Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

Dobbs hurried after Al Shei as fast as she could. The drug induced disassociation had almost worn off, but the exhaustion had not. She longed to fall into her bed. Her midriff muscles ached from controlling her bladder.

Al Shei was waiting for her at the stair hatchway. She didn’t say a word when Dobbs caught up with her, she just started down the stairs, leaving Dobbs to follow in silence.

Her contract was already broken, Dobbs realized as she watched Al Shei’s stiff back. There was no way she could go back to what she had been for these people, at least for the senior crew. The illusion was well and truly shattered and she’d never be able to get even one of them to suspend disbelief for her again. Her insides wrung themselves at that cold reality. She had liked this contract, this ship, and this woman who wouldn’t turn around to say one word to her. She had liked playing the Fool here and she’d done a linear good job for them, because she was counting them friends.

What can I count you as now?

Al Shei led her around the bend of the corridor and paused in front of the comm center hatch. She turned around.

“I am asking you, by whatever you hold sacred to tell me this.” For the first time, Dobbs saw doubt in her eyes. “Can you do this thing safely?”

“I hold my office sacred,” said Dobbs. “And my life, and I swear by both of them. I will only keep the AI intact as long as I know for certain it will keep itself under control.”

Al Shei nodded slowly. “Do what you can, or what you have to, but I’m telling you right now, Evelyn Dobbs, my ultimate responsibility is the safety of the people I’ve hired on. If I find out you’ve put them in danger, I’m going to toss you out of here for violation of contract, and at this point I’m not sure I’ll be sorry to do it.” She hesitated. “You’ve been good help on this run, Dobbs. I’m hoping you can continue to be, because if this isn’t resolved quickly Allah alone will be able to see how far the splinters will fly.”

Al Shei cycled the hatch back.

Lipinski sat hunched over the comm center’s main boards.

“That was too quick…” he started, then he looked up and saw who it was.

“I need you to open the hold, Houston,” Al Shei told him. “Then, I need to talk to you in the conference room.”

His wide blue eyes narrowed. He took his hands slowly away from the boards. “You want to tell me what’s going on, Engine?”

Al Shei gave a short, barking laugh. “Not really,” she said. “But I’m going to. Open the hold and come on.”

Lipinski’s gaze rested on Dobbs. Ashamed, she let her own gaze slip to the floor.

“Aye-aye, Engine.” Lipinski scribbled a quick command across the memory board and added his thumbprint.

The hatchway to the data hold cycled open. Slowly, making each movement deliberate, Lipinski got out of his chair and followed Al Shei into the corridor.

Dobbs did not let herself watch them leave. She strode into the data hold and let the hatch cut off the rest of the world behind her. The comm center was clean, but the data hold was immaculate. The curving white walls were marred only by the straight lines that indicated where the repair hatches were located.

Dobbs sat down at the chair in front of the single set of command boards and pulled her pen out of her belt pouch.

She held it over the memory board. She wished she could see through the layers of ceramic, silicon and fiber with her body’s eyes. How was the Live One holding up in there? Did it have patience? She hadn’t seen any. She had a promise, but she didn’t know if it would hold. She wasn’t even sure it understood the nature of a promise. At this point, nothing but time would tell.

Unexpectedly, the memory of the strange-familiar passing touch she’d felt on the way out came back to her.

There was somebody else out there. The thought jolted her. Does Guild Master Havelock know that?

She bent over the boards. He must. No one could have gotten past him and Cohen. No one could have done that.

She found herself wishing the forty-eight hours were already up so that she could be absolutely sure.

As soon as Al Shei and Lipinski reached the conference room, Al Shei sat heavily in the nearest chair. “Intercom to Yerusha. What’s our fuel and reaction mass situation?”

Lipinski’s gaze was resting heavily on her. She didn’t want to think about it, but she knew there was no getting away from it.

Yerusha’s voice came back after a five second pause. “We’ve got enough to make it to Vicarage, but that’s it.”

“All right, we can stock up when we get there. As soon as you see a clear path, get us out of here.”

“On it.” Her voice was slow, as if she wanted to disagree. There was a pause. “Intercom to Houston.”

“Here, Pilot,” he answered mechanically.

“What’s left of The Gate’s AI is in a wafer stack in the main comm boards. If their network’s at all stabilized, we’d better give it back to them before we leave.” It was costing Yerusha something to say this. Al Shei could hear it in her voice. Schyler’s report is going to be very, very interesting.

“Giving their AI back is probably a good idea,” he agreed. “Thank you for mentioning it. Intercom to close.”

He turned away from the intercom, his face the frozen mask it became when things had gone far to far.

I’m sorry, Houston, they’re about to get worse.

Al Shei gripped the chair arms and took a deep breath. One slow, careful sentence at a time, she told him what Dobbs had told her.

When she finished, the silence stretched out so long she thought for a ridiculous moment that Lipinski had forgotten how to speak.

Then, he did speak in a low, steady voice that somehow managed to express more outrage than any of his dramatic shouting ever did.

“Al Shei, how could you do this?”

“What did you want me to do, Houston?” She spread her hands. “Leave it? Kill it? If Dobbs is right and it was created deliberately, we’ve got a genuine threat to all of Settled Space out there and one lead to the source of it.” She pointed towards the deck. “It’ll be off the ship as soon as we reach The Vicarage.” She leaned forward across the table, trying to catch his gaze, but his focus kept sliding towards the table top. “In the meantime, I need you. I need you to draft a message to the Farther Kingdom’s diplomatic corps and let them know the AI’s gone and make sure that message gets somewhere useful. Then, I’m going to need a line open so I can get a background check on Amory Dane. I’m going to need you to sort through what Uysal gave us about Tully’s smuggled data. There are two possibilities for where this thing came from; either it came out of Toric, or it came from Amory Dane. Asil is checking on Dane’s movements on Port Oberon, and that might get us something, but it probably won’t be enough.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re asking a whole set of good questions. Here’s another: What did Tully think he was doing?”

Al Shei nodded in agreement. “I’m going to ask him first chance I get, believe me.”

Lipinski pulled his shoulders up a little straighter. “This is going to take fast-time communications. It’s going to be expensive.”

Al Shei bowed her head. “Allah, forgive me. I didn’t realize I had that much of a miser’s reputation.” She looked up again. “Do it, Houston. We’re so far in the hole one way and other, it won’t matter. Our only hope of salvaging this run is to lay this whole mess in its grave.” She laid her hand on the table, not quite touching him, but reaching out. “I also need you to refine those roadblock programs of yours. Dobbs says she can keep that thing under control, but I don’t want to take any chances, all right?”