Roboteer (33 page)

Chopra sighed, bored with the silence. ‘I don’t really know why you’re here,’ he said, ‘but I can guess that it probably has nothing to do with assassinating the Prophet. Am I right?’

Will regarded him with confusion.

‘I thought not,’ said Chopra sitting back. The civil coordinator pondered for a moment, a hand over his mouth. Then he leaned forwards, steepling his fingers. ‘I shall speak frankly,’ he said. ‘I represent the local authorities in this star system. Administering the police here requires a careful hand and a relatively …
flexible
outlook. We Sons of Mao are far more easy-going than most subsects – and certainly more generous than the High Church.

‘However,’ he said ominously, ‘we have received strict instructions not to interrogate any of you before representatives of a certain branch of Military Intelligence arrives. Their stated reason: that the information you hold could compromise the security of the Prophet.’

Chopra offered Will a wry half-smile. ‘Needless to say, whatever the real reason, it might be to our mutual advantage if you voluntarily divulge what you know to us instead. You and your associates would then avoid the somewhat … heavy-handed methods Military Intelligence employs. And being privy to such knowledge would increase my own standing, and that of the Sons of Mao, immeasurably. By speaking of your own free will, myself and my associates would be free of blame.’ He turned his hands upwards, as if to prove them empty. ‘I might even be able to put in a good word for you when they arrive. I am a strong believer in a civilised approach to law enforcement.’

Will remembered the scenes of ugly revelry he’d witnessed on the planet below. They hadn’t looked particularly civilised to him.

Chopra waited for an answer, his impatience growing visibly. He tried one more time. ‘I assure you,’ he said, ‘I am a much gentler man than those currently on their way to see you.’

Will considered telling Chopra everything. He had nothing to say that the man would enjoy hearing. He’d gain some small measure of satisfaction watching the policeman’s face as he explained about their impending extinction and the church’s lies to its own
people. Unfortunately, the truth was so inimical to his enemies that he doubted Chopra would believe it.

‘No thanks,’ he said. Even if his crewmates would never know it, he intended to remain true to his Fleet and his mission to the bitter end.

Chopra frowned and sat back. ‘Perhaps I have misjudged you,’ he said. ‘I did wonder why you would send us a message giving us details so precious as the rendezvous coordinates for your ship, but lacking enough information to help bring you in alive. Perhaps you are a lunatic. You
want
to die, and that is why you refuse to speak now.’

Chopra got to his feet. ‘I assure you, death at the hands of Military Intelligence is neither swift nor pretty. Tell the guard if you decide to talk.’ He knocked on the door and was let out.

Will slouched in the chair, immobile. Chopra’s ignorance of their mission had bought them a little time, but Ulanu and his people couldn’t be far away. Will didn’t doubt that, in contrast to Chopra, Ulanu would know exactly what questions to ask and have the means of extracting the answers.

How long would he be able to keep his mouth shut when they started torturing him? He shuddered.

13.3: IRA

Ira, Rachel, Amy and Hugo were thrown into a large bare room. As he began to recover the use of his body, Ira examined the walls and floor. There were no obvious means of escape. He noticed security cameras positioned in the room’s upper corners. They were too high to reach and screened over with some kind of glass. Ira doubted there’d be much to gain from trying to damage them. Although at first glance the situation appeared hopeless, Ira was not the sort of man to give up.

Unfortunately, Hugo did not take their incarceration so stoically. Ira had forgotten what a pain in the ass the man could be.

The scientist propped himself up against the wall and shouted his rage at the top of his lungs. ‘Stinking traitor! If I get my hands on him, I’m going to kill him! I tried to tell you. Ever since—’

Ira quickly interrupted him. ‘Enough!’ he barked. ‘There’s only one good reason I can think of for why we’ve been left together, and that’s so the Earthers can listen to us. I don’t want anyone discussing the mission. Is that clear?’

Hugo fell into sullen silence.

With some difficulty, Ira pushed himself upright. ‘Let’s use this opportunity properly,’ he said. ‘First, we take stock of our situation. One of our crew is dead. We’ve lost our ship. And someone has betrayed us, though we don’t know for sure that the traitor is one of our crew.’

He looked at each of them intently and hoped they understood his meaning. The resistance could easily be responsible for their predicament, but even so, Ira didn’t want to bring them up as a topic of conversation. The less the Earthers knew of their operation, the better.

‘What are you talking about?’ snapped Hugo. ‘Of course it’s Will.’

‘Bullshit!’ Rachel snarled.

‘Oh, it’s bullshit, is it?’ the scientist retorted. ‘He had the motive, and he had the means through that interface thing. He must have sold us out the first time he used it. No wonder the resistance turned on us.’

And there it was, out in the open: their connection to the resistance, exactly as Ira hadn’t wanted.

‘Hugo, I said
shut up
,’ Ira growled. He wondered if he was a fool for even trying. Hugo wouldn’t last long under proper interrogation anyway.

‘Or what, Captain?’ Hugo sneered. ‘What are you going to do now? You don’t have a ship to throw me out of any more. Or are you going to walk all the way over here and hit me? Care to give it a try?’

Ira glared at him and drew breath to speak, but Rachel beat him to it.

‘You’re an asshole, Hugo. Can’t you see you’re being manipulated? Blaming Will is exactly what they want you to do.’

‘Bullshit!’ he said, mimicking her voice back to her.

‘Why did he take us to the safe house if he was trying to betray us, idiot?’ said Rachel. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, Will saved your life back there.’

‘Only because the alternative was exposing himself,’ said Hugo. ‘He’s been lying to us ever since he was compromised. We’re not dealing with the same man we flew out with.’

‘That’s enough!’ Ira roared. He drew the line at Hugo revealing their mission before they’d even made a stab at escaping. ‘You’ll shut up right now or I’ll hit you so hard you’ll wish you’d never been born.’

Summoning his strength, Ira clenched his fists and took a couple of unsteady steps towards Hugo. Hugo blinked in surprise at Ira’s rapid recovery. He appeared to have forgotten that Ira’s metabolism was designed to handle the worst rigours of spaceflight. A few Earther drugs weren’t going to bother him for long.

‘I don’t want to hear another word from any of you,’ said Ira. ‘We’ll stop bickering right now and start thinking up ways we can get out of here. But for God’s sake, if you come up with one, don’t say it out loud.’

At that point, two large Earthers tramped in and grabbed Ira’s shoulders.

‘What’s this?’ Ira said mockingly. ‘Am I spoiling your little fact-finding effort?’

They steered him out of the room towards a separate cell. Ira chose his moment and tried to shrug them off, but resistance in his current condition was hopeless. The police barely heeded his efforts and threw him through the doorway. He sprawled across the floor as the door thudded shut behind him.

Now he didn’t even have his crew with him. Ira gripped the floor and refused to despair. He needed to think about something else. Revenge sprang easily to mind – revenge on whoever had got him into this shitty situation. It wasn’t rational and it didn’t help, but right now it was the strongest, most productive emotion Ira could muster.

Who was it? He weighed the evidence. The suspects were Hugo, Rachel, Will and the resistance. Rachel he discounted immediately. Hugo had been shot for his troubles and appeared to have gained nothing. Unless his entire fragile persona was an act, it was unlikely to be him.

The resistance were strong candidates, but their motive wasn’t clear. And from what Rachel had said, it sounded as if they’d exposed themselves quite badly through their actions.

However, believing in their guilt was preferable to the idea that he’d been sold out by Will. At the end of the day, Will was still one of his crew. Ira was responsible for him, and as determined as ever not to lose another roboteer.

Unfortunately, the evidence pointed straight at him – or to the alien in his head, at least. Perhaps it had done this in revenge for Ira’s decision to remove Will’s micromachines. Maybe it had decided that humanity wasn’t worth saving after all, or was just pursuing its own unguessable agenda. Either way, Ira couldn’t take Will’s loyalty for granted any more. Though he hated the idea, if he ever escaped this place, he’d have to accept the fact that Will might need to die.

14:
FACE TO FACE

14.1: GUSTAV

Gustav read the report from the New Angeles authorities while his starship was still decelerating into the system. It filled him with a kind of anxious excitement. The enemy was within his grasp at last. Not that he was out of the woods yet, of course – he still had a protectorate government to deal with, a project to save and a war to win.

As soon as he arrived, he made a bee-line for the habitat ring where the prisoners were being held. As always, Rodriguez came with him.

During the uncomfortable two weeks he’d spent with Tang, Gustav had experienced a reversal of attitude with respect to the intolerable disciple. He actually preferred to have him around. While Rodriguez remained in sight, he couldn’t be off plotting. Gustav had found his new assistant huddled in furtive conversation with Tang once too often for comfort. It would also help if the revolting little man saw Gustav succeeding for a change.

At the habitat ring, Civil Coordinator Enrique Chopra was waiting for him. He met Gustav with a broad, gleaming grin and an outstretched hand the moment he stepped out of the elevator.

‘Welcome, General!’ said Chopra enthusiastically.

Gustav regarded the hand steadily until Chopra tucked it back out of sight. From the report Gustav had received, he knew Chopra was suspicious of the reasons for the
Ariel
’s capture, and the coordinator had done his level best to build himself into Gustav’s operation. If he thought he could deal with Gustav as an equal in the negotiations that were bound to follow, it was better that he be disabused of that notion now.

Chopra’s smile ground on with unyielding confidence. ‘We have all heard the news of your commendation, General. My congratulations to you!’

‘Thank you,’ said Gustav curtly. ‘May I introduce my assistant, Disciple Jesus Rodriguez.’

Rodriguez was only too willing to shake Chopra’s hand. ‘May I congratulate you on your capture, Civil Coordinator,’ said the disciple. ‘A brilliant piece of police work, if I may say so.’

Chopra beamed at him. ‘You’re too kind, Father.’

Gustav decided to wrest back control of the conversation before Rodriguez could enlist another ally in his machinations.

‘I want to interview the prisoners,’ he said.

Chopra arched an eyebrow. ‘In person, General?’

‘Why else do you suppose I’m here?’ said Gustav. ‘To watch recordings? Please take me to the man you identified as Will Kuno-Monet.’

‘The mad one?’ Chopra’s professionally unreadable face betrayed a moment of intense curiosity. ‘I would have thought you’d want to see the captain first, sir.’

Chopra was fishing. The report suggested he’d followed Gustav’s orders to the letter. Supposedly, Chopra’s men had neither interrogated the Galateans nor made any attempt to investigate the hard or soft contents of the impounded ship. Gustav was sure that was a lie, but they’d at least taken pains to conceal their efforts. He’d half-expected the policeman to announce his knowledge of the Relic and start bargaining for the price of his silence. Then again, the Sons of Mao could be relied upon for subtlety, if nothing else.

‘You have stated that the captain’s behaviour is stable,’ said Gustav. ‘Therefore, he can wait. I will see the
mad one
, as you call him.’

Chopra bowed. ‘As you wish, General.’ Chopra muttered some commands into the mike on his lapel and gave Gustav another winning smile. ‘Please follow me.’

According to Chopra’s report, Monet talked to himself. He made demands for help from an entity he called
the Transcended
. The moment he read that, Gustav’s skin had prickled all over. That word, or something like it, had occurred eleven times in the garbled responses they’d received from the Relic.

Chopra had identified Monet as performing the role on the Galatean ship known as
roboteer
. This meant he was bred to think with the autistic clarity of a machine so that they could plug him into their robots like some kind of human strategy SAP. Gustav was revolted by the idea, but realised its potential all the same. If Monet was in effect part machine, was there some possibility that the Relic had influenced him, just as it had influenced their computers? Either way, it was clear that this Monet was involved in some way with the attack on their data feed from the Relic.

When Gustav learned of Monet’s apparent betrayal of his crew, his suspicions were aroused still further. It suggested that something at odds with the Galatean agenda might be at work in his mind. If the man was as unstable as Chopra suggested, there was hope that they might be able to manipulate him to their advantage.

Chopra arrived at a door next to a panel of wall monitors. They showed a young man slumped in a chair from a variety of angles.

‘I will talk to the man alone and in private,’ said Gustav.

Rodriguez regarded him levelly. ‘For what reason, General?’ he asked coldly. Apparently he no longer felt the need to play at being an assistant, not even in front of the Leading members of other subsects. ‘You don’t want to give the impression that you’re cutting deals with the prisoners that the Prophet would disapprove of, do you?’ Rodriguez added.

‘The Prophet will have to trust me,’ Gustav replied with equal venom. ‘I will go in alone.’ He looked at Chopra. ‘The man is appropriately secured?’

‘Of course,’ said Chopra cheerily. ‘Motor-suppressants have just been applied. He can talk, and move a little, but not much else.’

‘Good,’ said Gustav. He tapped on the closest monitor, bringing up a command interface and used his security override to lock down surveillance in the cell. The images of Monet vanished.

‘No recordings will be made of this discussion,’ he said. ‘If I find that there has been any attempt to subvert my authority, I will hold you in contempt of Kingdom security.’

Chopra nodded smoothly, not quite hiding his disappointment. ‘Of course, General.’

‘Open the door,’ Gustav ordered.

Chopra keyed in the code and the door swung open. With some satisfaction, Gustav stepped through and shut it against Rodriguez’s frowning face. Let the bastard wring whatever political advantage he could from this moment. Gustav wasn’t going to miss his opportunity.

He turned to the prisoner. Monet was a tall man with a mop of floppy brown hair and some uneven beard growth. He sat slumped in his chair, dressed in regulation-green prisoner’s overalls, looking for all the world like one of the drunks who used to pass through Civic Control back in Sophia.

Except for his eyes. The man’s eyes stared fearlessly into Gustav’s own. His expression might even have been called menacing. Gustav knew that the prisoner’s slack posture was due to the motor-suppressants, but that wasn’t how he looked. He looked like a supremely casual man considering murder.

Good
, Gustav thought to himself. If he was lucid at the moment, he’d be that much easier to talk to.

‘Good afternoon, Will,’ he said. ‘My name is General Ulanu.’

‘I know who you are,’ said Monet.

‘Excellent,’ said Gustav. ‘Then you know why I have come to see you.’

Monet chuckled to himself. Gustav fought down a surge of impatience. If this little Gallie thought he could get away with playing mind games, he was a fool. Gustav had played with the best of them.

‘I have come seeking knowledge,’ he said simply. ‘And I am prepared to ask nicely.’ He sat down opposite the prisoner.

‘How good of you,’ Monet replied.

Gustav sighed and examined his fingers. ‘Let me summarise your position. You and your crew are facing public execution. Your ship will shortly be broken up into pieces. Your robots will be dissected for analysis or forcibly reprogrammed. And your home world is due to be occupied in a matter of days.’

Monet looked remarkably unaffected by this list of misfortunes. An infuriating secret smile kept playing about his lips.

‘If you know who I am,’ said Gustav, ‘then you also know that I am a powerful man. I can help you with one or all of these matters if you answer my questions. If you tell me what I want to know, you will find me surprisingly flexible.’

‘Will you let me and my crewmates go?’ asked Monet.

Gustav took a deep breath. Monet obviously considered himself a comedian. ‘No,’ he replied.

‘Then you can’t help me,’ said Monet. ‘You can’t even help yourself.’

Gustav regarded him wearily and considered for a moment. A roboteer was supposedly a creature of logic and reason, so Gustav decided to take a calculated risk. He would give Monet as clear a picture of his priorities as he could afford.

‘Perhaps I should explain a little about myself,’ he said. ‘I am, first and foremost, a scientist. I carry the rank of general because in the current political climate of the Kingdom, the military is the only source of research funding. For the last two years, I have worked full time studying the alien object we call
the Relic
– the object you attacked.’

At this, Monet’s smile grew a notch wider. He snorted and shook his head.

‘It is my desire,’ said Gustav, raising his voice a little, ‘to share what I have learned with
all
mankind. I believe that the human galaxy should be made aware of the existence of the Relic, and what we have learned from it. If you know the first thing about the Truist movement, you will also know that this is at odds with dogma. So you see, I am making myself vulnerable to you. I am making a confession to you that my enemies would be only too glad to hear. You may also consider it an assurance of the fact that this meeting is private. Nothing you say in this room will go any further.’

Monet laughed. ‘That’s what Chopra said.’

Gustav pursed his lips. ‘Chopra is interested only in personal gain. I am interested in truth, nothing more, nothing less.’

‘Really?’ Monet leaned forwards and rested his arms on the table. He moved surprisingly easily for a man supposedly doped to the eyeballs on disabling drugs. ‘You might not like it.’

‘Then you are prepared to talk?’ said Gustav, excitement churning his insides.

‘Ask your questions,’ said Monet. ‘I might answer.’

Gustav nearly betrayed his glee. Locked in this man’s head might be secrets he hadn’t even dreamed of.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘How did you deactivate the feed from the Relic?’ That had to be a good place to start. Since the arrival of the Galateans, the Relic had told them exactly nothing.

‘We didn’t,’ said Monet. ‘It stopped talking to you.’

Gustav peered at him. ‘Why?’

‘Because you were deemed no longer a useful part of the dialog with humanity,’ the prisoner replied. ‘I superseded you.’

Gustav bristled. The roboteer was almost as good at annoying him as Rodriguez.

‘Superseded? In what way?’

‘You spent your two years searching the Relic for weapons technology.’

He said it as an accusation. But what else could Gustav have done with so much pressure on him from the Kingdom to produce results? Did Monet imagine that would have been his choice if he’d been given free rein?

‘In doing so, you convinced it that humanity is an unworthy species,’ said Monet.

‘Unworthy how?’

‘Not useful for the galactic biosphere. Scheduled for extinction. The technology it gave you contains a deliberate flaw.’

Gustav recalled the long, anxious hours he’d spent poring over the incomprehensible blueprints and hid his alarm.

‘Use it long enough and it marks the stars it draws energy from,’ said Monet. ‘The people who made your Relic can then detonate them at their leisure.’

A problem in the suntap, just as his instincts had warned him there might be. It was grave news for the Kingdom – if it was true.

‘How do you know this?’ said Gustav uneasily.

‘I just listened,’ Monet replied. ‘Something you apparently failed to do.’

Gustav’s shoulders cranked upwards. For two whole years, he’d done nothing but listen.

‘Oh, and one other thing,’ the prisoner said. ‘It appears we Galateans have achieved one thing you Earthers have not. They call it
constructive self-editing.
It’s the means by which a species is judged. If you can’t do it, they wipe you out.’

Gustav’s face hardened. Suddenly he could see where this was going. ‘You mean genetic modification?’

Monet shrugged. ‘That’s part of it.’

The Galatean had blown it. He’d had Gustav worried there for a moment, but his story had just passed the point of believability. This wasn’t the truth. It was a gene-racist’s fantasy. Gustav was furious with himself for taking it so seriously.

‘You mean to tell me that the survival of the human race is dependent on us all turning Galatean?’ he said darkly.

Monet grinned. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

Gustav stood. ‘You disgust me,’ he sneered. ‘I gave you an opportunity to speak the truth.’

‘And I told you that you might not like it,’ Monet replied sunnily.

Gustav looked down his nose at the prisoner. ‘You expect me to believe that an advanced alien race will kill us all if we don’t adopt your people’s revolting practices? That’s a little convenient, don’t you think?’

Monet examined his fingernails. ‘Not really. We weren’t thrilled about it.’

Gustav glared at him. ‘To
self-edit
, as you put it, is to lose track of what it means to be human. No advanced race would condone it.’

‘Are you so sure?’ said Monet. ‘Why not?’

Gustav contemplated ramming his fist into the Gallie’s face. ‘Because you people are building injustice into your very bodies! Look at yourself.’ He gestured wildly at the prisoner’s chest. ‘Born to talk to machines,’ he said with contempt. ‘Selected for autism by your own parents, for God’s sake. Are you going to sit there and tell me you’re happy with that? Or are you so programmed by your own people that you can’t see the freedoms they’ve stolen from you?’

Gustav saw Monet’s smug mask slip for the first time. He’d struck a nerve. Good.

‘You may be happy with your lot because it’s all you’ve ever known,’ he added, ‘but I intend to fight for humanity. And if that means there’ll be war and ignorance in the world, I think it’s still worth it. It’s better than changing ourselves into sterile machines.’