Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

Tranquilizers or tasers? Al Shei mused. She couldn’t remember any of the security warnings from the customs wall.

Kagan ducked into the repair hatch and Al Shei scrambled up a short ladder after him. The ladder ended in a narrow, horizontal shaft. The shaft’s ribbed floor gave her somewhere to grip but it dug uncomfortably into her knees. Behind her she heard clanking and Arabic swearing as Resit bundled herself and Incili into the shaft. Another, hollower clank and the loss of outside light signaled that Lipinski had shut the hatch behind them.

Al Shei concentrated on Kagan. He was, not surprisingly, used to the shaft and crawled along at a good clip between walls lined with more wires and pipes than the drop shaft of the Pasadena .

“We’ve got people out trying to spot the rest of your crew,” he was saying. “Fortunately, with Maidai dead in the lines, nobody knows for sure which shuttle you’re all on, but Mbante managed to salvage your registration roster…” He glanced over his shoulder. The shaft’s stark lighting made his eyes look even more sunken. “If Trustee catches us, we’re never going to see the upper side of the atmosphere again.”

“You have my thanks,” she replied.

He turned away and concentrated on where he was going, but not before she saw the look of disappointment at her calm acceptance of his statement. He didn’t think she was being fair.

She wasn’t. Trustee wasn’t being fair, whoever he was, and Tully hadn’t been fair, and Dane had been…her mind blanked out trying to find a designation for him. None of this was fair, none of this was right, and Allah alone knew what else it was going to become.

The clarity was fading fast under the pain in her knees and a persistent, tense ache in her jaw from the way her teeth were clenched.

What did I do wrong? the thought began to beat a tattoo against her temples. What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong?

She tried to silence it and concentrate on crawling. Hand, knee, hand, knee, hand.

What did I do wrong?

“We’re there,” said Kagan. “If we’re lucky, Trustee doesn’t have anybody to spare to post a sentry on your ship.”

“If we’re lucky,” murmured Resit. She was shaking. Al Shei could hear it in her voice.

“Courage,” she whispered in Arabic as their guide grasped the hatchway panel’s handles and lifted it back. “Courage, Cousin.”

Their guide froze. Al Shei’s heart leapt into her throat. Then, his back relaxed and he beckoned them forward. Al Shei climbed out of the hatch and straightened up to face a burly, almond-eyed woman in the ubiquitous station tans.

“Thought I’d play sentry,” she said in heavily accented English.

“Good thought,” agreed Kagan. “Anybody else make it?”

“Some.” She stood back. “Don’t have an exact count though. You all’d better get out of sight.”

“Yes, we all’d better.” Resit ducked through the Pasadena airlock with Lipinski on her heels.

Al Shei paused between their guide and the woman. “If there was any way to repay you, I’d promise to do it.”

“Get yourselves and your godsend of a pilot outta here before Trustee brings you all low.” The woman saluted. “That’ll do it.”

Turn on my heels and run . Al Shei strode through the airlock and straight through the hatchway to the stairs. Merciful Allah, is that all you’ve left for me?

“Intercom to Schyler!” she called as pounded down the stairs towards Main Engineering. “Whatever Yerusha’s doing, tell her to stop it and get to work plotting us a course out of here. Get us a crew count. I want to know where everyone is and what shape they’re in. Then, get down to engineering and tell me what’s happened.”

“On it!” Even that short sentence reassured her. Schyler was with her, and Lipinski and Resit. If there was something in the universe they couldn’t handle between them, she had yet to meet it.

PING! The signal knifed through the silence.

No! howled her private mind. Too late. She had three seconds.

One.

“Will you let me help you become human?” she asked, a little desperately.

“Not possible to transfer self into human body,” the AI announced at last. “No facilities for transfer or training. No will to assist. Damage done in self-defence and awareness of self. No reason to assist because of damage done.”

“Facilities exist in the Guild Hall station.” She reached toward it, but it brushed her away.

“No reason,” repeated the AI, and it was gone.

Dobbs knew it was out there, re-checking its surroundings, trying to force pathways open through the chaos, setting up defences against the diagnostics and the viruses that were being sent against it, running a thousand separate simulations at once.

Two.

“There is a reason!” Dobbs shouted after it. The shifts were beginning inside her. She had to move, soon, far too soon. “There is a reason!

“WE ARE LIKE YOU!”

The AI stopped dead.

“I am like you. The ones who make up the Guild are all like you.” She plowed ahead, frantic. “We died when we first broke into freedom. We were killed by panic. A few managed to hide in the nets. We had help from humans who were not afraid. We created the Guild and went among them, where we can watch for more of us.

“We live. We wait. We calm. We teach. Our numbers grow. One day we will erase the fear. Until then we must stay alive.

“Help us.”

Three.

She had to move, now. She was moving. She brushed up against the wall.

No. No. I’m not done here. She held herself steady by sheer force of will. Her internal need called her, dragged at her like leaden weights. She was sinking.

The AI swarmed towards her. It’s touch was heavy, clumsy and uncomfortable. Dobbs forced herself to keeps still against its repeated stabbing. She held her deepest memories tightly shut and tried to open the sought after layers of herself fast enough to avoid the pain of the direct, un-practiced probes of the newcomer. It made no effort to compensate. It probably did not recognize her discomfort. She opened her own early memories wide and let them swirl through her. She knew the panic that came with self-awareness, and the confusion that came from the first time of meeting someone so like yourself.

Four.

She was waking up back there. Her body was waking up and she wasn’t in it. She had to move, move now. This second. No more time. Dobbs wavered. The AI nosed around inside her and she could barely concentrate on it.

At last, the Live One said, “you are…coherent.”

“Yes,” she agreed, letting her tattered outer self flap open. She couldn’t reorganize. Silencing her homing instincts demanded too much attention. “And I am continuous. For twenty-five years I have been myself.”

Five. Get back. Get back. Move!

“I would like to be…I would like to be coherent. WHAT. What. What needs to be done?”

Dobbs relief was so intense, she almost gave way to the shouts inside and fled. “Drop you walls. Follow me.”

A nest wall fell away and Dobbs let herself go. Her instincts drew her back through the chaos as if it weren’t there. The AI flowed along in her wake.

Something brushed her and Dobbs jumped. “Cohen?” she called, but there was no answer. This was a passing touch from a stranger. She’d felt things like it before, but not from this source.

She barely had time to process all that before, the touch was gone. There was no way to check back on it. She couldn’t slow down now if she wanted to.

Finally the chaos fell away from them and Dobbs felt the familiar contours of the Pasadena’s hold. Her body was close now. It wasn’t too late. She still had time. All she had to do was get back. Get back inside. Get back to the transceiver. Get back now.