Марта Уэллс - Network Effect

“Unfortunately, that’s not the way it works here,” Overse told her. Her expression had that grimly frustrated quality that was common when my humans talked about the corporates. “Another corporation could move in and take over.”

Amena was skeptical. “Take over? But people are living there. I guess they could settle a second colony somewhere on the planet but they couldn’t take over the existing colony. Could they?”

“They could,” Overse assured her. “They have.”

Amena’s expression turned horrified. “But that’s like—I don’t know what it is, but it’s at least kidnapping.”

“That’s how it works in the Corporation Rim,” Thiago told her, stirring his liquid. “The planet is considered property, someone’s property that can be salvaged if the original owner is gone. The colonists, or their descendants or whoever is living there now, don’t have any claim.”

“ Perihelion, what do you do about it? How do you help the colonists?” Ratthi asked.

ART said, The University has the means to produce the colony’s original charter documents, which often contain clauses specifying that if the originating corporate body has ceased operations, then ownership of the planet is ceded to the colonists or their issue or successors living on the original site .

I’d heard the key words “means to produce” as opposed to “archival copies.” I said, “You and your crew collect the necessary survey data from the colony and the University forges the documents.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I mean, I was mad at ART, but the overall mission sounded great in a “screw a corporation sideways” way.

“Is that right, Perihelion ?” Ratthi asked.

ART ignored us. A contract between the colony and an independently operated transfer station is then facilitated. Once the station has established a presence, then the colony is relatively secure from the worst excess of corporate predation, and free to accept other forms of assistance offered by non-corporate entities .

Arada’s mouth was twisted. “Eletra said there were two corporate ships here, correct? Did you arrive in this system before or after they did?”

Before. With my crew held hostage, I was forced to comply with their captors’ orders to fire on a Barish-Estranza support carrier. But my memory archive of that period is damaged and I don’t know what happened to the vessel or the crew .

“So the gray people could also have these corporate crews as prisoners.” Ratthi looked like he was trying to figure out just how many humans we might have to rescue. “Do you know why they brought Eletra and the other corporate onboard… you?” He made a vague gesture over his shoulder. “Why they put the implants in them?”

“I thought it was to torture them for fun,” Amena said darkly.

ART hesitated, though not long enough for the humans to notice. They may have wanted their shuttle. It’s still docked in my secondary cargo module slot . That hesitation would have been suspicious, but I also thought ART might honestly not know. Which was strange, because it should know. Maybe the memory archive issue was worse than ART had implied. But my two landing shuttles are also still in place, so that’s unlikely .

Arada propped her chin on her hand. She was exhibiting several behaviors indicating that she was deep in thought. “ Perihelion, did the rest happen as you explained, that when you came back online your crew was gone?”

Yes .

There was a tone to that word. Not ART’s base level of sarcasm. It had an edge that echoed in the feed.

I didn’t react. ART had kidnapped me to get me here, put my humans in danger. I was not going to feel sympathy for it. Absolutely not.

Ratthi’s expression was dubious. “Any luck remembering what happened when they disappeared?”

I am still reconstructing damaged archives .

“Could SecUnit help you with that?” Amena asked, very casually, not looking at me.

I folded my arms and glared at the side of Amena’s head.

ART very obviously did not answer.

Overse leaned back in her chair, not comfortable. “We need to try to put together a timeline of when things happened.”

By the time I opened my mouth to say I had a chart, ART had said, Obviously, and threw a chart up next to the split screen. It showed the times (1) ART knew it had first arrived through the wormhole into the colony’s system, (2) when ART’s memory disruption occurred, (3) when it had reinitialized to find intruders aboard and its crew gone and an alien remnant installed on its drive, (4) the attack on the corporate supply carrier, (5) the moment the deletion occurred, and (6) the moment ART’s backup restarted. All except for Point One were estimates as ART’s onboard timekeeping had been disrupted. (Yes, it had actually left out the whole part about telling the Targets that I was a weapon they could use and bringing them to where they could attack our baseship, and using the comm code to locate me. That was fucking incredible.)

Amena was telling the others, “Before everything got weird—weirder—Ras tried to tell me about the colony reclamation project, but Eletra cut him off and changed the subject.”

Thiago looked at the view of the bunkroom, where Eletra was hidden under blankets. He said, “Is it possible that these people—the gray people—” He shook his head. “We know influence—terrible effects—from alien remnants are possible. Could the gray people have come from either the recent colony or the original one? Or are the corporates likely to use genetic manipulation on their colonists?”

Undetermined, ART said, like it honestly didn’t give a crap.

And honestly, it probably didn’t. The Targets had attacked ART’s crew. It wasn’t interested in the mystery, it just wanted its crew back.

When no one else could answer the question, Ratthi leaned his elbows on the table. “I think the corporates would do anything they could get away with. Obviously these gray people—what do we call them?”

“Targets,” I said.

Thiago did a thing with his eyes that was like an eyeroll but not quite. Ratthi continued, “The Targets must have brought the alien remnant tech that was installed on the wormhole drive.”

Overse tapped her fingers on the table, thinking. “Those implants weren’t alien remnant tech. In fact, they were old. Much older than thirty-seven years, when the corporate colony was established.”

“Yes, there must have been usable but outdated tech left behind on the site of the earlier colony, the Pre–Corporation Rim one.” Ratthi poked absently at the food left on his plate, then slid it over to Arada so she could finish it off. “That solid-state screen interface, I’ve seen those in historical displays.”

Amena nodded, waving a hand at me. “And you know, they called the wormhole a ‘bridge-transit.’ I’ve never heard that before.”

Thiago seemed intrigued. “Did they speak a standard language?”

“No, but there was a translation at first, then it stopped when SecUnit woke up and the fighting started,” Amena told him.

Since ART didn’t have any usable video or audio, I pulled some examples and sent them into the general feed. The humans listened with puzzled expressions. Then Thiago nodded grimly to himself. “That’s a mix of at least three Pre–Corporation Rim languages.”

“That certainly matches their tech,” Overse said.

Thiago added, “And many of the really deadly alien contamination incidents were Pre–Corporation Rim.”

“What sort of incidents?” Arada asked.

Thiago said, “Preservation’s archives only have detailed information on one, that took place on a moon that was being converted into a massive base of operations for one of the early Pre-CR polities. Over seventy percent of the population was killed. The only reason anyone survived was because a recently activated central system managed to lock off the living quarters and keep it sealed until help arrived.” He glanced at me. “So they were saved by a machine intelligence.”