Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

“You know why,” answered Dobbs calmly. “We had to find out where it came from so we could stop any others. You think one is dangerous, how about one hundred? Or one thousand?”

Lipinski’s fingers raked slow trails against his thighs. “We still might be facing that.”

Dobbs shook her head. “Not with the Guild on alert. The thing’ll be cornered in no time. This is what we exist for.” She pulled a bright red scarf out of her pocket and did nothing but wind it through her fingers. “This and utter frivolity for the sake of ship’s sanity.” She stared at the scarlet fabric. “Not that I’ve been doing too well on that end of my job lately.”

His blue eyes looked nearly grey now. There was nothing in his face but a kind of bleakness. “Are you telling me the truth?”

Dobbs felt her heart twist. “Yes, I am.” Mostly. As much as I can. “There’s never been a break out in the bank network. We’re the reason why. It won’t happen now.”

He met her eyes, and Dobbs was not certain what he thought he saw there. “I’m sorry, Dobbs. I’m trying. I really am.”

“I know.” She nodded. “Believe me. This shouldn’t have gone down like this. I should have seen the danger and neutralized the AI somehow.” Right. And how was I going to tell myself it was all right to not just confine it, but drive a stake through its heart? “It won’t get away from the Guild though.” She hooked her fingers around her necklace. “We’ve kept the peace for a very long time.” She gave him a watery smile. “And you didn’t even know it.”

“You didn’t keep it on Kerensk,” he muttered towards the floor.

She’d been ready for that. “Do you know what happened to the Kerensk AI?”

Lipinski shrugged. “It died with the planetary network.”

She shook her head. “It survived. It would have escaped too, but the Guild sent a Guild Master in to root it out.” The expression on his face told her that this he was ready to believe. He needed to believe the Guild had taken care of the worst monster he knew of, because then he could hope they could do the same this time. “They neutralized it,” she went on. “I’ve seen the records. I looked them up as soon as I became a cadet.” The part of the story she wasn’t telling plucked at her elbow. Dobbs tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t go away.

Lipinski looked at the floor, then at the boards. “Why the hell couldn’t they have gotten there sooner?”

She drew the scarf through her fingers. “I don’t know.” She waving the swash absently in front of her. “I’d just been born.” She pocketed the scarf again.

“Yeah, yeah, right.” He let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry. I am. It’s just…” He gestured at the hold. “It’s been a really long set of days, Dobbs.”

“I know.” She tried to put every ounce of fervor she had into her voice. “Believe me, I know.”

His glance was rueful. “I guess you would.” He shook himself. “I haven’t told Al Shei about this, yet.”

Dobbs stopped herself from biting her lips. “Lipinski, I’m going to ask you a favor.” She stopped until he was looking right at her. “Can you keep this to yourself? Al Shei has more than enough to worry about. I’m afraid of what she’ll do if she thinks this thing is out in the network her family helped build.”

After a long moment, Lipinski nodded. “But,” he raised his hand, “if there’s a glitch, a blip, anything in the network before you tell me your Guild Masters have caught this thing, I’m going to tell her everything I know.”

Dobbs nodded. The bright light behind Lipinski’s eyes told her there was nothing else she could do. “All right.”

I’ve at least won a little time, she tried to console herself. It’ll be enough. She could tell by the set of both his jaw and his shoulders that Lipinski wished she could leave now. Even if they hadn’t had the message to send, Dobbs wasn’t quite ready to let things rest. “Do you think you’ll ever get around to letting me be your friend again?”

He didn’t move. “Maybe.” Abruptly, he swung his chair back around to face the boards. “So, are you going to help me call your Guild?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Dobbs gave him the codes for a fast-time message to the Guild Hall. He wrote them across the board with the signal codes and then called up the credit validations.

“All right,” he confirmed what was in front of him. “Intercom to Record.” He nodded at her.

Dobbs took a deep breath. “This is Master of Craft Evelyn Dobbs, registry number two-zero-three-seven. I am arriving at Guild Hall Station aboard the independent mail packet Pasadena. We are low on fuel and reaction mass and require assistance. Refer all queries to Guild Master Matthew Havelock. We can be reached at…” Lipinski wrote the Pasadena’s address codes on the board and Dobbs read them off. “This is an emergency situation. The safety of the crew is at stake.”

“Intercom to close.” Lipinski directed the recording out onto the lines. “Nicely urgent. You’re good at this.”

“Beginner’s luck.” She gave him the first real smile she’d felt in days. He didn’t return it, but his eyes had lost some of their bleakness.

She nodded, turned and cycled the hatch back open. It’ll be enough, she told herself again. It’ll have to be enough.

Strapped in at her station in engineering, Al Shei watched the Guild Hall growing closer. A rumble traveled up through the deck plates. Yerusha must have ordered a torch burst to bring the ship around a little. The station shifted a little left of center in Al Shei’s view screen.

Guild Hall was a lonely looking place, orbiting on its own around a greasy brown-and-grey striped gas giant. It had been built on the same pattern as Port Oberon, but only had two rows of cans encircling its core. The Pasadena was fifty clicks away and closing, but even at maximum magnification, Al Shei could see only five ships docked against the core. She’d checked the records. The nearest outpost was four days away, and that was a mostly automated gas mining operation.

What made you pick such an isolated spot to train clowns? she wondered, tugging at her sleeve. Even if they are undercover clowns.

She had to conceded that they were well-trained clowns. Dobbs had been everywhere at once on the run here, calming and cheering whoever she could. She had steered subtly clear of Al Shei herself, Resit, Lipinski and Schyler, only reporting in now and then about the status of morale, which was surprisingly high, especially now that there was the prospect of genuine help.

Genuine but reluctant. Al Shei shook her head remembering the message from Guild Master Havelock.

“Because of the status of extreme emergency, the Pasadena is given permission to dock at Guild Hall Station for refueling purposes. Fuel and reaction mass will be supplied at the price of the recovery costs. No station leave is to be granted under any circumstances to non-Guild personnel.”

She had bridled at the hard line, but tried to keep her temper. Knowing what she did about the Guild now, she could understand, a little, why casual visitors might not be welcome. Especially visitors who might understand what they were looking at, or overhearing.

Dobbs, of course, was insisting to the crew that it was just that the Guild was jealously guarding its custard pie recipe.

The rumble beneath Al Shei’s feet died as the order came down from Yerusha to cut the torch burst. The core drifted toward Pasadena until it filled the entire view screen with a silver-and-white wall of ceramic panels, solar collectors and spidery antennas.