‘No I’m not. I’m just saying it’s… semi-possible.’ The drone’s aura field flickered grey with frustration. ‘In that event, though, I don’t think it would be breakability they’d be worried about.’
‘What then?’ Seich’s eyes narrowed. ‘Deniability?’
‘If we’re thinking in such paranoid terms in the first place, yes, that’d be my guess,’ the drone said, dipping its front once in a nod and making a noise like a sigh.
‘So they’re up to something.’
‘Well, they’re up to a lot, by the sound of it. But it’s just possible that some part of what they’re up to might be, well, risky.’
Ulver Seich sat back, staring at the empty square of the projected screen, hanging in the air in front of her and the drone Churt Lyne like a pane of slightly opaque smoked glass. ‘Risky,’ she said. She shook her head and felt a strange urge to shiver, which she suppressed. ‘Shit, don’t you hate it when the Gods come out to play?’
‘In a word,’ said the drone, ‘yes.’
‘So what am I supposed to do? And why?’
‘You’re supposed to look like this woman,’ the drone said, as a bright, still picture flashed on to the smoky screen in front of her.
Ulver studied the face, chin in her hand again. ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘She’s older than me.’
‘True.’
‘And not as pretty.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Why do I have to look like her?’
‘To draw the attention of a certain man.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Wait a minute; I’m not expected to fuck this guy, am I?’
‘Oh good grief, no,’ the drone said, its aura field briefly grey again. ‘All you have to do is look like an old flame of his.’
She laughed. ‘I bet I am expected to fuck him!’ She rocked back in the little metal seat. ‘How quaint! Is this really what SC gets up to?’
‘No you’re not,’ hissed the drone, aura fields going deep grey. ‘You just have to be there.’
‘I’ll bet,’ she guffawed, and sat back, crossing her arms. ‘So who is he, anyway?’
‘Him,’ the drone said. Another still face appeared on the screen.
Ulver Seich sat forward again, raising one hand. ‘Hold on. I take it all back; actually he’s pretty enticing…’
The drone made a sighing noise. ‘Ulver, if you will please try to hold your hormones in check for just a second…’
‘What?’ she shouted, spreading her arms.
‘Will you do this or not?’ it asked her.
She closed one eye and wobbled her head from side to side. ‘Maybe,’ she slurred.
‘It means a trip,’ the drone said. ‘Leaving tonight-‘
‘Pah!’ She sat back, crossing her arms and looking up at the ceiling. ‘Out of the question. Forget it.’
‘All right; tomorrow.’
She turned to the drone. ‘After lunch.’
‘Breakfast.’
‘Late breakfast.’
‘Oh,’ the machine said, aura field briefly grey with frustration. ‘All right. Late breakfast. But before noon, in any event.’
Ulver opened her mouth to protest, then gave a tiny shrug and settled for scowling. ‘Okay. How long for?’
‘You’ll be back in a month, if all goes well.’
She tipped her head back, narrowed her eyes again and said quite soberly and precisely, ‘Where?’
The drone said, ‘Tier.’
‘Huh,’ she said, tossing her head.
A sore point; Phage had been heading to Tier specifically for that year’s Festival but had been diverted off course to help build an Orbital after the part-evacuation of some stupid planet; it had taken forever. The Festival only lasted a month and was now almost over; the Rock was still heading that way but wouldn’t arrive for two hundred days or so.
She frowned. ‘But that’s a couple of months away even on a fast ship.’
‘Special Circumstances has its own ships and they’re faster; ten days to get there on the one they’re giving you.’
‘My own ship?’ Ulver asked, eyes flashing.
‘All yours; not even any human crew.’
‘Wow!’ she said, sitting back and looking pleased with herself. ‘Aloof!’
4. Dependency Principle
I
[tight beam, M16.4, rec. @n4.28.856.4903]
xGSV Anticipation Of A New Lover’s Arrival, The
oEccentric Shoot Them Later
Is it just me, or does something smell suspicious about all this?
oo
[tight beam, M16.4, tra. @n4.28. 856. 6883]
xEccentric Shoot Them Later
oGSV Anticipation Of A New Lover’s Arrival, The
Oh good, an easy one; it’s you.
oo
I’m serious. This feels… strange.
oo
How dare you imply I’m not serious.
Anyway; what’s the problem?
This is the most important thing ever, by our understanding.
Naturally everything and everybody will seem a little odd after such a realisation.
We cannot help but be affected.
oo
You’re right, I’m sure, but I just have this niggling feeling.
No; the more I think about it the more I’m convinced you are right and I am worrying over nothing.
I’ll do a little checking for my own peace of mind, but I’m sure it will only help lay my fears to rest.
oo
You should spend more time in Infinite Fun Space, you know.
oo
You’re probably right. Oh well.
oo
Still, keep in touch.
Just in case anything does turn up.
Of course.
Take care.
oo
Good checking, my friend.
You take care, too.
II
The drone Sisela Ytheleus 1/2 drifted, waiting. Several seconds had passed since the skein pulse had resonated around it and it was still trying to decide what to do. It had passed the time by throwing together the anti-matter reaction chamber as best it could in the short time available, instead of painstakingly putting it together bit by delicate bit. As an after-thought, it released all but one of its nanomissiles and stuck two hundred of them around its heat-scarred rear panel in two groups on either side of the reaction chamber; fortuitously, the panel’s damaged surface made it easy for it to embed the tiny missiles so that only the last third of their millimetre-long bodies protruded from the panel. It kept the other thirty-nine missiles ready to fire, for all the good that would do against whatever it was stalking it.
The gentle, buzzing vibrations in the skein had taken on a distinctive signature; something was coming towards it in hyperspace, with a sensory keel in real space, trawling slowly, well below lightspeed. Whatever it was, it was not the Peace Makes Plenty; the timbral characteristics were all wrong.
A wash of wide-band radiation, like a sourceless light, a final pulse of maser energies, in real space this time, and then something shimmering away to one side; a ship surfacing into the three-dimensional void, image flickering once then snapping steady.
Ten kilometres away; one klick long. Matched velocity. A fat, grey-black ellipsoid shape, covered with sharp spines, barbs and blades…
An Affronter ship!
The drone hesitated. Could this have been the ship that had been following the Peace Makes Plenty! Probably. Had it been taken over by the artifact/excession? Possibly. Not that it mattered in the end. Shit.
The Affront; no friends of the Elench. Or anybody else, for that matter. I’ve failed. They’ll reel me in, gobble me up.
The drone tried desperately to work out what it could do. Did the fact it was an Affronter ship make any real difference? Doubtful. Should it signal it, try to get it to help? It could try; the Affront were signatories to the standard conventions on ships and individuals in distress and in theory they ought to take the drone aboard, help repair it and broadcast a warning about the artifact to the rest of the galaxy.
In practice they would take the drone to bits to find out how it worked, drain it of all its information, ransom it if they hadn’t destroyed it in the process of investigation and inquisition, probably try to put a spy-program into it so that it would report back to them once it was back amongst the Elench, and meanwhile try to work out how they could use the artifact/excession, perhaps being foolhardy enough to attempt investigating it in the same final, fatal way the Peace Makes Plenty had, or perhaps keeping it secret for now and bringing more ships and technology to bear upon it. Almost certainly the one thing they wouldn’t do was play the situation by the book.
EM effector; communicating. Sisela Ytheleus 1/2 readied its shields, for as much as that was worth; probably delay proceedings by, oh, a good nanosecond if the Affronter ship decided to attack it…
~ Machine! What are you?
(Well, that was spoken like an Affronter, certainly; it’d bet they hadn’t tangled with the artifact/excession yet. Oh well. Play it by the conventions:)
~ I am Sisela Ytheleus 1/2, drone of the Explorer Ship Peace Makes Plenty, a vessel of the Stargazer Clan, part of the Fifth Fleet of the Zetetic Elench, and in distress, it communicated. ~ And you?
~ You are ours now. Surrender or take flight!
(Definitely still 100% Affront.)
~ Sorry, I missed that. What did you say your name was again?