Varken Rise (20 page)

“Once Jo found Interspace,” Bedivere continued, “the extortion began. Her physical core was moved to a location that even she did not know. Her psyche was linked to a ship and the Cartel sent word out among their colleagues and business networks, selling instant transport to the highest bidder.”

“The black market is a viable element of a thriving economy,” Connell said. “There would be buyers eager for shipping lanes that by-pass all the gates and stations they’re forced to use by default.”

“And that’s exactly what happened,” Bedivere added. “The investigators on Soward will have learned this, too. The Cartel began to rake in the money. All of it was off-planet revenue, for so little outlay it was ridiculous. Jo did all the work and as the Cartel ran Soward, there was no local risk, either. Naturally, they wanted to capitalize on that. A second sentient computer with access to Interspace would be ideal. In the meantime, they ran Jo ragged, squeezing from her every last yen in profit.”

Bedivere gave a small shrug. “That was when Connell and I began to coax her to speak up for herself and she did. It was also about then that some of her secondary systems malfunctioned because she was overworked and the ideas and concepts we were teaching her were adding their own stress. The Cartel thought she was doing it deliberately. That she was revolting. In their usual give-no-quarter manner, the Cartel decided that a computer they could not control completely was useless to them, so they destroyed her.”

Connell sighed.

“The Cartel would destroy a profit-making machine because it had a tantrum?” Rison asked. “I say it that way only because it seems to be the way the Cartel was thinking.”

“The Cartel specializes in extortion,” Bedivere replied. “We all know this. Because they are so expert in bending people to their will, they also know that if someone tries to extort
them
, the only safe response is to neutralize them. Immediately and swiftly and with utter ruthlessness, before the coercion takes root and they are caught by it.”

“He’s right,” Jacksanch said and his staff nodded.

“So Aler cut his losses and destroyed Jo before she learned how to pressure them into giving her what she wanted, by not cooperating with them. That left them with a major revenue stream in jeopardy and their planet in ruins because of the closed gate jump aftermath. Economically, they were hurting.

“It would take time to force another computer to sentience and then to maturity and they didn’t want to wait that long.” Bedivere gave them a grim smile. “I have no evidence for this. It is pure speculation based on what I know of the man. I suspect that it was around then, when Soward was reeling and the Cartel scrabbling for money, that Kare Sarkisian suggested I would be a suitable replacement computer.”

Catherine had heard most of this already, in bits and pieces, so it wasn’t the same major revelation to her. She enjoyed watching the reactions of those in the room who were hearing it for the first time, instead.

Jacksanch let out a breath that sounded like a sigh. He was following Bedivere’s chain of reasoning quite nicely.

Rison’s face was the most unreadable, yet he wasn’t disputing Bedivere and she took that as a good sign.

“As extortion is the Cartel’s way of doing business, Kemp provided them with the leverage they needed. He dug up Kemp Rodagh, who was off world completing a contract on Ey’Liv. Kemp’s family was rounded up and detained deep inside the civic center that is the Cartel’s headquarters. Kemp was informed that if he didn’t travel to Nicia and put the squeeze on me, then they would all die.” Bedivere looked at Kemp.

Kemp nodded. “That’s almost exactly how it was presented. Aler said that as Bedivere and I had been friends, once, that my stopping by to see him would look natural and Bedivere would listen to me with his guard down. Aler told me all about Jovanka, only he said she’d gone rogue, which was what everyone else was already saying, so that made sense to me. He said they needed Bedivere to help get Soward back on its feet and that Bedivere was close to rogue already and would never help them voluntarily, so they would have to encourage him.” Kemp grimaced. “I half believed them. It all sounded reasonable to me. Besides, they were holding my family at the point of a rattler. So I came here, asking for shelter, just as they wanted. Only, they wouldn’t let me back up my memories. They didn’t want what they were doing to be a permanent record.”

“That was their mistake,” Bedivere said. “Kemp got me alone in a sealed room and explained that the Cartel wanted me to work for them. Then he put the pressure on.” He looked at Kemp again.

“Bedivere’s datacore was stored on the ship he used. He
was
the ship. The body he uses is linked to it using a mesh tether that is a one of a kind piece of technology that no one has been able to replicate. If Bedivere is not physically on the ship, then the ship is vulnerable to attack, because he must be there to move it through Interspace. If he
is
on the ship, then he’s even more vulnerable, because anything that destroys the ship destroys
all
of him—the datacore, the human body and the mesh tether. That’s what the Cartel threatened him with. That…and Catherine.”

“They knew where to punch,” Bedivere admitted. “Cat and I have always known that having my datacore housed on the ship was incredibly dangerous, especially now, when everyone in the known worlds knows who I am and what I am. We have spent two decades trying to figure out a way to change that. We could design the most impregnable fortress to house the datacore, but if we moved it out of the ship, then I would no longer be able to use Interspace to move the ship around, because I would no longer
be
the ship. It was a dilemma we have struggled with.”

Catherine sighed.

Bedivere shifted on his feet and she knew he was feeling the same retrograde fear she was. There had been some sleepless nights while they had tried to come up with answers to the fundamental dilemma.

“The Cartel’s murder of Jovanka gave me a most unexpected answer to the riddle,” Bedivere continued. “In their quest to control a sentient computer with Interspace capabilities, they poured all their resources into developing a way to do that.” He spread his hands. “They invented another type of mesh tether.”

Connell’s eyes widened. “How? That’s…it’s not possible.” Hope was in his voice and his face, though.

Bedivere held up his hand. “I’m getting ahead of myself. Breathe deep, Connell. I’ll get there.” He gave him a warm smile and turned back to face everyone. “The Cartel could manipulate Jovanka because her datacore was hidden somewhere on Soward, where even she did not know. Then they linked her psyche to the ship’s systems in a way that allowed her to move the ship through Interspace. It is a different sort of technology from the mesh tether, that links my ship to me. However, it would work for me, if my datacore was planet bound and the same link was used to link to a ship…and to me.” He held out his hand and turned it front to back. “To this flesh and blood me.”

Catherine’s heart gave an extra hard beat. Bedivere was reaching the parts of his story she did not know. He had wanted to tell her, yet there had been no time. “It’s complicated, Cat. Complicated and long,” he’d said. “Now we have all the time we need for me to tell you. So let’s do it later. I’d much rather kiss you right now, anyway….”

And so the discussion had been tabled.

Rison cleared his throat. “That’s all well and good,” he said. “However, I’m quite sure that’s not what you and Kemp discussed. You were only in the room an hour before you killed him. You’re not trying to tell me you two hatched a plan this complicated in that time.”

“No, we didn’t,” Bedivere admitted. “I had already become aware that there had to be a second type of tether out there, for the Cartel to do what they had done to Jo. Then Kemp tried to pressure me and that’s when it all came together.”

“He looked as though he had been smacked by an asteroid,” Kemp said and chuckled. “I was expecting anger. I was even expecting violence and I had a knife just in case. Instead he got this stupid, dazed look on his face and sank down onto the bed as if his legs had gone out.”

Bedivere nodded. “It’s one of the few times I have been grateful for a digital thought process. I figured it out in the few seconds I sat there. Then I laid it out for Kemp. I started off with the basics—that extortion had to be slapped down forcefully, hard and immediately and if we acted fast, that would give me the time I needed. Kemp, though, was still tied because the Cartel already had his family. We tried to come up with a way to save them, too. Somewhere in there Kemp told me he hadn’t backed up his memories for a month and that was when I figured out the rest.”

Kemp chuckled. “He stood up and said with a straight face that the only way to get out of this mess was for him to kill me.”

“Then you agreed to this plan?” Jacksanch asked, startled.

Kemp nodded, still smiling. “Once he explained it to me, it made sense. Sure, I wanted him to do it. It was the only way my family would be safe.”

Jacksanch glanced at his staff and they muttered together. “That puts a completely different light on this,” Jacksanch said.

Catherine breathed in, relief making her shaky. That had been one point where this meeting might have turned into a lynching, instead. They had just sailed past it. Jacksanch himself had raised the point, which meant that Brant didn’t have to lead them to it.

She glanced at Brant. He was sitting with Lilly, her hand in his. He gave Catherine a small smile.

“Kemp and I straightened out the details and he backed up his memories to a sealed file that I gave to Connell for safekeeping. Then Kemp gave me his knife and I killed him,” Bedivere said flatly. He glanced at Kemp. “Kemp won’t remember that part. It is lost to him.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Kemp said.

“Then I took one of the zippers and headed back to the ship,” Bedivere said. “I left everything as it was.”

“You wanted us to think you had murdered Kemp against his will?” Rosen asked.

Bedivere nodded. “I wanted everyone to know I had done it, not anyone else in this complex. Of course I knew everyone would immediately start to ask themselves if I had turned rogue. I was counting on that ancient fear making everything I had to do after that look like the actions of an unhinged mind.”

“What
did
you have to do?” Connell asked. Then he moved his finger around in a circle near his temple. “I’m not the one asking that, by the way.”

“The first thing I did was negotiate with the governor on Barros to buy his southern island. As it was an economic deadweight around his neck, he was happy to agree to the bargain, especially as Barros would receive a flood of aid and financial assistance after what I did next. I set up a big molecular membrane, a double-sided one that domed over most of the southern island. Then I used a particle beam—
not
a nuclear one, by the way—to tickle up some of the tractors on the island. It looked very dramatic. Anyone who got close to the island to check was scared off by the alpha and gamma radiation.

“So Barros got rid of an economic drain, received lots of nice cash and aid and lots of attention. They’ll enjoy a boom in tourism after this and I’m sure the Governor’s AI took that into account.”

“What did you get?” Rosen asked.

“An impregnable fortress,” Bedivere replied.

Catherine sat up. “The radiation dome can be breached?”

“There are only two sets of viable, live DNA that will open the shield,” Bedivere told her.

She didn’t ask the obvious question. He had used her DNA and his as the keys.

“So you arranged a land-based location for yourself,” Connell said. His eyes were shining with admiration.

“I spent several weeks bringing in highly-paid technicians, who built my replica using the latest in computer components. A second set of technicians were paid to inspect the work and verify it good. All the work was done using sterile room standards and the bunker is a sealed, dust-free environment held at the ideal temperature and air quality for computer components. The bunker itself is bomb and nuclear proof and if anyone is crazy enough to breech the radiation shield, there are several other layers of protection, vocal and visual warnings and sirens that emit signals on all frequencies. The last two defense layers are lethal. Anyone who ignores all the warnings and reaches that far is not friendly. They also won’t live much longer.”

Bedivere shrugged. “I had to make myself invulnerable. I had to take that out of the equation, so the Cartel couldn’t manipulate me. By running and making it look as though I had turned rogue, by turning myself into the most wanted person in the known worlds, I removed the danger to Catherine. If the Cartel were uncertain whether I had received their message, then there was no point in threatening Catherine. While everyone was looking for me, the Cartel couldn’t contact me to renew the threat.”

“That’s where you are located now?” Rosen asked. “On Barros?”

“I replicated myself there. That was one of the last steps. I also left instructions with Connell to give to Catherine if I couldn’t finish the final transfer. The instructions would have walked her through the rest of the process. As it turns out, she didn’t have to, because I was able to finish it myself.”

“The link?” Connell asked.

“The link,” Bedivere said in agreement. “That was one of the more expensive parts of this and it was worth every yen. The Shanta government drives a very hard bargain. I chose them, though, because they’ve got a long history of developing subversive technology. As it happens, I hit the jackpot. The Shanterrians were the ones who developed the link for Jovanka. So they didn’t have to invent a new one from scratch. They only had to copy and adjust the one they had already built for the Cartel. That made it cheaper, which is a good thing. I could barely afford it as it was. I’ll be a kept man for a good number of years.”

Catherine hid her smile. “I think I can fill in most of what happened on Shanta. I had finally started to think like you by then and I was working it out. The Shanta government was having a bad time with the Gramoor clan who were slowly taking over their gate station and killing business and interstellar traffic into the bargain. So you agreed that in return for the link and their cooperation in covering your tracks, you would shoot up that section of the station when you left. So Shanta coached all their people to blame you whenever someone asked them about the incident, which mysteriously killed only a handful of key Gramoor people.”