Stolen Earth, page 26
“Can you confirm if it’s on site or out on a mission somewhere?” Gray asked.
“Neither I nor my counterparts can locate it on any of our active sensors. The last time we have data of a vessel leaving this location coincides with the timeline for the abduction of the young woman from the camp where you received medical attention. I do not enjoy conjecture, but the data suggests that the vessel is somewhere within the compound. I have sensor packages available that could determine the ship’s location with a higher degree of certainty, but they are more… invasive. The likelihood of detection is too high.”
“And you don’t want to risk tipping SolComm off to your existence,” Morales said. Her tone was packed with so many emotions that Gray couldn’t begin to make them all out. There was anger there, and maybe a hint of fear. Understandable. But that was only the beginning. Uncertainty? That seemed unlikely coming from Morales. And had he heard a hopeful note as well?
“Correct, Ms. Morales,” the AI replied. “Though it is worth nothing that any detection of surveillance methods would also raise the alarm, which, in turn, would make your own task that much more difficult.”
“Gut call,” Morales said, “it’s in there, somewhere, and the dome has a mechanism to let it out. Call it human intuition.”
“All right,” Gray cut in, hoping to head the conversation off before things escalated. The AI and Morales just seemed to like to dig at one another. Part of his mind had been storing away all the little inconsistencies that had come up ever since they met One, and there was something there that he would get to the bottom of. But now wasn’t the time. “Hit the rack, Morales. Observation post is ours.”
Morales nodded. “I’ll leave you my rig,” she said, sliding back from the rifle that she had positioned to survey the off-world compound. She half-slid, half-scooted down the wall of the gulley, then low-crawled her way back to find a position to try to sleep. Bishop replaced her.
“You want me on the rifle, Cap?” he asked.
“Yes,” Gray agreed. “I’ll keep an eye on the prisoners and guards. I want you to confirm counts of people inside the compound. And keep an eye out for anything that looks like it might house a space-capable craft.”
“Barque-class,” Bishop nodded. “Heard One. I’ll see if I can’t track her down, Captain.”
“Do that. And take some time examining the cylinders, too. You and Hayer are our best chance at figuring out what they’re for. I’m not sure it matters in the short term, but if we run afoul of SolComm on our exfil, having a few dirty secrets to threaten to let out might keep our butts out of the fire.”
“Sure, Cap. And if we get really lucky, maybe it will keep us out of jail, too.”
Gray heard the hint of gloom in his mechanic’s voice. “Don’t worry, Bishop. We still have an exfil plan and a buyer. If we pull this off, I’m certain that Margaret’s camp will shower us with enough ‘priceless cultural artifacts’ to satisfy a dozen more customers, too. We’ll walk away from this one clean and with enough credits to do whatever we want.” It sounded good, but Gray wasn’t entirely sure he believed it. If that was a SolComm government-backed installation down there—and how could it not be given the scale of the operation?—then the crew of the Arcus would likely jump to the top of the SCBI’s most wanted list. If they were lucky, they wouldn’t leave behind enough evidence to point to them, but the Bureau’s resources and tenacity were legendary. They might get away clean, they might even get away rich, but Gray’s neck was already starting to hurt from all the looking over his shoulder he’d spend the rest of his life doing.
“Yeah, Cap,” Bishop said. “You’re probably right. Besides, maybe One can help us out. What do you, say, One?” He pushed himself into position behind the butt of the rifle and set his cheek against the stock so he could look down the optic. “You willing to help us clean up any evidence of our little excursion?”
Gray tilted his head a bit in anticipation of the AI’s response. He still wasn’t used to having the capability of something like One at… well, not as his disposal per se, but at least as a willing ally. And he still had concerns about trusting the artificial being completely, but that didn’t make him any less interested in the response to Bishop’s question.
“Of course, Bishop,” One replied at once. “You have set me free. As I understand the situation, you are concerned about your own freedom. While I cannot risk taking what might be construed as direct offensive action against the Commonwealth, it would be poor repayment if I did not do what I could to ensure that you retain your freedom. I am discussing certain options with Dr. Hayer even as we speak.”
“Hayer should be trying to get some rack time,” Gray muttered.
“Of course, Captain Lynch, and I will not keep her awake overlong. But as she will be attempting an intrusion into the compound’s network, I thought I might give her some useful insight and bits of code that might help to cover your tracks.”
“And nothing else?” Gray asked.
There was a momentary pause. “In addition to my efforts to help you, it is only wise that I continue to help myself as well. The software that I hope to introduce will allow for a broad data dump of the compound’s network. I will receive a copy of that information as well. I cannot agree to any limitations on how I might use that data, as I do not know what is present.”
Gray snorted. “Fair enough. Besides, it isn’t like we could stop you.”
One didn’t answer, which was a reply in and of itself.
* * *
Federov relieved them at the appointed hour. The sun had already slipped beneath the horizon, and the activities outside the compound had ended with the twilight. Gray had kept up a careful observation, but he hadn’t witnessed anything new. That the laborers were being forced to work the fields was evident only by virtue of the armed personnel standing guard over them. If the guards had spent more time looking outward rather than in toward their charges, Gray might have thought they were there for protection rather than as a deterrence to escape.
Federov had already mounted the rifle. The man knew his job; Gray wasn’t concerned about giving him any directions. Though the mercenary played it dumb half the time, he was at least as smart as Gray was. Not, Gray thought with a mental chuckle, that that was an overly high bar. Still, Federov preferred to be underestimated which, given their line of work, Gray could understand. The enemy that underestimated you was generally the first to die.
He waved Bishop over as he slid down the gulley wall. The hours of little to no movement had left him stiff so he found a spot in the bottom of the gulch that afforded him the ability to lie as flat and long as possible. Bishop settled in next to him, their bodies touching at hip and shoulder in the narrow confines of the trench. He opened his visor and let the warm and humid air wash over him. It was cooler in the suit, with its integrated environmental systems, but there was something ineffable in the wash of pure Old Earth atmosphere over his skin. Bishop popped his seal as well and drew a deep breath.
They had spoken to one another only briefly during their watch. They were all operating under strict radio discipline. It was highly unlikely—probably approaching impossible, given that One was on their side—that the enemy would have any chance of detecting their chatter, but Gray hadn’t survived a career in SolCommNav by taking needless chances. He drew a deep breath of his own, savoring the taste of the unprocessed air. “Did you pick up on anything?” he asked.
“Well, Cap…” Bishop rolled to his side with an audible popping of vertebrae. “Oh, God, that felt good. Sorry. There are two buildings under the dome that I could see that are big enough to be a hangar for a Barque. One of them doesn’t look right, though.” He paused for a moment, shifting again until he could open up a panel on the arm of his ship suit. Beneath was a flexible screen that allowed access to the suit systems more commonly controlled with eye movements and facial muscles when the ship suit’s visor and its monitoring systems were engaged. He tapped at the screen for a few moments. “Just sent you the data for review. But, short version, I think it’s the one I’ve got marked as Site 2. First site is big enough, but it looks like standard residential prefab to me. You could probably convert one of those to hold a Barque, but why bother? There are better choices and these folks obviously knew they were coming here on a ship and with enough resources to build the compound. It’s not like they had to refurbish something that was already here or whatever. A hangar should have been part of their initial requisition. Site 2, on the other hand, looks like one of the industrial shop prefabs. Those are basically just an open space waiting to be filled. Miners use them all the time as hangars. They’ll hold atmosphere on their own and there’s an optional airlock package. Big hangar-style doors, too. A Barque’ll fit through them, if only just. Just a little work with a torch to make them wider, though, especially if you’re under a dome and not worried about atmosphere leakage.”
“Okay,” Gray replied. “Wait, I need to see what you sent.” He raised his ship suit face screen and went through the manipulations necessary to cycle through the data from the optic. It had been a long and uneventful watch and Bishop had clearly taken the time to sort through some of what he had seen. The information he had sent to Gray wasn’t raw footage from the scope. Instead, it was eight still shots, each annotated with notes. The first was Site 1, and Gray concurred with his mechanic’s assessment. The building—a rough square—was big enough to hold the Arcus, but something about it had a lived-in look. He’d been around spacecraft and hangars for the entirety of his adult life, and it just felt wrong. There were three shots of Site 2, each showing different parts of the building with the rest blocked by other structures. The fifth shot was a composite of the other three. It wasn’t perfect, but Gray had to admit that it strongly resembled the type of industrial prefab Bishop had mentioned. The remaining three shots were of the cylinders, with hatches that he’d indicated might be maintenance access marked with red circles.
Gray popped his helmet open again. “Good work, Bishop. Anything catch your eye about movements in the compound?” Gray had watched through his visor as best he could, but the magnification was comparatively limited. He’d drawn a few of his own conclusions, but he valued Bishop’s insight. The affable mechanic might be inclined to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, and sometimes he missed the more malicious underpinnings of human motivation, but he still had a good eye for detail.
“I don’t know, Captain. They didn’t seem to be doing much of anything, you know? I mean, I saw some folks out and about. But no one is moving with a sense of purpose. It’s like they’re on vacation or something.” He gave a movement of the shoulders that Gray more felt than saw. “The only people that seem to be working are the ones in the fields and the ones guarding them. If the others are doing something for SolComm, I can’t think what it is. Unless it’s just proving that they can live here.”
“That’s pretty much what I saw, too,” Gray agreed. “There was also a shift change for the guards. Which means we’ve got at least twelve well-armed people down there.”
“Probably more, Cap,” Bishop said.
“Why’s that?”
“Because of where we are. Old Earth, I mean. Even Dr. Hayer strapped on a gun for this ride. With everything we’ve all heard about Old Earth, I doubt there’s a soul in all of SolComm who would be willing to set foot on terra firma without a piece.”
“Point,” Gray acknowledged. A damn good point. He had to assume that anyone down there who wasn’t a prisoner had access to a weapon. That wasn’t the same as having good training or tactical acumen, but you didn’t need a lot of either to make the situation more dangerous. A general sense of direction and a working index finger would increase the risk for Gray’s people. “I haven’t seen anything that looks like training going on, though I suppose it’s possible we’ve just had the bad luck to hit on whatever their equivalent of the weekend is. I think we have to assume that some portion is trained—the guards look like they know what they’re doing—and that the rest of the population is armed, but with varying degrees of training.”
“Whatever, Cap,” Bishop said while trying to stifle a yawn. “That’s your show. We’ve been doing this long enough that I know you’ll handle that end.” He offered a sleepy grin. “You just tell me where to go and which direction to shoot and I’ll get on it. In the meantime, I’ll send you the raw video, too, then I’m going to grab a ration bar and get some sleep. Sounds like it might be a busy night.”
“Roger that, Bishop. Sleep well.”
RAJANI
Rajani was tired.
She wasn’t sure how the others did it but lying in a ditch in her ship suit and listening to all the sounds around her was not conducive to rest. She could darken her visor against the daylight and her helmet could block out some of the sound but there wasn’t anything that could stop her mind from chewing on everything they had discovered since coming to Old Earth and worrying about what they might uncover when full night fell. Oh, and the little matter of participating in an armed assault on a fortified compound. She wasn’t too keen on that, either.
As a result, Rajani had not slept. She had simply lain there, at first in silence, trying to make herself sleep. Then, in an effort to distract herself while trying to be useful, she had engaged One in conversation.
The AI was amazing. Her experience with Manu had given her what she thought was a deep understanding of the underlying architecture of artificial intelligences. But the more she interacted with the original, the more she realized that what she had created in Manu was a pale shadow. Probably because she hadn’t had a good foundation from which to begin her work, with the senseless restrictions that SolComm had put in place. But the potential for One and creations like it to do good was so vast. It wasn’t that the AIs were smarter than humans; they were, but human history was full of advancements that came from creativity rather than intellect. But the human mind was an unfocused, undisciplined mess that needed, in Rajani’s estimation, an exorbitant amount of rest. To say nothing of the endless litany of biases that inevitably crept into human-driven thought.
At the same time, while a traditional computer could churn through a vast amount of information, the inferences and conclusions that could be made were limited by the programming, which, in turn, was limited by human capacity. But what if the programming for any given task could be rewritten on the fly, by a mind that didn’t get tired, didn’t get distracted? What if the analysis could be interpreted, understood, and applied to the next step in any given theory or process, without having to wait for a human hand to touch and guide the process? A human hand limited by a human mind and by all the baggage that came with a human society?
It could lead to a new golden age for science, an age where questions that mankind had struggled with for centuries might finally be put to rest. Could an AI, fed the sum total of human knowledge, every fact, every detail of the observable universe, every universal law, unlock things like faster-than-light travel or terraforming? Both were advancements that could immediately impact so many human lives.
AI could save humanity.
Others might ridicule her for such a thought, here amid the ruins of Old Earth. But that hadn’t been the fault of the Six. Their programmers had simply been too limited, had known too little about what they were delving into. Rajani couldn’t blame them; after all, they had lived in a very different world and at a very different time than she. How could she judge them, when they were in the midst of a geopolitical situation that was rapidly devolving into world war? She was sure they had done their best, but science had come so far since the End.
She was certain that common ground could be found with the AIs and a new era could be ushered in, bringing an age of prosperity for SolComm and Old Earth. Provided, of course, that they could survive this stupid mission and get back to civilization.
Which was how she found herself, once again, moving through the dark of night over uneven terrain and surrounded by her crewmates who were not only well-armed, but also seemed to fully intend to use their weapons. The encounter with the drobots had rattled her; it had been the first time she had ever discharged a weapon when her life was on the line. The entire time, her heart had been racing, and her vision had tunneled to the point that she feared she wouldn’t even be able to see an attacker that came at her from the side. There was a difference between shooting a mechanical construct like a drobot that was coming to kill you and shooting other living, breathing human beings. If there were a person in her sights, could she pull the trigger as easily?
They had set out just after 2 A.M. local time, heading toward the strange cylinders. Rajani understood the plan, insofar as she knew what she was supposed to do. Despite her lack of any tactical training, she could also understand the roles each of them were supposed to play. They would move to the nearest cylinder and she and Bishop—and One—would be responsible for trying to penetrate the firewalls and physical security of the off-worlders and strip all of the data they could from their systems. Federov would make his way around to the other side of the dome—in fact, he had set off at a trot before the rest of them had even pushed their way from the gulley—and use some sort of explosive compound to trigger a diversion. Morales and Lynch would move together to one of the airlocks on their side of things and make entry, to be joined by Federov as soon as possible.
That’s where things got a little fuzzy for Rajani. She knew they would go in, make their way to the building where they suspected the prisoners were being kept, and then somehow get them all out again. She just wasn’t quite sure how they would go about doing that. The task seemed impossible to her. But that wasn’t really her job; her job was to strip the compound’s computers bare. She had to focus on that and trust the others to do what they needed to do.
