Redemption Ark

implement my beta-level.’ Clavain smiled reasonably, spreading his hands in a gesture of openness. ‘Please, will you consider it? We will of course make any reciprocal arrangements for your own beta-level, should you wish to uplink a negotiating proxy. We await your reaction with interest. This is Nevil Clavain, for Zodiacal Light, signing off.’

Ilia Volyova swore to herself. ‘Of course we’re familiar with the fucking protocols, you patronising git.’

The message had cycled more than a thousand times, which meant that the necessary data to implement the beta-level had already been recorded.

‘Did you get that, Captain?’ she asked.

‘Yes, Ilia.’

‘Scrub the beta-level, will you? Check it for any nasties. Then find a way to implement it.’

‘Even if it contained some kind of military virus, Ilia, I doubt very much that it would harm me in my present state. It would be a little like a man with advanced leprosy worrying about a mild skin complaint, or the captain of a sinking ship concerning himself with a minor incident of woodworm, or…’

‘Yes, I get the point, thank you. But do it anyway. I want to talk to Clavain. Face to face.’

She reached up and de-opaqued her faceplate just in time to see the next cache weapon commence its crawl towards space. She was furious beyond words. It was not simply the fact that the newcomers had arrived so unexpectedly, or made such awkward and specific demands. It was the way the Captain appeared to have gone out of his way to conceal the whole business from her.

She did not know what he was playing at, but she did not like it at all.

Volyova took a step back from the servitor.

‘Start,’ she said, not without a little wariness.

The beta-level had conformed to the usual protocols, backwardly compatible with all major simulation systems since the mid Belle Époque. It also revealed itself to be free of any contaminating viruses, either deliberate or accidental. Volyova still did not trust it, so she spent another half-day verifying the fact that the simulation had not, in some exceedingly devious way, managed to infiltrate and modify her virus filters. It appeared that it had not, but she still did her best to make sure it was isolated from as much of the ship’s control network as possible.

The Captain, of course, was entirely correct: he was, in all major respects, now the ship. What attacked the ship attacked him. And since he had become the ship thanks to his own takeover by a super-adapted alien plague, it appeared highly unlikely that anything of merely human origin would be able to piggyback its way into him. He had already been stormed and corrupted by an expert invader.

Abruptly, the servitor moved. It took a step back from her, almost toppling before it righted itself. Dual camera-eyes looked in different directions and then snapped into binocular mode, locking on to her. Mechanical irises snicked open and shut. The machine took another step, towards her this time.

She raised a hand. ‘Halt.’

She had installed the beta-level into one of the ship’s few fully androform machines. The servitor was a skeletal assemblage of parts, all spindly openwork. She felt no sense of threat in its vicinity, or at least no rational sense of threat, since she was physically stronger and more robust than the machine.

‘Talk to me,’ she said. ‘Are you properly installed?’

The machine’s voice box buzzed like a trapped fly. I am a beta-level simulation of Nevil Clavain.‘

‘Good. Who am I?’

I don’t know. You haven’t introduced yourself.‘

I am Triumvir Ilia Volyova,‘ she said. ’This is my ship, Nostalgia for Infinity. I’ve installed you in one of our general-mech servitors. It’s a frail machine, deliberately so, so don’t think of trying any monkey business. You’re wired for self-destruct, but even if that wasn’t the case I could rip you apart with my fingers.‘

‘Monkey business is the last thing on my mind, Triumvir. Or Ilia. What shall I call you?’

‘Sir. This is my turf now.’

It appeared not have heard her. ‘Did you arrange for your own beta-level to be transmitted to Zodiacal Light, Ilia?’

‘What’s it to you if I did?’

‘I’m curious, that’s all. There’d be a pleasing symmetry if we were both represented by our respective beta- levels, wouldn’t there?’

I don’t trust beta-levels. And I don’t see the point, either.‘

Clavain’s servitor looked around, its dual eyes clicking and whirring. She had activated it in a relatively normal part of the ship — the Captain’s transformations were very mild here — but she supposed she had become accustomed to surroundings that were still quite odd by the usual criteria. Arcs of hardened, glistening plague- matter spanned the chamber like whale ribs. They were slick with chemical secretions. Her booted feet sloshed through inches of foul black effluent.

‘You were saying?’ she prompted.

The machine snapped its attention back on to her. ‘Using beta-levels makes perfect sense, Ilia. Our two ships are out of effective communication range now, but they’re getting closer. The beta-levels can speed up the whole negotiation process, establishing the ground rules, if you like. When the ships are closer the betas can download their experiences. Our flesh progenitors can review what has been discussed and take appropriate decisions much more rapidly than would otherwise be possible.’

‘You sound plausible, but all I’m talking to is a set of algorithmic responses; a predictive model for how the real Clavain would respond in a similar situation.’

The servitor made itself shrug. ‘And your point is?’

‘I’ve no guarantee that this is exactly how Clavain really would respond, were he standing here.’

‘All, that old fallacy. You sound like Galiana. The fact is, the real Clavain might respond differently in any number of instances where he was presented with the same stimuli. So you lose nothing by dealing with a beta-level.’ The machine lifted up one of its skeletal arms, peering at her through the hollow spaces between the arm’s struts and wires. ‘You realise this won’t help matters, though?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Putting me in a body like this, something so obviously mechanical. And this voice… it’s not me, not me at all. You saw the transmission. This just doesn’t do me justice, does it? I actually have a slight lisp. Even play it up sometimes. I suppose you could say it’s part of my character.’

‘I told you already…’

‘Here’s what I suggest, Ilia. Allow the machine to access your implants, will you, so that it can map a perceptual ghost into your visual/auditory field.’

She felt oddly defensive. I have no implants, Clavain.‘

The buzzing voice sounded astonished. ’But you’re an Ultra.‘

‘Yes, but I’m also brezgatnik. I’ve never had implants, not even before the plague.’

‘I thought I understood Ultras,’ Clavain’s beta-level said thoughtfully. ‘You surprise me, I admit. But you must have some way of viewing projected information, surely, when a hologram won’t work?’

‘I have goggles,’ she admitted.

‘Fetch them. It will make life a lot easier, I assure you.’

She did not like being told what to do by the beta-level, but she was prepared to admit that its suggestion made sense. She had another servitor bring her the goggles and an earpiece. She slipped the ensemble on, and then allowed the beta-level to modify the view she saw through the goggles. The spindly robot was edited out of her visual field and replaced by an image of Clavain, much as she had seen him during the transmission. The illusion was not perfect, which was a useful reminder that she was not dealing with a flesh-and-blood human. But on the whole it was a great improvement on the servitor.

‘There,’ Clavain’s real voice said in her ear. ‘Now we can do business. I’ve asked already, but will you consider uplinking a beta-level of yourself to Zodiacal Light!’

He had her in a spot. She did not want to admit that she had no provision for such a thing; that would really have made her look odd.

‘I’ll consider it. In the meantime, Clavain, let’s get this little chat over with, shall we?’ Volyova smiled. ‘You