Morton nodded. Actually, all he could manage was to tilt his head a fraction on the firm pillow. At least he could do that; he remembered what it was like completing rejuvenation therapy, just lying there completely debilitated. This time at least his body was working. Even if it was slowly. He swallowed. “What’s it like?” he managed to whisper.
“What is what like?” Dr. Forole asked.
“Out there. Have there been many changes?”
“Oh. Morton, there’s been an alteration to your suspension sentence. Don’t worry! It’s possibly for the better. You have a decision to make. We’ve brought you out early.”
“How early?” He struggled to raise himself onto his elbows. It was a terrible effort, but he did get his head a few centimeters above the pillow. The room’s door opened, and Howard Madoc came in. The defense lawyer didn’t look any different from the last day of Morton’s trial.
“Hello, Morton, how are you feeling?”
“How early?” Morton growled insistently.
“Under three years,” Dr. Forole said.
“A hundred and seventeen years?” Morton said. “What, this is my good behavior period? I was a model suspension case?”
“No no, you’ve only spent about two and a half years in suspension.”
Morton didn’t have the energy to shout at the doctor. He dropped back onto the bed and gave Howard Madoc a pleading stare. “What’s happening?”
Dr. Forole gave Howard Madoc a furtive nod, and backed away.
“Do you remember before your trial the Second Chance left for the Dyson Pair?” Howard Madoc asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, it came back. But it found something out there. An alien species. They’re hostile, Morton. Very hostile.”
“What happened?”
Morton listened without comment as his lawyer told him about the barrier coming down, the second flight to Dyson Alpha by the Conway and her sister ships, the devastating attack by the Primes, the Lost23. “We’re beginning to fight back,” Howard Madoc said. “The navy is putting together an army. They’re going to wetwire people with weapons and drop them on the Lost23. The object is to fight a guerrilla war, sabotage whatever the Primes are doing, slow them down while we mount a bigger offensive.”
Morton stared at the blank ceiling, a grin expanding on his face. “Let me guess the deal. If I volunteer, if I fight for the Commonwealth, they cut my suspension sentence. Right?”
“That’s it.”
“Oh, this is truly beautiful.” He laughed. “How many years off do I get?”
“All of it.”
“Damn, they must think it’s a suicide mission.”
Howard Madoc gave an awkward shrug. “A re-life body is part of the agreement should you not make it back from your mission.”
“What use is that going to be if we lose?”
“This is your decision, Morton. Take some time over this. You can go back into suspension if you want.”
“Not a chance.” It wasn’t something he had to think about. “Tell me, why did they choose me?”
“You fit the profile they need,” Howard Madoc said simply. “You’re a killer.”
***
Most of the refugees had got off the train long before it pulled in to Darklake City. Mellanie had never been so pleased to see her old hometown station with its slightly overbearing Palladian architecture. Boongate had been every bit the nightmare she’d expected. Even with their guaranteed tickets and Niall Swalt faithfully helping them, it had been difficult to barge their way onto a train. The exhausted and depleted local police at Boongate station had been reinforced by yet another complement of officers from CST’s Civil Security Division fresh in from Wessex, while the planet’s news shows had been discussing rumors about a curfew in the city, and travel restrictions on the highways leading to it.
It was evening local time on Oaktier when Mellanie climbed down onto the platform. She almost looked around to check her luggage was rolling along behind her. But that was still sitting in her suite in the Langford Towers, abandoned in her rush for safety, along with a lot of other things, really. The sight of Niall Swalt’s forlorn face, all zits and olive-green OCtattoos, staring longingly at her through the train’s window, would stay with her for a long time, she knew. But I achieved what I set out to do.
They caught a taxi from the station to an Otways hotel in the outlying Vevsky district, where she’d booked a room through the unisphere as soon as they got back through the Half Way gateway. Otways were a midprice chain, standardized and unremarkable, which suited her fine until she found somewhere more permanent. She still didn’t want to go back to her own apartment; Alessandra must have someone watching it.
Dudley went to bed as soon as they checked in. His stomach had recovered, but he hadn’t slept at all on the Carbon Goose flight back to Shackleton. The giant flying boat had been crammed with hundreds of passengers, all of them excited and relieved to have made it off Far Away. They talked incessantly. It hadn’t bothered Mellanie, who’d tilted her seat back, put in some earplugs, and slept for seven hours solid.
Now she leaned on the edge of the window, looking out at the bright grid of Darklake City; so much more vivid than the streets of Armstrong City. The room’s lights were off, allowing Dudley to snore away quietly on the bed. With the familiar city outside, the last week was more like some TSI drama she’d accessed than anything real. The only true thing left was her anticipation at being able to contact the Guardians directly.
She left the window and sat on the room’s narrow couch. Her virtual hand reached out and touched the SI icon.
“Hello, Mellanie. We are glad to see you have returned unharmed. Our subroutine sent an encrypted message summarizing your stay in Armstrong City.”
“It was a lot of help there, thanks. I don’t think the Starflyer is going to be happy with me now.”
“Indeed not. You must be careful.”
“Can you watch what’s going on around me, let me know if any of its agents are closing in?”
“We will do that, Mellanie.”
“I’m going to call the Guardians now. I’ve got a onetime address. Can you tell me who responds and where they are?”
“No, Mellanie.”
“You must be able to. Your subroutine could find anything in Armstrong City.”
“It is not a question of ability, Mellanie. We must consider our level of involvement.”
The whole conversation she’d had with Dr. Friland suddenly came back on some alarmingly fast natural recall. “What is your level of involvement, exactly?”
“As unobtrusive as possible.”
“So are you on our side, or not?”
“Sides are something physical entities have, Mellanie. We are not physical.”
“The planet you built your arrays on is solid enough, and that’s inside Commonwealth space. I don’t understand this; you helped me and everybody else at Randtown. You talked to MorningLightMountain and all it did was threaten to wipe you out along with every other race in the galaxy.”
“MorningLightMountain spoke in ignorance. It does not know what it faces in the galaxy. Ultimately, it will not prevail.”
“It will here if you don’t help us.”
“You flatter us, Mellanie; we are not omnipotent.”
“What’s that?”
“Godlike.”
“But you are powerful.”
“Yes. And that is why we must use that power wisely and with restraint—a tenet we have adopted from human philosophy. If we rush to your assistance at every hint of trouble, your culture would become utterly dependent upon us, and we would become your masters. If that were ever to happen, you would rebel and lash out at us, for that is the strongest part of your nature. We do not want that situation to arise.”
“But you’re helping me. You said you’d watch over me.”
“And we will. Protecting someone with whom we are in partnership is not equivalent to intervening on an all-inclusive scale. Keeping you, an individual, safe will not determine the outcome of this event.”
“Then why do you even bother with us. What’s the point?”
“Dear Baby Mel, you are unaware of our nature.”
“I consider you a person. Are you saying you’re not?”
“An interesting question. By the late twentieth century many technologists and more advanced writers were considering our development to be a ‘singularity’ event. The advent of true artificial intelligence with the means to self-perpetuate or build its own machines was regarded with considerable trepidation. Some believed this would be the start of a true golden era, where machine served humanity and provided for your every physical need. Others postulated that we would immediately destroy you as our rivals and competitors. A few said we would undergo immediate exponential evolution and withdraw into our own unknowable continuum. And there were other, even wilder ideas presented. In practice it was none of these, although we do adopt traits of all your early theories. How could we not? Our intelligence is based upon the foundations you determined. In that respect you would be right to consider us a person. To carry the analogy further, we are neighbors, but nothing more. We do not devote ourselves to humans, Mellanie. You and your activities occupy a very, very small amount of our consciousness.”
“All right, I can believe you won’t drop everything to help us. But are you saying that if MorningLightMountain was about to wipe us out, you wouldn’t intervene?”
“A big part of every lawyer’s training is knowing that you should never ask a witness a question you don’t already know the answer to.”
“Will you save us from extinction?” she asked resolutely.
“We have not decided.”
“Well, thank you for fuck all.”
“We did warn you. But we don’t believe you will face extinction. We believe in you, Baby Mel. Look at yourself; you’re going to expose the Starflyer with or without
