“Even if I agreed to this, which I don’t
,” whispered Liu after they’d explained, “How would we trick that thing? We have nothing it needs. It doesn’t need to breathe, it doesn’t need to consume anything, it walked into an inferno without hesitating. We have no leverage. Why would it leave the ship, especially after Emery warned it not to?”
“We can use its self-sufficiency against it. I don’t care if it dies, we just have to get it off the ship and lose it in space. If we make it think that it’ll be safe outside, and that something it cares about is in peril out there, it’ll go,” said Martham.
“What’s out there that it cares about, Martham? You want me to rip off an antenna and toss it out the door? There’s nothing out there.”
“Emery is out there,” she said tapping the door.
“And?” asked Blick. “You keep coming back to her. She hasn’t done anything
.”
“That’s not the point. Whether she did or she didn’t, the robot cares about her.”
“It’s the whole
point—” started Blick, but Leroux cut him off.
“Why do you think it cares about her? I thought you said it was using her, that it wanted us all to die,” she said.
“It is
using her. And it still needs her. It can’t act without her if it wants to keep us in the dark. It’s not going to get another
chance to brainwash us—”
“If it wanted to kill us,” said Blick, “why would it care about being secretive? It’s sitting on the bridge right now. It’s probably had access to our systems since Dorothy died. Why would it have even allowed us to take off? Why wouldn’t it have simply disabled the Wolfinger when we were still on the planet? Why risk its own existence?”
Martham was silent. The whole thing was falling apart. Alice knew she should have kept them apart. Someone had to say something before the plan collapsed.
“Because it thought it could convince us to stay away from the planet. Killing us was a backup plan,” she said. They all turned toward her. She could feel the damp prickle of sweat starting under her suit. “It was probably hoping that with the more intractable people out of the way, it could persuade the rest of us. It would have known, from Rebecca, that the med lab was only used by Titov, Leroux and myself. Titov was never going to agree to keep quiet. He thought Peter would be cured by the planet, no matter how often Leroux told him otherwise.” She glanced at Leroux who turned away from them, ashamed and saddened. Alice could see the others were listening though. She pressed on. “We were acceptable losses, if it meant the rest of you would forget about settlement. It still thinks the rest of us can be convinced. As you said, Liu, it has access to all of our systems. The capability is always there. Just flip a switch or two and our air is gone. Or our temperature controls. Or the Wolfinger’s dead in the void.”
“Why wait until now
?” asked Blick. “It had us on the planet. In a foreign environment where it had all the advantages.”
“Who said it waited?” asked Leroux. “It didn’t wait to kill Stratton. I
certainly had nothing to do with the Captain’s death. And we still don’t know what happened with Spixworth. He was alone with Emery and Issk’ath— they said it was an accident, but how do we know? And maybe I was wrong about
Dorothy. Maybe Oxwell would have been able to save her if it hadn’t interfered.”
Liu rubbed his shoulder. “I hate to admit it, but there’s another good reason for waiting until we were out here. Maybe two. If we didn’t come back, the Keseburg might have sent a search party. The Hardcoop probe at least. If Issk’ath really does
want to prevent us from settling, then it would have to start the whole persuasion process over again with a new crew.”
Blick shook his head, but stayed quiet.
“What’s the second reason?” asked Martham.
“If it persuaded us to stay silent, to tell the Admiral that the planet was a hostile mess, that we’d never survive, Issk’ath would have to rely on our secrecy for the duration of our lives. It would have to believe that we’d never utter a word to another person. Not a spouse, not a child, not on our death beds. I don’t know how much of our files it has processed or what Dorothy has told it, but they probably don’t show us as reliably discreet. Why bother with us, when we’re taking it to the source of the threat? It could wipe us all out once it’s aboard the Keseburg.”
“Flaming core,” breathed Blick.
“If it kills us here, on our way back, the Keseburg will find us. They’ll find our bodies lying next to an alien robot and assume there is a threat on the planet. The Admiral won’t have to go looking for us. And they’ll bring Issk’ath aboard to study it. It’ll be able to keep an eye on our people. If they ever decided to try again or turn around in a few generations— Issk’ath will still be there to stop them,” said Martham. “So are we done arguing about this? Are you ready to do something to stop it? Whatever its ultimate plan, we end up dead. Unless we get it off this ship.”
“It doesn’t matter if we get it off the ship,” said Blick. “If it can just flip a switch and turn off the air or the engines, why
would a door between us and it make any difference?”
“We can figure out how to cut off its access to our systems,” said Martham.
“We’re back where we started,” said Leroux, “and we’re running out of time. It’s going to come looking for us any second, or Captain Al Jahi and Emery are going to panic if Liu doesn’t start talking to them soon. Even if we figure out how to prevent it from killing us once it’s out there, how do we get that thing outside?”
“We make it think Emery is in trouble. Look,” said Martham holding up a hand to stop Blick’s protest, “I don’t know if Emery has anything at all to do with this. It doesn’t matter. For whatever reason, that thing cares when she’s in danger. It stopped her from fighting the lab fire. She says it saved her from a nasty fall in the nest. It wanted
to go out with her when she left to make repairs. We have to use that.”
“How are we supposed to make it think she’s in trouble?” Blick pushed himself back to the doorway of the lock and peered into the bridge. “It’s talking to her right now. It’s going to know immediately if we lie.”
“It doesn’t have to,” said Liu. “The feed can be shut off. We took care of the long-range communications before launch, but we can cut off the interior communications too. That will also kill its access to the Wolfinger. We couldn’t do it on the planet because we needed it while you were out in the field. But we’re all here now, we can survive another forty hours without it.”
“Issk’ath will just turn it back on again,” said Alice. Her pulse sounded like an engine fan in her head, rapid and heavy. This is going to work,
she told herself.
“Issk’ath has remote access to our systems, yes, but those systems don’t just exist in thin air. I just remove a chip, and the feed is off. Just like the ship’s communications.” He glanced up at the dead feed camera. “Just like the equipment lock.”
“But then Captain Al Jahi and Emery would be out there without any help. If something went wrong, we’d never know,” said Blick.
“Yes,” said Liu, “and we wouldn’t be able to warn them. We also wouldn’t be able to risk bringing them back in once Issk’ath was outside. We’re only going to get one chance.”
“No. I told you,” said Blick turning to Leroux, “the robot only. Not
Emery and not the captain.”
“There’s no other way,” said Martham. “It’s the two of them or all of us. And all of our families. Everyone we’ve ever known—”
“No
. We aren’t doing this. We’ll find another—” Blick broke off with a gasp as Leroux sunk a syringe into his filament port.
“Sorry, Lionel. I did warn you,” she said. Alice clapped a hand over his mouth as he struggled for a moment and then went limp. He floated between them for a moment.
“Put him in with Cardiff. Let em sleep it off together. By the time they wake up, it’ll be done,” said Martham. “Liu, tell me what needs to be done. You’ve got to get back to the bridge and make Issk’ath think everything’s normal.”
Liu hesitated as Alice pulled Blick carefully into the hallway.
“It has to happen. Think of Jared,” said Martham.
“Yes,” said Liu, “you’re right.”
He floated slowly back to the bridge. Issk’ath’s pallid eyes whirred as they shifted toward him. “Dr. Cardiff,” Liu said lamely, “The treatment made her a little— anxious. Everything’s all set now.” He pulled himself back into his seat and clicked the harness closed.
“When will Emery return?” asked Issk’ath.
Liu forced a smile. “Let’s find out how the repairs are going, hmm?” he asked. He clicked the feed on. Under the chair, he toed off the soft shoe of his left foot and pinned it below his other foot to keep it from floating into the open. “Captain Al Jahi, I’m back. How is the hull looking?” His toe found the
panel. He had a momentary sensation of panic when he realized he wasn’t certain where the chip was. Just need an excuse to get down there,
he told himself. He glanced over at Issk’ath. But first— I hope you remember your training, Chione.
He put one hand in his lap below the console and clicked over to his private channel. He continued to speak over the ship’s communication feed as well. The fingers in his lap tapped furiously. Was it dot dash dash? Or dot dot dash?