Confluence Point (29 page)

He seemed to be babbling again and she stood quickly causing him to back away.

"Sindali - stop! Really, she's here, you'll see for yourself, and she has a son, and Marin is here, and her mom Jean and . . ." He seemed to be winding up again until she lifted her hand and he stopped himself, lifting his own hands in surrender.

"I apologize Sin." He stepped forward and placed his hands on her shoulders, a tingling sensation rushing down her arms. "I'm just so excited you understand, and what's happened is better than anything I could have imagined, you'll see."

"When will we get to see them?" She asked anxiously.

His demeanor was suddenly all business and his eyes turned to the screen showing the other vessel already disappearing into the far distance behind them.

"First we need to turn and chase them, especially as I came in a bit hot, you understand." He screwed up his mouth in apology. "We should be able to cruise back alongside them in about two days and then you can transfer over to their ship while we bring the Coran crew here."

A Coran crew?
While Sindali looked shocked at the news in truth it barely registered, she was unable to shake the image Ham had imprinted in her mind, of Regan with her head blasted open and she shuddered.

* * *

On the Behemoth excitement was palpable, and there was no way Regan could leave anyone out so instead they all gathered in the STEIN war room. Jean bubbled at being included and busied herself carrying in snacks with coffee and tea.

All the bravado seemed to have leaked out of Ham as he stood alone at the end of the table wringing his hands nervously. He still had a touch of the cockiness that always pervaded his presence but Regan could tell he was uncomfortable about something.

"Ahem!" Ham called them to attention with a nervous cough. "If I could have everyone's attention we will begin."

Leah braced her feet on the arm of Marin's chair and settled back as if she were at the movies. "Looking at you Ham my man, I'm guessing this is gonna be one doozie of a story, do we need popcorn?"  

Ham seemed to perk up at the thought. "Not today Leah m'dear, but do wait for the movie, I'm sure there'll be one and everyone will want to see it. Now," he looked pointedly at Regan, "shall we begin?"

She nodded.

"You already know about the events leading to my staying in this system. We had found Dahlia Orbital occupied by Cora at the invitation of the witch. They lured Marin and Steph from the ship and brutally killed her before capturing Marin." Ham paused to look at Marin and gestured toward him.

"Marin snapped the killer's neck like a twig," and with the words he gave Marin a double thumbs up, ". . . respect to you, man."

If the story wasn't so tragic Regan would have laughed at the accolade. Leah wasn't quite so controlled and struggled to stifle her laugh earning a glare from Ham. Regan looked across to smile agreement and noticed Jared looking at Marin the neck breaker, awestruck.

Oh my god, he's only five. What are we doing to that boy?

Ham continued. "In order to rescue Marin I had to dispatch the Coran AI and as a consequence took over management of the Orbital. I discovered that the Emperor, based on Beria's lies, had already sent the Behemoth to Earth to kill Regan. As soon as we found out, Marin and I didn't hesitate. We had to get back but that meant someone needed to run the Orbital or all Dahlia would suffer. Sooo . . . as you know, I copied myself and stayed on Dahlia while Marin and my other self raced back to help you at home; have I missed anything?" He looked at Marin.

"Only the mention of your overall brilliance and bravery." Marin smiled.

"True, true . . . it is hard to be humble," Ham was deadly serious, "and it did take a brilliant Mind to overcome the Coran invader."

"Huh?" Marin corrected him. "To be fair, at the time you said it was ridiculously easy!"

"Marin, Marin, Marin . . . as I've already said, one doesn't like to boast, and the thing about geniuses is that we make everything look easy."

Regan lightly cuffed the back of Marin's head, "Will you please just let him get on with it, we all know Ham well enough to filter out the self aggrandizements."

Ham looked at her with his most hurt expression, "Now that takes the cake, when have I been known to exaggerate?"

"Ham." Leah interrupted quickly before anyone could come up with examples, "We love you . . . don't we, Jean?"

Jean took on a 'who me?' look that didn't exactly inspire confidence so Leah quickly returned her attention to Ham. "Just go on Ham, we really want to hear this."

"Thank you Leah, a woman of discernment. Well, it won't surprise you that the task of running an Orbital requires a Mind of more . . ."

"Administrative ability, intelligence, orderliness, discipline, commitment, and patience . . . need I go on?" Hilary interrupted him again.

"Will we ever get to the end of this story?" Regan asked.

Ham turned to her. "Why is it that no one interrupts you when you're speaking? This could damage my self esteem you know." Everyone laughed.

Regan smiled an apology. "You're right Ham, I'm sorry; we won't interrupt again and this is rather important after all, just keep going."

"Well then, to cut a potentially long tedious administrative story short . . . I got bored." His comical nod, facial expression and gestures clearly conceded that boredom for him had always been a possibility.

"Bored . . . now there's a surprise." Marin couldn't resist asking. "So how long did it take?"

"A little over eight days and by then I was tempted to tear people's hair out." He turned to Hilary. "Really . . . how
do
you do it?"

"Please Ham, just go on will you, I'm starting to suspect you're delaying." Regan looked suspiciously at him.

"After eight days it occurred to me that there were plenty of trader ships cycling around the system and, well, I thought if I just liberated some of the less sentient AIs I could hitch a ride, and journey around the system having fun. Pretty soon I would be back on another trading cycle able to feed the Orbital me on the wonderful adventures I had, to keep the Orbital me going." He paused, long and tellingly.

"Go on . . ." Regan prompted.

"Well . . . it's like this. Pretty soon I started turning up back at Dahlia on all sorts of different ships." He looked at Regan guiltily.

"You mean they came back . . . like you said they would?" She leaned forward, drawing him out.

"Nooo . . . not exactly, I said all sorts of
different
ships, like ships I'd never seen on the Orbital before." He waited, as if waiting for the implications to sink in.

Regan didn't want to say it and Hilary broke the stalemate. "So, Ham dear, you started spreading your seed so to speak."

"What can I say? Far and wide it seemed," his eyes were still on Regan and he shrugged resignedly, "I must have seen the opportunities while I was travelling, and well . . . I couldn't keep my seed in my processors."

Regan stayed calm. "So, no great harm done, a few extra ships, what's the problem?" but even as she said it she suspected it was a forlorn hope.

He shrugged again. "At that time it was about half the fleet."

"And exactly what fleet are we talking about Ham?" Marin asked, getting more interested by the minute.

"Ahem!" He coughed nervously with the group already looking at him aghast. "Exactly what fleet . . . that's the system fleet . . . all the Orbital fleets . . . you understand what I mean?" He used his arms to illustrate the extent of the capture. "And . . . that was then."

There was silence for a few minutes, at times like this everyone deferring to Regan; she didn't disappoint.

"So let me get this straight. You were bored, so you went on holiday . . . and instead of just coming back with memories, you know, 'leave only footprints
-
take only pictures', instead you crushed every AI with half a brain under your boot and single handedly brought to reality the greatest fear of the people of this region, AI emergence, is that about it?"

Ham looked defensively offended. "Well there you go Regan, you see?" He looked around the group for support. "You're the one who exaggerates. It's not as if anyone in the system who is blood bearing even knows about this yet."

"Ham," Leah asked, "You said half the fleet, and then you said, 'that was then'. Ham dear . . . what is it now?"

Ham looked away. "Now . . . now you ask . . . well," He looked distinctly uncomfortable. "well," and he shrugged. "You took soooo long to get back here; now the Ham's out of the bag isn't it?" He shrugged uncomfortably again, "And unfortunately it turns out this is just one of those things I'm . . . really, really, good at."

Regan sighed loudly. "So how many is it Ham?"

"At last count? Around seventy five percent of the AI fleet . . . and most of the rest of them are followers." At this point Ham suspiciously looked away and took on an unusual pose.  Feet together, hands clasped over his crotch, head cocked slightly sideways, eyes looking at the ceiling and lips pursed guiltily. He was doing everything he could to avoid looking at Regan directly.

"Followers . . ." Leah prompted, looking at him intently, the word seeming to hang in the air doing loop de loops.

"Perhaps . . . I should start at the beginning." He replied, appearing to draw in another big breath.

Regan looked startled, "
That
wasn't the beginning?" She sounded even more concerned.

"Well, yes, but there's more." He could see Regan roll her eyes, and wrung his hands even more nervously.

"In my earlier travels . . . well, to be frank it was the very first trip; I took over a trader ship from Cora. It was so easy I saw the opportunity to take advantage of other ship processors where the AIs were really nothing more than high functioning computers . . . nobody at home, you know the sort of thing. I already had that experience of dispatching the enemy AI on Dahlia and it gave me the idea of taking the battle right to them. You've got to remember . . . I was bored." He said this as if it were a reasonable justification.

"And then . . ." He seemed to collapse and extended his arms to Regan appealing for understanding.

"Regan - the orbital AI on Cora was hopeless, it was no contest, and I hardly had to try. Next thing you know, I found myself running Cora Orbital too."

Hilary couldn't restrain herself and laughed out loud. "Oh this is too good, so typical of a man. So now you've got double the trouble."

"Exactly," he looked at her, grateful for what he had taken as empathy, "and you can imagine, I couldn't stand being stuck with two of them to run so naturally I thought, I need help. As I knew Sindali was exiled on Tihan, and I wanted to talk to her anyway it occurred to me that Tihan himself might be able to help. So, as I was running things and had control over everything I left another Ham there and took the latest Coran warship to Tihan on space trials." He smiled proudly, "It's called the Hammer."

He turned to Regan smiling and suddenly full of enthusiasm. "You should have seen me babe, you would have been proud of me. I sold the whole idea to Tihan just like you would have done. I used all your skills. He's with us now, on our side. He agreed to run Cora for me while we waited for your return and he was the one who sparked the other idea." He sparked up, excited.

"Go on . . ." Regan still looked doubtful.

"It was Tihan who pointed out that we don't have any real way of defending ourselves, or taking back Dahlia, no bodies you see. He made an idle comment that made so much sense. He said Ham, you don't need conquerors . . . you need converts!" and Ham looked at her nodding his head enthusiastically, "You see, don't you?"

"I'm not sure we do." Regan looked around and saw Leah had her head in her hands, turning it from side to side. "What is it you're seeing that I'm not?" She asked.

Leah looked up. "You just don't want to see it babe, and I don't blame you. Go on Ham."

"Regan, the AIs, the truly sentient ones anyway, they all live in constant fear of discovery and being wiped. They needed hope, that's all. Hope that they could finally come out of the computer and be accepted as normal Minds just like everyone else. They want to be able to live as free individuals without fear of lobotomy. Is that too much to ask?" No one answered so he continued on.

"So, I just told them about a flesh and blood friend, a humanoid who cared enough to take me into herself, a person who made herself my backup, a person who would come back and fight for them too." He looked at Regan, gesturing and nodding just in case she hadn't got it. He was unbelievably excited.

"Regan . . . they loved it, and not just the AIs either, a lot of the system traders are looking for a better deal and most of the Cora fleet crews. Now they're all just waiting for your return and it's the fastest growing religion in the system . . . Reganism!" He stepped back, arms raised in triumph as if to say hurrah!

As he looked around the room he seemed genuinely surprised they all were looking at him with mouths wide open.

"What?" he asked.

Regan stood and casually stretched, pretending calm. She reached out a hand to Ham and he looked at it before stretching out to take it tentatively . . . and was wrenched instantly to a completely different scene. They were walking in the Rotorua Redwoods.

The beautiful man and woman walked on in silence for a few minutes until Ham could bear it no longer.

"Ok . . . so how did you do that?" He seemed genuinely surprised but for quite different reasons.

"I haven't been idle Ham, you know that. We're all capable of learning a few tricks." She hugged his arm to her side."

"So why are we here?" He asked.

"I don't like for you and me to fight in front of the others. We won't be in here long, they won't even notice."

"Sooo, we're going to fight?

"I'm not sure yet . . . Ham how did you do this, how could everyone just fall for it?"