The Engineer ReConditioned Part 5

"No, what the Jain does with its probe beast."

When the doctor released him Abaron headed quickly for the door. Chapra followed calmly after, faintly smiling. She let Abaron get ahead of her; out of hearing.

"Where's the xenophobe?" she asked.

"There is nothing more fearful than fear itself," said Box.

"Yet you would have thought the opposite effect."

"Human psychology. Go figure," said Box.

Rhys opened the lock doors for the probe creature. It walked out along the jetty and dropped into the water. Chapra cleared the projection of surface refractivity and they watched the beast walk across the bottom to its creator. The Jain, still clinging around its machine, turned its strange head, then after a moment let go. It coiled out a triangular-section tentacle and plugged into the probe beast's back.

"It's down-loading it, reading it," said Abaron.

Chapra was glad to hear fascination in his voice rather than the suppressed horror she had heard before. They sat watching. Chapra expected nothing more than the tentacle to detach in a few minutes, perhaps in a few hours. She did not expect what happened next. The Jain convulsed, its tentacle cracking like a whip. It broke the probe beast on the chamber floor and let it go. Leaking green blood and fizzing like sherbet the beast floated to the surface. The Jain convulsed again and coiled hedgehog fashion, all its tentacles, its head, its arm, and its tail hidden away. Nothing but a crescent of ribbed body, sinking to the bottom.

"h.e.l.l, what happened?" wondered Chapra, her hands blurring over her touch console.

Abaron just studied the projection, his hands folded in his lap. "It just discovered how long it was in stasis I reckon."

Chapra gaped at him. That had not even occurred to her.

The Jain remained coiled for twenty hours and when it finally uncoiled it swam around aimlessly for another eight hours. Chapra and Abaron used the time profitably, putting a probe down into the seas of Haden and discovering many of the same plants and creatures that now flourished in the isolation chamber.

"This certainly could be the Jain home world," said Chapra.

"Any world could be the Jain home world," said Abaron.

Chapra waited for an explanation.

"Our Jain has ably demonstrated how it can re-engineer any life form, and how it can build life forms from component atoms. How much has it re-engineered itself? Haven't we done the same? There are humans with gills and fins, humans with compound eyes and exoskeletons, humans who can live in ten gees."

"Very true," said Chapra. "We might even be Jain."

That shut Abaron up for a long time. When he finally spoke again it was to say, "We have to learn to speak to it now. We have to learn its language."

Chapra was in thorough agreement, but even she was not sure where to start. The Jain might speak using ultrasound, pheromones, molecular messages, and it might not speak at all. Its language might have billions of words, no words, ten words, or it might ignore them because it felt depressed. Scan of its wide neural structure showed a hugely complex organ in its skull, a spinal column almost as wide as that skull, and from which branched nerve channels as thick as a human arm, leading to sub-brains in the torso that were easily as complex as human brains, then leading to each of its eight tentacles, eight interfaces.

"It's back at its machine," observed Abaron. "Will it even listen when it's there?"

They watched it at work, tentacles moving here and there across the surface of its machine.

"The ends of those tentacles are interfaces and they are crammed with microscopic manipulators," said Chapra. "There must be mating plugs and microscopic controls all over the surface of that thing."

"The entire surface is perhaps one control system," said Abaron.

"The machine is expanding," Box abruptly told them. Chapra reached for her touch controls then realised she did not have to bother; they could see it now. The mouths of the tubes had been approximately forty centimetres wide and the entire structure two metres across. It was visibly growing now, in pulses.

"The machine is drawing in and circulating water," said Box. No need to confirm. They could see the movement. They watched as it drew in shrimps and water plants. Only water came out.

"It's making something quite big now," said Abaron.

"Oh really," said Chapra, her hands rattling over her console. She swore under her breath when she realised Box was still not allowing her to scan the machine, then she abruptly folded her arms and sat back.

The machine expanded until it was four metres across, the top of it out of the water, the mouths of the tubes three quarters of a metre across. In a couple of the tubes they could see flickers of light as from an undersea welder. It drew in some of the bigger crustaceans. They did not come out again.

"Looks like it's getting there," said Abaron.

The Jain reached inside one of the tubes, pulled out something bulky, a soft mollusc from its sh.e.l.l. It towed this object to the jetty, and with much effort heaved it up out of the water.

"Oh my G.o.d," said Abaron.

On the jetty lay a female human child of perhaps five years. At the base of her back, etched in the purples and reds of a birth mark, was the triangular interface. As they watched the child vomited water then slowly stood up. Her skin was very red.

"The heat," said Chapra.

The door to the lock opened and Judd strode into the chamber.

The Jubilan communications satellite was a confetti of bright metal wrapped around a silver ovoid half a kilometre across. Geostationary above Jubal it glittered like some huge Christmas decoration. Around it, like a swarm of silver bees, glinted shuttle craft and loaders. The dark wedge of the Samurai was in harsh contrast as it slid into reals.p.a.ce trailing streamers of red fire. From this wedge of night sped four hardly visible specks at slow relativistic speeds. Two fell on the satellite. One wavered, then was gone in a galaxy-shaped explosion. The other struck home and the bright satellite cracked open, jetting flame and human and mechanical debris. The satellite came apart in the horrible silence of vacuum. The only screams heard were over radio links, and brief.

Kellor watched the destruction with no visible sign of emotion, but he had reservations: there were always extras. He had expected no less. But this was a Polity world. The extra payment of five million was all that had swayed him. He turned his attention to the display showing the other two missiles dropping towards the planet.

"What did they use?" he asked Jurens.

Jurens glanced up from his console. "Pulsed laser. Pretty powerful. They won't have that in atmosphere and anyway, the missiles have learnt."

Kellor noted Conard's disgusted expression and dismissed it. The display showed the missiles dropping to a mountain range a hundred kilometres from their target. They'd go in ten metres above the ground. There was only one weapon that could get through their shields and armour. Kellor smiled to himself as he watched them close in like hunting wolves. Then his smile dropped away as the two missiles blinked out of existence.

One weapon ...

"Jurens! Get us out of here! Now!"

"Wait!" shouted Conard. "The runcible!"

Jurens ignored Conard, hit the ionic boosters, then poised his hand over the controls for the U-s.p.a.ce engines. The Samurai was at a quarter C but it needed just a little more. Kellor slammed his hand down on Juren's hand, and the ship dropped into U-s.p.a.ce. It was a slow drag, the ship straining and the sounds of distorting metal reaching them on the bridge. Over one of the coms someone began screaming as they saw through an incomplete field into the infinite. Kellor felt something dragging at him, at the ship, and it was not the result of a too-quick entry into U-s.p.a.ce. When the drag ceased, he allowed himself a grimace at the sweat he felt on his top lip and turned to face Conard's raging.

The General was severely p.i.s.sed-off. He was glaring and unconsciously clenching and unclenching his hands. His two aides stood quiet in the background. A surrept.i.tious scan had showed them both to be heavily armed. Automatics in the bridge covered them, and Jurens and Speck had weapons to hand. If the General started anything Kellor would finish it. There was no way the man could call on his other forces here. They were all sitting in their gunships which, with an order, Kellor could dump into deep s.p.a.ce.

"They did not seem to me the smartest of missiles," hissed the General.

"Get to the point."

"You should have used a human team. AIs are not reliable."

The sheer idiocy of that comment left Kellor without any reply. How could you argue with that?

Conard went on, "Humans are chosen of G.o.d and are the only ones with the right to sentience!"

Oh dear, it got worse and worse. Kellor considered killing him right then and there. It seemed the only kind thing to do. The problem was that Conard had a source of information. Kellor wanted that source before he killed the man.

"The missile did not strike home because the facility was protected by ground-based singuns. Your entire force would not have got through and if I had taken the Samurai in any closer, they would have gutted it."

Conard stood there still clenching and unclenching his hands. After an embarra.s.singly long time he seemed to get control of himself. He turned and strode out of the bridge. That's it, thought Kellor, go and kick s.h.i.t out of one of your subordinates,

PART FOUR.

The sifting machine had, in strips, methodically sifted a tenth of the desert's surface to a depth of one metre. At a pace of two kilometres per hour it sucked up the sand, pa.s.sed it through various grids and sieves, and spat it out behind filling the trench it had made. The sand left behind the machine was level. This would last until the next earthquake or storm. One of either usually came along each day.

The process was crude and frowned upon by many archaeologists who claimed that valuable artefacts could be damaged or destroyed. Alexion Smith took the view that anything surviving five million years in that desert would not be damaged by the sifter. His robust approach to archaeology was greatly disliked. But he got results.

Smith checked the sifter every planetary day - about four solstan days - and made a find on average once every solstan year. Mostly he came to empty out strange-shaped stones and package artefacts from more recent ages for transmission to a.s.sociates. On this occasion he had a find.

In the red light of the giant sun the coralline material was the colour of old blood. Under the lamps it would be pink and Smith knew where he had seen its like before. The excitement he might have felt before was lacking now. Years of research and now, out there, a real living Jain. Smith glanced up at the red sun and the psuedobirds. A shape was coming towards him and it wasn't a bird.

The crab drone landed on the cowling of the sifter with a clattering and scrabbling and once it got its balance it peered at him with stalked eyes.

"Who are you then?" asked Smith.

"I am the Cable Hogue," said the drone in a gravelly voice.

"Interesting name."

"I am a ship AI speaking to you through this drone. The drone is called CH143 though it sometimes calls itself Spider."

"It has an independent mind then?"

"Yes."

"Well ... what do you want of me?"

"Your expertise."

"Go on."

"To advise on matters Jain."

Smith dropped the fragment of ancient Jain technology back into the collection box of the sifter.

"I'll come," he said.

The drone rose from the cowling.

"You have four hours to get to the runcible here. Go to the Vorstra moon for short range transference to the Cable Hogue."

The voice was somehow different this time.

"I take it Spider speaks now."

"Spider spoke then. Only Spider speaks now."

Smith nodded and smiled to himself, then returned his attention to what he was being told.

"By shuttle?" he asked.

"By runcible," said the drone.

"Tell me, what manner of vessel is this Hogue?"

"A dreadnought."

Smith felt a slight shiver of excitement. It would have to be one h.e.l.l of a ship to warrant having a runcible aboard. He was about to ask what cla.s.sification of dreadnought it was when the drone accelerated away with a sonic crack. After a pause he headed for his AGC, his desert boots kicking up plumes of the red sand. The sifter went on sifting.

"Initially she was your clone. That she is a she, is the least of her alterations," said Chapra. The girl lay on the examination couch in medlab, her blue eyes wide open, her body motionless. She just stared at the ceiling.

"There's the interface in her back," said Abaron. "What else?"

"A lot. She wasn't burned in there even though she was in water that is nearly at boiling point. She can withstand temperatures that would kill a normal human. Very tough. Also her brain is human, but there are sub-brains branching all down her spine. In that sense she is nearly an amalgam of Jain and human."

"Normal DNA?"

"Not trihelical, no - "

Chapra paused. The girl was sitting upright.

"Not trihelical, no - " said the girl.

"She can speak," said Abaron.

"She can speak," said the girl. Only when she heard the girl repeating Abaron's words did Chapra realise that she had used exactly his voice, as she had spoken with exactly Chapra's voice before.

"She is learning, I think," said Chapra, and listened as the girl repeated it. "We'll have to give her the meanings of words. She'll have to be taught."

The girl repeated everything she said, then smiled. Chapra did not recollect smiling. She stepped up by the couch and took the girl's hand, brushed stringy blond hair from her face.

"Come with me," she said, and gave a gentle tug. The girl got off the couch. She did not repeat the words. Chapra felt a cold shiver. The girl had recognised the instruction. That was fast. That was AI fast.

"Let's go and get you some clothes and something to eat."

"Clothes and something to eat," said the girl.