“No,” Kevin said. “The drive was beyond me. I only have human intelligence, Judy. I couldn’t possibly understand hyperdrive. Still, I realized that all I had to do was get the ship far enough away from Gateway to persuade an AI to come back to life. It took us weeks, traveling at sublight speeds, but eventually I did it. An AI built up enough intelligence to fly both the ship and David Schummel home.”
“And then what?”
“And then I set about figuring a way to pass the message on to myself.”
The piece of plastic had been lying on the floor since they had entered the room. It was only now that Helen noticed her name was written on the top of it. She picked it up and began to read.
“What message?” Judy asked.
Kevin smiled broadly. “That somewhere out there was something incredibly strange. Something new, powerful, dangerous! But where? I didn’t know where Gateway lay. Remember, I was there by chance, a passenger in David Schummel’s private processing space. Now I was traveling back to Earth, a stowaway on the hypership. I needed to get a message out to myself, but how? When that ship arrived, all hell would break loose. Who knew what the Watcher would do? Say nothing, I suppose, like it usually does. So I lay low and made plans. I managed to catch a Schrödinger box, you know, just for myself. I fixed one in position by a camera, left part of myself looking at it all the time we were traveling home.
“And then we made it back to Earth, and that robot came on board and everything changed.”
“What robot?” Judy asked.
“Chris, it called itself. I’ve never seen anything so advanced. It didn’t register on any of the ship’s senses but one. You could see it, and that was it. It came on the ship to assess what had happened; I guess the Watcher wasn’t taking any chances coming on board, what with all the other AIs committing suicide. Chris looked everywhere and took everything: David Schummel’s processing space, my Schrödinger box. Even David Schummel himself. It almost caught me…”
Helen gasped. She passed the piece of plastic across to Bairn. Kevin noticed what she had done and smiled.
He continued speaking. “But now I have found David Schummel again. Or rather, the atomic Judy has found him for me. And now, maybe, I can find a route back to Gateway.”
Judy’s console chimed. She tilted her head and listened.
“I don’t think so, Kevin. We’ve got you. We just needed to keep you fixed in place long enough to trap you. You can’t commit suicide now.”
“No need,” Helen said in a low voice, leaping across the room and seizing him by the head. She had hold of Kevin’s skull and was banging it against the floor. Somebody grabbed her and pulled her backwards. Kevin was laughing
“Leave me alone, Judy. I need to kill the fucker.” But it wasn’t Judy.
“I can’t let you do it, Helen,” Bairn whispered. Judy stood in the middle of the room, looking at them both with interest.
“Why won’t you help me, you black-and-white bitch?” Helen growled.
Kevin had got up and was walking around the room, seemingly oblivious to Helen and Bairn wrestling in the middle of the floor. He started banging at the grey walls. “Clever,” he was saying. “I’m trapped. But can you stop me from doing
He concentrated. Judy merely smiled.
“Evidently you can,” he said.
“We’ve been stopping people from committing suicide for centuries,” Judy said. “It’s one of Social Care’s first priorities.”
Helen flung Bairn free. She dived at Kevin and pressed her fingers against his neck.
“Helen, no!” Judy leapt forward. This time it was she who pulled Helen’s hand free from Kevin’s neck. But it was a distraction; Helen’s other hand slid something sharp and white into his wrist.
“Ouch!” Kevin said. “You are persistent, Helen. I’ve always known that.” Bairn pulled Helen’s hand away. The sharp piece of plastic she had taken from her console spun across the room. Kevin glared at her and rubbed his wrist.
“Thank goodness for that,” Judy gasped. “We need him alive, Helen. Killing would be a kindness to him. It’s what he wants.”
“Pity,” Helen said.
Kevin waved his wounded hand as it erupted in grey powder. His body froze, his veins turned grey.
“Venumbs,” explained Helen. “Just a couple of them in a scratch on the end of the plastic knife. They only act on red blood cells.”
Kevin tried to scream. Too late. He was gone, burst like the head of a toadstool, grey powder drifting to the floor.
“Let’s hope none of us has open wounds,” Helen said mildly.
For the second time, Judy 3 lost her temper while on the job. “You stupid bitch! What have you done?”
“You could have stopped me if you hadn’t been so busy just watching,” Helen replied calmly.
Bairn was sobbing. She knelt on the floor, rubbing her hands through the powder.
“Don’t you see: you were his fallback?” Judy shrieked. “He knew what we were trying to do. You were his escape route! Why did you do it?”
Bairn’s tears fell on grey powder and onto the plastic sheet that Kevin had deliberately left on the floor for Helen to find.
It was an advertisement…
The Atomic Judy 4: 2240
She just stands there and watches it happen.”
The atomic Judy knelt on the floor, staring as Kevin’s death played over and over again in the viewing field. Frances stood by her shoulder, her attention divided between the digital world and the atomic. Outside the private shuttle, she could see the forty-ninth section of the Shawl sliding past. Such was their ship’s stealth capability, the section was not yet aware of their presence. Frances signaled to the docking station, requesting an approach.
“What is the matter with her?” Judy murmured. “I questioned if it was right to allow Helen to accompany Judy 3, but I never expected
“A little,” Frances said. The robot stood at her left shoulder, her push buttons level with Judy’s face. Judy looked at them now in a different light since her vision on Earth. She had an urge to reach up and press them. Would that violate her own virginity? Was the act physical or mental? She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Strands of hair slipped out of place, dropping down before her eyes. The strange drug was still lingering inside her. Who had administered it to her? Chris? But why would he do that? Did it have anything to do with his presence on the hypership on its return from its ill-fated journey?
“We’re about to dock,” Frances said. “Turn off that viewing field. We need to concentrate on the job in hand: David Schummel.”
The robot widened the external viewing field until it filled the whole cabin. Looking up, Judy could see the tiers of Shawl sections hanging down towards her. It reminded her of the time she had stood in a river, the water cool at her feet, her body shaded by an old weeping willow that drooped all around her. Looking up through the branches that trailed down, enclosing her…
She shook her head. Everything was a metaphor. When would the drug leave her system?
The black wall of the section ahead of them was moving. Insects stepped out of its smooth expanse like the lizards from the Escher picture. They formed themselves into a tube-an odd sight, creatures that came from nothing returning to nothing.
The nose of the shuttle worked its way into this tube and the air in the cabin began to cool to meet the
