Rhythm of the Imperium (21 page)

CHAPTER 21

The tiny pod in which Parsons lay concealed occupied a precarious position at the aft lip of the belt containing the exterior drives of the
Whiskerchin
. Maneuvering the unpowered glider there had taken several hours since the launcher he had used to travel from the
Jaunter
had fallen away. He was now ensconced in between an emitter for the shielding system and an exhaust port for noxious gases. If he had been able to smell in space, the round valve would have made his eyes water from the stink. Such a fate would be far better than if the emitter suddenly came to life. If it detected any incoming particles that might endanger the ship’s skin, the blast coming from the round tip of the stalk would destroy his pod and kill him instantly. It was one of the few positions, however, where he could tether himself without being seen by any of the cameras or maintenance hull-crawlers. He needed to survive.

The outside of the little vehicle was covered by a skin of microplates that could imitate any color or texture. As soon as it had adhered to the hull of the
Whiskerchin
, it began to take on local characteristics. In moments, it had gone from a sleek … greenish-black ovoid to a dun, matte lump on a dun, matte vessel. It was unlikely that anyone observing it would find it to be out of place. It had no outward lights, relying instead upon sensors and infrared imaging to steer.

The inside of the pod allowed him very little room to move. Its all-enveloping life-support cocoon was made of soft white fibers that sustained his body temperature while wicking away unnecessary moisture. The makers had created it so it could be used by a number of different species of sizes ranging from that of a small child to a full-grown Solinian. As a result, Parsons felt as though he had been rolled in an enormous and very thick quilt made of loose strands. They were not contained in any way, so he constantly had to spit out the fibers near his face that had been made to surround and support an Uctu mandible or a Croctoid snout. His knees were drawn up close to his chest in a near-embryonic pose. His hands were free to move and operate controls, but his legs and feet were mired in more of the white insulation. No easy emergence from the pod was possible. He had to rely upon it absolutely to conceal and convey him safely from and return him to his point of origin.

The heads-up display, however, could not be bettered. He was surrounded by scopes and screens of the very latest designs. He could pick up life signs and the complex electrical signals that indicated AIs, as well as ship’s systems, weaponry and security systems. With a nod of his head against a forehead control, he activated a device that would seek out a single life form aboard the
Whiskerchin
. He needed to find ColPUP*.

The Wichu-made LAI with whom Bokie had been corresponding when he was taken over by the corrupted programming was the only intelligence agent Parsons knew, or hoped, was still operating within the
Whiskerchin
. Captain Wold had been right to be concerned about the Kail. If the Imperium was not to engage in outright war with them, they needed more information. Nothing useful had been gained from Special Envoy’s futile attempts at discussion with Phutes and his siblings. They did not want to engage with the human diplomats, nor had they revealed anything useful about themselves, either casually or in the first semi-formal meeting Melarides had arranged. If Parsons was to discover what had driven the Kail to have gone to such lengths to meet with the Zang, not to mention how to counter the ability the silicon-based aliens had over technology, he needed to confer with one who had been observing them since their embarkation.

It was unfortunate, but Bokie had not indicated whether the embedded LAI agent occupied a mobile shell or an installation. Since electronic personalities operated everything from life support systems for entire space stations down to toys for children, there was no telling what ColPUP* did aboard the
Whiskerchin
. Even the ship’s roster, which Parsons had downloaded before the ship’s files had disappeared from the Infogrid, left him none the wiser. ColPUP* worked in Life Support with a rank of Chief Petty Officer. He must not endanger ColPUP* further by attempting to contact him by conventional means. The fewer transmissions that were directed toward him, the safer he and those around him would be. Therefore, the contact most likely to be fruitful was a direct one.

An immense clank! echoed through his shell. Parsons glanced at the telemetry scope on his left to identify the sound. The small screen remained green. On the visual portion, the picture of a skid-loader appeared and rotated to show every angle of the practical vehicle. Something in the hold adjacent to his position was being moved, none too carefully. Identical noises, some meters removed from the first set of sounds, meant that there was more than one of those machines operating. That piece of information might prove useful to him.

Parsons activated the pod’s mobility mechanism, causing it to inch forward. An outside observer would probably put the shifting lump down to a change in the planet’s albedo as the ship orbited from day side to night side. He had approximately .8 planetary hours to move before the sun rose on the horizon again. If he had not made his destination by then, the pod would flatten itself out and feign hull plating once more.

Hatches of various sizes and shapes studded the surface of the hull. According to the architectural rendering of this class of Wichu vessel, the large hexagonal hatches, one within five meters and one seventeen meters to his left, were access panels used for maintenance. They were of sufficient size to permit a large LAI or a team of living beings in EVA suits to pass. He set the pod creeping toward the nearer of the two, monitoring heat and movement below.

According to his telemetry, the yellow forms on infrared indicated that the Wichu were gathered into two main clusters and several individual signals over the body of the ship. The ship’s complement was 37 Wichu crew, and 44 LAIs and AIs of various complexity. The shipping company’s records said that there were also fifty-one passengers on board, all Wichu, who were going to watch the Zang spectacle. According to a tourist file on the Infogrid, both the shipping company and the
Whiskerchin
had marvelous reputations for customer service. Parsons felt deep sympathy for both. Such a thing as a hijacking by silicon-based alien beings was going to impact unfairly on their systemwide ratings.

Approximately forty Kail had taken ship from a planetoid at the juncture of Wichu and Kail space. Not surprisingly, few of any carbon-based life forms plied the spaceways beyond the frontier. The Kail had no space program of their own. They had obtained a few ancient ships from unscrupulous sellers and had had them adapted for local use. Unlike nearly every other civilized race, they seemed to own nothing and covet nothing. They did not seem materially interested in anything outside their self-imposed borders. That made their expedition to view the Zang destruction of a planet a curious anomaly. Their agreement to sit down for trade talks with the Imperium was even more strange, albeit warmly welcomed by the Emperor and his government.

The hull vibrated beneath him. Parsons dropped his chin on the motivator control to make the pod stop where it was. To his very slight annoyance, lights on the nearby hatch indicated that it was about to open. He flattened the pod down beside a square cleat, and waited.

A plume of ice crystals exploded upward as the hexagonal plate withdrew. Parsons shut down all but life support and telemetry, and waited. He hoped that whoever emerged from the hatch was carbon-based. Biological creatures were far more likely to overlook the lump that concealed him than a technological creature would. Parsons listened to the conduction microphones that picked up every sound for tens of meters in every direction.

“C’mon, sweetie,” a male Wichu voice said. “No one will look for us up here!”

“Are you sure?” a female voice responded. “The ’bots keep coming around to take attendance!”

“Yeah, but that’s what makes it exciting! You have the tent?”

“Uh-huh, and some mead.”

The male cackled. “You think of everything, baby!”

An enormous holdall flew out of the open hatch, then clumped to the hull as its electromagnetic locks engaged. Two bulky figures in EVA suits followed. The bigger one helped the smaller one out of the hatch and onto the surface of the ship.

While the two Wichus chose a place to erect their impromptu love nest, Parsons directed the pod to slip past them and down into the hatch. It slunk along the hull like a caterpillar. As it reached the edge, it swung in and clung to the ceiling of the vacuum-filled cargo bay.

“Hey, close the hatch!” the female Wichu whispered.

“Looks like something’s stuck in it!” the male hissed back.

Parsons chinned the movement control, increasing the creep speed. The tail of his pod whisked out of the way just before the heavy double cover sealed back into place.

The cargo bay doors to the rest of the ship were sealed tightly. As soon as the hatch closed, air began to seep slowly into the chamber from broad black grates set in the wall. While the pod crept slowly down the wall, Parsons watched the gauge. The ambient temperature climbed rapidly from near absolute zero to ambient atmospheric temperature in a matter of minutes. During that time, Parsons extended a hair-thin wire attached to a gigabot, seeking a connection to the intranet system. The bug would not be detected, because it gained access to the ship’s computer through its Infogrid connection.

When it attached to an exposed square of metal, Parsons blinked at the flood of millions of messages and posts bounding about the ship’s system like balls bouncing in a frictionless environment. Nearly all the data remained unsent. A governor program kept all but a few from reaching the Infogrid. Anything that resembled a complaint or a plea for help was suppressed. Parsons had seen such programs before; many hoteliers and vendors attached them to their Infogrid files to prevent customer complaints from being seen by the general public. This one was more sophisticated and far-reaching. He doubted from what he had already seen of the Kail that they had designed this themselves. They must have been abetted by LAI collaborators, some of which must once have worked in customer service.

He pulled up a schematic of the ship in order to locate ColPUP*. The
Whiskerchin
was a large vessel, designed to be a luxury space liner. The centers populated by large numbers of Wichu were found to be the theater, a large performance space on a massive center deck, and the food service area, an even larger space farther forward. The scattered life forms occupied individual cabins and other function rooms. None of them were in the command center. Captain Bedelev and her crew appeared as starred icons at a bar in the corner of the restaurant. Parsons could not say he was surprised, considering that their functions had all been taken over and rerouted to a single office on the engineering level of the ship.

Fovrates and the rest of the Kail showed up as a host of green blots in that department. Either they were confident in their control of the biological life forms, or they simply did not care what the Wichu did, as long as they did not interfere with Fovrates. Parsons tapped into a video feed from security eyes in Engineering. Fovrates, as he appeared in the tri-dee image supplied along with the rest of the crew’s identity cards to Imperium customs, was much larger than the three Kail who were aboard the
Jaunter
. He held court among the rest of the Kail, who seemed to hold him in esteem bordering upon awe. Parsons knew very little of their language, but he would have used the adjectives “jovial” and “avuncular” to describe the engineer. A shame that he had proved to be a traitor to the ship that had given him employment. The Wichu could not have foreseen the coup that the Kail had perpetrated. It would seem that it had been planned a very long time ago. The Imperium had warned the Pubatec of the Kail’s enmity, but the governing body had been unimpressed and unconcerned. Now they bombarded the Emperor day after day to secure their ship’s release. Parsons intended to do just that, once he had gained the information that he sought.

Parsons caused the enormous loaderbot to turn this way and that, scanning the area. Its functions were not terribly sophisticated, used as it was to move heavy objects around without bumping into anything, but it was designed to pick out life forms of both organic and inorganic types. According to its programming log, it had been adapted to identify Kail as inorganic, so it would not run over any of the visitors. Parsons rather thought that the loader would come off much the worse for an encounter with the bad-tempered aliens. He saw as-yet unrepaired dents in walls and doors that were approximately the size of Kail fists or feet.

On the intranet system, Parsons located the crew manifest. He ran through the screens in search of the LAI’s name. He could read Main Wichu with reasonable fluency. Their alphabet was not in the same order as Imperium Standard, which meant scrolling up from
A
past several characters, some of which did not exist in the human tongue, toward the
C/K
sound.

Since past crew members were permitted access to the intranet to keep in touch with old friends, the list was a long one. Parsons discovered ColPUP* on the second pass-through. The environmental officer was a fixture, not a mobile being. An inconvenience, but not a dead end.

He sent a second gigabot toward one of the loaders, now sitting idle at one end of the cargo bay. The massive machine, which consisted mainly of a rechargeable engine enclosed in between the control seat and the two outthrust flat arms used to lift pallets and containers, hummed into life at the gigabot’s touch. It was not an LAI or even an AI, according to the feedback that reached Parsons’s processor. Good. He would not have to explain himself to a possibly corrupted personality.

The loader rumbled over to him. It was a simple machine, operating on a single broad tread nearly the size of the entire base. Parsons had run such devices in the past. The arms lowered smoothly and scooped up his pod. He activated the chameleon scales to take on the semblance of a small plastic container, as uninteresting as he could possibly design. With the crew manifest at hand, Parsons directed the loader to take him to ColPUP*.