the programming has been completed. To her, you are a secret agent being pursued by pirates. Your 'secret agent' identity permits her to accept apparently contradictory inputs and supposed 'cover stories' without establishing programming conflicts.' His look of disapproval turned into a scowl. 'To a certain extent, it will also allow her to deal with the conflict between her basic programming concerning human safety and the presence and use of the lethal weapons with which you have equipped her.' He paused and turned an intense glare on John. 'I emphasize that she is not a military AI, and does not have their basic programming. The more often she is confronted with the fact of the destruction of human life, the more likely she is to suffer injury.'
Teros paused, as though deciding whether to continue. 'The AI is pre-Fall Alliance manufacture, and is the most advanced one I've ever seen. I suspect it contains capabilities I do not understand. There are also memory repositories I was unable to access.' He admitted reluctantly. 'Should you get to the Alliance, you might find someone there qualified to deal with those anomalies. But I doubt it.' He shook his head. 'I would love to spend years studying it, but I know that is impossible. All I can do is wish you good luck, Captain.'
John assured Teros that he would take good care of the remarkable AI and did not intend to use Scorpion 's weapons any more than necessary. Teros merely grunted before striding out, slamming the door behind him.
At last, Yan gave him a final tour of Scorpion. 'We simply gave her a forged Old Empire ident beacon that says she's Scorpion, originally registered to the Viceroy of the Callisto sector. All the onboard papers and ident plates agree with that. We did not paint her name on the hull. But John,' he continued in a warning tone, 'We found a sealed compartment aboard her. When we broke into it, we found what I swear must be an old subspace initiator!'
John started. Only three or four planets outside the Alliance still had the capability of instant subspace communications galaxy-wide, mostly former sector capitols. Subspace receivers had been common in the Old Empire, but the initiators required to establish the connection were so expensive that they had even been rare there. He doubted there were more than a dozen techs in man-occupied space who could service one.
'Oh,' Yan continued, 'I think it was long dead, and we left it alone, since we had no idea what might happen if we tried to remove it. But given what Rey told us, I think what you've got is an Old Empire Viceroy's yacht, built by the Alliance or the old Rim Sector before it became the Alliance.' He laughed aloud. 'If so, we're not the first to forge papers for her! Maybe she really was registered to a Viceroy!'
Yan's fat face faded to serious. 'Be very careful with it, John. We can't know all of its capabilities for sure, and with what Rey said …'
The changes in the appearance of the ship were remarkable. The ship's contours had been reshaped to resemble the courier she claimed to be, and her antirad coating looked scarred and worn. Inside, age and wear traces had been carefully emphasized or simulated. Previous attempts to conceal Scorpion 's age had been removed. The sybaritic luxury of Azure Sky remained, but now the luxury carried an element of age and shabbiness. Dozens of coats of paint on bulkheads and fasteners reinforced the impression of age. John was impressed with Scorpion. She resembled Azure Sky only in general size and engine configuration. John suspected that even her previous owner would walk right past her on a landing field. Moreover, John would need that anonymity. He had business to attend to before he could search for a refuge, and some of the Old Empire worlds had become insular and suspicious since the Fall. Some had fallen below the space-travel level, and some had even become dens of pirates. There were reports that an entire Empire Fleet battle group had gone rogue during the Fall, and had seized control of nearly a dozen systems. Calling themselves 'The New Empire,' their descendants reportedly still ruled those systems, enforcing their rule with their aging warships. So, one entered Old Empire space carefully, gathering as much intelligence as possible before committing oneself. John was not ready yet for anything but the fringes of the Old Empire.
The newly renamed Scorpion was some 150 meters long, streamlined to operate in-atmosphere. In keeping with her design as a super-luxurious yacht, both her inertial drive and her jump drive were oversized, and made even more so by Yan. She could berth twelve in her six large staterooms, each of which had a private ‘fresher and a large viewscreen that could be set to provide panoramic views of hundreds of worlds and moons, as well as familiar starfields, even if the ship was in jump.
Largest and most complete was what John called the ‘owner’s suite’, closest to the lounge that occupied the space normally filled by the ‘bridge’ controls on lesser craft. The owner’s suite was larger than the other staterooms, to accommodate a desk with controls to access not one, but two comps. One was the main, Tess- operated ship’s comp, with its massive library of books, vids, and other entertainments. The other was more interesting. It was entirely separate from Tess. Its keyboard was not covered by any of Tess’s ubiquitous vision sensors, and it even featured a hush field so that not even the AI could hear spoken information. More than almost anything else, this second comp, with its obsessive security features, convinced Cale that Scorpion really had been built for an Empire Viceroy.
Scorpion ’s missing “bridge” was a small cubby off the engine room, its walls covered with viewscreens and control readouts. It was not expected that the bridge, or “manual control” as the manuals and the ship’s artificial intelligence referred to it, would be used in anything other than an emergency. Normally Tess controlled all mechanical and astrogational functions, leaving even her “Captain” to simply enjoy her amenities after choosing a destination.
Overall, a rich man's restored plaything became a 350-year-old military surplus workhorse with a checkered past. Scorpion 's papers showed that she had passed through hundreds of hands over the years, from couriers, traders, and pirates to the rich man that had customized her into a yacht some fifteen years before. The last entry showed her sold to James Yor-Tarken some five years ago. Of course, John had matching identification showing him to be the aforementioned sire Yor-Tarken, native of Terranea in the Horsehead Sector. He also had a replacement for the last page, showing an additional sale, but with the buyer's name blank. Once John established a permanent identity, he could sell the ship to himself, if he so desired. John knew he could trust Yan with his life. However, many people had worked on this project. Eventually, one of them would drop a hint that could lead Townley back to John. He had warned Yan, and hoped the big man would be safe.
Chapter 2
John set course for Marchand. During the long days of jump, John confronted his worst enemies: loneliness and boredom. He spent the time familiarizing himself with his new ship and carefully exploring its near-sentient artificial intelligence. Despite Rey Teros's assurances, John was still suspicious and even a bit intimidated by Tess, the newly modified AI. There was a persistent rumor that in the years before the Fall, the Alliance had actually produced sentient AI's, and John was haunted by the possibility that Tess was one. What would a 400-year-old intelligence bound to a ship be like after centuries of bouncing around the galaxy under hundreds of owners? Would it even still be sane? What if it decided it didn't like him? Or got angry with him? There are dozens of ways a ship can kill its occupants without harming itself. John tried using conversation to probe the AI without marked success.
John also stopped his depilatory, and grew a full beard. Beards were rare in this part of space, and John had learned that if a person sports an unusual feature, an oversize nose, say, or a full beard, people focus on the distinctive feature, and do not look very closely at the person displaying it. Just before grounding, he emphasized the beard even more by trimming it into a fanciful design that most should assume was common on some rural planet. He also cultivated a slight limp.
John had only a name and a place to use that name on Marchand; he had never been there. Marchand was reputed to be one of only three planets in the sector retaining the capability to provide deep-level body sculpting, and John needed the deepest level sculpting available if he was to escape Townley permanently.
The contact point was a rather large ship's chandlery and general merchandise store adjoining the spaceport. John decided it was perfect cover for the man who controlled much of the criminal activity on Marchand. 'I'd like to see Joma Alcar,' he told the security guard just inside the door.
The large man with the bulge on his hip looked unimpressed. 'He's busy. What's it about?'
'It's about money. I was referred to sire Alcar by Sarky Camro.'
The man shrugged. 'I heard Sarky was dead.'
John nodded. 'I heard that too.' Actually, John had been there. Sarky had been careless going through a door.
