Brett entered the engineering labs through a pair of sliding plastisheen doors. The rush of negative air pressure buffeted him from behind and sent a tickle up his spine. He paused to survey the stainless steel counters, the scanning electron scopes and unoccupied terminals. The morning was wearing on, and it occurred to him as he surveyed the empty spaces that he hadn’t bothered to get breakfast for himself. He pressed on down the narrow corridor between digital analysis machines on roller wheels, scanning plates and row upon row of electrical grapple sensors. The lab was clean and white, the lighting harsh to the point of glaring. Everywhere about him was the hum of fan-cooled machinery.
Djen was in Nanomech Containment, a medium sized plastisheen cylinder in the center of the room. She wore a sealed orange e-suit and worked over a low stainless steel counter with its own assortment of diagnostic sensors, microscopes and display terminals. Brett strolled to the comm port by the door and toggled it on.
“Djen?”
She turned her head toward him, smiling through her faceplate. “I was going to page you. Next thing you know we’ll be finishing one another’s sentences. Isn’t that cozy?”
“I’ll suit up and join you,” he said.
He found the spare suit in a closet and dressed while Djen cycled up the pressure barrier. Once inside, he saw that she had set three of the screens they’d brought back from Nine edge to edge along the countertop. The fourth screen had been carefully disassembled from its frame and the layers of micromesh peeled back. One sheet had been trimmed into long and thin rectangular strips with the tear in the middle. Djen had been studying it beneath a standard Hamer high magnification light scope. On the terminal to her left there was an image of a gray forest of spiked pillars. Brett thought of spear tips glinting in the light as he saw it, but realized quickly that it was an image of another segment of the screen taken by the scanning electron microscope housed beneath the counter.
Brett said, “So you’ve found something?”
“I would have found it earlier if you’d bothered to wake me when you left this morning.”
The strange familiarity felt chafing to him, so he only shrugged. He bent down to the Hamer and strained at the eyepieces. “I don’t see anything. Just shadows.”
“It takes some practice to align your eyes through the faceplate.”
“I won’t bother, then.” Brett pointed to the image on the terminal. “This is the screen from Nine?”
“Yes, under greater magnification. That image offers about forty micron resolution on one strand of silicon-fiber cable.”
“And that means?”
“That means you’re looking at the tear in the mesh really up close. The silicon fibers used in the mesh are about eighty microns in diameter, roughly the size of one of your hairs. The nanomech units are smaller.” She pointed at the screen. “See this one here? He’s hump-backed and spindle-legged, like a spider. This character runs about half a micron in length. A strapping young thing compared to some of the others.”
The frozen view had caught the unit loping along a wide black plain riddled with puddles of darkness. The vast terrain narrowed farther along to a jagged crown of splinters displayed along the upper third of the image. It was the splinters that had initially struck Brett as spear heads.
“What’s it doing?”
“Strolling about, most likely. The production programming was voided when the fiber snapped, so this guy’s reverted to hardwired coding. He understands that his battery hasn’t been recharged in quite a while, and finding a power source is his top priority. He probably has another twenty to thirty hours left in him, so he’ll track up and down the strand searching for a shot of electricity through a working node. You have to feel a bit sorry for him. He’s lost and doesn’t know that he’s doomed.”
Brett studied the top of the fiber where it had torn. “That looks like a tensile strength failure by the sharpness of the break.”
“Hold that thought.”
Djen pulled a sliding drawer from beneath the counter and began to tap commands into the keypad that rested there. The image on the screen blurred, then snapped away and was replaced by another. This picture struck Brett as something vaguely volcanic, the rippling and devoured basin of a recently dormant caldera. Tall slabs of darkness crowded along the far summit.
“This is the same strand, same magnification, only viewed from the reverse side,” Djen said. “You see the difference in the contours?”
“The break isn’t sharp.”
“Precisely. From the other side, it looks as though the wire snapped. As though we could match it with the other end and find at a small enough magnification that the shards of silicon cabling would fit together like a puzzle. Here, it isn’t the case. There’s too much. . .roundness. Like the surface of the cable was scooped out.”
“And the other side doesn’t match that pattern?”
“No. In fact, there’s a significant mass differential. There are pieces missing between the two ends.”
Brett nodded. “Then you were right. The nanomech units chewed the line apart themselves. When the cable had reached some level of critical strain, it snapped.”
Djen frowned and shook her head. “I haven’t shown you the rest. My working hypothesis was only partially correct.”
“Go on.”
“It wasn’t the resident nanomechs that broke the fibers.”
She sounded certain, and unhappy about it. Brett didn’t understand her reaction. “Then what was it?”
“Something larger. I don’t know how large exactly, but I’d estimate probably on the order of one and a half to five microns in diameter.”
“How do you know that?”
Djen glanced past him, unwilling to meet his eyes. “The bite marks are too large.”
“Excuse me?”
“The surface of the damaged fibers have several distinct slices near the edges which appear narrow at the ends, wider in the middle, as if the material had been culled in several broad sweeps. The length and width of those swipes aren’t consistent with the size of the tools available to our units, though I’m making my estimates of the size requisite for this kind of damage from our models. Depending upon function, our nanomechs range from a few hundred nanometers to maybe three quarters of a micron in size. The assembler units can produce mechs up to about two microns under emergency conditions, such as when the tensile strength of the mesh has been compromised, but the production logs don’t indicate anything other than standard repair to existing units and no fabrication of new units in the last twelve days.”
“So whatever it was that broke the screens came on suddenly. It wasn’t a gradual weakening or the assemblers would have responded. They didn’t have time to respond.”
“Precisely.” Djen sounded deeply troubled by his assessment.
“And what could do that?”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly.
She was hedging, and he didn’t understand that either. “But you have a guess. Tell me.”
Djen’s gloved fingers banged rapidly across the keypad. Another image filled the screen.
“Do you know what that is?”
Brett examined a lump of grayish substance against a darker background. Tiny glinting scimitars of yellow splayed in several directions around it.
“What is it?”
“That’s one of our nanomechs. A fairly large one as a matter of fact. This image was taken inside the curve of the chewed portion. Those yellow bits are its legs.”
He spun toward her. “You’re saying it was attacked? By what?”
“Maybe not intentionally. Maybe it happened to be in the way at the wrong time, but the end result is the same. We don’t program our units to be aggressive, so they wouldn’t recognize an outside force as something which should require their attention.”
Brett stared at her for several moments, unable to formulate the thought that should come next. Djen watched him in return, her dark eyes misted and deep, impenetrable.
“You’re telling me that engine Nine was attacked by some unknown agency with a maximum size on the order of five microns? This. . .thing sabotaged the screens throughout the four components in a matter of hours, then disappeared without a trace?”
Djen nodded her head. “Thing or things. About the size of your average bacterium. And you’re forgetting the most important fact.”
“What’s that?”
“Whatever did this is not something we made. This isn’t mech origin damage.”
“You’re talking about. ..what? Life? An alien organism?” It sounded ludicrous.
“I’m not saying anything yet.” Djen leaned her hip up against the counter and indicated the remaining screens with a sweep of her hand. “I’ve got analysis on about half of one swatch of the first micromesh layer of one screen. So far the results all look consistent, but there’s quite a bit more to study. I’d like to have something more definitive before I start thinking about conclusions. Especially conclusions that radical.”
Brett thought about it for a moment. “Fine. I won’t think about it, either.”
“But tell Liston. Tell him to start looking in the one to five micron range.” She paused, then placed her hand in the middle of his chest. “And think about that geothermal vent, Markus. Think about the timing of events and the necessary elements for life. Food, water, warmth. We might want to go back out there before too much more time has passed.”
“Give me something more concrete, and we may do that.”
He said nothing else to her, but he gripped her shoulders and forced a smile. Then he was past her, leaving her to her work. Brett cycled the pressure barrier and let himself out into the lab.
#
Brett strode down the corridor after leaving Djen. His feet carried him, not his mind. He passed crew members as he went. Some waved or spoke to him, other did not, and Brett acknowledged them only sporadically.
The things Djen had said flooded his mind, rusted the gears he possessed for processing such things. Such madness.
The screens had been devastated by something, an organism, a creature the size of a bacteria. He couldn’t fathom it. But it was worse than that. She was suggesting that the organism in the screens and the illness which had felled Tappen and Ritter were related.
No, not related. The same thing. Exactly the same. The impossibility, or his own lack of understanding, took his breath away.
But that was something he could remedy.
Brett had reached his destination, the one his body had known if he consciously hadn’t. He put his hand on the knob and entered Cassandra’s private domain.
He said: “Brett, Markus J. Station Commander, Persia Site. Log id: Brett. Passcode: Emily Rosette. Oral input. User Profile logic sequence: Brett oh-four-nine.”
Emily watched him through her containment capsule, the nutrient bath casting ripples across the surface of her skin.
“Good morning, Commander.”
“Good morning, Cassandra.”
“Please be advised that Security Officer Ashburn has completed system diagnostics. The Cassandra system is functioning at optimal levels.”
He smiled. “Straight A’s. I never expected any less from you.”
“The Cassandra System was not rated as. . .cantankerous by Security Officer Ashburn in compliance with your programmed request.”
Brett studied her for a moment, then laughed. “Was that supposed to be a joke?”
“I do not have the programming to simulate humor, Commander.”
He laughed again. “That’s all right, Cassandra. I didn’t come down here to exchange ribs. I need some specific data on the reports you’ve been generating for Ashburn. Do you still detect the presence of unauthorized personnel within Persia Station?”
“Yes, Commander.”
“Have you generated those reports today?”
“Yes. There are currently unauthorized personnel present in Persia Station.”
“Cassandra, define the term ‘personnel’ as criteria for detection and reporting.”
The corners of Emily’s lips quirked upward, as though it was a question she’d been waiting for him to ask.
“Biological entities of known or unknown origin present within the sensor array boundaries of Persia Station and not listed on the crew manifest.”
“So, Commander Rayken from Saudi Station. He would qualify as unauthorized personnel?”
“Yes.”
“How about a puppy? Any puppy. The type doesn’t matter.”
“There are no examples of the canine species listed on the crew manifest, Commander Brett.”
He nodded. “So a dog would trip the alarm?”
“Yes.”
Brett smiled. He was almost certain the idiomatic expression would cause her to stumble. He was pleased that it didn’t, but only briefly. He pushed ahead, hoping to capture as many of the insane conjectures spinning about in his mind as he could before they were lost.
“Cassandra, what are the parameters for your personnel scan besides the fact that they may or may not be on the manifest?”
She paused. “That is not a sufficiently specific command sequence.”
He tried another angle. “Ashburn told me that as a favor to Dr. Liston, you scanned for a number of bacteria in the station’s ambient atmosphere.”
“Dr. Liston has submitted a command sequence specifying known human pathogens. The action is a standard medical sub-set of the atmospheric monitoring procedure. I have provided no service to Dr. Liston that was not a coded request.”
There was a tone in her reply that he would have almost called disdainful.
“But you can detect them. Those tiny little bacteria.”
“The sensor array in Persia Station is capable of detecting all biological organisms with a minimum mass of one microgram and a minimum surface diameter of one quarter micron. Current atmospheric scanning parameters have attained maximum sensitivity. Would you like to adjust the scanning parameters, Commander Brett?”
“No.” He rubbed at his chin. “Have you analyzed the unauthorized personnel reported to Ashburn?”
“I have detected the unauthorized personnel. No sample has been provided for analysis.”
“But they aren’t human. Is that correct?”
“The mass of the unauthorized personnel is not consistent with the mean mass of the human species.”
“And they’re not a known bacteria?”
Cassandra paused. A series of green and amber lights danced along the flanks of the machine. “They are not a bacteria specified by Dr. Liston as medical concerns. They are not other known organisms for which the current scan parameters have provided instruction. Therefore, they are classified as unauthorized personnel pending investigation and clearance by Security Officer Ashburn.”
Brett asked the next question, the one for which he did not want an answer. “You’re talking about life. Is that right? Living organisms of non-terrestrial, non-manufactured origin?”
“That is correct.”
Brett stood in silence for a time. His breath seemed to leave him, the room to churn as though its foundations had shifted. He drew in a long breath to steady himself. Djen had guessed, and Djen was right, though they hadn’t wanted to discuss it. Cassandra had also been right from the beginning. The station had been invaded. And according to Cassandra’s security alarms, potentially saturated by organisms they couldn’t see, couldn’t detect in any ready fashion. The obvious corollary question, then, was to what extent had the station already been compromised?
Brett controlled his voice with difficulty. “Perform a scan on the medical bay for unauthorized personnel.”
Thirty seconds passed. “Unauthorized personnel are present in the medical bay.”
“Scan the quarters of Technical Specialist Ilam.”
Almost at once, she replied, “There are no unauthorized personnel at that location. Technical Specialist Ilam is currently under medical quarantine.”
“Are you sure?”
“All sensors are operating correctly. I am certain of my analysis.”
Brett blinked, confused . “Then they’re not in the air. How are they passing them if they’re not in the air?”
Cassandra either did not take his question as a valid command or had no answer for him. She chose not to respond.
Brett reformulated his query. “Do the unauthorized personnel exist in the station’s ambient atmosphere?”
“A minimal percentage of detected units are present in the atmosphere.”
“Minimal?”
“Less than twelve percent.”
“Where are the rest?”
“Contained within infected human hosts.”
Brett began to pace the short distance between the walls. “How can you detect the unauthorized personnel that don’t exist in the ambient atmosphere?”
“Characteristic biofunctions and brain wave electrical signals recorded by the Cassandra system for identification of authorized crew of Persia Station are altered along various orders of significance by the presence of unauthorized personnel.”
Like Ritter, he thought. Ritter and Tappen and God knew how many others. “Please specify the nature of the alteration.”
“Specific alterations are localized and unquantifiable without further analysis of unauthorized personnel. Input of additional data requested.”
Brett began to scowl. “There isn’t any additional data. You could correlate Dr. Liston’s medical reports for Tappen and Ritter, but that isn’t what I’m looking for. I already know about them.”
“That function has already been completed.”
He thought silently. She could identify them in the air, tag them and pass on her report. She could also detect their activity in those who had already fallen ill, but was that some special sensory ability, or was it correlation with the medical documentation provided by Liston?
Brett asked, “Can you tell me which of the crew–excepting those in medical–have been infected?”
She studied the ramifications of that question for several seconds. “Not with any degree of accuracy. The human machine function is variable by nature.”
“But you know about Ritter and Tappen, Sievers and Jervis. What’s your mechanism for the determination of infection?”
“Referenced personnel have been analyzed by Dr. Liston. Their medical records have been updated and medical data correlated with other known factors. In these cases, there has been significant alteration and impairment of detectable biological and brain wave function.”
“And you can sense that?”
“Brain wave patterns generate detectable electrical fields which are both individuated and may be predicted with sufficiently sensitive devices.” She sounded as though she was lecturing an imbecile. “Once known patterns have deviated beyond originally catalogued boundaries, the individual ceases to be recognized as authorized station personnel.”
“You’re telling me their brain waves change? That would require a change in the–Christ, more or less the structure of the brain. The pattern of synaptic activity.”
“Correct.”
A brief swell of panic threatened him, but Brett pushed it away. He didn’t have time for it. “But how do you know that the unauthorized personnel caused those changes?”
Emily frowned at him. “I have the capability of creating dynamic associations based on observed and input evidence. This data has been evaluated correctly.”
Brett flapped his hands in her direction, hoping to quiet her before she embarked on a defense of her logic. “I’m sure you’re right, Cassandra, but the critical question follows: with more data could you evaluate the infection status of the entire station crew? Preferably before they became. . .unauthorized personnel like Ritter.”
“That is likely. It would be of value to access and analyze the biological structure of unauthorized personnel.”
“I don’t happen to have any of those handy.” But a thought sprang into his mind, and he leapt after it. There was other evidence he could offer, though it would be murderously tedious to sift through. “Cassandra, accept oral program of a daily monitoring routine.”
“Awaiting program parameters.”
“Activate personnel profiles of all Persia Station crew and logged personnel activity files since project inception. Develop an individuated table for each profile of standard behavior and responses to external stimuli both physical and emotional based on observed trends. Focus specifically on stress patterns, daily routines and work performance. Access dynamic learning environment protocols for analysis of data when forming response tables and evaluate data for consistency or inconsistency along dynamic association guidelines. Create a log of activities for each profile which deviate from their normal patterns.” That wasn’t nearly specific enough. “Do you understand what I’m getting at?”
Emily nodded slowly. “Statistically significant aberrations in individual behavior.”
“What’s your working definition of statistically significant?”
“A greater than five percent deviation of all considered activities. Commander, this is a highly irregular analysis request.” She peered at him, her cheeks flushed alternately green and red by the reflection of the display lights against the plastisheen capsule. “Any results will represent extreme extrapolations of subjective observation.”
He winced. It was shoddy programming and not unlike asking a duck to accurately interpret the growl and mewl of a your average backyard cat. “But you can do it?”
“The task is within my capabilities. Commander Brett should be advised that the projected program complexity and processor requirements will likely consume seven percent of the Cassandra system’s computational resources. This exceeds the recommended task processing cap.”
“Will it compromise the performance of your other station tasks?”
“Not that you will notice.”
Her response struck him as sarcastic in its intent, though he’d programmed her to respond to performance related questions in just that way. Any function she undertook which produced a drain of less than two percent in cumulative processing speed across all station systems was not something that would attract his attention. It was something he didn’t need to know as long as the task was completed.
She continued: “It is recommended that Commander Brett personally review all output data via the primary system interface, oral mode for further refinement of program parameters.”
His heart jumped suddenly, strangely. Are you asking me for a date? “Why would you request that, Cassandra?”
“For refinement of program parameters.”
“You already said that. I could perform that function from a terminal.”
“Then I have not comprehended the intent of the requested routine adequately.”
But she had. They’d already established that. “Explain the problem.”
“Under current instruction sets, the Cassandra system would report the following data inconsistencies which would conflict with the perceived goal of the latest program request: Commander Brett, Markus Jasper meets initial criteria for the behavioral aberration log. Computational logic suggests the inclusion of station commanding officer in this subset is innacurate. The Cassandra system’s comprehension of programmed parameters must be inadequate at this time. Therefore, further refinement is necessary.”
Brett shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Yesterday, 06:14:23 relative station time, the Cassandra system logged a disciplinary report for Brett, Markus Jasper. This is not a standard behavior contained in the profile of Brett, Markus Jasper.”
He nodded in understanding. “That was a special circumstance. But you’re right, there’ll be a number of incidents like that. We’ll have to examine patterns over time rather than individual incidents.”
Her wide blue eyes didn’t leave his face. “Cassandra system passive sensors indicate Brett, Markus Jasper occupied proximate distance to other station crew during non-duty, non-active periods in the last twenty-four hours, station relative time. This is not a previously logged behavior for profiled crew.”
Occupied proximate distance? He had no idea what that meant. Not immediately, but it came to him, and Brett looked away from her.
Emily said, “Should future incidents of this type be logged as standard behavior under your profile, Commander Brett?”
It wasn’t a question for which he had an answer.
She must have taken his silence as another failure to understand. “Passive sensor logs indicate the presence of Technical Specialist Riley, Djen Marilea in private crew quarters of Commander Brett, Markus Jasper from 21:16:04 hours to 05:22:15 hours, relative station time. Is this a data error?”
“No.”
“Would you like to log this as a current and future standard behavior for Commander Brett, Markus Jasper and Technical Specialist Riley, Djen Marilea?”
“I don’t know.”
Her voice seemed to stiffen. “That is not an acceptable response. Please specify in the affirmative or negative.”
He wanted to groan, and the admission was like swallowing pieces of glass. “Don’t log it as an aberration.”
“Personnel profile updated. Thank you, Commander.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
She replied with perfect machine irascibility. “Please submit new command or query sequence.”
He had no choice. Brett forced himself to continue. “What other locations were reported to Ashburn this morning as containing unauthorized personnel?”
“Would you like an audio response or shall I transmit the data in a file to your workstation?”
“How long is the list?”
“There are presently more than seven locations. Any series containing more than seven elements exceeds the mean human memory capacity. It is recommended that you receive this data in a file for review.”
“Give me both.”
“The observation level designated Surface One contains unauthorized personnel. Sublevel Two medical dispensary, biology lab one and four crew quarters contain unauthorized personnel. Level Three–”
Brett waved his hands at her. “Cancel. Cancel the oral reporting sequence.” He shivered. Was it really that bad already? “Cassandra?”
“Yes, Commander Brett.”
“Compare the duty log and the first recorded entry of unauthorized personnel in Persia Station since the beginning of the month. Does the date of Xenohydrologist Ritter’s external mission to the geothermal vents east of Engine Nine correspond with the initial presence of the unauthorized personnel?”
There was an immediate response of clicks and whirs as she accessed her data records. Emily lifted her head and seemed to focus her eyes on him.
“That is correct. It is reasonable to assume that the external mission of Xenohydrologist Ritter and the arrival of the unauthorized personnel are related incidents.”
“Recommendations?”
“Earth Forces Terraform Command regulations require immediate notification of project administrative personnel in any and all encounters with entities of unknown or non-terrestrial origin.”
“Except we can’t do that because of the communications situation. What are the secondary protocols?”
“Site Commanders are advised to proceed with investigation of unknown entities with maximum caution. Observe aggressive biocontamination procedures. Samples should be obtained for analysis by human specialists and Cassandra system. Toxicity and project threat assessments must be completed and forwarded to Earth Forces Terraform Command. Would you like to schedule an external mission?”
Brett shook his head. “I’ll get back to you on that. I’m going to go now.”
“Please verify initiation of personnel tracking program developed during this session.”
“Do it.”
“Program entered into production schedule. Shall I page you for the results?”
He was already at the door. “I’ll come to you when I’m ready. Logoff: Brett, Markus J.”
“Goodbye, Commander Brett.”
Filed under: From the Hands of Hostile Gods | Tagged: blook, Darren Hawkins, From the Hands of Hostile Gods, science fiction
[...] From the Hands of Hostile Gods First contact, cybernetically unrequited love, deep space exploration, high stakes corporate espionage — a SF novel chock full of everything but car chases. Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 [...]