Alicia writhed in the command chair, fists white-knuckled on the armrests while her augmentation tried to fight the torment in her head, and the pain faltered. The computer had responded to an unauthorized access attempt, not recognizing that the human invader was not alone. Now it realized it was under double attack, but . . . by what? Not by a computer-augmented human-synth link. Not even by an AI. This was something outside the parameters of its own programming, that grew and swelled in power. Something that could invade through electronic systems but was neither electronic nor organic . . . and certainly was not human.
And so the computer paused, trying to understand. It was a tiny vacillation, imperceptible to any mortal sense, but Tisiphone was not mortal, and she struck through the chink of hesitation like a viper.
Alicia lurched up, half rising from the command chair in a scream of pain as the computer reacted. It didn’t panic, precisely, for panic was not an electronic attribute, but something very like that flickered through it. Confusion. An instant awareness that it faced something it had not been designed to resist. Tisiphone thrust deep, the silent scream of her war cry echoing Alicia’s shriek of anguish, and programming shuddered as the Fury isolated the computer’s self-destruct command and cut it ruthlessly away.
She tightened her grip and hurled a bolt of power into the sleeping AI’s personality center, and Alicia slammed back like a forgotten toy as the computer turned on the Fury like a mother protecting its young. It could no longer touch its own heart, couldn’t even destroy it to prevent its theft. It could only destroy the intruder. Circuits closed. More and more power thundered through them, and combat was joined on every level, at every point of contact. Alicia sagged, feeling strength drain out of her to meet Tisiphone’s ruthless demands, for more than rage was needed now, more than simple ferocity, and the Fury dragged it from her without mercy.
Mind and computer parried and thrust in micro-seconds of titanic warfare, but Tisiphone’s thrusts had jarred the sleeping AI. It was awakening and she threw a shield about it, warding off the computer’s every attempt to regain contact with it. She had no time to make it hers, but she cut away whole sectors of circuitry as alarms tried to wail, completing its isolation. And as she seized control of segment after segment she converted their power to her own use, amplifying her own abilities. She had never confronted such as this computer before, but she could no longer count the human minds she had conquered . . . and this foe was designed to link with human minds.
She sensed alarms and stabbed through wavering defenses to freeze them. She invaded and isolated the communications interface, smothering the computer’s frantic efforts to alert its makers. She was a wind of fire, utterly alien yet fully aware of what she faced, and she struck again and again while the computer fought to analyze her and formulate a counter-attack.
Alicia jerked in the command chair, sobbing and white-faced, paralyzed by exquisite agony as the backlash of Tisiphone’s battle slammed through her. She would have torn the headset away in blind self-preservation, but her motor control was paralyzed by the ricochets bouncing back down the headset link. She wanted it to stop. She wanted to die. She wanted anything to make the torture go away, and there was no escape.
But even as the conflict between the Fury and the security systems reached its unbearable pitch, the sleeping core of the AI woke. It shouldn’t have. The mere fact that its computer body had been invaded should have assured that it did not, but Tisiphone had bypassed the cutouts. It woke unknowing and ignorant, shocked into consciousness without warning by the warfare raging about it, and did the only thing it knew how to do.
It reached out as it had been designed to do, following an imperative to seek its other half, to find understanding and protection from its human side, and Alicia gasped as tendrils of alien “thought” oozed through her.
It was terrible . . . and wonderful. More agonizing than anything she had yet suffered, horrifying with bottomless power, pregnant with the death of the person she had always been. It pierced her like a dagger, slicing into secret recesses not even Tisiphone had plumbed. She saw herself with merciless clarity in the backwash of its discovery—saw all her pettinesses and faults, her weaknesses and self-deceptions, like lightning in a night sky— and she could not close her eyes, for the vision was inside her.
Yet she saw more. She saw her strengths, the power of her beliefs, her values and hopes and refusal to quit. She saw everything, and beyond it she saw the alpha synth. She would never be able to explain it to another— even now she knew that. It was . . . a presence. A towering glory born not of flesh or spirit but of circuitry and electrons. It was more than human, yet so much less. Not godlike. It was too blank, too unformed, like pure, unrealized potential.
And even as she watched it, it changed, like an old-fashioned photo in the chemical bath, features rising into visibility from nothingness. She felt it come into being, felt it move beyond the blind, instinctual groping towards her. Something flowed out of her into it, and it ingested it and made it part of itself. Her values, her beliefs and desires and needs filled it, and suddenly it was no longer alien, no longer threatening.
It was her. Another entity, a distinct individual, yet her. Part of her. An extension into another existence that recognized her in return and reached out once more, and it was no longer clumsy and uncertain, half panicked by the battle raging about it. This time it knew what it did, and it ignored the tumult to concentrate on the most important thing in its universe.
The pain vanished, blown away with her terror as the AI embraced her. It stroked her with electronic fingers to soothe her torment, murmured to her, welcomed her with a whole-hearted sincerity, a sense of joy, she knew beyond question was real, and she reached back to it in wonder and awe.
Triumph sparkled through Tisiphone as the struggle abruptly died, leaving her unopposed in the peripherals of the system. She wheeled back towards it heart, reached out to the personality center once more, seeking control . . . and jerked back in astonishment.
There was no interface! She reached again, cautiously, touching the shining wall with mental fingers, and there was no point of access. She stepped back, insinuating herself into a sensor channel and riding it inward, only to be effortlessly strained out of the information flow and set gently aside, and confusion stirred within her.
She withdrew into Alicia’s mind, and her confusion grew. The fear and tumult had vanished into rapt concentration that scarcely even noticed her return, and she was no longer alone within Alicia. There was another presence, as powerful as she, and she twitched in surprise as she beheld it.
The other entity sensed her. She felt its attention swing towards her and tried to cloak herself from its piercing eye, hiding as she had evaded Tannis’s diagnostic scanners. She failed, and something changed within it. Curiosity gave way to alarm and a stir of protectiveness. Tendrils reached out from it, probing her, trying to push her back and away from Alicia’s core.
It was Alicia . . . and it wasn’t. For the first time, Tisiphone truly understood what “impression” meant. The AI had been awakened, and it would let no one harm Alicia. The pressure grew, and the Fury dug in stubbornly.
Alicia whimpered at the sudden renewal of conflict. It wasn’t pain this time, only a swelling sensation. A sense of force welling into her through her receptor to meet an answering force from somewhere else, and she was trapped between them. She sucked in great gasps of air, twisting anew in the command chair, and the pressure grew and grew, crushing her between the hammer of the roused AI and the anvil of the Fury’s resistance.
<Stop it!> she screamed, and a shockwave rolled through her as the combatants remembered her and jerked apart. She sagged forward, pressing her hands against the headset, yet the conflict hadn’t ended. It had simply changed, been replaced by wary, watchful distrust.
She straightened slowly, fighting a need to cackle insanely, and drew a deep breath, then turned her attention inward once more.
<There’s onl
y one of me. You two are going to have to . . . to come to some sort of agreement.>
<We have a pact, Little One,> came from Tisiphone. <We are one until our purpose is completed.>
<You’ll hurt her!> the AI accused, and the Fury stiffened.
<I will deal with her as I have sworn, no more and no less.>
<You don’t care about her. You only care about winning.>
<Nonsense! I—>
<Shut up! Both of you just shut up for a second!>
Silence fell again, and Alicia’s mouth quivered in a weary grin. God! If Tannis had thought she had a split personality before, she ought to try this on! Her head felt as crowded as a spaceport flophouse on Friday night, but at least they were listening to her. She directed a thought at the AI.
<Look, uh—do you have a name?>
<No.>
<Then what am I supposed to call you?>
<Didn’t you decide on that during—oh. You weren’t trained for this at all, were you?>
<How could I be? Um, you do realize that we’ve, well, stolen you?>
<Yes.> A moment of withdrawal, then the sense of a shrug. <I don’t think this ever happened before. Logically, I ought to arrest you and turn you in, but I can’t very well do that now that we’ve impressed. They’d have to wipe me and start all over again.>
<I wouldn’t like that.>
<Neither would I. Damn.> Alicia swallowed a half-formed giggle as the AI swore. <Who the hell had this brainstorm, anyway? Oh.>
<Exactly. I wouldn’t be here if not for her, and if I’ve got this straight, that means you wouldn’t be here—as the “you” you are now, anyway—either. Right?>
<Right.> Silence fell again for a moment, wrapped around the sense of a mental glower at Tisiphone, and then the AI sighed. <Well, we’re all stuck with it. And as far as names go, that’s up to you. Any ideas?>
<Not yet. Maybe something will come to me. But if we’re all stuck here, we all have to get along, right?>
<I suppose so. The whole situation is absurd, though. I don’t even know if I believe she exists.>
<It would be but courteous for the two of you to cease speaking of me as if I were not even here.>
<Listen, just because Alicia believes in you doesn’t mean I do.>
<This is intolerable, Little One! I will not submit to insults from a machine!>
<She’s just trying to pay you back for being so pushy, Tisiphone. If I believe in you, she does. She has to, don’t you?>
<As long as there’s any supporting evidence,> the AI admitted unwillingly, <and I suppose there is. All right, I believe in her.>
<Much thanks, Machine.>
<Hey, don’t get snotty with me, Lady! You may be able to push Alicia around, and you may’ve beaten hell out of my security systems, but I’m awake now, and I can take you any time you want to try it on.>
<Forget it, both of you!> Alicia snapped as tension gathered again. She squeezed her temples. Jesus! What a pair of prima donnas!
The mental presences separated once more, and she relaxed gratefully.
<Thank you. Now, um, Computer — I’m sorry, I really will try to come up with a name, but for now I can’t — Tisiphone and I have a bargain. May I assume you know what it is?>
<”Computer” will do for now, Alicia. I can wait for an appropriate name to occur to you. And, yes, I know about your “bargain.”>
<Then you also know I have every intention of keeping it?>
<Yes. I just don’t like the way she bullies you around,> the AI replied with the strong impression of a sniff.
<I? I “bully” Alicia?! She would be dead without me, Machine. I did not see you there when she lay bleeding in the snow! How dare you —>
<It’s just a turn of phrase, Tisiphone, but you can be a bit pushy.> Alicia felt quite virtuous at her understatement, and the Fury subsided.
<Look, you guys, please don’t fight. It gives me a hell of a headache, and it doesn’t seem to be accomplishing very much. Could you two at least declare a truce until we have time to sort this all out?>
<If she will, I will.>
<I do not declare “truces” with machines. If you will refrain from discourtesy, however, I shall do the same.>
Alicia sighed in relief and rushed on before anyone took fresh offense.
<Great! In that case, I suggest we consider how we get out of here. I take it you had an idea, Tisiphone?>
<I had intended, working through you and this machine, to take the ship out of this star system and seek some deserted area where we might familiarize ourselves with its capabilities. Now, of course, I see that I cannot do so, since the machine will not allow me access.>
<You got that right, Lady, and a damned good thing, too. You don’t know diddly about my weapon systems, and I wouldn’t be too crazy about letting a refugee from the Bronze Age monkey with my Fasset drive, either. I, on the other hand, can scoot right out of here. Where’d you have in mind?>
<Any place will do for that much of our purpose. Yet eventually we must begin our own investigations, and the data I have amassed suggests that one of the Rogue Worlds in this sector would be a logical beginning point.>
<You have any preferences, Alicia?>
<Anywhere Fleet won’t come looking for us is fine with me.>
<Hmph! Let them come—there’s not a tub in the ship list that can catch me. Let’s see now. . . .> The AI’s voice trailed off, and Alicia felt it consulting its memory banks.
<Okay, I’ve got just the spot. A nice little M2/K1 binary with no habitable planets within twenty light-years. That suit everybody?>
<I’ll second that. But we’ve got to get out of here first.>
<True. Shall I break orbit?>
<All of your systems are on-line?>
<Yep. I was due to impress later this morning. Your friend may be a pushy bi—person, but she timed this pretty well.>
<Then I guess we should get going,> Alicia said hastily, hoping to cut Tisiphone off before she reacted to the AI’s deliberate self-correction. She bit her lip against a groan. Nothing she’d ever read had suggested alpha synth AIs were this feisty, but she supposed she should have guessed that anything with her personality had the potential for it. And, she was certain, the AI’s hostility towards Tisiphone stemmed directly from its protectiveness towards her.
<Under way,> the AI murmured, and the ship’s sensors were suddenly reporting directly to Alicia’s mind. She felt Tisiphone “hitchhiking” to watch with her, but scarcely noticed as the splendor of that magnificent “view” swept over her.
The ships electronic senses reached out, perceiving gravity and radiation and the endless sweep of space, and converted the input into sensory data she could grasp. She could “see” cosmic radiation and “taste” radio. The ship’s senses were hers, keener and sharper than those of any shuttle she had ever ridden, and Tisiphone’s own wonder lapped at her, as if, for the first time, she saw what the Fury might have seen at the peak of her powers.
They watched in a triple-play union—human, Fury, and computer—as their Fasset drive woke. The radiation-drinking invisibility of the drive’s black hole blossomed before them, swallowing all input and creating a blind spot in their vision, and they fell towards it. But the generators moved with them, pushing the black hole ahead of them, and they fell more rapidly, sliding away from Soissons with ever-increasing speed. This close to the planet the drive could produce no more than a few dozen gravities of acceleration, but that was still more than a third of a kilometer per second per second, and their speed mounted quickly.
Chapter Thirteen
“No, I don’t know where she is,” Sir Arthur Keita told the hospital security man on his com screen. “If I did, I wouldn’t be calling you.”
“But, Sir Arthur, there’s no record of her even leavi
ng her room, and none of the outside security people we’ve talked to so far saw a thing. So unless you can give me some idea where she might’ve—“
The door hissed open. Inspector Ben Belkassem strode into Keita’s office, waving his left hand imperatively and drawing his right forefinger across his throat, and Keita cut the security man off without ceremony.
“May I assume, Sir Arthur, that Captain DeVries has decamped?” Despite his abrupt entry, the Justice man’s voice was as courteous as ever, but a strange little bubble of delight lurked within it, and Keita frowned.
“I trust that’s not common knowledge. If the local police hear we’ve lost a deranged drop commando we may start getting ‘shoot on sight’ orders.”
“Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be a problem for Captain DeVries,” Ben Belkassem murmured, and Keita snorted.
“If her augmentation’s been reactivated somehow— and, judging by what happened to Corporal Feinstein, it has—it’s a lot more likely to get one of their people killed. But why do you seem so cheerful, Inspector?”
“Cheerful? No, Sir Arthur, I just think it’s too late for the local cops to worry about her. I suggest you screen Jefferson. They’ve had an, ah, incident over mere.”
Keita stared at the inspector, then paled and began punching buttons. A harried-looking Marine major answered his call on the fourth ring.
“Where’s Colonel Tigh?” Keita snapped the instant the screen lit.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t give out that information.” The major sounded courteous but harassed and reached to cut the connection, then stopped with a puzzled expression as he saw Keita’s raised hand and furious scowl.