Jo Clayton - Shadowkill

Three hours into shipnight Ginny twitched, opened his eyes. He got to his feet, crossed to the fresher, drank a glass of water, then returned to the cot. He bent down, took hold of the cot edge with his prosthetic hand, twisted the hand slightly and pushed down. A moment later he lowered himself heavily to the mattress, swung his feet up, and went placidly back to sleep.

In the vault two of the EYEs stirred, began to throb.

The tiny spherical nodes slipped through slits in their skins, rose a hand-width above the tray and hovered above the discarded husks, minute lasers sealing the escape holes. The naked EYES slid down behind the tray, clung to the plastic; they hummed briefly, spun a chameleon field about themselves and effectively vanished.

Betalli sat, watched Ginny work on the EYEs.

The report from the kephalos lay at his elbow; he hadn’t read it in detail, but on the surface its conclusions were reassuring. The additions were a series of commands to internal elements whose capacities were not fully apparent. That might have been worrying, but the report went on to state that the additions were entirely passive, that they needed an outside trigger to begin operating. And there was no way Ginny had access to such a trigger.

He began a slow search of the workroom, then probed at Seyirshi.

Nothing.

Other than the toolfields, the only forces operant in that room were the minute motors and fields woven though Ginny’s prosthesis.

He scowled at the arm, at the lacy schema of struts and wires. No connection with the outside. No apparent connection. He considered removing that arm. There was no way to get it off without damaging some very sensitive linkages, crippling the man and canceling his usefulness. Yes, he thought. I can’t have it off, but I can put a read on that arm. If it does anything at all beyond its ordinary output, I’ll have it off, I don’t care what the Savant says.

Ginny looked up as a third android touched his arm. “A moment,” he said. “I cannot stop right now.”

The android stepped back and waited until Ginny set the EYE on the tray. It took hold of his prosthetic arm, swung him around, straightened the arm out. It slit Ginny’s sleeve, glued a sensor strip to the pseudoskin, released the arm, and walked out.

Ginny touched the dangling sleeve, sighed. “Dear me,” he said aloud. “How annoying.” He used a small laser to cut it away, then went back to work.

Three hours into the shipnight, the free EYEs clinging under the table woke and pulsed.

Inside the vault two more EYEs woke, slid out of the skins and went to ground behind camouflage fields, waiting for the vault to be opened.

Ginny slept the six hours he allotted himself without moving. He woke, exercised, ate, went back to work.

Betalli watched and fretted, went over and over the records of the previous nights, over and over the report from the kephalos. He’d missed something. He knew it. Ginny would never submit this docilely to control. But there was nothing. Nothing at all.

Betalli wasn’t sleeping well, even under the killights in the sterile security of the saferoom. In his worst nightmare he woke and found himself staring up into Ginny’s smiling face, watching Ginny’s hands pour filth on him.

He doubled the watch androids, left three in the workroom every shipnight, sent one into Ginny’s sleepcell with instructions to burn him if he did anything at all out of the ordinary.

And all this time Ginny plodded stolidly along, never deviating from the path he’d laid down back on Arumda’m.

On the tenth day there were only five EYEs left. Ginbiryol Seyirshi did some special work on these, more modifications to the circuitry, more complex instructions added to the standard program.

Betalli didn’t wait until night to seize those EYEs. One of the androids took the tray as soon as Ginny set the fifth EYE in it, placed it in the vault, and locked the door.

Ginny smiled sadly, began filling firing tube inserts with drugs and tiny, blood-soluble darts.

On the tenth day in the insplit, in the third hour of the shipnight, one of the five big EYEs woke and hid.

On the eleventh day in the insplit, in the third hour of the shipnight, the big EYE raided the supply bins and vanished into the ventilation system to join the smaller EYES already hiding there.

On the twelfth day in the insplit, during the third hour of the shipnight, the EYEs acted. By the fifth hour Betalli and the Savant were the only individuals aboard the ship (other than the engine crew) alive and in possession of their faculties.

At the sixth hour, Ginbiryol Seyirshi rose from his bed. Ignoring the android deactivated in the corner of the cell, he dressed and went out.

By the eleventh hour, he held complete control of the kephalos and the Savant Quatorze was dead. He contemplated what he’d accomplished, smiled with satisfaction, and sent for Betalli.

Betalli stared at him from red-rimmed eyes, then he nodded. “Fools,” he said. “All of us.”

Ginny tapped the readouts. “Not you,” he said. “They should have listened to you.”

“You knew they wouldn’t.”

“Oh, yes. They have given me data enough to know them. You worked for me long enough that I knew you.”

“How?”

“How escape your surveillance?” Ginny chuckled. “I did not. Of course I did not.”

Betalli waggled the fingers of the hand imprisoned in the android’s fist. “Why am I standing like this if you did nothing?”

“I did not say that. Surely it must have occurred to you that materiel meant to subvert a world would be exceedingly effective at subverting a much smaller community?”

“I warned them and I watched you. I had the kephalos analyze your additions. It said every addition was passive, needed a triggering from outside. Had you gotten to the kephalos already?”

“Oh, no. Merely trusted my Luck and implanted a latency in one EYE.” Ginny smiled and lied; much as he was enjoying this, he knew better than to broadcast secrets promiscuously. “In the night, in the vault, the EYE woke and primed others. A pyramid, Betalli. Once the first triggering was done, the rest was mere reduplication.”

“The crew is dead?”

“Oh, yes. At least, all but those crucial to running the ship. You were greatly overmanned, you know. Waste of resources. I control completely everyone still alive. Everyone but you, of course.”

“I see.”

“Yes. I am sure you do. You betrayed me, Betalli. You were in my employ and used my trust to destroy me. It will take many years to repair the damage you have done to me. You and Omphalos. Your death will serve me two ways. It will discourage others from following your example and it will entertain my customers. Oh, yes. I have a new project, Betalli, a new Limited Edition. Something I haven’t attempted before. It has a simple title, no need for fuss. The Fall of Omphalos . Nice play of sounds, don’t you think?”

Betalli struggled.

Ginny flaked his struggles.

He had Betalli stripped and thrust naked into a disabled rescue pod, an EYE there to watch him as air ran out on him.

When the air was thick and stale, Ginny touched a sensor and a sac opened, releasing spiders and other many-legged wigglers to crawl over the prisoner.

Three hours after the pod was ejected from the ship, Betalli died, filthy and raving.

Ginny smiled and exploded the pod.

He didn’t want the little lives to suffer more than they had to.