Элизабет Бир - Machine

O’Mara unfocused, refocused, frowned. “Stable,” they said. “A team’s working on them, and the AI team is running a core-out diagnostic on Afar. Did any of the ancient humans make it?”

“We don’t know yet,” I answered. “Dr. Rilriltok is the physician in charge. It’s scanning DNA so we can have spare parts ready before we thaw them out. The peripheral is being treated by Zhiruo. Master Chief, I have some… social concerns.”

“Your patients are nasty atavistic humans full of nasty atavistic ideas?”

I nodded. “The AI is also kind of nasty and atavistic.”

“Is that going to interfere with treating them? Or hypothetically doing a turn-and-burn to get another batch, if we need you to?”

“Master Chief,” I said, wounded. “I’m a professional. And I care about their well-being. They’re sentient creatures, after all.”

O’Mara sparkled with humor, a disconcerting expression on such a solid lump of a human form. “Perhaps even sapient?”

I laughed. It eased the tension. “Given time. So, about the sabotage—”

“Ours or yours?” O’Mara asked.

“Ours, for the moment.” Even my forearms ached. It was unfair: I’d been getting enough rest and eating carefully, dammit. Well, I’d have a dia or two off before the next run, per regulations. I could spend it floating in a nice warm neutral buoyancy saline tank. “You’re going to investigate?”

“We’ve got a Judiciary security team on the way to Sally now. I want to look at it before I put her back to work on researching the… thing you found inside Afar.”

“Yes,” Tsosie said. “About that—”

“Yes,” O’Mara interrupted, as if they were agreeing. “Why don’t you and Dr. Rhym go supervise that? Or, even better, get some rest and exercise. I’ve got some catching up to do with Llyn here.”

Tsosie shut his mouth. He might argue with O’Mara. But the stakes would have to be a lot higher, I think.

So he got up, and as he got up he winked at me. I rolled my eyes. We both knew O’Mara was not my type.

I didn’t miss that, as Tsosie and Rhym left, the door that had been open irised shut behind them. O’Mara watched them leave so intently that I turned my head, too. Just in case there was something interesting or edifying going on. I heard the click of the air seal before they turned back to me and spoke again.

“Well,” O’Mara said. “Why don’t you look into it for me?”

“Me? The sabotage?”

“You.”

“Yours or mine?” I answered, risking teasing them a little.

“Both. What are the odds they’re not connected?”

I stretched my legs out and leaned back in the chair, trying to make it look like I was relaxing.

“I’m not a detective.”

“You’ve got a decan of Judiciary experience. I know you and trust you, and you can talk to the medical staff as an equal without putting their backs up or making them feel like they’re under suspicion, which is a feat no Judiciary personnel can manage. Also, I’m not the boss of any of the Judiciary personnel. I’m your boss. And I’m telling you to.”

“And I’ll be going back out on Sally as soon as she’s resupplied. And repaired.” My face got warm. I’d forgotten that she needed repairs. I guess that “hypothetical” turn-and-burn had indeed been strictly hypothetical.

Then I put my left fingertips against the center of my forehead and pushed gently. “Aw, Well.”

O’Mara steepled their hands on their desktop and watched me, head cocked. Waiting.

I said, “I don’t think anybody on my crew was the saboteur, if that’s why you got rid of Tsosie and Rhym.”

“What do you think of your new pilot?”

“I like her,” I said. “Don’t know her very well yet. But she does her job and fits in.”

“Hmm,” they said. “And the rest of the crew?”

“Solid. But I just told you that.”

“I’ve known you since you were an ensign.” O’Mara got up and walked to the dispenser. They printed a cup and filled it with water. I expected them to knock it back, but they brought it to me along with two white tablets. “If you weren’t beam-straight, Llyn, I’d have noticed by now.”

“Have I told you about my ex-wife?”

They laughed. O’Mara had a good laugh, when you could pry it out of them. “I’m not talking about your romantic proclivities. You believe in this place. We’ve got a pretty decent Goodlaw, but it’s first loyalty is to the Synarche. Yours is to Core General. Why wouldn’t I use you?”

I set the tablets on the desk and sipped the water.

They sat back down, extending one thick finger to point at the pills. “As a doctor, I’m prescribing those.”

“You’re not my doctor.”

“Your hands look like you’ve been at the heavy bag. I assume you haven’t been at the heavy bag. I’d fiddle with your tuning if I thought Linden would let me. Since I can’t, take the meds before your joint capsules explode or something.”

“Supervisory abuse,” I said, but I swallowed the tablets. They were bitter. “All right, I believe in this place. Do you know why I don’t think it was anybody on Sally’s crew?”

“Hit me,” they said.

I looked down at my knuckles, flexed my free hand, and got a second guffaw. “Somebody set a device on a timer, and then somehow hacked Sally so that she didn’t notice the device, didn’t notice the timer, and couldn’t remember the sabotage had been done after it happened. If Loese hadn’t figured it out and routed around the damage old-school, I’d be drifting along in the wake of a slowly accelerating generation ship for a really long time.”

O’Mara sucked their lips for a long moment. “You’re saying an AI was involved, to be able to hack Sally’s programming.”

Hands wide, I shrugged. The water in my cup sloshed but didn’t spill over. “I’m saying we’ve got an awful lot of damaged shipminds all of a sudden. But Sally—that was set up before she got close to the other two.”

We contemplated each other in silence. Rogue AIs were the stuff of scary three-vees, not real life. I was the first one to crack and change the subject.

“While we’re on the topic of shipminds, who sent Afar out there?”

The master chief, if possible, looked even grimmer. “Judiciary is trying to find out. There was no filed flight plan. Or if there was, it’s been deleted, but the military archinformists think they’d be able to spot that.”

Sometimes, you have to break the tension. “Hey, can I get one of those antigravity belts like Rilriltok is wearing? Taking the pressure off won’t hurt my pain levels, either.”

“I’ll put you on the list,” they said. “We’ve mostly gotten through the staff whose lives would be in danger if they caught a full g, so it should happen pretty quickly. Oh, that reminds me. You need to talk to the Administree as soon as possible. They would like a personal visit, please.”

“O’Mara!”

They busied themselves with the displays inside their desk. “I’ve got another appointment in three minutes.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

They shook their head. “Starlight doesn’t confide in me. So, as I mentioned before, I’m going to ask Sally to take the lead on investigating the object in Afar’s hold.”

“Yes, that puzzled me.” I shook my head. “She’s not an engineer.”

“No,” they said. “But she’s been exposed to whatever Afar and”—they got the unfocused look people get when they’re consulting their senso—“Helen were exposed to, and I want her in port where she can be kept under observation for a while. And where her crew”—they poked a finger at me and waggled shaggy eyebrows—“are safe . The repairs to her coms system are going to be a little complicated, you understand.”