinforced the Freer’s faith, and there were always more applicants for the adoption lottery than there were AIs to be fostered.
Humanity’s freedom came when they were able to shake off the chaotic planetary environment they were born into and make their own homes designed specifically for them. Their final freedom would come when they could break the cycle of death that chaotic ecosystem had trapped them in, when human beings could build houses for human souls that would not age and perish. That was the Freer ideal, and Yerusha believed in it.
“What is happening?” asked Foster. “Am I being hatched?”
“No, not yet.” Not for awhile yet, either, I’m afraid. She could not let Foster go out of its own stack until she had a secure environment for it. That would not happen until she was back on a Freer station.
Foster didn’t ask any more questions, like a flesh-and-blood child would have. As usual, Yerusha found its inability to display impatience or undue curiosity a mixed blessing.
“I need your help, Foster. The ship is having severe system trouble. I need you to scan the input from the simulation and see if you can establish a pattern for the disruptions.”
“An accurate simulation cannot be created when the root causes for observed effects are unidentified,” answered Foster, sounding way too programmed.
Need to work on the grammar structure paths. “I know, but we’ve got a constant update going so you should have an accurate picture of the symptoms. We don’t need an exact answer. A best guess cause and effect relationship will do for now.”
“Okay,” said Foster. “Setting up scan routine.”
“Be careful of the security protocols,” Yerusha reminded it. “Don’t trip over any of Houston’s wires.”
“Noted. Precautions being integrated. Predicted time to initial report, thirty seconds.”
Definitely have to work on those grammar paths. Not half enough flexibility in there.
Yerusha settled back to wait. The predicted thirty seconds passed, and thirty more, and thirty more.
Yerusha drummed her fingers impatiently on the virtual chair arm.
“Foster? What’s going on?”
There was no answer.
“Foster?” Yerusha gripped both arms of the chair and leaned forward.
There was no answer.
Yerusha snatched up the pen. Status of module in port 37C, she wrote. Real world interface.
The board absorbed her command and wrote out its answer.
MODULE IN PORT 37C IS INOPERATIVE.
“Ino…” the word died on Yerusha’s lips.
She slammed the heels of both hands against her temples to cut off the simulation and raise the helmet. In an instant, the world went black and she felt the helmet begin to rise. As soon as she saw the thin line of outside light, she ducked under the helmet’s edge and tore off the gloves. She pushed the chair arms away from her. With a shaking hand, she removed Foster’s stack from the port. She laid it back in the case and bit her lip as she pressed the diagnosis key. Two words appeared on the edge of the small message board inside the case’s lid:
STACK EMPTY.
A small, involuntary sound escaped Yerusha’s throat. She tried to stand, but the skeleton’s straps and boots forced her back down. Viciously, she slapped the catches open.
“Are you okay ?” asked Cheney.
Yerusha couldn’t even begin to think of a way to answer him. Cradling Foster’s case in both hands, she ran for the hatch.
What happened? What happened? She pounded down the stairs to the berthing deck. She was aware of an exclamation from an engineering platform, but she didn’t know who it was.
Did Foster get loose? Did it hatch? Fractured and damn, Lipinski will kill it! Did the virus get it? She lunged into the corridor. Did I open it up to die?
What happened?
Hands grabbed her shoulders, jerking her backwards. Yerusha stumbled into a cabin, barely catching herself against a bunk before she over-balanced. A hatch cycled shut behind her. Yerusha forced her eyes to focus, and she saw a window looking out onto rolling, mist-covered hills.
“Jemina Yerusha,” said Dobbs from behind her. “What have you done?”
There was such a note of command in her voice, Yerusha almost answered.
She ran her hand through her hair.
“Nothing,” she managed to say. “I was just running some simulations on the bridge. Overdid things. I should be asleep…”
Dobbs sighed. “I really wish you’d tell me what’s going on, because I know you don’t want to have to tell Schyler, or Al Shei, and possibly Lipinski, if you live through telling the first two.”
Yerusha swallowed hard and looked down at the case in her hands. “I was using my foster to scan some data simulations. It…stopped responding after the first thirty seconds. The case diagnostic said the stack was empty.”
Dobbs stepped into her line of sight. The Fool’s forehead was wrinkled in perplexity. “It got loose?”
Yerusha shrugged helplessly. “It shouldn’t have left the stack, it was scanning input. I don’t think it could get loose, it hasn’t got any independent initiative…” She felt herself begin to sway on her feet. “I don’t know…I was trying…”
“To prove the worth of humanity’s ultimate efforts to a shipload of groundhuggers,” Dobbs said for her. Dobbs hooked two of her fingers around her Guild necklace. “And I should have seen it coming.”
“That’s not it,” insisted Yerusha, although she didn’t know why. “I…”
“Sit down, Pilot.” Dobbs lifted the case out of her hands. Yerusha clutched at it. That was Foster, her last link with home, the thing she was counting on to keep her focused for the two years when no other Freer would even talk to her.
“I’m not going to hurt it,” said Dobbs softly. “Sit down before you fall down.”
Yerusha sat on the edge of the scarlet-covered bunk. It was fully made up, she realized. Whatever Dobbs had been doing this shift, it wasn’t sleeping.
Dobbs set Foster’s case on the corner of her desk. She opened a drawer and poured something out of a square, green bottle into a collapsible cup.
“Here. Sip this.” She handed the cup to Yerusha.
Yerusha sipped. The liquid was pale brown, smokey flavored and very alcoholic.
“For medicinal purposes.” Dobbs grinned at her, indicating that the comment must be a joke.
Yerusha took another sip. The liquid felt warm against her dry throat.
Dobbs pulled her pen out of the desk socket. “Is the stack secured?” she asked as she flipped open the case’s lid.
“Not now.” Yerusha shook her head. “I didn’t think…”
She half-expected Dobbs to say “obviously not,” but the Fool just nodded and plugged her pen into the case.
“What are you doing?” Yerusha started to her feet.
“I’m trying to see if there’s enough left in here to get a recording of what happened.” The light on the end of her pen glowed gold. Dobbs plucked the pen out of the case and stuck it back into her desk. She watched silently as the desk wrote out its response.
“Well,” Dobbs fingered her necklace. “Nothing got out. Something did get in though.”