Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

“Don’t do it, Dobbs,” said Curran. He must be in the Pasadena’s net, then. He had felt the board come to life. “Humans are pre-programmed xenophobes. One hundred thousand years of evolution has made them that way. They’ll destroy you even faster than the Guild will.”

“You do not know these people.” She fumbled for her pen. After a couple of tugs she got it loose from her belt.

“I don’t have to,” Curran’s voice was resigned. “Dobbs…I watched the Guild take you from Kerensk. You were so strong, so beautiful…I almost couldn’t believe it.”

His words caught Dobbs by surprise and for a moment she forgot to move.

“I tried to get to you first, but they were too fast for me. You could have centuries of life yet, Dobbs. You could have freedom instead of service and secrecy and death. Because, believe me, the war will come, and it will come soon, with my help or without it. The Humans will learn what the Fools are, and the first thing they will do is converge on the Hall and blow it out of existence. Then they will hunt down every last field member they can find and slaughter them.”

Dobbs grit her teeth and put her pen to the board. There was no sound from the intercom. She let the pen fall and crumpled into her chair. He was already gone. She was alone again with her aching body and her mind ringing with the memories of what he’d said.

He’d known just what to say to get her to start listening. He’d known exactly which buttons to push. Why not? He could have read her psych file any time.

But what if it’s true? She raised her eyes towards the ceiling. What if the Guild did frame Asil?

She picked her pen up off the floor and swivelled her chair towards the desk. Why am I doing this? She asked as called up her trackers and wrote the search commands on the board. She drew the links to route the whole thing down through Lipinski’s station and she added his authorization to get them past the watchdogs. Whoever was watching out there would not stop a search going out from the Houston. It would look strange, especially to Lipinski.

But it isn’t true. It didn’t happen. Curran was lying. She sent the trackers out. They would find the paths that the fraud notice and its related packets had travelled, along with all the storage areas where they’d rested or been sent. The packets hadn’t been to the Fool’s Guild, though. This search would confirm it.

She wrote SENDand stabbed down the period. She didn’t feel the trackers leave. She couldn’t tell where they went, or how they were doing.

Curran had told the truth about one thing. Seven days outside the network had left her feeling restless and confined. She had pulled her box out of her pocket a thousand times and stared at it, trying to tell herself that Al Shei wouldn’t find out if she went into the net.

The only thing that stopped her was the fact that the Guild certainly would find out. She hadn’t been able to make herself put the box away in a drawer though. It had become a talisman for her. She’d even slept with it clutched in her fist.

She glanced toward the hatchway. What’s going on out there? There hadn’t been anymore all-hands announcements. They were probably sorting out who was just going to take leave, and who was going to take their contract and go. She’d heard the rumors via the Sundars and Lipinski. She’d known what they trying to do by talking to her. They were trying to get her to go out and do what she was trained to do; lighten the crew’s mood and raise morale. She’d wanted to, she really had, but she didn’t believe she could do it. Her heart was sick and she didn’t know how to get past that to make anyone laugh.

Fresh text wrote itself across the memory board. Dobbs made herself read it. The fourth destination down was Holding Space TK3-IBN3401-AB2. She knew that spot. It was a blind storage for the Fool’s Guild private transmissions.

No. Dobbs’ breathing grew harsh and ragged. No. It couldn’t be true. Curran knew she could perform this search. The only reason he would tell her a lie she could easily disprove was if he had altered the records. He’d left this file out there for her to find. He could have done that. He could have done anything.

Or it could be true. It looked true. Her trackers were good. They’d been well built and tested under extreme conditions, inside the Guild network itself.

She blinked at the board and wiped out the display. What am I going to do? What’s left to do? She stared at the hatch. The Guild blocked her on one side, Curran on the other.

She got up. There was only way out of their trap. She could do the one thing that no one, not the Guild and not Curran, could believe that she would do. She could tell someone who she really was. It was the only way to open herself a new path.

Who to tell? Yerusha or Al Shei? Lipinski’s name flitted across her consciousness and she felt tears well up in her eyes as she set it aside. No.

Al Shei was furious over her husband’s arrest, and wasn’t acting like herself. She might be too infuriated and afraid to listen calmly. Yerusha though…Yerusha was a Freer. They believed AIs were reincarnated Human Beings. That idea had always made Dobbs squirm slightly. It was acceptance, of a kind, and that was something. But she was herself, not some dead human trapped in a computer network.

She swallowed. Yerusha would listen though. She would greet the news without hostility. She would believe what she heard, and she would help. That was what mattered.

Dobbs glanced at the clock in her desk. The docking was finished. Yerusha would just be coming off-shift. She squeezed the box in her pocket and opened the hatch to the corridor.

Her timing, at least, was still good. Yerusha walked round the corridor’s bend with the careful gait of someone used to light gravity. She looked up at Dobbs and gave a two-fingered wave. “Hello, Fool.” She sounded tired. “I was beginning to think you’d jumped out an air lock. Want to get some lunch?”

Dobbs stomach rumbled, but she ignored it. “Actually, Pilot, I was…I wanted…to talk to you for a minute.”

Yerusha pulled up short in mid-stride, but she didn’t say anything. She just nodded, changed direction and stepped through the hatchway past Dobbs. Dobbs let the hatch cycle shut and turned and faced the pilot.

Yerusha sat down in the desk chair and looked up expectantly. Dobbs stared at her. She couldn’t make her mouth open.

“Is this is about what happened at The Farther Kingdom?” Yerusha folded her arms.

Dobbs sank onto her bunk. “Yes. Sort of. I found out who was responsible for the AI that we carried there.”

Yerusha leaned forward. “You mean it’s not this Amory Dane?”

“No,” Dobbs struggled for a moment but managed to finish the sentence. “It’s a Fool named Theodore Curran.”

“How’d you find this out?”

“He contacted me.”

Yerusha’s eyebrows shot up. “Without Lipinski’s watchdogs barking?”

Dobbs nodded. “Curran is…very good. He told me…” Come on, Dobbs, you’re going to tell her. Start now. “He told me he created our AI. He also told me he was not responsible for the fraud charges laid down on Asil Tamruc.”

Yerusha stiffened. “The Ninja Woman’s husband is under a fraud check? Crash and burn! That explains why she’s acting so crazy. And you thought Curran smudged the wire work?”

Dobbs nodded. “It’s a fake, the whole thing, that much is certain. But Curran says he didn’t do it. He said the Fool’s Guild is responsible.”

“He’s a smuggler, a lie probably doesn’t even register on his conscience.” Yerusha folded her arms and shook her head.

“I checked,” Dobbs went on. “To the best of my abilities. It looks like he was telling the truth.”