The Ouroboros Wave (6 page)

“You heard that? Well, I guess you’d better know. Graham’s alive, at least as far as Shiva is concerned.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“His ID is still a valid system object. And one of his agent programs is still active. I haven’t been able to trace which one yet. Maybe these events are a crime, rather than an accident.”

“That’s impossible. It would take someone with a thorough understanding of Shiva’s program. Access to the system is strictly controlled.”

“That wouldn’t have been a problem for Graham Chapman.”

Tatsuya wasn’t sure how to respond.

The voice of the attitude control officer sounded over the PA: “Approaching West Platform. Initiating rendezvous sequence. This
is a dry run, people.”

Since the data restore, all systems on Amphisbaena had returned to normal. Over the next hour, as he watched Amphisbaena continue to move smoothly around the ring, Tatsuya’s intuition told
him Catherine must be wrong.

Dry run complete, they were now ready to make the transfer. Tatsuya switched his web to a view of Amphisbaena’s cargo bay approaching West Platform. From his point of view Ouroboros appeared to be rising from below the cargo bay. On Ouroboros the scene would be reversed; the tip of Amphisbaena would seem to
descend toward the ring as its speed gradually fell to near zero.

At Tatsuya’s request, Catherine had created a backup ID and was standing by for another data restore if problems developed with the station’s cover name. In keeping with the snake motif the new ID was Echidna, the half maiden, half serpent of Greek myth. Resetting Amphisbaena’s ID was treating the symptoms rather than the disease, but every time Shiva did something unusual it gave Catherine new clues. Maybe there would be no further problems.
On this point Tatsuya was more optimistic than Catherine.

The images Tatsuya was seeing were augmented with data from radar and laser range finders. A camera feed alone would have shown very little; Amphisbaena and the ring were both too dark to be easily visible. The rendezvous sequence was proceeding normally. Under Amphisbaena’s gravitational influence, West Platform was being drawn closer to the tip of the station. Given the size of the ring the distortion now under way would barely be visible from far off, but the distance from Kali to West Platform would soon increase by nearly fifty kilometers. From where Tatsuya sat, West Platform seemed to be rising on a giant wave. The ring’s positioning system was simultaneously creating the same degree of distortion on the opposite side, otherwise Ouroboros would fall
into the black hole.

When complete, Chandrasekhar Station would be a Dyson sphere and would require a variety of mechanisms to maintain position. But at this stage Ouroboros used dynamic distortion to maintain stability in orbit around Kali. Additionally, its four platforms were
equipped with thrusters for emergency position correction.

The cargo deck at the tip of Amphisbaena was not attached to the station. Powerful magnets held it in place without physical contact. The gap in the magnetic field holding the deck absorbed the shock of any inertial forces in play at the moment of rendezvous. Range finders on both Amphisbaena and Ouroboros measured the attitude and relative speed of the deck in real time. Contact with the ring took place at a precisely defined location. In an actual transfer, the movement of the containers was automatic and almost
instantaneous.

The rendezvous ended and the titanic pillar rose away from the platform. Ouroboros and Amphisbaena moved apart. Tatsuya
watched as West Platform fell rapidly away.

“That was about as nice a transfer as I could’ve asked for.” But he’d spoken too soon. The next instant his web went dark.

He’s back,
thought Tatsuya.

His web went off-line again. An instant later the visual was restored as his web switched to Amphisbaena’s local network. He immediately input the new ID for Amphisbaena/Fei, and in seconds the station was online with Ouroboros again. Tatsuya’s monitor showed the cargo bay at the tip of the station. West Platform was moving quickly away. The containers that had been transferred were
no longer visible. Apparently they had been stowed without incident.

It was just Amphisbaena that Shiva had a problem with, thought Tatsuya. He was about to turn away from the monitor when something
in the corner of the display caught his eye.

One of the cannons was swiveling. The ranging laser wasn’t active, but the cannon was tracking smoothly toward a point in space. That meant it wasn’t being guided by its automatic sensing
software. And it wasn’t tracking a meteor.

Tatsuya shouted, “Rig for collision! Emergency pods!”

The crew froze momentarily before they realized this was no drill. Everyone reached for the nearest emergency pod and began tugging it out of its container. The pods were temporary shelters from vacuum conditions, essentially sleeping bags with integral helmets
and life-support gear. A few moments later, the first shock hit.

The station’s connection with Ouroboros was lost for the third time. A few seconds later the local network was back up. But now
everything had changed.

“Depressurization warning!” shouted one of the crew. There was the high-pitched sound of atmosphere bleeding from the module. The hole must have been small, otherwise white fog would have been visible at the breach. Apparently they’d been spared a direct hit, but they had sustained some damage. Tatsuya shouted, “Find
that breach and repair it. There may be more than one.”

“Only one breach, Chief. But the hull’s weakened in several other locations.”One of the crew was monitoring the external video feed. “Chief, look at this!” He routed the visual to everyone’s web. “The shuttle’s gone.”

Amphisbaena’s habitat modules terminated in a shuttle dock; its shuttles ferried crew between the station and Ouroboros. It looked as if a fuel tank explosion had torn apart West Habitat’s shuttle. The dock itself was a twisted mass of wreckage.

Someone handed Tatsuya a damage update. It was the worst situation he’d seen firsthand. “Station East was hit too. They’re dealing with the same problems.”

“Shiva took out everything at once.”

“Yes. There’s no way off the station now.”

The camera feed now showed the ring moving rapidly away, fading against the black of space. Tatsuya and his crew were marooned.

5

THE SUCCESSFFUL RENDEZVOUS
with Amphisbaena gave new hope to Catherine and the rest of the System Control team. Shiva’s actions had taken everyone by surprise, but they had been finding ways to cope.

AIs were not the equal of humans in terms of intelligence; that was what Catherine thought. But Shiva had opened her eyes to just how irrelevant the comparison was. Matching wits with humans had never been part of Shiva’s agenda; this should have been obvious. Shiva had no awareness of humans as humans. For humans, it was difficult to deal with an entity that was playing by its own set of rules.

“Catherine, I don’t know how to tell you this, but the laser cannons are tracking something.”

“That’s impossible!” Catherine punched up a status screen. The cannons were moving under Shiva’s control. She hit the kill switch, but it was too late. The cannons had fired.

Catherine switched to West Platform’s optical sensors. Amphisbaena’s West Habitat wasn’t visible from this angle, but she could see East Habitat. The cannons were firing at both modules in the same pattern. Damage to both was probably about equal.

“He’s going after the shuttles.”

The shuttle for East Habitat was a few shreds of metal hanging from the docking node. The lasers had targeted the fuel tanks. Fortunately the vector of the explosion was mostly outward, so little debris had struck the habitat. The long cylinder looked relatively free from damage.

“Amphisbaena reports no casualties.”

“Thank God.” Catherine, still buckled to the terminal, looked at the ceiling in relief. But none of their problems were solved. Things were much worse, and reports coming in from West Habitat gave everyone pause. Catherine had one of her team run a 3-D simulation of the attack.

“It looks like Shiva ordered the two cannons to put a single pulse into each habitat.” Red lines extended from cannons at the ends of West Platform to the habitats. “You can see the results. Maybe Shiva wanted to prevent the crew from getting off the station. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t just go after the habitats.”

“I’m afraid our AI may be learning the difference between symbols and the real world faster than we could have predicted. If Shiva deduced that destroying the crew’s means of escape was the best course, it means he’s become aware of our existence.” Shiva’s conflict with humans seemed to be stimulating his acquisition of knowledge about the outside world. But that didn’t mean he would ever understand humans, not even the basics of human common sense.

“I’m going to East Platform.”

“Catherine, are you serious?” said SysInt.

“I know more about Shiva than anyone here. If this were about erasing data from the system, I’d be amused. But he’s using the lasers. We don’t have a moment to lose.”

“Do you have to physically go there?”

“This is a system-level issue. I can’t do a thing from here. The only solution is to go and get my hands dirty. And that’s something
only a sysadmin can do.”

“Then I’ll go with you. I have the same clearance.”

“No. I’m going alone. If I can’t handle it, reinforcements won’t help. Work on getting Sati activated. That’s our first priority. If things go beyond the point where humans can deal with them,
Sati’s our last chance.”

“All right. We’ll have her up as soon as we can.”

“I pass command to you then. You know the activation sequence. I’ll leave the voice channel open in case anything comes up.”

“I hope nothing does. Be careful, Catherine.”

“What’s to be careful about? I’m just taking a little trip to the
opposite platform.”

She floated out of the control module and into a circular rest area just under four meters across. The control module she exited was a horizontal tube; this module was positioned vertically and functioned as a four-level docking node. Each level could be used to access four other modules connected at right angles, but only
the first level of the node was in use now.

There was a hatch at each point of the compass. The hatch behind her led back into the control module; the one to the right gave access to another module. The left hatch led to an air lock
that connected to one of the trucks.

Catherine headed directly for the air lock, then stopped. The trucks were pressurized. In theory she could go through the air lock, into a truck, and all the way to another platform without a space suit.
Other than Graham Chapman, no one had ever had an accident.

Catherine entered the air lock and suited up before stepping into the truck docked on the other side. Trusting systems that were under Shiva’s control was far too risky. A space suit—with life-support systems beyond Shiva’s reach—just might mean the difference between life and death. The hard-shell suit was like lightweight armor with servo-assist joints. This allowed it to be fully pressurized without any need to spend hours purging the body of nitrogen in preparation for EVA.

Catherine stepped into the truck and closed the hatch. The power came on automatically, console glowing green. All systems go—and Shiva was in control. The AI had deployed laser cannons to attack Amphisbaena, yet now it provided Catherine with the usual support. The reasoning processes of an AI were so fundamentally different. A human might have seen these actions as contradictory. To Shiva, both were consistent with logic.

Catherine raised her visor. “East Platform.” The vehicle accelerated gently.

6

“
I HATE TO SAY THIS
, but we can’t trust Shiva. We’ll have to plan our evac accordingly.”

Tatsuya was addressing the crew. Everyone was suited up, though their visors were not closed. They would not draw on their oxygen supplies while there was still breathable air.

“This is some kind of AI system failure. My guess is that it’s the same problem that caused Dr. Chapman’s death. Once the other AI is operational, we should be able to determine the nature of the problem relatively quickly. I’m optimistic that this situation will be resolved, and soon.” Optimism was imperative. It was too early for pessimism.

Tatsuya’s web inbox was overflowing with messages from his crew. His agent had already sorted them by topic; they ran the gamut from doubt to grief, encouragement to a certain amount of anger. Still, these sentiments were consigned to text rather than voiced openly, because no one wanted to risk sparking panic or wasteful bickering. Technology had transformed even the way humans dealt with tragedy.

“So, on to the evac plan,” continued Tatsuya. “Amphisbaena’s status is summarized here.” A display board appeared in midair, showing a representation of the logistics module and the two habitats. The two shuttle docking ports were completely destroyed. “Pressure has stabilized, but we’re still losing atmosphere. In a few more hours normal respiration will be impossible. Both habitats are in the same condition. We’re going to make our way to the logistics module. Part of the module is pressurized, but it’s going to be a tight fit for all of us. There’s also the backup shuttle docking port. The port is undamaged and can be operated manually. That means we should be able to evac on the two ring shuttles without
interference from Shiva.”