Next month it will be five years since I started running this place, and six years since I came back to Earth. That was in 2254, after the battle of Mira Ceti. The fleet won that one, but I lost my left leg from the knee down. Nowadays, such an injury is not a big thing, all it takes is to stay in bed for a few weeks, while the stump is regenerating. But once in a thousand cases, regeneration will not work. Again, nowadays, that's no problem. They graft a mecatronical prosthesis, and you're as good as new, only a little different. No problem, once you get over the psychological shock. They told me that this kind of mecanical devices used to be worn by millions of people, to replace lost teeth or improve eyesight. But these barbaric times are far behind us, thank the Seven.
So. no problem, I got the prothese, and learned to walk and run gain. Everything would have been fine, if I had not been who I was: a starship officer in the time of the cybercloud wars. Starship officers are not allowed to contain any mecatronic parts. Neither are government employees, or anybody working for the defense industry.
So here I was, Lyndon MacAdam, thirty-eight, a starship chief engineer with a promising career, grounded and put on the sideline in the middle of the war, because of a stupid law. Ok, that law was not that stupid. You never knew what the cybs could do with their nano; and there's no better place to hide a few thousand nanobots than in a mecatronic device. And on the other side, for most people who had mecatronic parts, that was their choice. They were not many of them, just a bunch of weirdo's who thought mecatronics were better than the original, and it made a damn lot of sense not to trust them. I was the unlucky one, the one who had no choice. Anyway, I was out, sidelined, rendered useless. Well, the social service gave me three options: I could be a retired invalid, I could go farming, or I could get a job in the rest and recreation department.
I tried them all. Nothing worked. Resting is fine, as long as you need it. But when I got out, and happened to get talking to someone, it always turned out the same way. You see, if a man has been a marine officer for twenty years, and he still feels like a marine officer, he behaves like a marine officer. It shines through your civilian clothes. There is this attitude, a way of walking and doing things that makes it obvious to every man from the fleet that you belong there, with them. And those conversations always ended with a silence, and embarrassed pity. It got on my nerves, so after three months I Ieft Dallas and went to a farming community in the cornbelt. Now look, I met aliens, I visited Sanjintas, I visited Maldan, I worked together with Maldane. They are far out weird, to say the least, but I could communicate. Well, I could not communicate with the farmers. It did not work. They did things like they had done them for three hundred years, they used English in a way that I did not understand, and they could and would not cope with an outsider. Imagine, their woman still give birth to their babies after the original nine months. They put a little half-formed baby being on the world, before it is able to walk or speak. And they kill animals to eat pieces of their dead bodies. Well, a month later, I was back in Dallas. I had no damned choice, again. It was either Dallas, or whatever the punishment would be for setting fire to a farming village.
The rest and recreation job was not any better. I was not made to sit behind a desk and to take care of catering supplies. Strangely enough, if I had taken this one on first, I might have stuck to it; I might have seen it as a job needing done. But now, those last months had made me realize that I wanted my life to be more than a desk job, nine to five, something any halfway outdated computer could have done, if they hadn't all been converted to military use. I, I needed to do something useful with my life. But I did the job, dragging myself there every morning, counting the minutes till evening.
And then, after a dreary winter, I got lucky. There had been a catering problem somewhere, and I went to see for myself, I would have done anything to get some air anyway, and ended up having a drink with that Brad, the guy that ran the place. He could never go to space neither, due to incurable space sickness. Once the gravity dropped below earth normal, Brad would be sick, and remain sick. Period. That made it a nice evening to wallow in self-pity. Then on one moment, Brad said 'If I had my own business, it would be different. I would start something like an old-fashioned officers club, something with more style that this R&R rubbish. A place where a gentleman could have a drink in a civilized company.'
I looked incredulously at him, and replied: 'But that would be capitalism, Brad. You can't mean that. Not in Dallas, of all places.'
He shrugged, grumbled something under his breath, and we changed the subject. But the day after, his idea kept nagging at me. It is not exactly forbidden, to run a business capitalistwise, but you have to pay 100% profit tax, and 80% income tax on everything you pay yourself between basemin income and the topmax, which is what a two-start general gets. It is not easy to get rich, that way. They would forbid free enterprise in the law, if they dared, if they weren't afraid the Confederation of Great-China would accuse them of fascist reformism. But on the other side, I would not do it to get rich, like they used to. There's no point in being rich anymore. You can't buy authorizations like access to the beach, or to the natural food mall. Those come with your military rank or civil grade. You show your ID at the gate, you only get in if you're authorized. Period.
Well, to make a long story short, we teamed up, my saved up pay and pension and his know-how of the R&R trade history. And we started this here beach club, on a patch of sand that had been left out from the authorization system. You don't want to know how we pulled that of. Anyway, I won't tell you, because I'm not too proud of it. Well, we set up our own, very private authorization system, added a shack with a few refrigerators, and we were in business
The beach club was an immediate success. Brad used an ancient trick. He gave away authorizations to any cute chick of low grade. And he made everybody else pay. I mean, he had them transfer credit to our account in exchange for an authorization.
It was a damn good idea. We weren't getting anywhere close to being rich, but we had free booze, lots of topclass chicks around, sun and beach. And we were our own bosses. All went well. For a while, until I met Toran.
It was a slow evening, and I stood behind the main bar, polishing glasses and watching the sunset, when this guy came in. A merchant navy man, clear enough, by the sight of his earrings and his colorful clothing. He sat down on a stool, and motioned me over. 'A pint of cold, draft beer, bartender, and have one yourself.'
I stuck my thumb up; a beer was not a bad idea. Holding the two pints, I went to where he sat, and put one down before him. He smiled, raised his glass up to me and took a long sip. With a 'Cheers, to yours', I followed his example. He set his glass down, smiled, and said. 'You draw a good pint, Lyndon. But there is more to life than running a bar.'
I shrugged and replied. 'Depends... it's not bad.'
You know, I would have agreed with him, when I just came back on earth. But now, after all these years? The bar runs smoothly, the beach is beautiful, the chicks are too, I have lots of friends, and nobody tries to blow me out of space.
He snorts, and gulps down another quarter of the pint. 'My name is Toran Sugoni, Lyndon. I won't beat around the bush. We need you. There's a job only you can do.'
Really. He walks into my place, fine, buys me a cheap beer, that passes, then the second time he opens his mouth it's to insult me, and he finishes it off with a line from a bad movie. But this is a bar. We have standard practices for such cases. Don't react, that's rule one.
Toran sighs, and takes a memstick from his pocket. He shoves it in my direction, and says: 'Will you take a look at this? It's not a joke. You're needed.'
I take a look at the stick. The hologram of CenSpaCom is revolving across the broad side. I nod, and plug the stick into the viewer. The screen asks for my thumbprint. Weird, but I comply. Now it asks for the thumbprint of a Toran Shugoni. I place the sensorpad on the bar, and say to him. 'The stick wants your thumbprint.' He nods, it is clear that he knew that already. The viewscreen activates. It shows a commissioning form for the grade of captain-commander, with a posting at MRC-INT. It has my name on it. I read it again. It still has my name on it, and it's dated yesterday. Godbloodydamned. I look at Toran . 'What is this ?'
He shrugs. 'We need you. You're drafted, commander. There is a job that requires a man with a mecatronic part, a man the politicians can trust, a man the military can count on. You're it. There is more on the stick.'
I scroll down, but something is wrong with the viewer, or rather with my eyes. It must be the light from the sun reflecting from the sea.
The file was about a planet on the edge of the Cloud. The CybCloud is space-based, they're not into planets, except they like the planets in their reach to be empty. Empty of humans, that is. But this is different. The Cloud has established a base on the planet. And the colony is still inhabited, but not communicating with us anymore. So MRC-INT sent a ship to see what went on. That is how the learned of the base. A few days later, they dropped a Maldan agent, and that way they learned about what the base is about. There are pictures, and a short report. Don't ask a Maldane for a lot of words.
'The colony and the population are intact. I have seen no dead bodies, no sign of recent burials. The people are going about their daily business in complete silence. I detect abnormal patterns in their mindset. The same kind of pattern exists in each mind I scan, except in non-mobile young. It is probable that the Turing Cloud is responsible for these patterns. The village seems extremely well organized. I conclude that the Cloud has established mentalic control over the colonists.
The dome on the edge of the town is recent and clearly of non-human origin. I left all technological items in the ship, and I have been allowed to pass inside the dome. The construction is composed of four concentric layers of interconnected nanobots. The building plan is very simple: hollow spheres, passages between each layer at 90° clockwise from the previous one. The outside layers are clearly inactive except for energy and matter collection. The inside layers are showing a high level of activity. A display array is attached on the inside of the inner layer. A chair, probably also composed of nanobots is placed in the middle of the central floor.
The chair has a mentalic communication function. I blocked the attempts at communication. It is clear that this is not possible for a human. It is probable that the mental patterns in the population are related to the dome and the communication device.'
I look up. 'Holy Ruum.' Toras nods. 'Yes. A cybcore took the people over. It can transform them in spies, infiltrators, get information, who knows what else. We have to do something about it, and fast.'
I frown. 'It's a few years since we try to do something about cybcores. The best up till now are TC bombs, ballistic. What do you need me for?'
Toran leans on the bar. 'This is a small cybcore, on a planet, with little resources. We want to try to capture it. Or something like that. Suck its data away, learn from it. A TC bomb is not going to accomplish that. '
I nod, waiting for the next part.
'There is a new device that could just do the trick. But if we send it in, it will be detected immediately and be destroyed before it can do anything. It must be smuggled in.'
'Inside a mecatronic device, I suppose?' I'm not dumb, you see, I can add one and one together, and get at two, or thereabouts, especially if I got a hint.
'Yes,' Toran goes on. 'Inside your mecatronica the Synsys can remain hidden until you are in the chair. You can get to the planet on a Maldan scoutship. The cybcore does not see Maldan technology as a threat.'
I frown. 'But my leg is Earth technology'. Toran grins. 'This one is, yes. There's another one waiting for you in the Opscenter. You know the way? Nine o'clock. Ask for me.'
He slid of the stool, and went out the door, before I had time to react. Ok. One metal leg is as good as any other. Suck the data from a cybcore. Sure. And the core will just lay back and let it happen, so to speak.
I kept on polishing the glasses, my thoughts elsewhere, Brad came in half an hour later, and I told him I had to leave for a while. He understood, he didn't ask questions; you learn that in wartime.
Nine o'clock I was at the Opscenter front desk, in civvies. But the girl had been briefed, my thumbprint was enough. Toran appeared almost immediately, accompanied by a hospital attendant pushing a wheelchair. I was told to sit down and take my leg off. I did, and they took me for a ride trough a series of corridors, to a medical looking lab.
I woke up in a hospital bed, with a terrible headache, and a bandage around my stomach. Toran and a doctor are sitting beside my bed. I ask them for an explanation, and Toran sighs.
'It is a dual safeguard. We implanted a bomb in your chest. There are two risks. The first is that you don't succeed, down there with the cybcore. The Synsys can't be allowed to fall into their hands.' I nod; this is quite logical, quite normal. 'And what's the second risk?'
The doctor answers slowly, weighing his words: ' The Synsys has never been tested fully, in the field. It is a semi-organic supercomputer. It has some parts that are quite like living tissue. And the computing part is very advanced. We are almost sure that it has a kind of consciousness. It might develop a will of its own. We want a sure way to stop it. If the need arises.' Well, you can't accuse those guys of being overly optimistic. I look accusingly at Toran. I should have known there was a catch. He just shrugs, and I remember he didn't pay for his beer.
The next day I was discharged from that ward, and I got the new leg. It looked and felt exactly like the old one, the doctor simply had to calibrate the synapse transmitters, and I could walk on my own again in a few minutes. The whole episode was barely worth mentioning, except for the strange feeling of a presence, as if a small kitten was following me around. I told the doctor about it, and he nodded, showing almost no surprise. 'Yes, it must be the Synsys. You'll have to get used to it.' I wonder if I will. This must be a quite powerful mind, if I can sense it. I'm not telepathic at all.
The trip to RE- 1737 was quite uneventful. The Maldan scout picked me up in Dallas, and we went straight to our destination. Three jumps, six days, during which I read everything I could on the Cloud, and the cybcores, and the planet. The Maldan pilot kept his distance; he had the usual superiority complex. Maldan is just waiting for us to loose, and then they'll take our planets over. The Cloud has no quarrel with the Maldane, and they avoid irritating it. Can't blame them, this war is our own bloody fault.
Getting into the dome was not difficult neither. Once inside the third layer, the problem started. It felt like something was tugging at my mind. It wanted me to stop, and wait. I disregarded the impulse, and went on. Immediately, the cybcore discharged a bolt of energy at me, and the Synsys deflected it. The tactics were simple now. I felt like I was watching a game from a distance. The cybcore saw me as a threat, and wanted to stop me. The Synsys needed to advance to a position from which to launch an attack. My body was the vector, my brain the control system. Overload. My brain blanks out.
I'm on hands and knees, crawling slowly between two curved walls made out of glowing material. I know I have to do this, but I don't know why, I'm protected from something I don't remember by something I don't remember. There is an opening to my right, I crawl through it, my vision restricts to a thing in front of me. A chair. I'm tired, I'm in pain, I want to sleep, but I must get there. Two yards to go. I touch the construction.
I'm kneeling with my hands on the chair, but I know again where I am and why. Keeping contact with the nanobot material, I get into the chair. I can't do a thing now but wait. The system in my leg must fight this battle alone, I can't help. The only thing I can do, I must do, is to stay here. We win, no problem. We loose; the cybcore will take control again, and destroy us. Before the cybcore does that, it will try to copy the data. Before that happens, I must activate the secondary self-destruct. There is a chance the cybcore might try to kill me before I can do that. How will I decide when the battle is lost? How will I know that it is time for the final retreat? I watch the displays around me. I get the feeling that the activity decreases. A few displays in the center of the array are not updated anymore. On others nearby, the data changes at a slower rate. I wonder if there is a relation between what I see and what happens inside the invisible oceans of data. If there is, it looks as if we are driving a wedge into the cybcore's resources. Divide them up, and then eliminate them by parts? That's what the Synsys seems to be doing. There is now a line of dead displays across the array, cutting off 20%. Another wedge is starting to grow from the edge of the array. It is advancing, but I can see it slows down. And meanwhile, the cut-off section is slowing down; the dividing line of dead displays is getting wider. Good tactics. Attract the core's attention by a diversion, and quietly finish the isolated section. Just when that section fades altogether, the new wedge pushed through. It now isolates a third of the remaining array. But the cybcore learns fast. The dividing line gets pushed back. But it grows wider at the same time. That means that the Synsys is still gaining. I relax in the big chair. There is a lot less cybcore then before, and it is receding display by display. The remaining ones are now flickering at a crazy rate, but this really looks like we're going to win.
It took a while, but now I'm sure we're going to win. The still displays are fading one by one, neat. The remaining cybcore area shrinks. Not to worry. Some more minutes to go, that's all. One last flicker and finally the last display fades. Mission accomplished, time to go home. I can now feel the presence of the Synsys again. It has changed. Not a kitten anymore. It now makes me think of a fat purring cat. I get up. And I tell myself, go home Lyndon, you survived, switch you suspicious mind OFF.