Марта Уэллс - Network Effect

Colonies, even from forty Corporation Rim Standard years ago, didn’t look like this. This was the Pre-CR installation that Adamantine had built their colony next to.

Directly across from me was an opening into a foyer, and in its far wall a broad hatch, wedged partly open. From the warping, it looked like it had been in close proximity to an explosion. Deep scars marked the stone walls and floor around it.

I couldn’t pick up any movement on audio, and scan showed power sources, which no shit, we were in the engineering level of a large structure, of course there were power sources. I limped into the foyer and then moved closer at an angle, until I could see through the gap in the hatchway.

A round room, dim light from a working overhead track. A curved metal table with solid-state screens set in racks to raise them to human eye level.

It’s not aliens, 2.0 said.

We knew it wasn’t aliens, I told it.

It countered, We were seventy-two percent sure it wasn’t aliens .

That was an outdated assessment but I didn’t need to argue with myself right now. I stepped inside.

More tables and racks all made of skinny cylinders bolted together, the kind of assembly structure it would have been easy to transport in bulk and build into any configuration you needed. The tables circling the outer periphery of the space held the solid-state screens, some larger than the ones the Targets used, some smaller. Now 86 percent were dead or broken, the active ones showing static. The bigger components and pieces of equipment were oblongs and circles and one star-shaped thing, half a meter tall and wide, that sat in a cage-like rack in the center.

It didn’t look very much like the Pre-CR tech in historical dramas; everything was smaller and more usable, with curving elegant lines and textured materials in shades of dark gray. The star-shaped thing had to be the Pre-CR equivalent of a central system, just sitting there all creepy and silent, nothing but the distress call on its feed.

Speaking of creepy, oh, there’s a dead human.

They were lying face-down, sprawled between the star-shaped component and the outer ring of screen stations. The body was wrapped in strands of white crystal-like growths that extended out across the stone floor.

Strange growths aside, when the other humans leave a dead one lying around, it’s just never for a good reason.

2.0 said, I bet that white substance is from the alien remnant .

Uh-huh, I said. Yeah, I bet, too.

The system’s assistance needed changed to caution, hazardous material, so it knew we were here.

Um, 2.0 said, adjust your filters. Scan for active signals below the standard channels .

I made the adjustments. 2.0 took in the data and made the diagram before I could.

This wasn’t so much an oh shit moment as it was a spike of brain-numbing terror. I was expecting a room full of active connections, from the components to the screens and then through the walls to the rest of the installation, even if some or most of those connections were sending or receiving from damaged or dead nodes.

Instead, the diagram showed the connections, but they came from the dead human body, and formed a weblike mass. It was interwoven with the central system, then stretched out to the walls, following the old connection pathways.

I bumped into the hatch, which was when I realized I had been backing up.

2.0 whispered, That’s targetControlSystem .

SecUnit 03

Status: Retrieval. Initiate Stage One

Arada flies Perihelion ’s shuttle with the assistance of its piloting module, and brings it down to the planet’s surface. She had instructed me to ride in the copilot’s observation seat, instead of the cargo compartment, which was an unusual experience.

Our landing site is a platform just below the edge of the plateau, near the Pre–Corporation Rim installation. The platform may have been a secondary landing site, or a base for a large construction bot, but its surface was now clear and it was out of direct line of sight from either the installation or the surface dock. Perihelion is also jamming comm and scan signals in the vicinity, so our approach would not be detected.

I had already disabled scan functions on myself and my drones, in accordance with intel from the retrieved clients.

It is late in the day-cycle on the planet and the weather is clear, with no sign of atmospheric interference that might affect the mission success assessment.

I have three additional inputs: (1) The second shuttle that Ratthi has landed on the flat ground outside the surface dock; (2) the drone controlled by Perihelion, which had been transported in Ratthi’s shuttle and now accompanied the humans Overse, Thiago, and Iris; (3) Perihelion itself, who is monitoring all locations and inputs.

Four of Perihelion ’s clients had been persuaded to return to the space dock in the lift tower’s maintenance capsule. They have been successfully retrieved and are now receiving medical attention. Overse, Thiago, and Iris remained to assist in enacting Stage 01 of Plan B01.

All Targets had vacated the surface dock, except for a delegation of five who had agreed to meet with the humans. They had agreed to this meeting when Perihelion sent this message via general comm broadcast to all receivers in the vicinity of the colony site: I have located your primary terraforming engine. Agree to a meeting or I will destroy it.

There had been no response.

Second message: You require proof of intent .

And then Perihelion had crashed and detonated an armed pathfinder into the center of the agricultural zone between the space dock and the Pre-CR installation. The crater was large. The second pathfinder had been detonated in the air above the Pre-CR complex.

The Targets had agreed to the meeting.

Before we boarded our shuttle, Arada told me, “You don’t have to do this. I know facing these people, after what they did to your—the other two SecUnits. It can’t be easy. And I don’t feel right asking you to do this so soon after you hacked your governor module. This must be a confusing time for you.”

It is confusing. But following protocol and assisting in a retrieval are familiar. I told her, “I want to do this.”

She nodded. “Thank you. If you can get SecUnit back—well, a lot of people will be very grateful.”

I had read the HelpMe.file and accepted it as truthful. But there was a difference between accepting data as accurate and experiencing it. The humans would not abandon this SecUnit even though part of our function was to be disposable if necessary.

There is a lot about what is going on here that I don’t understand. But I am participating anyway.

I check our secure feed and comm connections, and then signal to Arada to open the hatch. The intel drones I had attached to the back of my armor peel off and exit the shuttle in a cloud. They spread out, shift into stealth mode, and deploy toward the installation. They are using a code to project the same type of interference emitted by the Targets’ protective gear. They will not be able to detect the targetDrones, but they will not be detected, either. I am projecting the same code, so hopefully the targetDrones will not detect me, but this is untested and it is better to avoid them altogether.

Outside the surface dock, on the wide terrace of the east side entrance, Perihelion ’s drone sends video to our secure feed of the five Targets arriving to meet Overse, Thiago, and Iris.

Oh, there is also an armed pathfinder on the terrace.

The Targets are not armed, and are dressed in work clothing and not the more familiar protective suits they use for combat. Two of the Targets exhibit the gray skin on face, hands, and other exposed areas and the other three have blotches of gray on human-normal ranges of skin tones.