Марта Уэллс - Network Effect

At least that part wasn’t my fault. Then, before I knew I was going to, I said, “Did Amena tell you about my emotional collapse?”

Now she frowned for real. “No, she didn’t.”

“Oh.” Yeah, well, I could have kept my mouth shut about that, but now it was too late. “It was when I thought ART was dead.”

She still had a little worried forehead crease. “That’s understandable. Ratthi said Perihelion is a very close friend of yours.”

“Ratthi has a vivid imagination.” This was an awkward thing and I might as well get it over with. “I didn’t tell you about ART.”

The forehead crease actually went away. “I don’t tell you everything, either.”

“That’s because I don’t want to know everything and you respect that.” I decided to just say it. “ART asked me to come on a mission with it.”

“I see.” She considered it seriously. “Would this be a temporary job, or something more permanent?”

“I don’t know.” This was incredibly weird and awkward. “I don’t want to not see you again.”

She took a moment to sort out my verbs. “I don’t want to not see you again, either.” Her expression was still thoughtful. “But if you do find you want to spend more time with Perihelion, you could always come back and visit us.”

It was getting easier to talk about this. “Preservation was the first place I was a part of and I don’t want to not be a part of it. But I like being with ART. I want to keep being with it.”

She nodded to herself. “What about the rest of the crew?”

Yeah, well, that was the potential problem. “I don’t know them yet.”

“Working for them temporarily could take care of that problem. If you decide to do that.” She smiled a little. “The good thing is, you do know what you want.”

I sort of did know. It was a weird feeling. “That’s new.”

She smiled all the way. “I wasn’t going to put it quite that way, but yes.”

ART’s crew had settled in for a rest period, except for the humans who were working on the legal case. Mensah had taken Amena and Thiago back to the Preservation ship with her. (Amena told me Thiago felt he had some apologizing to do to Mensah for “misunderstanding her relationship with me” and that Amena would report back on it and I was just glad they were talking on the other ship where I didn’t have to risk hearing them.) Arada and Overse and Ratthi had stayed in the spare bunkroom aboard ART.

I went up on ART’s control deck where it was quiet. It felt familiar in a good way, so I pulled the memory of my first time aboard so I could compare it. It was better without ART threatening to destroy my brain. I said, “If I do the mission with you, we’ll need more media.” We went through it pretty fast, and that was an understatement.

I’ve been amassing a collection from the university’s archives, ART said.

It sent me the index and I started searching through it. “Maybe we should give some to 3.” ART would know that I’d given 3 my relevant archive files. “It’s probably going to leave as soon as it gets a chance.”

That’s not why 3 wanted your files, or not the only reason. I asked it why it wanted to help retrieve you, and it said, “stories in the HelpMe.file.” I think your memories are providing it with the sort of context you obtained from human media.

I didn’t know what I thought about that. I would never have thought to just hand my files over to 3 the way 2.0 had. And if 2.0 hadn’t done that, targetControlSystem would have won.

According to the report 2.0 had downloaded to me, 3 had actually seemed to like the other two SecUnits on the explorer, as if they had been friends, at least to the extent that they had been allowed to communicate with each other. I’d never thought that was possible.

Maybe I’d always been a weird SecUnit; maybe 3 would have better luck communicating with other SecUnits.

Maybe I needed to get 3 a copy of Dr. Bharadwaj’s documentary, too.

Whatever. For now, keyword searching ART’s index, I think I’d found something even less realistic than Timestream Defenders Orion . I showed the description to ART, and it started the first episode.

Thanks to Nancy Buchanan, first reader and first librarian, without whom most of my books would not have titles.

Thanks to my husband Troyce, and friends Megan, Beth E., Felicia, Lisa, Bill, and Beth L., and everyone else who read versions of this in its rough form and kept me going until it was finished.

Thanks to Jennifer Jackson and Lee Harris, without whom Murderbot would never have made it into print.

All Systems Red

Artificial Condition

Rogue Protocol

Exit Strategy

The Cloud Roads

The Serpent Sea

The Siren Depths

The Edge of Worlds

The Harbors of the Sun

Stories of the Raksura: Volume I (short fiction)

Stories of the Raksura: Volume II (short fiction)

The Wizard Hunters

The Ships of Air

The Gate of Gods

The Element of Fire

The Death of the Necromancer

Between Worlds: the Collected Ile-Rien and Cineth Stories

Emilie and the Hollow World

Emilie and the Sky World

Blade Singer (with Aaron de Orive)

Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary

Stargate Atlantis: Entanglement

Star Wars: Razor’s Edge

City of Bones

Wheel of the Infinite

MARTHA WELLShas written many fantasy novels, including The Wizard Hunters, Wheel of the Infinite, the Books of the Raksura series (beginning with The Cloud Roads and ending with The Harbors of the Sun ), and the Nebula Award–nominated The Death of the Necromancer, as well as YA fantasy novels, short stories, and nonfiction. Titles in her New York Times and USA Today bestselling Murderbot Diaries series have won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Alex Awards. You can sign up for email updates here.

https://twitter.com/marthawells1

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