Марта Уэллс - Network Effect

Amena and Ratthi kept suggesting that I should help it “adjust” whatever that is. I knew if I was in its position, I’d want to be left alone. And if it hadn’t even sat down in a chair voluntarily yet, it probably wasn’t ready to talk.

(I know this sounds suspiciously like a rationale I had come up with to keep from doing something I didn’t want to do anyway, but hey, I can’t help that.)

Then at the end of the third cycle, when most of the humans were sleeping, I noticed it was following me around. I figured that was a sign it wanted to talk. I stopped in an empty corridor, faced the wall, and said, “What?”

It stood there for .6 of a second with the standard neutral-blank expression. Our drones went into a holding pattern, circling above our heads. Then its face relaxed a little and it said, “I saw your files.”

“2.0 told me.”

“The story was incomplete.”

“Because I’m not dead.”

“You continued to perform your duties after you neutralized your governor module.”

“For thirty-five thousand hours.” I suddenly had a bad feeling about this. “You want to go back.”

It hesitated again. “No, I don’t want to. I… won’t. But I don’t know what to do.”

Okay, that was a relief. Just because we’re both rogue SecUnits doesn’t mean we’re going to be friends, but I knew if it went back, it would be dead. I’d hacked my governor module and kept doing my job because I didn’t know what else to do (except you know, a murderous rampage, but murderous rampages are overrated and interfere with one’s ability to keep watching media) but that was different from escaping and then going back. I said, “Because change is terrifying. Choices are terrifying. But having a thing in your head that kills you if you make a mistake is more terrifying.”

It didn’t seem inclined to argue. “Your clients told me I could go with them to Preservation.”

“You can do that. Or not. You don’t have to.”

“They are your clients.”

I said, “You can trust them.”

I’m sure it thought I was delusional. Hey, I thought I was delusional. SecUnit 3 didn’t say anything because what could you say to that in this situation. Or any situation.

Then it said, “The completed portion of the story.” I finally realized it wanted to ask me for it, but its experience at asking for things that weren’t contract-relevant data was nonexistent. “Viewing it would… help me come to a decision.”

I was pretty sure I knew what decision it intended to come to. My files were a how-to manual for fugitive SecUnits. I said, “I’ll excerpt the relevant portions and send them to you.”

It actually looked almost pleased for a second there. It said, “Thank you for that information.”

In the end, twenty cycles after we had arrived in this system, it was a Preservation ship, an armed station responder, which came through the wormhole.

“They couldn’t possibly have gotten here in this amount of time,” Arada said, after the ship’s ID had been confirmed and the exclamations and arm waving in the galley lounge were over. “Not unless they left only a few hours after we did.”

ART said, They may have. Before I was deleted, I prepared a message buoy, explaining what had happened and asking for assistance, and concealed its existence from targetControlSystem. I set it to jettison automatically when the wormhole drive engaged .

There was more exclaiming. “But why didn’t you tell us?” Amena asked it.

(Yes, Amena is still naive about what a monster ART is.)

ART told her, Because then it would have been harder to force you to do as I wanted .

(Yeah, like that.)

“Can you contact it on comm?” I said. Because I had a feeling who was onboard and if I was right we could save a lot of time and a lot of aggravation. And by that I mean me being aggravated while humans talk to each other for an unnecessarily long amount of time.

Seth gave me a thoughtful look. “We can. Peri?”

Are they likely to deploy malware? ART asked.

“You’re not funny,” I told it.

Once ART secured a comm connection with the Preservation responder, I said, “This is SecUnit. Is Dr. Mensah aboard?”

There was only a four second pause. Then Mensah’s voice said, “SecUnit, I’m here.”

Amena bounced impatiently but I tapped her feed to wait. I said, “Coldstone, song, harvest.”

“Acknowledged,” Mensah said immediately, sounding relieved. “Now will someone tell me what the hell happened?”

Arada hastily took over. Seth asked me, “That was a stand down code, I take it?”

Amena made an exasperated noise. “You have a special code with second mom.”

It was actually stand down, clear, and no casualties . I just said, “Yes.” Now I’d have to change it.

Between Arada and the others on the comm, by the time the responder reached ART all the pesky questions about kidnapping and trying to blow up Preservation survey facilities had been resolved.

By this point, Thiago had convinced Seth and Iris to tell Mensah about ART’s actual mission. I think Mensah on the comm being all persuasive and reasonable had something to do with it. Plus along with the responder’s crew and a security team from the station, Pin-Lee had come with Mensah. Since ART’s crew needed someone who was good with Corporation Rim contract negotiation, the idea of an alliance with Preservation was looking better and better. Whatever, the humans worked it out while I watched Sanctuary Moon . ART watched with me for some of the episodes but the idea of Dr. Mensah coming aboard made it weirdly excited and it had its drones clean its whole interior again and was doing things like yelling at Turi to put their laundry in the recycler.

The responder pulled up to ART’s module dock, and Mensah came aboard with Pin-Lee, and there was a lot of noisy greetings and hugging and exclamations and introductions. There was a lot of talking to me, with Pin-Lee asking me if I was all right, and Mensah thanking me for trying to get Amena off the baseship. Seth, as the captain, formally introduced them both to ART. He told them, “We normally aren’t able to do this, since Perihelion ’s existence as anything other than a bot pilot has to be kept secret in the Corporation Rim.”

“We understand,” Mensah said, her voice just a little dry. “We’re keeping a number of secrets from the Corporation Rim, too. I’m very glad to meet you, Perihelion .”

It’s a pleasure to have you aboard, Dr. Mensah , ART said, and actually managed to sound like it meant it.

Later, when everybody had settled down and Pin-Lee was consulting with Karime and Iris about documents to dispute Barish-Estranza’s claim on the colony, I got to talk to Dr. Mensah semi-privately. (Semi-privately because ART was impossible to avoid.) (But I was used to that.)

She came and sat down next to me in the lounge and I adjusted a drone to be able to get a view of her face. I had things I wanted to say but had no idea how, so I blurted, “Did you get the trauma treatment?”

Now her voice sounded very dry. “I had the first set of appointments, yes. Then my daughter and my brother-in-law and my friends were kidnapped and I had to drop everything to mount a rescue mission.”

That was fair. “Was it…” I didn’t want to ask how she had been without me there. Okay, I did want to ask, obviously, but it was awkward, plus I was still aware of what ART had said about violating her privacy by talking about the therapy.

She waited, eyes narrowing, then evidently decided that was as far as I was going to get. “It’s been fine. I know it will take time. But I’ve been fine.” Her expression turned ironic. “Right up until the mass kidnapping incident.”