Martha Wells - All Systems Red

I hated to admit this but they needed to know. Hacking myself is one thing, but I had hacked other systems, and I didn’t know how they were going to react to that. “It might. I hacked HubSystem when we first arrived so it wouldn’t notice that the commands sent to the governor module weren’t always being followed, but if HubSystem’s been compromised by an outside agent, I don’t know if that worked. But HubSystem won’t know you know about it.”

Ratthi crossed his arms, his shoulders hunching uneasily. “We have to shut it down, or it’s going to kill us.” Then he winced and looked at me. “Sorry, I meant HubSystem.”

“No offense,” I said.

“So we think HubSystem has been compromised by an outside agent,” Bharadwaj said slowly, as if trying to convince herself. “Can we be certain it’s not the company?”

I said, “Was DeltFall’s beacon triggered?”

Mensah frowned, and Ratthi looked thoughtful again. He said, “We checked it on the way back, once we had you stabilized. It had been destroyed. So there was no reason for the attackers to do that if the company was their ally.”

Everyone stood there, quiet. I could tell from their expressions they were all thinking hard. The HubSystem that controlled their habitat, that they were dependent on for food, shelter, filtered air, and water, was trying to kill them. And in their corner all they had was Murderbot, who just wanted everyone to shut up and leave it alone so it could watch the entertainment feed all day.

Then Arada came up and patted my shoulder. “I’m sorry. This must be very upsetting. After what that other Unit did to you… Are you all right?”

That was too much attention. I turned around and walked into the corner, facing away from them. I said, “There were two other instances of attempted sabotage I’m aware of. When Hostile One attacked Drs. Bharadwaj and Volescu and I went to render assistance, I received an abort command from HubSystem through my governor module. I thought it was a glitch, caused by the MedSystem emergency feed trying to override HubSystem. When Dr. Mensah was flying the little hopper to check out the nearest map anomaly, the autopilot cut out just as we were crossing over a mountain range.” I think that was it. Oh, right. “HubSystem downloaded an upgrade packet for me from the satellite before we left for DeltFall. I didn’t apply it. You should probably look at what it would have told me to do.”

Mensah said, “Pin-Lee, Gurathin, can you shut HubSystem down without compromising the environmental systems? And trigger our beacon without it interfering?”

Pin-Lee glanced at Gurathin and nodded. “It depends on what kind of condition you expect it to be in after we’re done.”

Mensah said, “Let’s say don’t blow it up, but you don’t need to be gentle, either.”

Pin-Lee nodded. “We can do that.”

Gurathin cleared his throat. “It’s going to know what we’re doing. But if it doesn’t have any instructions to stop us if we try, it may do nothing.”

Bharadwaj leaned forward, frowning. “It’s got to be reporting to someone. If it has a chance to warn them that we’re shutting it down, they could supply instructions.”

“We have to try it,” Mensah said. She nodded to them. “Get moving.”

Pin-Lee started for the door, but Gurathin said to Mensah, “Will you be all right here?”

He meant would they be all right with me here. I rolled my eyes.

“We’ll be fine,” Mensah said, firmly, with just a touch of I said now .

I watched him with the security cameras as he and Pin-Lee left, just in case he tried anything.

Volescu stirred. “We also need to look at that download from the satellite. Knowing what they wanted SecUnit to do might tell us a great deal.”

Bharadwaj pushed herself up, a little unsteadily. “MedSystem is isolated from HubSystem, correct? That’s why it hasn’t been having failures. You could use it to unpack the download.”

Volescu took her arm and they moved into the next cabin to the display surface there.

There was a little silence. The others could still listen to us on the feed, but at least they weren’t in the room, and I felt the tension in my back and shoulders relax. It was easier to think. I was glad Mensah had told them to trigger our emergency beacon. Even if some of them were still suspicious of the company, it wasn’t like there was another way off this planet.

Arada reached over and took Overse’s hand. She said, “If it isn’t the company that’s doing this, who is it?”

“There has to be someone else here.” Mensah rubbed her forehead, wincing as she thought. “Those two extra SecUnits at DeltFall came from somewhere. SecUnit, I’m assuming the company could be bribed to conceal the existence of a third survey team on this planet.”

I said, “The company could be bribed to conceal the existence of several hundred survey teams on this planet.” Survey teams, whole cities, lost colonies, traveling circuses, as long as they thought they could get away with it. I just didn’t see how they could get away with making a client survey team—two client survey teams—vanish. Or why they’d want to. There were too many bond companies out there, too many competitors. Dead clients were terrible for business. “I don’t think the company would collude with one set of clients to kill two other sets of clients. You purchased a bond agreement that the company would guarantee your safety or pay compensation in the event of your death or injury. Even if the company couldn’t be held liable or partially liable for your deaths, they would still have to make the payment to your heirs. DeltFall was a large operation. The death payout for them alone will be huge.” And the company hated to spend money. You could tell that by looking at the recycled upholstery on the habitat’s furniture. “And if everyone believes the clients were killed by faulty SecUnits, the payment would be even bigger once all the lawsuits were filed.”

On the cameras I could see nods and thoughtful expressions as they took that in. And they remembered that I had experience in what happened after SecUnits malfunctioned and killed clients.

“So the company took a bribe to conceal this third survey group, but not to let them kill us,” Overse said. One of the good things about scientist clients is that they’re quick on the uptake. “That means we just need to stay alive long enough for the pick-up transport to get here.”

“But who is it?” Arada waved her hands. “We know whoever it is must have hacked control of the satellite.” In the security camera, I saw her look toward me. “Is that how they took control of the DeltFall SecUnits? Through a download?”

It was a good question. I said, “It’s possible. But it doesn’t explain why one of the three DeltFall Units was killed outside the hub with a mining drill.” We weren’t supposed to be able to refuse a download, and I doubted there were other SecUnits hiding hacked governor modules. “If the DeltFall group refused the download for their SecUnits because they were experiencing the same increase in equipment failure that we were, the two unidentified Units could have been sent to manually infect the DeltFall Units.”

Ratthi was staring into the distance, and through the feed I saw he was reviewing my field camera video of the DeltFall habitat. He pointed in my direction, nodding. “I agree, but it would mean the DeltFall group allowed the unknown Units into their habitat.”

It was likely. We had checked to make sure all their hoppers were there, but it had been impossible to tell if an extra one had landed and taken off again at some point. Speaking of which, I did a quick check of the security feed to see how our perimeter was doing. The drones were still patrolling and our sensor alarms all responded to pings.