“I’m sorry.”
“You must have been a kid. You’ve watched the sims, but it’s not the same. I felt our station come alive. I ripped the controls out of our escape pod when the SCPs tried to jump.”
“Frerotte, I’m sorry. My aunt died in the war. But this is different. Lam was never a military-grade AI.”
“Today’s civilian AI are twenty times stronger than any program during the war. You don’t know what subroutines he’s picked up from the Brazilians. It was one thing when he was harassing them. Now he’s inside our grid.”
“He must have a lot of FNEE data. What if he can lead us to more sunfish or carvings?”
“We need to assume he’s a problem until proven otherwise. I’m not saying we have to terminate him. We do need to raise our alert level. Tell Koebsch or I will.”
“All right.” Vonnie wasn’t convinced, but Frerotte had covered for her when Lam was uploaded to the FNEE digger. She owed him.
Calling Tavares would have to wait.
“I’m going to the command module,” she said. “Koebsch and I do better in person. Maybe you can listen in and keep him from killing me.”
“We shouldn’t have let it get this far,” Frerotte said. “I never thought Lam would survive over there.”
You and Ash decided to sacrifice him to screw with the Brazilians, she thought. To you, he’s a tool. But if he’s sane, I can bring him in safely. If he’s erratic, I can run my own system checks and help him. Either that or I’ll kill him myself.
“Ash!” she said.
The young woman appeared in the hatch. She was drinking a soup bulb, which she closed as she followed Vonnie into the ready room. “What’s up?”
“We’re in trouble. It’s Lam. I’ll fill you in as soon as we’re moving.”
They opened the lockers to their pressure suits.
As they dressed, Vonnie called back to Frerotte. “What is Koebsch doing with Probes 110 and 11? Are they returning to camp or intercepting Lam’s routes toward the sunfish?”
“Right now those are almost the same compass headings,” Frerotte said. “10 and 11 need to come toward the surface before they can access the catacombs where Lam will be. That’s what they’re doing now.”
“Can you patch my helmet into your display?”
“Roger that,” Frerotte said.
Vonnie felt sure Koebsch would send 10 and 11 to stop Lam from reaching the sunfish before dealing with the possibility that Lam might approach the ESA camp. They were fortified by dozens of mecha, many of which were equipped for electronic warfare. Lam wouldn’t dare to face them head-on. He would be obliterated.
Where else could he go?
In all probability, Lam had co-opted 114’s mem files when he took control. That meant he knew of the inhabited zones they’d explored during his absence. Did he have any motive for approaching the sunfish? Maybe not. They couldn’t predict how he’d act, but Vonnie didn’t want him to contact the sunfish on his own. He might upset everything if he was irrational.
“I’m set,” Vonnie said. She and Ash were dressed. They buddy-checked each other’s collar locks, then cycled the air lock and hurried outside.
After they climbed into the jeep, Vonnie cut her radio in case Koebsch was listening. She tipped her helmet against Ash’s. Conductivity allowed their voices to reverberate from one helmet to another. “This is your chance to get into our mainframe,” she said. “Koebsch and I need to talk.”
“Okay. I still don’t know what’s happening.”
On the ride over, Vonnie explained everything she’d learned about Lam. “The Brazilians have been shooting at him, not sunfish,” she said.
“He’s been on the run all this time? Jesus. I shouldn’t have loaded him into their net.”
It was the right thing to say. Vonnie put her glove on Ash’s leg and squeezed. “Don’t apologize. I’m glad you didn’t let Koebsch erase him.”
They reached the command module. Ash parked the jeep, and they entered the air lock. It completed its cycle and the inner door opened.
Koebsch stood waiting, his expression flat with displeasure.
“Sir,” Ash said, “I came to help with data/comm until we get a handle on things.”
“Good,” Koebsch said. Then he dismissed Vonnie with a tone obviously meant to chastise her. “Von, you’ll have to wait here. Some of our information is classified.”
“I can help.”
“No. You’ll wait.” Koebsch watched as they removed their pressure suits. Maybe he wasn’t conscious of how hungrily his gaze traveled up and down the women’s figures. He’d been celibate as long as Vonnie, and he hadn’t found an outlet in dating any of the crew.
She didn’t mind his eyes. His interest in her would make it easier for her to distract him. Doing so was cruel, but she couldn’t miss this opportunity to steal Dawson’s contact lists and mem files.
37.
Koebsch led Ash through the short corridor to data/comm as Vonnie stood at the air lock with her suit in her hands, keeping her head bent to watch her helmet’s visor.
Frerotte continued to feed imagery to her heads-up display as 110 and 111 scrambled through the ice. On their perimeter with the Brazilians and near the sunfish colony, their surviving spies had turned to listen for Lam.
How could he have disappeared?
Maybe he’d hunkered down within a short distance of the perimeter, ceasing all external activity. He could be dealing with any number of hurdles integrating himself with 114’s data banks. More likely, he was analyzing 114’s maps and short-term records, which were new to him.
Koebsch startled her when he returned. “What are you looking at?” he said.
Trying not to look guilty, Vonnie set her helmet against a mag lock on the wall. “Let’s go to the armory,” she said. “I’d like to talk about our probes’ capabilities.”
“Finding your AI comes first,” he said.
“That’s what I mean. I can help. We need to figure out how well he’ll operate inside a probe.”
Koebsch studied her wordlessly. Then he glanced at her helmet and said, “You’re popular with a lot of the crew, Von. Sometimes that’s a good thing. But I can’t keep dealing with your insubordination.”
“Sir, I didn’t mean—”
“Have I been too lenient with you?”
“No, sir.”
“I considered revoking your status with our mission. You could be in charge of our meals or stay in suit maintenance full-time, something with zero systems access. Your choice. You like to cook. Is that what you want?”
“No, sir.”
“Then stop working against me. I need the truth. Who uploaded your AI to the Brazilian digger?”
“I did,” she said, selling the lie by holding his gaze. It would be what Koebsch wanted to believe. Anything else verged on a wider mutiny, which would cast him in a bad light as their leader.
“Let’s go,” he said.
He strode down the short corridor and turned right toward the armory. As she passed data/comm, Vonnie looked in. Ash was speaking to a group feed with Metzler, Frerotte, Pärnits, and O’Neal. “If we move those listening posts, we might be able to triangulate any new activity,” Pärnits said.
“Not if he’s beneath the rock,” Ash said.
Koebsch shut the door to the armory behind Vonnie. The room was a small, crowded box like all of the compartments in their hab modules and landers. Welding gear and nanoforges hung from two walls and the ceiling. Folded into the other walls were work benches, hand tools, sensors, and holo displays.
“We’ll tell Berlin it was my decision,” Koebsch said. “We used Lam’s basic files as a temporary countermeasure against the Brazilians, but somewhere we made a mistake. We included too much of his personality. He persisted instead of fragmenting.”