Athena
In general moons around planets weren’t habitable by homo sapiens without a lot of work to install permanent pressure domes and import a working biosphere. Even gas giants, which had moons far larger than the satellites around the kind of rocky planets mankind preferred, rarely had one big enough to maintain a stable atmosphere. By some bizarre twist of fate, Wireburn had two.
There were only small settlements on Briskpulse, the smaller of Wireburn’s habitable moons, mostly for the purposes of mining dense elements not easily available on Wireburn itself. The colony existed entirely to serve Wireburn’s populace. Coldstone, on the other hand, had actually been settled longer than the planet it orbited. When someone had realized Wireburn had such a low etheric signature it was habitable the big blue moon had been chosen as a basecamp for the following waves of scientists, explorers and settlers.
It had most of the things you’d expect of a full fledged planet – cities, oceans, mountains, geothermal activity and breathable atmosphere. The only thing it was missing was its own star to orbit. There was an odd sense of dislocation as the Fair Winds pulled into orbit around Coldstone, the massive orange and tan backdrop of Wireburn’s Helium Seas churning away behind it. To Athena’s eyes it looked more like a painting than a starscape. She simply had no frame of reference for how large the planetary bodies below were and found herself looking away from the ship’s windows rather than keep looking at the vertigo inspiring tableau.
“I wonder how it is that the only gas giant with a small enough etheric core to settle happens to be one of the largest gas giants we know of.” Her daddy punctuated the observation with a sip of iced vermouth. “Has anyone looked in to that?”
“Planetary cores are still largely a mystery regardless of what they’re made of,” Captain Blanc replied. “I think part of the reason to settle Wireburn was to try and figure out what made it different from all the other gas giants out there but I’ve never heard of any progress on that front. Then again, I don’t spend a lot of time keeping up with that kind of thing.”
Agamemnon grunted and turned his attention to his daughter. “Do you think I should invest in working it out?”
“What could we possibly get out of that, daddy? You don’t even have the right kinds of connections for astronomical geology anyway.”
“True.” He went back to brooding over his drink as the captain brought the ship down towards the moon.
Athena kept her attention on the bridge as they went through the landing. She’d never been a huge fan of flying but daddy didn’t have an etheric sense strong enough for even a short interplanetary jump. Besides, he’d been working with Blanc since Hutchinson Trading was a very small, inconsequential firm and put total trust in the man for all matters related to travel. He preferred taking the Fair Winds to any other method of travel out there.
Bringing their own ship along for the journey had other upsides as well. As the Hutchinsons’ personal ship it was far more secure than the typical hotel or resort and had better transmitters and computers to boot. As they had no permanent office on the planet or its moons that kind of security and connectivity was invaluable. Athena was already putting it to use.
By the time they made landfall she had done her best snooping into the networks, databases and drama farms of Coldstone, looking for anything about Isaacs University and Darius Dart. Dart himself was a bit of blank. He certainly turned up in records and the occasional news story but the simple fact was the Wireburn planetary system had barely two hundred years of history behind it so the local population seemed to take little interest in that field of study. Thus Dart’s department had little written about it in general.
The school was another story. Isaacs U was the first institute of higher education to reach Coldstone and, at the time, it was welcomed. Every planet needs an institution of higher learning but convincing a signatory to the University Pact to spend the time and resources setting up on the edge of civilization was difficult. The rugged pioneer type wasn’t a huge fan of Pact politics either so they didn’t do a whole lot to encourage Universities to come their way.
Unsurprisingly, when Isaacs joined the Pact the people of Wireburn and Coldstone hadn’t taken to the change with great enthusiasm. The eighty years or so since the University signed on had seen them prosper in most places. However the people of Wireburn and its moons hadn’t relied on Isaacs much for research or higher education and eventually the older and wealthier Herbert University had come in and established a larger presence on planet. As a result, Isaacs’ biggest campus was actually on Coldstone, which was where Dart had offered to meet them.
Over the last fifty years the college had regained some prestige but still struggled to keep up with Herbert. In short, there wasn’t much of interest to either the school or its history department. Athena wrapped up her research in mild disappointment. The timing and the vague threats that came when Dart contacted them weren’t uncommon when dealing with most major Universities. But other than building funding to slow the encroachment of other Universities she couldn’t see any motive for Dart to reach out to them.
It could be harmless, of course. However her daddy hadn’t taught her to walk blindly into traps and her gut told her this was a trap.
While it wasn’t a big campus Isaacs did have its own landing field. Not a proper spaceport with the usual amenities, presumably guests went on campus to find hotels and food, but there were a dozen landing cradles and a pair of fueling towers moving through them. They were also met by a small tram that drove them off the landing field rather than having to make the fifteen minute hike themselves. Not bad for a small campus on a moon orbiting an out of the way gas giant.
Unfortunately that was where the good things ended. Once off the field they were ushered into a small lounge and settled into a both by a prim, officious man named Philippe Dumas who said he was Professor Dart’s secretary. The Professor, you see, had an emergency come up that demanded his immediate attention. Very sorry for the delay.
That left Athena seated on one side of the booth with daddy looking across at Hector and Captain Blanc, wondering why they’d bothered coming this far if all Dart was going to do was ignore them. She did her best to ignore Hector and hoped whatever Dart was doing was important.
44
Whatever emergency had brought 881 back to Coldstone in such a big hurry had better be important, 44 thought as he paused just outside the observation balcony. He’d never enjoyed the double life aspect of the Sleeping Circuits. His own human identity was something he’d avoided using as much as possible as soon as he had any control at all over his own assignments. I-6 didn’t think they were terribly useful, either. However, in this one case, he’d agreed with the old machine that it was probably best he handle the matter himself.
Not only was 44 a scholar of history but Darius Dart and Agamemnon Hutchinson had similar positions in their chosen fields. He couldn’t really avoid a return to life as Dart, no matter how brief, if he wanted a good outcome to the situation. Of course 881 hadn’t known any of that when she left to find her quarry a week ago. It wasn’t her fault.
That didn’t make it any less inconvenient.
The balcony looked out on the mountains behind the school, because at least one person on the campus planning committee had the sense to realize no one wanted a scenic view of a spaceport. Glass windows walled the balcony itself off from the outside world and a scattering of round tables provided seating for sight seers. A big man with a heavy jaw sat at one of them, nursing a drink. 881 stalked back and forth in front of the windows, dressed in a high necked red dress and long gloves. For a second 44 racked his brains then finally came up with the name he was supposed to use when talking to her among the normal populace. “Lucy?”
She jerked to a stop, spun around and hurried over to him as he closed and sealed the balcony door. “Professor Dart. There’s been an unforeseen complication.”
He threw a meaningful glance towards the stranger at the table. “Is now the time?”
She took the cue and turned towards the man in question and led 44 towards him. “Let me introduce Tarn sel-Shran. He’s a Shran-caste from Yshron who I contracted to help me track down Lloyd Carter and was present when everything happened.”
Tarn raised his glass in 44’s direction. “I’ve worked with Miss Luck several times in the past, as I’m sure you’re well aware of, Professor Dart. You University types keep such good records, after all. It’s a pleasure to finally meet one of the faces behind all these interesting situations she drags me into.”
“Really? I didn’t think Yshron cared much to involve itself in the concerns of other worlds, much less the Universities.”
Tarn took a sip of his whiskey and shrugged. “It satisfies my personal curiosity, although I agree that’s not a quality the Karma-caste find very useful.”
That sounded more like the rigid social systems and associated eugenics policies of Yshron based on what 44 knew of them. A strict hierarchy and people who were supposed to live for their one task, forever and always. It was a planet OMNI kept a very close watch on. Such places could be very powerful tools to maintain a healthy galaxy or give rise to wildly distorted ideas of human nature that took a heavy toll before they were contained. The presence of any of their agents raised flags in reports, which was why Tarn’s name sounded familiar. “Were you on Effratha recently, by any chance?”
A raised eyebrow, followed by, “You are well informed, aren’t you?”
“How did you know that?” 881 asked.
“Unrelated matter. One I really should be dealing with right now, so please explain what is so urgent you had to call me away from it.”
The two of them quickly filled him in on how their visit to Lloyd Carter’s apartment had gone. It sounded like a typical after action report for a while, just one of the handful reporting on a task that failed. It happened from time to time, even in the OMNI network. One of the odd things about statistics is that no one who doesn’t deal with them on a regular basis really understands them. Something with a 5% probability is still a relatively frequent occurrence. Thus, even if one of the great intelligences tells you a plan has a 95% probability of success there is really nothing unusual about that plan failing.
Given all that, and the reduced accuracy of OMNI’s predictive powers after the black swan event a week ago, 44 was more than prepared for three or even four of the Circuit Breakers he’d sent out came back with stories of disaster. He wasn’t at all surprised or disappointed to learn 881 had received a setback. In some ways it was actually more surprising how smoothly the early stages of the investigation had gone given how few leads the network had supplied them. It wasn’t until the end that he realized why 881 had come to him with such urgency. “You just let him take your purse and look through it?”
“I don’t understand how it happened, Professor,” she said, staring at her hands in confusion. “One minute he bumped my shoulder as he was passing me the next my hands were empty. I know it was a distraction of some sort but I still don’t understand how he did it.”
“In her defense, the man was probably a thieftaker of some sort and not a lawman,” Tarn added. “They’re half thieves themselves. On some planets they actually study sleight of hand and pick-pocketing from professionals. I didn’t see as he got anything really dangerous from it. Something about the transmitter he saw obviously tipped him off to who you were but I doubt he could prove anything with it. After all you should be able to cut that out of your network fairly easily, no?”
“No. Do you think Mr. Carter recognized it?”
881 nodded.
“How certain is that?” She shot Tarn a look but 44 rapped his knuckles on the tabletop once to drag her attention back. “How certain?”
“Ninety six percent certainty,” she whispered.
So she had run his reaction past O-5523. 44 balled his fists together and rested his chin on them, weighing ramifications. The problem was that the thing 881 had in her purse wasn’t an etheric transmitter. It was a piece of an AI’s inner matrix. When combined with a human’s natural etheric sense it let them immediately jump straight to an AI’s computing core and interface with the intelligence directly. Even then it wasn’t a huge liability. Very few people left alive would even recognize what an artificial intelligence was, much less recognize a piece of their inner matrix, and those that did were already allies of OMNI by default.
At least, that was the default before a black swan event put a piece of a rival network back in play. If Lloyd Carter had 881’s piece of inner matrix and if he was in contact with the LARK node I-6 had lost they were now on very, very shaky ground. “Have you spread the word about this, Lucy?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, sitting a little straighter. “But Isaac wanted to make sure you understood all of the factors in play. Said you’d understand why.”
I-6 always had very high opinions of his capabilities but in this case 44 didn’t understand. Maybe the node just didn’t want to have to bring him up to speed if Carter proved to be an obstacle that needed dealt with. “Are you and the others mobilizing to track down Carter now?”
“Yes, although we have a pretty good idea where he went. Oscar believes it has something to do with the case you were about to discuss with the Wen clan and BTL so… here I am.”
Oscar was the generic name the Sleeping Circuits used to refer to any O-Series intelligence whenever someone not initiated into their secrets was present. In this case 881 doubtless refereed to O-5523, the O-Series buried under the surface of Coldstone. Not only was that the series of AI that handled most of that kind of bookkeeping work it was also the specific intelligence 881 served directly. So he wasn’t being given a whole lot of choice over whether to include her. 44 glanced at Tarn. “Do you have an opinion on this?”
“My opinion is that Yshron and I are getting paid by the day, with a bonus if we find the man. That’s pretty much the ideal for me.”
He turned his attention back to 881. She seemed a little more worked up than normal about her mistake but, given the magnitude of it, that wasn’t too surprising. It also merited caution. “Very well then. Some ground rules…”
Athena
It only took half an hour for Professor Dart to make his appearance. It was an annoying interval given who she had to keep her company but ultimately it was an understandable interlude given the unpredictability of life. The Professor made up for it with a warm greeting, pumping her daddy’s hand first, then her own. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hutchinson,” he said. “Miss Hutchinson, your reputation proceeds you as well. You’re even better looking in person.”
“Charmed.” Her tone was anything but. If Dart thought he could make veiled threats over etheric and then be a smarmy glad handler in person he had another thing coming. “I thought this was going to be a private discussion.”
“Oh, it is.” He gestured to the short woman with flyaway blonde hair. “She’s not going to compromise the integrity of this discussion in any way, in fact she may be vital to it. Allow me to introduce my secretary, Lucy Luck…”
Nate Chen Publications 