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Chapter Twelve
The alpha synth glinted ominously in the light of Franconia.
A cargo shuttle was docked on the number two rack, but Alicia's momentary panic eased when she saw the fuselage number. It matched the one on the ship's hull, so it must be an assigned auxiliary and not a bunch of yard workers waiting for her. Not that it made the situation much better.
Her mind was numb, frozen by the impossibility of Tisiphone's plan, yet she felt the ship's sinister beauty. It lacked the needle-sharp lines of a sting ship, but the Fasset drive's constraints imposed a sleekness of their own—different from those of atmosphere yet no less graceful—and it floated in space with the latent menace of a drowsing panther. She'd never expected to see one, especially not at such proximity, but she knew about them.
The size of a big light cruiser yet possessed of more firepower than a battle-cruiser and faster than a destroyer, literally able to think for itself and respond with light-speed swiftness, an alpha synth was lethal beyond belief, ton for ton the most deadly weapon ever built by man. It was too small to mount worthwhile numbers of SLAMs, so it used the to
She tried not to consider that as she guided the Bengal mechanically toward the number one shuttle rack and through the docking sequence, yet she couldn't stop the gibbering thread of horror in her thoughts. Bad enough to be hunted by every planet and ship of the Empire, but there was worse if their theft succeeded. Far worse, for there was only one way to pilot an alpha synth, and her throat tightened at the thought of meeting the ship's computer. Of impressing it, mating with it, becoming one with it—
She'd actually begun to undock before she could stop herself, and she closed her eyes, panting through clenched teeth while panic pulsed deep within her. But Tisiphone had burned all of her bridges; there was nowhere else to go, however terrifying the prospect, and she cursed with silent savagery.
"Do not worry so, Little One! I but awaited this vessel's completion to act, and I do not set my hand to measures which fail."
"Damn you! You never warned me about anything like this!"
"There was no reason," the mental voice said austerely. "I require your body, your hands, and you have sworn to give them to me."
"Body, yes, and hands, but not this! Do you have any idea what you're asking of me?"
"Of course."
"I doubt that, Lady. I really doubt that. I don't have any training, in this—I was never even cleared for cyber synth, much less an alpha link. I don't even know if my synth link software will let me interface!"
"It would not have. Now it will"
"Great. That's fucking great! And did it ever occur to you that if I link with that thing— assuming it lets me in, which it probably won't—I'll be part of it? That I can never unlink?"
"It did." Tisiphone paused, then continued with a sort of stem compassion. "Little One, it is unlikely you will survive long enough for it to be a problem." A chill filtered through Alicia with the words. Not surprise, but a shivery tension as it was finally said. "I am not what I once was. You know that, and so you know that I may strike your enemies only through you. This ship will be your sword and shield, yet everything suggests the pirates have more firepower than even it represents. We will find them, and we will seek out and destroy their leaders, yet that is all I can—and will—promise you." The Fury paused for a moment. "I never offered more, Alicia DeVries, and you are no child, but as great a warrior as I have ever known. Would you tell me you have not already realized this must be so?"
Alicia bent her head and closed her eyes and knew Tisiphone spoke only the truth. She drew a deep breath, then straightened in her couch and removed her headset with steady fingers. A snake of fear coiled in her belly, but she climbed out of the couch and walked towards the hatch ... and her fate.
-=0=-***-=0=
There was a security panel inside the alpha synth's outer hatch. Alicia had no idea what sort of defensive systems it co
"Give me your hand," Tisiphone commanded, and she bit her lip as her right arm rose under another's control. Her index finger stabbed number-pad buttons in a sequence so long and complex it seemed to take forever, but then the outer hatch slid shut and the i
Alicia's arm was returned to her, and she stepped into the ship. Despite herself, she peered about curiously, for the rumors about these ships' accommodations ranged from the simply bizarre to the macabre.
What she actually saw was almost disappointingly normal, with neither vats of liquid nutrients to engorge the organic control component nor any sybarite's dream of opulent luxury. The clean smell of a new ship hung in her nostrils with a hint of ozone and none of the homey scents of habitation. There was no dust. Every surface gleamed with new-minted cleanliness, unscuffed and unworn, impersonal as the unborn, yet she breathed out in almost unconscious relief, for there was no enmity in the quiet chirp of standby systems. The menace was a thing within her, not bare-fanged and overt.
She followed Tisiphone's silent prompting upship through surprisingly spacious living quarters. There were no personal touches, but the unused furnishings weren't exactly spartan. Indeed, they were comfortable and well-appointed—which, she supposed after a moment's thought, made sense. There was only a single human to provide for. Even in a ship as crowded with systems and weapons as this one, that left the designers room to make that human comfortable. And a chill whisper added, if she was going to be assigned to it for the remainder of her life, they'd better do just that.
Her hand twitched at her side as she confronted the command deck hatch, and she allowed Tisiphone to raise it to the new number pad.
"Just how did you put all this together?" she asked while she watched her finger entering numbers.
"Your people are concerned with external access to their computers. I do not access them; I make them part of myself, and once I know where the data I desire is stored, obtaining it, while time-consuming, and delicate at times, is a relatively straightforward task. Ah!"
A green light blinked, the hatch slid open, and Alicia stood on the threshold, peeping past it while she gathered her courage to cross it.
The command deck was as pristine and new as the rest of the ship. The bulkheads were a neutral, eye-soothing gray, without the displays and readouts she was accustomed to, and there were no manual controls before the cushioned command couch. Of course not, she thought, eyeing the dangling link headset with dread fascination. The pilot didn't fly an alpha synth ship; she was part of it, and while cyber synth ships required duplicate manual controls in case their AIs cracked and had to be lobotomized, there was no need for them here. An alpha synth went berserk only if its organic half did. Besides, no human could fly a starship without computer support, and there was too little room in a ship like this for a second computer net.
She drew a deep breath and tried not to shrink in on herself as she approached the couch. She reached out, touching the headset's plastic and alloy, the neural contact pad. The moment that touched her temple, she condemned herself to a life sentence no court could commute, and she shivered.
"You must hasten. It is only a matter of time before Ta
Alicia bit back a scathing mental retort and drew another deep breath, then lowered herself gingerly into the couch. It moved under her, conforming to her body like a comforting hand, and she reached for the handset.
"You do realize that the moment I put this thing on all Hell will be out for noon? I have no idea who's supposed to take over this ship, but it's virtually certain the computer knows, and I'm not her."
"Yet it must allow you access to know that, and I will be prepared."
"And if it fries my brain before you can do anything?"
"An unlikely outcome," Tisiphone replied calmly. "Inhibitions against harming humans are, after all, built into all artificial intelligences. It will attempt to lock you out and summon assistance, and activating its security systems will identify each of them to me as it brings them on-line. It may not be pleasant, Little One, but I should be able to deactivate each of them in turn before they can do you harm."
""Should." Marvelous." Alicia hesitated a moment longer, raised hand gripping the headset. "Oh, hell. Let's do it."
She pulled down against the self-retracting leads, and the headset moved easily. She closed her eyes, trying to relax despite her fear, and settled it over her head.
The contact pad touched her Alpha receptor, and something like an audible click echoed deep inside. It wasn't the usual electric shock of interface with a synth unit—it wasn't anything she'd ever felt. A sharp sense of mental pressure, of an awareness that was not hers and a strange balance between two separate entities doomed to become both more and less.
How much of that, she wondered fleetingly, was real and how much was her own fearful imagination? Or was it—
Her flickering questions died as a sudden, knife-clear thought stabbed into her. It was as inhuman as the Fury, but with no emotional overtones, no sense of self, and it burned in her brain like a shaft of ice.
"Who are you?" it asked, and before she could answer, it probed deep and knew her for an interloper.
"Warning," the emotionless thought was uncaring as chilled steel, "unauthorized access to this unit is a treasonable offense. Withdraw."