Trying not to sound nervous and/or enraged, I said, Miki, remember you said you wouldn’t tell Don Abene about me.
I won’t, Rin. Miki was so calm and complacent, my performance reliability dropped by 2 percent. I promised.
I managed to seethe silently. But part of Miki’s coded behavior must include going to Don Abene when it had questions. I was going to need to make sure I answered its questions as thoroughly as possible; obviously “I don’t know” wasn’t going to cut it.
Hirune was asking Abene, “What do you think of our security team so far?”
Abene said, “I’m pleased, actually. They don’t seem to know much about terraforming facilities, but that shouldn’t matter.”
It might, I thought. But SecUnit education modules were crap and all I knew about terraforming was what I had managed to absorb while completely not caring about it, so maybe I wasn’t the best authority.
Through Miki’s eyes, I saw Hirune glance at the other two, who were talking about calibrating something. She lowered her voice. “I suppose. With only two of them, they’re not going to be much help against raiders.”
Abene snorted. “If there are raiders, we’re pulling out and heading back for the transit station immediately.”
By the time you see them, it’s too late for that.
My reaction must have gotten into the feed, because Miki asked anxiously, You’ll keep them safe, Rin?
Yes, Miki, I told it, because that was my story and I was sticking to it.
Chapter Four
IN MIKI’S FEED I had access to a scan of the terraforming facility, superimposed with a schematic from the original specs. Yeah, I think I knew where to look for the evidence I wanted.
Through Miki’s camera I saw the visual approaching on the shuttle’s display. We had passed the tractor array already, still operating at optimal capacity according to the automated reports it was sending to the station.
The facility was a huge platform in the upper atmosphere, far larger than the station, larger than a full-sized transit ring. Most of that space was for the pods that contained the enormous engines that would actually control the terraforming process. There was no visual of the planet itself; the facility hung in a layer of perpetual storm. Swirling, towering clouds, filled with electrical discharges, obscured any view of the surface.
“We’re seeing good levels on all the environmentals,” Kader said from the cockpit, sharing an image of the readings through the feed. “Are you sure you want to go with full gear?”
I tensed, certain it was going to be the wrong answer. Miki, tell her— But Abene replied, “Yes, we’ll go full safety protocol.” That meant full suits, with filtering and emergency air supply, and some protection for vulnerable human bodies. “We’ll keep to that until we can inspect the environmentals and take over facility control, then we’ll reevaluate.”
I relaxed. Then I reminded myself yet again that these weren’t my clients.
Miki said, It’s okay, Rin. Don Abene is always cautious.
I’d seen lots of dead cautious humans, but I wasn’t going to say that to Miki.
Through Miki’s eyes I watched Abene gear up for the first assessment walk-through. Kader and Vibol were staying on the ship, but Wilken and Gerth, plus Hirune and the two other researchers, Brais and Ejiro, were going with Abene and Miki.
Wilken exited the lock first, and her helmet cam sent the video into the feed. We had locked onto a passenger-only dock in the habitation pod and the embarkation area wasn’t big enough to accommodate heavy equipment or standard hauler bots. Power was on but at minimal; emergency light bands glowed at the floor level, halfway up the wall, and at the top, but the larger overheads were off. It was enough light for the humans to see without the special filters in the helmet cameras.
Was it a good idea to board the facility here? The schematic showed a larger multi-use embarkation space on the level above us. This smaller loading zone could make the approach to the shuttle easier to defend, but it could also make it more difficult to get the team back into the shuttle if something went wrong.
It was hard to say if it was a bad judgment or not. There was always the fact that humans are lousy at security. I would have gone in first with a full deployment of drones, leaving the humans on the sealed shuttle. I would have evaluated the facility (i.e., made sure there weren’t any unwanted visitors, by walking around as bait waiting for something to attack me) and only then brought the humans in. But don’t mind me, it’s not like I know what I’m doing or anything.
The camera in Wilken’s armor sent video into the team feed as Wilken moved forward. She went through the lock and into the corridor, and I noted no damage, just a few scuffs and scrapes on walls and floor, signs of normal use. Abene, Hirune, Miki, and then Brais and Ejiro followed, with Gerth bringing up the rear. I split my attention into seven streams, one for each human’s helmet camera plus Miki. I was listening in on the team feed and comm, but that was all coming through Miki, too. Abene said, “Miki, are you picking up anything?”
“No, Don Abene,” Miki said. It was scanning for signal activity from any resident systems. Since this facility had been built by GrayCris, I was expecting the kind of HubSystem and SecSystem I was used to, or something compatible. There were lots of security cameras everywhere, they just weren’t active. Miki was right, there was nothing but dead air in here, no facility feed activity despite the power for lights and environmentals.
Maybe they thought the systems would be lonely if they were left active, Rin, Miki said. What do you think?
I wondered if ART had thought I was this stupid when it had been riding around in my head. Maybe, but the chances were good that if that had been the case, ART would have said so.
That might be true, I said, because I knew now if I didn’t answer all Miki’s questions it might accidentally rat me out to the nearest human. But then I remembered this place had been meant to collapse and burn up in the atmosphere before GI had put in the claim on it. I added, GrayCris might have removed the central cores for the resident systems when they pulled out. They’d want to cut their losses. Sec- and HubSystems that could run a facility this complex would be hugely expensive. I didn’t know about GrayCris, but the company that owned me would never have left that much cash behind.
And Miki said, “Don Abene, maybe GrayCris removed the central cores for the resident systems when they pulled out. They would want to cut their losses.”
For fuck’s sake.
“That makes sense,” Hirune said. She had been poking at her comm, and added, “There’s some interference, maybe shielding? I can’t pick up the station traffic anymore, though I can still hear Kader and Vibol on our shuttle’s feed.”
Ejiro pulled a sample of the signal interference into his feed to study it. “Yes, we know the shielding’s pretty heavy, probably due to the disturbances in the atmosphere.” As if on cue, a burst of signal static blotted out the comm and feed for 1.3 seconds.
Heavy weather, Vibol commented over the comm. Watch out for rain.
The team chuckled, and Miki sent an amusement sigil into the team feed. Oh, a running joke, those aren’t annoying at all. Wilken and Gerth ignored the byplay.
Ahead, Wilken stepped out of the corridor into a larger space, the scanner on her armor telling her it was empty of life signs. She paced around the circumference, clearing the room, then signaled the others to come in. This space wasn’t labeled on the schematic but had decontam cubicles and environmental suits stored in racks against the walls. Again, no damage visible as the humans flashed their cameras around. Brais said, “Was this a clean facility? I thought the bio pod was separated and sealed. That’s what it said in the schematic, wasn’t it?”