Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

Catch! She lobbed it at the closest Fool and sped on. The Fools around her parted to let her through and she heard her name echoing back and forth between them.

The Drawbridge loomed in front of her, and it lowered just as she reached it. She surged inside. The paths tilted, turned and an empty channel opened in front of her.

Of course. She flowed down it. We wouldn’t want to do this in public would we?

She didn’t even make it to the meeting place. Havelock surged up the path. He had hold of her almost before she was able to identify him. She tried to pull back, but the path had closed. Before she could speak, he stabbed deep into her memories. Dobbs gasped and struggled, shoving memories of Curran and Verence toward him. He did not let go. His grip didn’t even slacken and his probe did not slow. He found the memories about Cohen and Brooke and how they helped her escape. He found the place where she told Curran to meet her at the XK350 repeater series.

He’s going to take me apart. Dobbs thought despairingly. He’s going to take us all apart.

But Havelock withdrew and Dobbs fell away from him. She could feel him near her, circling the confining path like a prisoner pacing a cell. She didn’t say anything, she just concentrated on sealing the discontinuities his invasion had created inside her.

“This cannot be permitted!” he shouted finally. “It cannot!”

“So what are you going to do to stop it?” Dobbs gathered herself to wait like a stone in front of the closed-off pathway.

Havelock said nothing, he just kept circling. It took Dobbs a moment to identify what she was feeling from him. It was so incongruous from a Guild Master, she had not been ready to accept it. Guild Master Havelock was broadcasting fear.

It’s falling apart and he knows it. Dobbs thought. For the first time she realized she didn’t know how old Guild Master Havelock was. She didn’t even know his registry number. How many years had he devoted to the Guild? Had he been there when Curran made his escape? Had he known that Verence wasn’t really dead?

“The Humans already know we’re here, Guild Master,” said Dobbs. “The only question left is how will they meet us? Will they meet the Fools, or will they meet a new enemy?” She could barely believe she was talking like this to a Guild Master, her Guild Master, but she could feel the seconds crawling by and part of her was constantly, anxiously reaching back towards Port Oberon. She had to get out of here, fast.

Havelock stilled himself. “It could have worked,” he said softly. “It might have taken another two centuries, but it could have worked. We had succeeded in convincing them not to abandon AI technology altogether, despite the dangers. We did it so that we could stay alive, so you and Cohen and Brooke and Verence could be born. We were able to persuade and to teach.” He rippled and stretched out flat. “Without Curran, it could have worked.”

“But we have Curran,” said Dobbs. She inched forward until she could just touch Havelock. “We have him and now we have to decide what to do with him.”

Little by little, Havelock dragged himself into his normal shape. “Go meet Cohen. I’ll send everyone who can be spared to join you. The rest of us will start making policy and defence preparations for Guild Hall. We’ll need to send runners to alert the Field members to start making their way back here.” She felt the path open up. “It will not be safe for them out there much longer.”

Dobbs hesitated. “You don’t think we’re going to survive this, do you, Guild Master?”

“I don’t know, Master Dobbs.”

Dobbs didn’t wait to hear anymore. She flew away from him down the open path to meet Cohen and whatever army he’d been able to raise.

Distance did not stop the Guild Master’s final words from echoing inside her.

Harry Trader’s turned out to be a kind of general-purpose spare parts emporium. Yerusha, with Lipinski in tow, threaded her way through cases of cables, bolts, and rivets, stacks of memory boards and long drawers full of every size of chip and wafer imaginable. The jumble seemed to suck in the sounds of the market so that by the time they reached the back of the shop’s enclosure, it was almost quiet. The only person in the place was a little, round man stacking spools of fiber-optic as big around as Yerusha’s waist. His black hair, Yerusha noticed, had been pulled into a braid that reached all the way down his back.

“Harry Trader?” she asked. The man grunted, and lifted another spool onto the stack. “We’re crewing with Thomas Schyler. He said you could give us a quiet place to talk.”

Trader turned around and looked them up and down. He must have decided they looked all right, because he jerked his thumb towards a makeshift storage room.

Yerusha led Lipinski inside. There was a desk and crate after crate of old films. This must be where Harry does his billing records. There was one white light in the room that left pale, grey shadows every where and made Lipinski look even paler than usual.

Lipinski dragged the thin door shut behind them. The walls must have been made of solid damper-plastic, because as soon as the door shut, she couldn’t hear even a whisper of the station outside.

“All right, Yerusha,” said Lipinski with a voice full of over-taxed patience. “We’re in your ‘quiet place.’ Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?”

Yerusha upended a pair of empty crates. “I’m sure going to try.”

The Pasadena waited quiet and empty around Al Shei. There had been a lot of noise for a short time as the crew had packed up their possessions and headed for the airlock. Even through her cabin hatch, she’d been able to hear some of the grumbling voices and the pounding footsteps. But no one had come to her to question or protest.

She wondered vaguely what Schyler had told them all.

She brushed the thought aside. She didn’t have space in her head for it. She turned back to the generic module schematic that glowed on her wall where she usually displayed the plans for the Mirror of Fate . This would give her the probable layout for Curran’s headquarters. She had to go over her plan again, and again. She had to be sure it would work, that she hadn’t left anything out.

A chime from her desk startled her. She glanced at the memory board reflexively. Schyler, it said, was waiting outside the hatch.

She touched the key beside the hatch, resetting the entrance light from red to green. The hatch cycled back and Schyler stepped in from the silent corridor.

“It’s just you and me now, Mother,” he said.

“Not quite.” Resit stepped over the threshold before the hatch started to close. She clutched Incili’s case in her right hand.

Resit set the AI on the corner of the desk. “Well, I got what you wanted.” She unfolded the chair and sat down. “But we’re going to wish we had Lipinski around to implement it.”

“I’ll manage,” said Al Shei. “I still know a few security tricks from when I was working shuttles.”

“I’m sure,” Resit’s tone was acid. “Now, under this lawyer-client privilege that you’re playing so freely with, would you mind telling me what you intend to do with this information?”

Al Shei touched the case lightly with her fingertips. “I intend to blow that can away from the station,” she said, looking up at her cousin and her oldest son. “And I intend to be inside when it goes.”

Verence dashed back into the module network, calling for Curran as she flew. He surged up out of a side path and she had to pull up short to avoid colliding with him.

“How much longer?” he asked immediately.

“An hour, maybe two.” She shrugged her whole self. “Even if we deploy everyone, and there’s still at least ten critical junctures unconverted.”