John Sandford - Saturn Run

“Physical damage to a depot is a very serious security breach. Fortunately, Containment Facility 7251 was almost empty. The damage was limited to its destruction, so suspension of all depot privileges will only be in effect for one hundred and forty-four Earth years. Life-support services will end in four minutes. Further countermeasures begin in five.”

Wong said, “People, into the air lock. Don’t start cycling yet.” And, “Narcissus, why didn’t your security system prevent this kind of tampering?” The AI had indicated the depot’s defensive capabilities were superior to human technology. There should have been a specific warning, he thought.

“If an unauthorized ship or one of unknown origin had attempted to access the containment facilities, the security system would have instituted protective measures. This was not a ship of unknown origin. It was one of your species’ ships. Once I informed the security system that you had been given the safety protocols and basic operating instructions for using this depot, your status was changed to authorized. There was no a priori reason to believe that you would not follow the safety protocols, considering the hazards to you and the depot and the penalties that could incur. By the time the data stream indicated that a safety was being breached, there was too little time for security units to arrive before containment failed. Life-support services will end in four minutes.”

Wong tried one more time. “Narcissus, the first ship did not convey the safety information to us. We did not know about the safety protocols.”

“I would not know that, nor would the security system. It is in the interest of every species to make sure that none of its ships interfere with the depot’s functioning, to avoid sanctions. Life-support services will end in two minutes. Further countermeasure begin in three.”

There was no point arguing with the answer-bot. The team finished stowing their gear, secured their suits, and Wong entered the air lock and the interior air-lock door closed. The space-side door opened, and they found Cui hanging in space, just outside.

Cui saw herself on the vid, and killed it. “We don’t know what range Narcy was talking about when he said, ‘further countermeasures.’ We need to get back to the ship. Everybody into the shuttle.”

Another minute and they were gone.

“Admiral Fang-Castro, Mr. Crow wishes to speak to you. Shall I put him through?”

She said, “No, not at the moment. Wait—tell him to join me in the conference room in ten minutes. And Hannegan, Clover, Martinez, Barnes, and Darlington. I want them there, too. Tell Darlington we’re going to have a conference, we’ll want a direct link to Earth.”

Fang-Castro spent ten minutes assessing the situation from the bridge. The Celestial Odyssey was right where it had been and a tug was headed back toward it from the planetoid. There was no sign of the larger shuttle.

Francisco said, “They were messing with one of those storage units and it blew. That’s why we got two pulses. I bet they tried to grab one of the bees, and something happened—could have been a self-destruct mechanism to keep that from happening—and that took out a second storage unit.”

“What’s our radiation status?”

“We’re fine. They may not be, depending on how close they were to the explosion.”

“Any other damage?”

“No.”

“Comm, call Zhang.”

A moment later Comm said, “Admiral, they acknowledged the call and declined it.”

“Might be too busy to talk to us,” Francisco said.

“Or too angry,” Fang-Castro said. “Comm, reach out to them every half hour or so. If they answer, put it through to me. I’ll be in the conference room. I want everything that happened since the blast, including the blast, encrypted and forwarded to Earth. I want that done immediately, with a top-priority tag on it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When Fang-Castro got to the conference room, the others were all waiting, Barnes by vid from the isolation suite. She nodded at Darlington and said, “Link this to Comm, highest encrypt, top priority, tagged for the President.”

Sandy nodded and when the link was set, Fang-Castro told the group what had happened.

When she finished, Crow held up his stylus: “We must have told them that the trailing moonlets were antimatter storage?”

“Of course,” Fang-Castro said. “We also told them that the bees were apparently gathering something, but we didn’t know what, or why.”

“Didn’t we ask Wurly?” Clover asked.

“We asked Wurly for all information concerning the moonlets, the bees, and the primary, including technical drawings, manufacturing specs, and everything else we could think of,” said Martinez. “He agreed to give it to us as part of the tech package. But we were so busy gathering information, and checking the validity of what we could see, and making valid copies of it, we haven’t had a chance to look at much of it. We never looked at the details of what the remotes were doing, because we figured we could do that anytime.”

Crow said, “I’m sure the survivors on the Odyssey are talking to Beijing. What I need to get clear here, now, is that nothing we did caused the accident—that we are not to blame.”

“That is correct,” Fang-Castro said. “Mr. Francisco has suggested that the Chinese may have tried to capture one of the bees. That would have been tempting—they’re small and they’re genuine alien tech. If they could have gotten a bee back to Earth, it would have been worthwhile. We didn’t try it because we didn’t have to, and we didn’t actually have time, with the Chinese pushing on us as they were.”

“So we’re not to blame,” Crow said. “Whatever happened, is the Chinese’s own doing.”

“Yes, that’s correct, in my opinion.” She turned to Hannegan. “I’d also like some reassurance that the aliens haven’t been… fooling us. Did they actually deliver what they said they would?”

Hannegan cleared his throat. “We’ve been looking at the science data ever since the I/O went up. There’s an awful lot of it. All the theory behind the production of antimatter, all the underlying supersymmetry stuff. That’s a far cry from working technology, but it’ll still give us a twenty-year jump on the underlying hard science. A lot of theoretical-physicist food fights are gonna get settled when we get back. To me, it looks like Wurly really has given us exactly what it promised at the first meetings.”

Martinez held up a finger. “But understand, we got the science over the I/O link, but not the tech specs for actually building much. That’s on the quantum storage units.”

“Where are you on testing the actual readers?” Crow asked.

Martinez shook his head. “We’re sorting out the electrical connections now. They’re not hard, but we don’t want to screw anything up, either. With everything else we’ve had to do… What I’m trying to say is, we could probably start testing them tomorrow, or even tonight, if you’re in a rush. We haven’t done it yet.”

A call popped up on the corner of the conference room screen: Francisco calling. Fang-Castro tapped her slate, and Francisco’s face appeared: “Admiral, we’re getting a broadcast from Wurly. Or the primary. It’s very short, it’s in all the languages, it says we’re barred from contact with the primary and all the other alien tech for one hundred and forty-four years. It’s a loop, playing over and over.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s it, ma’am.”

Fang-Castro said, “Thank you,” tapped her slate, and Francisco disappeared. She asked, “Anybody?”

Clover said, “Hey, it told us the rules right at the beginning. It’s never done anything to deviate from those rules. It even told us why those rules were in place, and we pretty much played out the part it said we would. Less than two weeks into our First Contact, and we’ve managed to piss off the other party. Well, it would be pissed off, if it had any feelings to be pissed with.”