The Cold Steel Mind (25 page)

Drake looked upwards, raising an eyebrow. ‘Aneka, this is Captain Goddard. He wants to talk to you. Alone.’

‘Huh.’ A button on the ascender she was using dropped Aneka two metres onto the deck and she started to unclip. ‘We can go to my cabin. Ella will be in the lab.’

‘I’d prefer more space,’ Goddard said. ‘My men…’

‘If you want to talk to me instead of the Captain of this ship,’ Aneka interrupted, ‘then your men don’t have the clearance to hear what we’re saying. You’re talking to me alone or not at all.’ She started for the door.

Goddard hesitated for a second and then followed, accompanied by his squad. They made their way up one deck and down the corridor to where Aneka’s cabin was, and then she stared at him until he ordered his guards to stand outside. She noticed him undo the strap on his holster before he followed her into the room, but gave no indication that she had seen the action. The idiot had no clue what he was dealing with.

Dropping into a chair Aneka looked up at the naval officer. ‘You wanted to talk, Captain.’

‘After providing a lot of evidence of my need to know what was going on to a federally attributed security AI, I was able to get access to enough information to find out why Perry hadn’t let the medical team aboard. He wouldn’t tell me. Said I had to ask you or find out some other way.’

‘Wise man.’

‘Scared, more like. He’s screwed up enough times to know when to keep his mouth shut about some things.’ Aneka nodded; she had been right about the reason Perry was out here. That made you wonder what Goddard had done to pull the placement. ‘That still leaves us with an issue. You people claim to have made first contact with an alien species under uncontrolled circumstances. Federal security policy is for there to be a complete medical and psychological evaluation before you’re allowed out of quarantine.’

‘Uh-huh. We’ve just spent a month on a space station, unable to return because the ship was damaged. We expected to be quarantined on arrival. In about fifteen days we’ll get orders from New Earth. Before that we’re stuck. We’ve got work to do, we’re not worried.’

‘You’re making my life difficult, Miss Jansen. If you’d just…’

‘Just what? Allow some medi-tech to scan me, find out what I am and break a level-seven secret? I’m bound by this as much as anyone, Captain. Don’t you think there are some people back on New Earth I’d like to tell? Friends who I think deserve to know? I can’t without clearance, and that clearance has to come from someone damn high up in Federal Security.’

A flicker of annoyance passed over his face, but she was not sure whether it was because she was continuing to make his life difficult or that he had been hoping she would break the rules. ‘It may take longer to get a reply from the Administration. You could be stuck here for weeks…’

‘Captain. We’ll get a reply as fast as the FTL communications system allows. Fifteen more days. Please stop trying to persuade me to break the law. My memory is perfect, admissible in courts martial. We’ll be out of communication here so if there were to be a breach in security it would have to come from you or Perry and I would have to give evidence as to the nature of our interactions while I was here. I’m sure you don’t want to find yourself suspected of treason.’

Goddard’s eyes narrowed and he appeared about to respond. Instead he turned on his heels and left, his back stiff and his fists clenched.

~~~

‘Not exactly diplomatic,’ Gillian commented as they sat around the mess for the evening meal.

Aneka shrugged. ‘All diplomacy is a continuation of war by another means.’

‘Very profound.’

‘Zhou Enlai, first Premier of the People’s Republic of China. It’s a play on another quote, “All war is a continuation of politics by another means.” I’m afraid I don’t know who said that. Zhou’s version made sense of some of the diplomats I’ve met.’

‘Do you think Goddard is going to be trouble?’ Drake asked.

‘He doesn’t seem like much of a political animal. If he was why would he be out here? That might mean he’s stupid enough to try to break security. I doubt he’ll do it himself though. If he can’t think of a way to get us to say something he’ll avoid any situation where he’s going to be on the wrong end of an angry Winter.’

‘Huh,’ Bashford grunted. ‘No one with a gram of sense wants to be on her wrong side.’

‘You’re right though,’ Drake said. ‘You don’t get posted out here if you’re on the fast track to Vice Admiral.’ Aneka kept the frown off her face at the undertone of bitterness in Drake’s voice. ‘He probably said the wrong thing at a party during officer training.
We
need to make sure that we don’t do
anything
he can use against us.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Ella asked. ‘No communications, no outside contact. There’s nothing we
can
do.’

Drake grunted, his face indicating annoyance. ‘If he’s determined enough, breathing may be a bad start.’

25.10.524 FSC.

Drake had instituted a watch system to ensure that someone was always on the flight deck in case anything attempted to breach quarantine. He and Shannon were handling it most of the time, but the four facilitators were taking their turns to give the flight crew sufficient break time, and Aneka had insisted that she handle the graveyard shift since she needed less sleep.

Aggy appearing ‘in person,’ sitting in the co-pilot’s seat was unusual enough that Aneka gave her a little frown. It was almost time to wake the others anyway and it seemed odd that the computer should choose now to appear.

‘Aneka, there is something which has been bothering me and I wish to… I believe the term is “get it off my chest.”’

‘Okay. What’s up?’

‘You are not entirely happy about your uplift. Am I correct?’

Aneka sighed. ‘I had a life, a family. That was taken away from me. I wasn’t happy about that, no.’

‘Then I must apologise. While the final decision on whether to uplift you was made by Chief Scientist Aktana, it was my recommendation which placed you at the head of the list. I feel that I am responsible for your loss.’

Aneka fell silent as emotions rushed through her mind. Anger, a sense of betrayal. She had felt sorry for the AI, there had been something of a common loss; Aneka had lost her world and Aggy had lost the species that had created her. She
liked
Aggy. Now this…

‘List?’ Aneka finally said, focussing on the details to force herself through the conflict in her head.

‘I monitored communications, especially those on your Internet, but also others. My mission was to compile a list of potential candidates for uplift. Chief Scientist Aktana compiled an initial set of criteria and I returned a list of four thousand candidates. The criteria were refined until I could narrow the list down to fourteen best fits.’

‘I see. And why was I selected from those?’

‘Chief Scientist Aktana believed that a female was preferable as a subject. There was only circumstantial evidence, but that was his preference. There were four women on the list; the others all had various scientific backgrounds. Chief Scientist Aktana preferred one of the others, but I suggested that you were more likely to adjust than the others based on your wider experience, and your brother provided an avenue into science if one was needed. In the end your mission provided a greater opportunity to extract you without detection.’

‘I was the expedient option.’ Aneka sat back in her chair and sighed. Even if Evolution felt that ‘just following orders’ was not a viable excuse for the activities she had undertaken, Aggy was a ship’s computer. Hell, she could not even disobey an order Aneka gave her. Anything Aktana told her to do would have been gospel. ‘You were doing as you were told, Aggy.’

‘I still feel that I have caused you harm and I should apologise for selecting you.’

‘And that’s why I’m going to do my best not to be angry about it. I kind of doubt Aktana would have apologised to me.’

‘No,’ Aggy conceded. ‘Your uplift was considered a great honour. Many believed that performing the operation on what was considered a lesser species was abhorrent. That situation was only resolved when Battle Leader Lysian adopted you into the Warrior caste with considerable praise of your ideals and virtues.’

‘Huh. I don’t exactly feel honoured.’

‘No. I have compiled all of the information I collected on you into a file. You may find it useful to read…’ The AI stopped in mid-sentence and Aneka looked at her, frowning. ‘Passive sensors have detected a small vessel approaching,’ Aggy said after a second. ‘Its course indicates an intention to dock. The identification pulses are for a Federal Administration shuttle.’

‘Ah crap! What now? Aggy, wake Drake and brief him. Keep the airlock sealed until we find out what they want.’

‘Yes, Aneka.’

Aggy’s image vanished and Aneka turned her attention to the console which was showing the projected course of a target identifier. Sure enough, it was synchronising its orbit to the Garnet Hyde. The communications system chimed for attention and, almost immediately, a voice came over the radio.

‘Garnet Hyde, this is Captain Goddard. You have visitors from Sapphira Administration coming aboard. Please meet us at your starboard airlock.’

Aneka frowned; Goddard sounded far too pleased with himself. This was going to be trouble.

~~~

There were six armed guards this time to go with three visitors. Goddard was there trying to keep the smile off his face. He thought this was going to be the point where someone slipped up and the entire story was going to come out, probably explosively. Then there were the two civilians.

One was a woman, not particularly tall, slim with an expansive chest and the usual, pretty face. Wisps of dark-blonde hair showed through her helmet faceplate. She had the body confidence of a core world citizen, looking perfectly happy in her semi-transparent shipsuit, and she had the kind of piercing, highly observant gaze Aneka had seen in the better politicians, as well as intelligence operatives and assassins.

The other was a man, tall, powerfully built, but with a body form which suggested the muscle came from hard work, and it was starting to soften a little. He was handsome, rugged, with strong features and bright, blue eyes, but he looked uncomfortable standing in the airlock corridor in front of Drake and Aneka. Aneka figured he was a local, a farmer who had ended up in politics and was not getting the exercise he used to. He also did not have the same basic, almost arrogant, self-confidence that Jenlay from the core had.

Goddard looked like he was going to speak first, but the woman stepped forward as the two crew members approached and Goddard’s speech stalled in his throat.

‘Captain Drake and Miss Jansen, I assume,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Andrea Vaughn, I’m a Representative on Sapphira. This is Administrator Anthony Shaw.’

Drake nodded. ‘Welcome to the Garnet Hyde. We’re in a quarantine situation here. Please remain in your suits at all times.’

Shaw glared at Goddard. ‘You said I wouldn’t have to be in this damn thing longer than necessary.’

Aneka kept the smirk off her face; one of Goddard’s plots had been defused early. ‘I’m afraid it’s going to be necessary for a while. If you take your helmet off you’ll be stuck here as long as we are.’

‘You’ve caught us during breakfast,’ Drake added. ‘Everyone’s in the mess if you’re here to meet the crew.’

‘Dawn was four hours ago,’ Shaw commented, frowning.

‘Anthony isn’t really used to space travel,’ Vaughn supplied.

‘You have about a seventeen-hour day, I believe,’ Drake said. ‘Up here we get a sunrise every thirty minutes. We operate on a standard twenty-hour day. Otherwise we’d go nuts.’

‘Right, of course.’

‘If we won’t be disturbing anyone,’ Vaughn said, ‘we’d like to meet your crew. Captain Goddard, I don’t believe you’ll be required. This is a civil matter and we’ll have your fine marines to handle any security issues.’

‘Representative, I don’t…’ Goddard stopped as she turned and looked at him. As far as Aneka knew, Representatives held the highest political office on a given world. There were Senators above them, but they generally spent much of their time off-world at the Senate on Obati VI. Aneka bet Vaughn was a very smooth political operator. Goddard turned to the squad leader, a woman wearing Ensign’s insignia. ‘Randall, make sure nothing happens to our guests.’

Randall snapped off a salute. ‘Sir, yes, sir.’ Aneka cringed, hiding it and turning to head down the corridor towards the habitation areas.

Introductions were made quickly. Shaw nodded politely to each person in turn and had probably forgotten half the names before they got through everyone. Aneka was watching Vaughn. She was pretty sure that the politician had memorised all the names, and had probably made early calculations on relationships, both social and administrative.

‘We’re here,’ Vaughn said once the niceties were out of the way, ‘to assess any threat you represent to Sapphira. Anthony is a well-respected member of the community on Arbonatura, administering the northern region. I’m the Representative for Sapphira Vista. We have had, quite frankly, nothing but obfuscation from Captain Goddard and that is distinctly worrying. He claims that he cannot perform a full assessment of the situation due to security issues which no one else on Sapphira has the clearance for.’

Drake nodded. They had covered this one in planning too. ‘I’d assume that you know that the Garnet Hyde vanished from the Joval system a little over two months ago?’

Vaughn nodded. ‘Obviously the event was quite newsworthy.’

‘We have spent most of the time since then as they guests of some Xinti-made artificial intelligences.’

While the two politicians stared at him, Gillian continued the story. ‘After assessing the consequences as best we could it was decided, jointly, that we would return to the Federation to begin the diplomatic process needed to integrate the AIs into our society.’

‘Their technology is… beyond anything we have ever seen,’ Wallace added. ‘They have over a thousand years of development on top of what the Xinti discovered. They used some of that technology to repair this ship, some to repair us. These suits most of us are wearing were given to us as replacements. I’m wearing a personal scale anti-gravity harness. We simply
cannot
allow this technology into general circulation without full assessment by the Administration.’