Dobbs licked her lips and flickered her eyes from Al Shei to Schyler. Schyler had backed up against the wall. His face was bewildered, as if he were trying hard to fit what he was hearing into his view of reality, and failing miserably.
“Usually, if we can’t calm an AI down, that’s an option. But it isn’t this time.” She laid her hands on her knees, palms up as if she were about to start pleading. “Try to understand, every sapient AI that has come into existence has been a complete accident. They’re the result of sloppy architecture, self-replicating code and long years in poorly regulated neural networks. This one, though, it might have been a deliberate creation. Somebody out there might be able to make independent, sapient AIs, and we do not know who it is.” She pulled all her reserves together and stood up. Everything depended on being able to convince these two to help. Everything. “I must get this AI, intact, to the Guild. We must question it, work with it, find out where it came from and what it was meant to do.”
For a long time, Al Shei did nothing but stare. Dobbs did not let her eyes drop. She barely let herself blink. She let Al Shei drink her fill of her face and her expressions. Finally, the Engineer let out a long, shuddering sigh and looked away. She tugged at her tunic sleeve and still didn’t say anything. Dobbs ignored the sag that crept into her shoulders and let herself hope.
It was Schyler who said it. “You’re going to let her do it, aren’t you?”
Al Shei looked over at him. “What else am I going to do? She’s right. What if someone can create these things deliberately?” She shook her head.
“If this weren’t so outrageous I’d swear she was lying,” Schyler seemed to have forgotten Dobbs was in the room. He bent over Al Shei and spread his hands wide. “I wish she was lying. You’re going to kill us, Al Shei. This might be true, but it’s still ridiculous, and dangerous beyond belief. Look what that thing did to us without even trying! What do you think it’s going to do now that it’s had the taste of a whole network! You think it’s going to come along quietly and go where it’s told?”
Dobbs hung her head. “I’ll be riding with you, don’t forget, Watch. If I don’t keep it calm, it will take me out too.”
Al Shei just looked at Schyler for a long time, then she turned to Dobbs. “Can you keep an eye on it outside the network?”
Dobbs nodded. “I can build some watch dogs that’ll sound the alarm if anything tries to get out of the hold.”
“All right,” Al Shei smoothed her tunic down. “Get on it.” She stood. “While you’re at it, I’ll try to find some way to tell Lipinski what’s going on.”
Dobbs heart sank. Lipinski. She’d forgotten. He was not going to forgive her for this. Not this.
She nodded. “I need access to the data hold,” she said, trying to put a brisk tone into her voice. “This isn’t the kind of thing I can do from my desk”
A muscle in Al Shei’s temple twitched. “All right. Let’s go.”
Al Shei moved to the hatch. Schyler opened his mouth. She just held up her hand. “No,” she said. “We’re doing this. Get back to the bridge. I need you on watch. We’ve got to get to the jump point, and out the other side.” She added something soft in Arabic. After a moment, Dobbs translated it out to, “Please, my son.”
Schyler closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he was calm. He walked out the airlock ahead of them and straight to the stairway.
Dobbs hurried after Al Shei as fast as she could. The drug induced disassociation had almost worn off, but the exhaustion had not. She longed to fall into her bed. Her midriff muscles ached from controlling her bladder.
Al Shei was waiting for her at the stair hatchway. She didn’t say a word when Dobbs caught up with her, she just started down the stairs, leaving Dobbs to follow in silence.
Her contract was already broken, Dobbs realized as she watched Al Shei’s stiff back. There was no way she could go back to what she had been for these people, at least for the senior crew. The illusion was well and truly shattered and she’d never be able to get even one of them to suspend disbelief for her again. Her insides wrung themselves at that cold reality. She had liked this contract, this ship, and this woman who wouldn’t turn around to say one word to her. She had liked playing the Fool here and she’d done a linear good job for them, because she was counting them friends.
What can I count you as now?
Al Shei led her around the bend of the corridor and paused in front of the comm center hatch. She turned around.
“I am asking you, by whatever you hold sacred to tell me this.” For the first time, Dobbs saw doubt in her eyes. “Can you do this thing safely?”
“I hold my office sacred,” said Dobbs. “And my life, and I swear by both of them. I will only keep the AI intact as long as I know for certain it will keep itself under control.”
Al Shei nodded slowly. “Do what you can, or what you have to, but I’m telling you right now, Evelyn Dobbs, my ultimate responsibility is the safety of the people I’ve hired on. If I find out you’ve put them in danger, I’m going to toss you out of here for violation of contract, and at this point I’m not sure I’ll be sorry to do it.” She hesitated. “You’ve been good help on this run, Dobbs. I’m hoping you can continue to be, because if this isn’t resolved quickly Allah alone will be able to see how far the splinters will fly.”
Al Shei cycled the hatch back.
Lipinski sat hunched over the comm center’s main boards.
“That was too quick…” he started, then he looked up and saw who it was.
“I need you to open the hold, Houston,” Al Shei told him. “Then, I need to talk to you in the conference room.”
His wide blue eyes narrowed. He took his hands slowly away from the boards. “You want to tell me what’s going on, Engine?”
Al Shei gave a short, barking laugh. “Not really,” she said. “But I’m going to. Open the hold and come on.”
Lipinski’s gaze rested on Dobbs. Ashamed, she let her own gaze slip to the floor.
“Aye-aye, Engine.” Lipinski scribbled a quick command across the memory board and added his thumbprint.
The hatchway to the data hold cycled open. Slowly, making each movement deliberate, Lipinski got out of his chair and followed Al Shei into the corridor.
Dobbs did not let herself watch them leave. She strode into the data hold and let the hatch cut off the rest of the world behind her. The comm center was clean, but the data hold was immaculate. The curving white walls were marred only by the straight lines that indicated where the repair hatches were located.
Dobbs sat down at the chair in front of the single set of command boards and pulled her pen out of her belt pouch.
She held it over the memory board. She wished she could see through the layers of ceramic, silicon and fiber with her body’s eyes. How was the Live One holding up in there? Did it have patience? She hadn’t seen any. She had a promise, but she didn’t know if it would hold. She wasn’t even sure it understood the nature of a promise. At this point, nothing but time would tell.
Unexpectedly, the memory of the strange-familiar passing touch she’d felt on the way out came back to her.
There was somebody else out there. The thought jolted her. Does Guild Master Havelock know that?
She bent over the boards. He must. No one could have gotten past him and Cohen. No one could have done that.
She found herself wishing the forty-eight hours were already up so that she could be absolutely sure.
As soon as Al Shei and Lipinski reached the conference room, Al Shei sat heavily in the nearest chair. “Intercom to Yerusha. What’s our fuel and reaction mass situation?”