The Bandolier Ship filled the back end of the cave, the soft magenta glow so evenly distributed it seemed to emanate from the very air. Against that backdrop, the tables of computers, fluorescent lamps, and monitors made a garish contrast.
“It’s happening!” Yin Tao’s loud voice startled Dr. Joann Drake so that she sloshed her coffee.
“Ow! Shit!” She’d burned her hand. But Joann’s annoyance faded as she glanced over the graduate student’s shoulder at the instrument readings spiking across the bank of flat-panel displays.
Spinning on her heel, Dr. Drake grabbed her iPhone from its docking station, her finger speed-dialing Dr. Hanz Jorgen as she raised the phone to her ear.
“Yes, Joann?”
“We’ve got another event.”
“Now?”
“Just started.” Joann glanced at the nearest monitor. “Thirty seconds ago.”
“On my way.”
The line went dead, and Joann returned her phone to the charging station.
As badly as she wanted to walk over and ascend the ladder into the ship, Joann knew that Hanz expected her to wait for him, the act a slight deferential nod to the Rho Project’s senior scientist. She supposed that when she had won two Nobel Prizes she’d expect that same level of respect from her staff.
Besides, despite Dr. Jorgen’s expansive waistline, he could really move when he wanted to, often acquiring so much momentum on his descent of the steps carved into the canyon’s steep wall that Joann regarded his ability to stop at the bottom a violation of Newton’s first law. On cue, Dr. Jorgen passed through the Bandolier Ship’s camouflaging holograph at the cave entrance, his quick stride carrying him directly toward Joann, more specifically toward the bank of monitors behind her.
His eyes scanned the displays, ignoring Yin Tao’s attempts to offer him a chair.
“Good Lord!”
Joann nodded. “The strongest we’ve ever measured.”
“Why’s it ramping up now?”
Joann understood the reason for Dr. Jorgen’s query; she just didn’t know the answer. The science team assigned to the Bandolier Ship had first observed the power fluctuations several weeks ago. The events lasted several hours and had recurred every Sunday since. They produced no visible effects, but the sensitive instruments that draped the starship’s interior and exterior recorded significant changes in electromagnetic flux, the signals indicating a dramatic increase in shipboard computer activity. The events correlated with a spike in neutrino measurements at the Super-Kamiokande Cherenkov detector in Japan and with similar measurements at the Sudbury detector in Ontario.
But why Sunday? The seven-day week was a human calendar artifact. Why would an alien ship suddenly begin exhibiting an arbitrary human cycle? More relevantly to Dr. Jorgen’s question, why was it suddenly breaking the pattern with a Thursday-evening event?
“Get the folks at Sudbury on the line.”
“On it,” Yin Tao said, already dialing the number. He spoke a few words, then pressed the speakerphone button.
“This is Dr. Hanz Jorgen at Los Alamos. May I speak to Dr. Oswald?”
“Dr. Oswald is off tonight. This is Dr. Kravitz.”
“Hi, Joe, didn’t know you were back from Banff.”
“Got back yesterday. My legs couldn’t take any more. Haven’t skied powder that deep since college.”
“Listen, Joe, are you guys experiencing any unusual neutrino detections?”
“Funny you should ask. The Cerenkov photomultipliers are indicating a big event, possibly another supernova detection. We were just about to check with Kamiokande. How did you know?”
“Wish I could say, Joe. Sometimes the damned research classification here at Los Alamos makes me wish I were up there with you guys.”
Dr. Kravitz laughed. “You know you’re welcome, Hanz. Anytime you want to stop poking around on alien starships and get back to real science, let me know.”
“If I weren’t so addicted to it, I would, in a heartbeat.”
“Right. Anything else you want to know? I really need to place that call to Japan.”
“No. That’s it. Thanks, Joe.”
“Anytime.”
Dr. Jorgen pushed the OFF button, breaking the connection. Motioning for Joann to follow him, Hanz turned toward the Bandolier Ship. Joann knew he probably didn’t understand his desire to get inside the ship any more than she understood hers. All she knew was that, for whatever reason, something now called to her as irresistibly as an Anthemoessan siren.
At the edge of her awareness, Heather knew they’d managed to attract the starship’s attention in a completely new and dangerous way. The AI was reacting in a manner that indicated a friend-or-foe reassessment of all three of them.
Almost immediately she felt a presence try to push its way into her thoughts, scanning, seeking to determine her intentions. Thousands of independent probes scampered through her brain, trying to bypass the barriers she’d erected.
Heather felt a shudder pass through Mark’s mind, felt his focus shift away from her and Jen, toward the Other. And although a series of horrifying visions clotted her thoughts, she released him. Marcus Aurelius Smythe had been made for this moment, his protective nature the likely reason he had chosen his particular headset, or perhaps the reason it had chosen him.
Heather coupled her mind more intimately with Jennifer’s. Jen was the key. As Heather let herself become one with that key, she felt Jen’s desire consume her.
The alien presence filled the void, a computing consciousness devoid of emotion, yet filled with need. That need probed her, probed Jennifer, seeking to violate the most private parts of their minds.
The Other paused, quintillions of simultaneous calculations weighed and measured across its artificial mind. The three young humans had altered their previous protocols in a way that placed the ship’s protective systems at yellow alert. Whereas these crew surrogates had previously shown high degrees of individual curiosity, they now probed as a team, seeking to assert control, bypassing computational shields in a concerted attempt to access restricted data. Only one human had previously been granted such access, one who had opened his mind completely, one whose commitment to the mission had been absolute.
While these three showed great promise, they had not yet demonstrated the required level of commitment to the cause. As badly as the Other needed a crew to complete its mission, its security protocols stood paramount. This coordinated probe of its defenses required a counter-probe, and if that probe proved more than the human minds could tolerate, there should still be time to find suitable replacements.
Analytical feelers played out across the millions of synaptic connections into the human brains, seeking sufficient data to make a decision. As the probe intensified, the humans countered, severing connections almost as fast as the Other could instantiate them. One of the humans detached itself from the group, turning its focus in direct opposition to the probe, the one that thought of itself as Mark.
The Other was not surprised.
Mark felt the presence so strongly that his view of the command deck shifted, the walls fading away until he appeared to be in a transparent bubble that reminded him of the inside of one of those novelty plasma balls. Only here, the lightning launched itself from the outer sphere toward the center. It crawled across his body, working its way into every synapse of his brain, the pain even more intense than the first time he had tried on the headset. And behind those thought tendrils Mark felt the alien consciousness, felt its need to know his deepest thoughts and purposes.
Reacting automatically, Mark blocked the attacks using the same techniques Jack had forced him to practice against Jennifer and Heather. And although his defenses held, the pain intensified, easing momentarily whenever he became distracted and let a barrier drop.
Shit. The damned thing was trying to train him with such rapid punishment-and-reward variations it would soon have him salivating on demand like Pavlov’s dog. The bad news was that the broad spectrum of the attack seemed to be working. Mark felt sure that somewhere out there a voodoo priest was leaning over a rustic wooden table, rapidly pushing pins into a little cloth Mark doll.
Mark was certain of one thing. If he succumbed, this bastard of an alien computer would turn its full attention to Jennifer and Heather next. But if he could just hold on long enough to let those two find a security hole, they’d have a chance to override the ship’s defenses. At least he hoped so.
Mark steeled himself, cycling through remembered meditative states in an attempt to wall off the pain. Although he failed to accomplish this objective, he came close enough that the Other’s progress at breaking him slowed from a run to a crawl.