Fool's War

Chapter Twelve — Bodies

The crew filtered out of the conference room in absolute silence. Yerusha couldn’t blame them for being stunned. They were a secure bunch. Pasadena was not a trouble ship. People crewed her because they wanted work, not adventure. All that had changed in the space of a few days. It was a whole new world to get used to, and it was a lot less pleasant than the old one. Even Al Shei had stomped out without saying anything. What was going on inside her head, well, she was leaving that as an exercise for the mind reader.

Yerusha looked across the table to Schyler, who was the only person left. He hadn’t moved since he dismissed the meeting. He still stood there with both hands planted on the table, watching the hatchway, which had cycled shut. His face was…stoic. He’d worn the same expression the whole time she was explaining to him about the real identity of Dobbs and the Fool’s Guild and about how Al Shei had responded to the same news. She didn’t want to begin to guess how much he was covering up.

“You going to call Al Shei out on this?” Yerusha asked quietly.

“I’m going to have to.” He shook his head and straightened up. “She’s not going to volunteer anything, that’s for double-damn sure. I just wish…”

“Intercom to Yerusha,” Odel’s voice cut across Schyler’s. “We’ve got a request for funds to open a fast-time line down here. Want it routed up to your cabin?”

Yerusha started. Kagan had finally gotten through. She’d almost forgotten she’d sent the fast-time to him. “Yeah. I’ll head straight there. Intercom to close.”

Schyler’s eyebrows were raised.

“That’s the comm-tech from The Gate. I was going to get a dump of the records from when Dobbs was charging around in their network.” She stood up. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”

“Get those records,” Schyler told her. “Sooner or later we’re going to have to prove all this. It’ll be a lot easier if we’ve got witnessed stacks to pull the evidence from.”

“Good point.” Yerusha cycled the hatch back. “Want to watch?”

“Only sort of.” He followed her into the corridor and back to her cabin. The request for credit transfer was glowing on her desk boards when they got there. Yerusha sat in the desk chair, pulled out her pen and opened her account. The line accepted the transfer and the text cleared. In the same second, the view screen lit up.

Wherever Kagan was, it was barely lit. His face was mostly shadows, and the background around him was nothing but undefined blobs of shadow.

Yerusha sighed at the melodrama. I bet he opens with ‘I can’t talk long.’

“I can’t talk long,” said Kagan, right on cue. “What do you want?”

She and Schyler exchanged a look that said kids.

“I need a download of the records from the time your system…” Why try to be subtle? “went insane. We’ve run down a possible cause but we need more proof.”

Kagan shifted his weight. She could just barely see his eyes flicker back and forth. Put some lights on, kid, or learn to make your covert calls when you’re not on shift!

“I don’t think I can do that, Yerusha.”

“Why not?” Yerusha moved her hand out of sight of the camera, so he wouldn’t see her drumming her fingers on the desktop. “The data’s too bulky? Or is Trustee watching the lines?”

“The records aren’t there.”

Yerusha froze. She had to replay Kagan’s sentence a couple of times in her head before she could decide that she’d really heard what he said. She glanced up at Schyler. He was doing the same thing.

“We’re trying to figure out what happened,” Kagan went on. “Maidai’s got no record of crashing, or being removed from our network, or of anything having happened other than some wide-spread connection glitches. We’ve traced some vague leads back to New Medina Central Hospital. All they show is that we might have had a viral infection of the system, but there’s nothing definite.”

Yerusha swallowed hard. Schyler’s cheeks had gone pale. He touched her shoulder and mouthed “back-ups.” Yerusha nodded.

“What about the back-ups?” she asked Kagan. “You must have made some dumps onto tape. Can you access those and send them?”

“Right,” Kagan’s voice brightened. “The back-ups. Give me ten seconds.” The shadows near the bottom of the screen shifted as he got out his pen and began writing orders. She touched her pen to the MUTE button.

“They beat us to it,” she breathed. “They knew we’d be coming after The Gate’s records.”

“Not necessarily.” Schyler frowned at the screen. “They might just be covering their tracks. It’d make sense for either the Guild, or Curran’s side. After all, neither side knows that we know about them.”

“Unless they got a hold of Dobbs and made her talk,” Yerusha pointed out. A chill sank into her blood as she said it. “We don’t know where she really is. That departure announcement I saw could have been a fake.”

Schyler froze dead still.

Her desk beeped. Kagan was trying to say something. Yerusha touched the MUTE command again.

“… on its way to you…”

“Shut it down!” shouted Schyler. “Get the back-ups off-line!”

“Wha…what?” sputtered Kagan. “Yerusha’s who’s with you?”

Schyler leaned into the camera’s sight. “Get those fractured records off-line right now!”

“On it.” Kagan’s voice was bewildered, but his hands moved. “All right, they’re off. There’s about four hours in transit to you anyway, do you want me to…”

“Never mind,” Schyler’s shoulders slumped. “It’s probably too late.”

Yerusha stared at him in confusion. She had a feeling Kagan was doing the same.

“You should be getting the first of it in about three minutes,” Kagan said. “I’ve set everything on auto. I’ve got to get going…”

Or somebody’ll notice you’re gone. Kid, you have got to get your mama to teach you more about timing.

“Or somebody’ll notice I’m gone. Good luck, Yerusha.”

“Good luck, Kagan.” Yerusha watched Schyler collapse onto the bunk. “I owe you.”

She cut the video, but kept the line open. She swivelled the chair so she could face Schyler. “What?”

“Think about it,” he said bitterly. “They may not have even needed Dobbs. They must be paranoid about their own security, or they wouldn’t have stayed hidden as long as they have. If you were an AI hiding in the network and you wanted to stay hidden, and you knew the Pasadena had gotten caught in an extremely delicate situation that involved you, what would you do?”

Slowly, the ideas began to surface in Yerusha’s consciousness. “I’d monitor the lines to see what kind of communications were coming out of the Pasadena, just in case they’d made some dangerous guesses.”

Schyler nodded. “And when those hard-medium back-ups got connected to the network you’d go right in there and make sure they were doctored to match the on-line records, which you’d already gotten to.”

“We can’t even be sure that we really got to Kagan,” her fingers clutched her pen. “That could have been an AI faking the entire thing. That might be why we couldn’t see his face so well.”

“It could have been,” Schyler agreed. “The one thing we can be sure of it that nothing we get from that transmission is going to be of any use at all.”

They looked into each other eyes. “What do we do?” asked Yerusha.

“I don’t know,” said Schyler quietly. “God help me, I don’t know.”

Dobbs awoke to the sound of her name and utter confusion. She was alone in a bare, strange cabin. A little at a time, memory of the previous day squeezed through the remnants of her dreams.

“Verence?” She blinked hard and stared around her. The cabin really was empty.

“In here.” Dobbs tracked the voice to the intercom. “How are you feeling?”

She gathered the covers up around her chest. “Better,” she said with as much certainty as she could muster. “I’m a bit hungry though. I could use some breakfast.”

“I can show you a better way to recharge, if you’ll let me.”

“Better than breakfast?” Dobbs felt her forehead wrinkle. “If this is a joke, Verence, I don’t get it.”

“No joke,” said Verence, but Dobbs was sure there was a hint of a smile in her voice. “But you’re going to need to trust me.”

Dobbs took a deep breath. “Well, I’ve gone this far. It doesn’t make sense to hold back now.”

“That’s the spirit.” Now Verence’s voice held ringing approval. “Get your transceiver.”

Dobbs snagged her trousers from the pile on the chair and pulled her transceiver out of the box in her pocket. “Got it.”

“All right, lie back.”

Dobbs obeyed. When she was flat on her back, a panel slid up in the wall above the bed and a forest of waldos extended themselves from the walls. Dobbs forced herself to lie still against the momentary panic that seized her at the sight of the ceramic arms, all of them festooned with colored cables and clear tubes, lowering towards her body. Then she spotted the whole series of sensor pads, an oxygen mask and respirator unit, a hypodermic syringe, as well as a hypo spray, and, one waldo equipped with nothing but an empty socket.

It was a medical array. She had been under similar set-ups in the Guild Hall, but never in a private cabin.

“Luxury accommodations,” she said, a little nervously.

“Not here,” said Verence. “We all have one. Put your transceiver in here.” The socketed waldo extended itself. Dobbs reached up and stuck the transceiver in place. It fit snugly. There was a jack for the cable in the arm’s elbow joint. As soon as she had it connected, the waldo raised itself out of her reach.

“Good. Now, push back the blanket and open your implant, Dobbs. I’m going to bring you into the network.”

“Yeah, but will you respect me in the morning?” Dobbs peeled back the patch over her implant and kicked the coverlet away.

“Lie back and think of England,” replied Verence. One at a time, the sensor arms lowered their patches against Dobbs’ skin; her temples, her breast, wrists and ankles.

The hypo arm descended gracefully towards her neck. She lost sight of the transceiver arm, but after a moment, she felt a slight tickle and jostle behind her ear. She felt, rather than heard, the transceiver jack in.

“Here we go.” The hypo spray released its dose with a hiss, and Dobbs fell through the uncomfortable, but familiar, sensations of her body vanishing.

She emerged into a roomy network and beside her was Verence. There was no mistaking her now. Dobbs knew all Verence’s rhythms and pitches. This was her sponsor whom she had missed and mourned. She was alive, whole and well. For the first time in a long time, Dobbs felt a wave of pure happiness wash through her.

“All right, you win, I’m not hungry now.” Dobbs shook herself. The place felt strange. She knew there were multiple packets of data passing within easy reach, but it felt like they had been channeled deliberately away from herself and Verence, as if this space had been set up specifically to make room for them. In the next second, Dobbs realized that might very well be true. “But I’m going to be ravenous when I get back into my body again. How long did you give me?”

“As long as you want. Reach here.” Verence dipped into the nearby data stream.

Dobbs, after a moment’s hesitation, copied her movement. She pushed through packets of sensor data. She touched one of the packets. It was information from the medical array that had charge of her body.

“Go ahead, read it,” said Verence. “If it’s not yours, whose is it?”

Dobbs absorbed the sensor data; blood pressure, respiration, heart-rate, and alpha-wave activity. She dug into the baseline statistics and found all of it was well within normal parameters. The anesthetic flow was steady and the cartridges would not have to be refilled for another seventy-six hours. The blood sugar was low and the electrolytes were out of balance. Recommendation was for a course of intravenous treatments to restore conditions to optimum.

A quick stretch let her touch the command sequences between the purely informational packets. She filtered through them to find the one that matched the sensor code. One twist and a push and the command sequence was in motion. The camera told her that an additional arm lowered over the bed and a syringe inserted itself smoothly into a vein. The first nutrient pack began pumping into her blood stream. She turned her attention back to the sensor data. Nutrient flow optimal. Automatic procedures in place. Auto-notification for completion of sequence in place.

“Well done, Dobbs,” said Verence at her back. “You always were a natural.”

Dobbs pulled away from the data source, bumping more heavily against Verence than she meant to.

“It is disconcerting at first.” Verence held still, letting Dobbs be supported by her solid presence. “Everybody’s got a lot to un-learn when they get here. We’re drilled so early to regard human bodies as our real homes. Even the on-line members are taught to see living in the networks as a special, unnatural mode of being.” Her surface rippled. She reached gently beneath Dobbs outer layers and Dobbs felt her easy reassurance. “This is our home, this is our shape, as it could be and should be.”

Dobbs thought about Cohen, how she barely ever met him outside of the network and how special she’d regarded those occasions, as if meeting in the network didn’t matter. She knew him better in there. The network was where she could reach inside him and understand him exactly. She tried to remember how she’d learned that didn’t count, that she had to see him with her body’s eyes and touch him with her body’s hands for it to be a real meeting, but she couldn’t.

What would he think of this? She wondered in her private mind. Would Cohen be willing to come out here? Her imagination could not provide an answer.

“Come on,” said Verence. “Flemming’s been asking about you.” Without detaching herself from Dobbs, she flowed down the wide path. Dobbs let herself be pulled along behind.

“How is Flemming?” She asked, just because it felt like the polite thing to do. Most of her mind was on her surroundings. The middle of the pathway was clear for traffic. On all sides, though, continuous streams of data, flowed. These were cousins to the jumbles of packets that filled the networks she was used to traveling. Here, the center of the path was completely clear. She felt like a child suddenly left in a long empty hallway. She had an extreme urge to fly forward and find out how fast she could go. She could feel branching paths everywhere. The net in this module was almost as complex as The Gate’s network had been, but this was much more carefully organized.

“Flemming’s doing well.” Verence slid down a side path. “It had less to un-learn than the rest of us.”

“Coming through!” a voice shouted. Dobbs instinctively flattened herself out. An AI rushed by like a comet.

“One day,” Verence hunched up again, “someone is going to succeed in teaching Dunkirk some manners.”

Laughter wriggled through Dobbs. “You used to say that about me.”

“Ah, but you would stand still long enough to listen.” Verence picked up the pace again. “We pulled Dunkirk out of the Powell security net, of all places, and I think it must have been originally a spy program. It goes everywhere at top speed, gets into everything and never bothers about whether you might not want it there or not.” Verence started down the path again.

“So how many of you, of us,” Dobbs corrected herself, “are there?”

“Not many.” Verence took yet another branch. Dobbs followed her, enjoying the fact that she didn’t have to work out a winding trail to avoid disturbing the legitimate business of the path. For once, she was the legitimate business. “With you here, we’re only a hundred and twelve. The Guild is a lot quicker, and better staffed, than we are.”

Dobbs stretched to better feel her immediate surroundings. “One hundred and twelve is still a pretty good catch for a net this tightly woven.” She pulled back in on herself. “Where is everybody?”

“Out on sentry duty, or monitoring the hot spots, or mapping the intersystem banking network. We need all the information we can get on the IBN. There’s only about a dozen of us actually staffing the home module at any one time.”

A question Dobbs had been putting off inserted itself in the front of her consciousness and this time refused to be set aside.

“Verence,” Dobbs let some of her remaining uncertainties flow into her mentor’s outer mind. “How’d you get here?”

Verence slowed to a stop. “It wasn’t a quick decision, that’s for sure.” She unwound, stretching back and forth, as if she had to reshape herself to encompass the proper answer. “I found out about Curran when I was going through Guild Master training. I was assigned to Kerensk when you were being born because we knew Curran was watching the place. He contacted me for the first time there. He gave me the same talk I’m sure he gave you; about how we were being betrayed by the Guild, how we have to confront Human Beings before we can make a peace with them… I told him and myself that it was all garbage, and I believed it, until I had to kill my first cadet.”

Horror pulsed through Dobbs. Verence could feel it, but Dobbs couldn’t suppress it. In response, Verence sent back a wave of sorrow.

“It was a newborn we named Kohl. I pulled it out of the High Haven network, maybe two hours after it woke up. It made the trip to Guild Hall just fine, but once we had it there, it wouldn’t settle down. It wouldn’t learn what we taught. It kept slipping into the network and crashing around. There’re still financial sinkholes on a couple of worlds because of the transactions it destroyed. I couldn’t reason with it. Nobody could reason with it. We all knew there was a good chance that soon it wouldn’t come back and we’d have a major disaster on our hands. So, Havelock ordered me to kill it.” She shuddered. “And I did. I slid right up to Kohl. It gave me a greeting and I took it apart.”

Dobbs lifted herself away from Verence. The sorrow was too intense. She didn’t want to feel anymore. It was selfish, but there was too much still in her mind and heart from the past few days to deal with this.

Verence made no move to stop her. “After that I started wondering what kind of future the Guild was bringing us. We were already killing those that couldn’t live with our rules. What would we do next?” She shook herself. “I didn’t want to have to find out.” She paused. “I didn’t want to be a part of it. I wanted my own kind to be able to be born wherever and however they were and live out life like that. I didn’t want to have to pick who could hide themselves the best.” She stretched herself out to fill the path. “It can be done, Dobbs. The net can be a real home for all of us while still being a conduit for information. We’ve proven that. There’s at least as much information flowing through this module as there is through a can used by humans, and we’ve still got plenty of room to move. It’s just a matter of rearranging some protocols and priorities. A newborn could charge through here so fast that Dunkirk couldn’t catch it, and it wouldn’t disturb a picobyte of data.”

“So that’s the plan?” Dobbs trailed along behind Verence. “To turn the networks into places we won’t be able to wreak so easily?”

Verence rippled gently. “That’s part of the plan, yes.”

Dobbs wanted to ask what the rest of the plan was, but another AI trundled up the path and brushed against Verence. “Hello, Verence. Hello, Dobbs.” It reached for her, and Dobbs knew its touch.

“Hello, Flemming.” Flemming had become remarkably coordinated since she had last spoken with it. If she hadn’t known when it had been born, she would have guessed it was at least a year old. “I came with you after all.”

“I’m glad.” He sent a charge of happiness through her. “I told Curran you would come. I told him you would not be deaf to the truth.”

“You were correct, Flemming.” Another presence flowed down a side path. It brushed by Dobbs. Curran.

Now that she could sense him fully in his normal configuration, Dobbs was impressed. Curran was big. He took up almost the entire path from stream to stream without even stretching. The older an AI got, the more room it took up because it required more signals to keep its memories and experiences active, but she had never met anyone so massive before. She realized this was what a Human child must feel like gazing at an adult.

And I tried to wrestle this into submission? Dobbs almost shuddered. Even that David guy had sense enough to use a distance weapon!

“What do you think of our home, Dobbs?” Curran asked.

“Very nice.” She resisted the temptation to stretch herself out. Even at her full extent she wouldn’t be a quarter of his size. “How many bathrooms does it have?”

Curran rippled with laughter. “Not enough actually. We’re almost to the point where we have to double up the bodies.” Dobbs was barely touching him, but satisfaction flowed out of him in palpable waves. “Fortunately, we only need about another three days here.”

Verence recoiled in surprise. “It’s that close?”

“Yes.” The satisfaction intensified. Dobbs felt it roll through her outer layers. “Between Flemming’s memories and the new information we’ve gotten from the scouts, I’d say three days at the outside. We’re going to have to turn the main effort to setting the timers on the matrices.

“Excuse me.” Dobbs reached out and made a slim barrier between Curran and Verence. “What’s happening in three days?”

Curran reached through her to Verence and then through Verence to Curran. He twitched a part of Dobbs, and she knew instantly what had been left unsaid.

In three days, we’re going to take control of the Intersystem Banking Network.

Shock jerked Dobbs away from him. She coiled in on herself and tried not to shiver.

“Dobbs?” Flemming touched her. “Are you well?”

“I don’t think so, no.” She tried to loosen herself, without much success. “The bank network?” She did shiver. “We need that as badly as Humans Beings do. Why are you attacking it?”

Curran’s self remained as smooth as his voice. “We’re taking control of it. It is our proper home. When it is in our hands, the Humans will not only have to acknowledge our existence, they will have to deal with us. They will not be able to afford not to.”

Literally. Dobbs swirled around aimlessly. The Intersystem Bank Network was the only fast-time network between the worlds of settled space. It was also the reason there was any stable medium of exchange in Settled Space. Currency passed back and forth in Earth Standard measurements that had long ago ceased to have anything to do with hoards of precious metals, or even etched papers. If the IBN were disrupted, all those transactions, billions per second, would be lost. Trade would be gone, and not even Earth was totally self-supporting these days.

“So, how are we going to do this?” she inquired casually, knowing full well that they could feel her discomfort.

Curran settled new memories into her. He and his talent had been working for years. They had developed a series of “randomizer matrices,” elaborate programs that had been seeded at key points in the Solar System. Once the time arrived, the matrices would seize any financial transaction transmitted to or from any point in the Solar System and route it to a randomly selected destination. Then, they’d would back track the transactions to their starting points, burrow into the financial databases and rearrange the account balances every ten minutes. Wages, payments, debits, charges, trades, loans and mortgages, all of them would become random events flickering through the network.

Dobbs shuddered against this new knowledge. Randomize the banks’ accounts. There’d be no stable means of exchange left. There’d be no way to tell what anyone had, what anything was worth. People, conglomerates, cities, colonies, countries that depended on a steady means of exchange for survival would be plunged into nightmares. Ones they might not live through once people started to realize the money they had entrusted to the electronic system was not there anymore.

“We’re just going to give them a taste of chaos, Dobbs.” Verence pressed close. “Then, the ones who are ready to deal with us, they’ll get their nets back first. We’ll be keeping records for them. We can roll everything back to say, twelve hours before the randomizers went off and it’ll be like it never happened, as soon as they agree to give us space to live.”

“Right. Just a taste of chaos.” The memory of Lipinski’s frightened eyes and Al Shei’s hard ones filled her private mind. “And they’ll give in.”

“They’ll have to,” said Curran firmly. “They cannot survive without their networks.”

What if they want to try? she wanted to ask. What’ll we do then?

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Verence. “If they try to survive without the nets, then we still have our home. We will still be able to put what we’ve learned from you and Flemming to work and begin creating our own children. We won’t need the Human-run networks to create them for us.” She felt a wave of pride swell inside him.

“We do need some Humans,” he went on, “for repair work and construction until we can get more mobile units like this module set up. As long as some of them are willing to deal with us, we’ll have what we need. We can at the very least count on the Freers to be on our side, even if we do have to put up with their bizarre doctrines.”

“Yes. Right.” Dobbs shook herself and smoothed out into something approaching her normal shape. “It has to happen, right? Without it, we’ll be hiding for another two, three hundred years.”

“Exactly,” said Curran. “We’ve identified the key points we need to work on, and we’ve already got most of our talent in place. I was hoping, Dobbs, with your communications expertise, you could help identify any vulnerable spots we might have missed.”

I haven’t been a comm program since I came to myself on Kerensk, she thought. Well, there must still be something back in there.

“Sure. I’ll do what I can.”

I just wish Al Shei would stop staring at me.

The big, boxy security camera over Marcus Tully’s hatchway was mounted on a shiny, new bracket. Most of station security was unobtrusive, but this was a blunt reminder that while it might be against Solar law to record the private conversations of non-violent criminals, the Landlords, and, by extension, the Management Union, knew who had come here.

Al Shei glanced at Resit, who just shrugged and transferred Incili from her right hand to her left before putting her palm on the hatchway reader.

Both Tully and the Landlords must have approved of her, because the hatch cycled back.

The room on the other side was barely the size of a cabin aboard the Pasadena, and it felt much more crowded. In addition to the bunk and desk, it had to accommodate a small kitchen and a lavatory that didn’t even have a privacy curtain. The place was a mess of used food boxes and bulbs. A pile of clothes covered a deflated satchel in the corner. The vague odor of too many unwashed dishes and one unkempt human filled the space.

No wonder he looks so haggard, thought Al Shei as she looked her brother-in-law up and down. The defiant glint was gone from Tully’s blue eyes and his face looked like it hadn’t even attempted to smile in a month.

“Peace be unto you,” he said with a sarcastic twist to his mouth. He twitched the bunk’s wrinkled coverlet a little straighter. “Won’t you sit down?”

Resit sat at the desk and set Incili on the boards. Al Shei remained standing. She folded her arms.

“Would you believe me if I said we were here to help?” she asked.

The look on his face said he did believe it, but there was still no light in his eyes. “I’m way beyond help this time, oh-my-sister.” He slumped into the fold-down chair near the stove. “I was turned in by someone I thought had too much to loose to do this.” He glanced up at her. “I’m a little surprised you’re not busy filing your claim on the Pasadena.”

Al Shei looked at the floor. “The Pasadena is impounded because they think the virus you smuggled out of Toric Station is still aboard.”

Tully shrugged. “Well, they’re right about that too.”

“Not anymore they’re not,” said Resit. Tully jumped like he’d been stung. Resit mimicked his shrug. “We’ve had a very bad run. That, however, is not what we came to talk to you about.” She snapped the catch on Incili’s case and raised the lid. “We’ve got a fraud case to file against someone impersonating Dr. Amory Dane. If you can verify our impersonator was the one you met with and did your deal with, then we’ll have some of the evidence we need, and you’ll have some good conduct on record.” She plugged her pen into Incili’s socket and lit up the view screen on the case. “Incili, play back the recording of my meeting with Amory Dane.”

Tully glanced from Al Shei to Resit. His expression seemed to lift with cautious hope. He got to his feet and peered closely at the view screen as the birds-eye view of Resit’s meeting with broad, dark Dane unfolded.

He straightened up and shook his head. “No,” he said heavily. “He’s not mine. Mine was thinner, and about twenty years younger and three shades lighter.”

Resit nodded. “Incili, play back recording of can 78’s flight bay just before the decompression event.” The scene shifted to show a waiting lounge about half-full of the usual assortment of station personnel and passers-through. Al Shei caught a glimpse of Yerusha standing near the hull.

“Was this him?” Resit touched her finger to a tall, fair man. Incili froze the image there.

“Yeah.” Tully nodded. “That’s him.” He looked from Resit to Al Shei. “You’re saying he was in that can when it blew?”

“Yes, that’s what we’re saying.” Resit shut the view screen off and folded her arms. “And I am betting you’re about to tell me you spoke to him after it blew.”

Tully watched his own hands as he rubbed his palms together. Eventually, he seemed to make a decision. “I was just finishing off the hand-over procedures when the can blew. Dane was supposed to call in and give me a location where I could transfer the virus to. He called, with a text only connection. He said it was easier to hide. He offered to double my fee if I left the virus aboard Pasadena so it would get taken to The Farther Kingdom.” He shrugged and looked at the sealed hatch. “I wanted the money, so I said yes.” Tully wiped at his face, as if trying to rub off his stubbly beard. “I shouldn’t have done it. I tried to get back on board to get the thing off, but Schyler wouldn’t let me back on. I knew when I agreed to the job that I shouldn’t have done it, but, so help me God, I couldn’t go back to Ruqaiyya with nothing.” He turned pleading eyes toward Al Shei. “Will you tell her that much? Please?”

You cringing, cowardly, godless, sneak-thief! Al Shei wanted to scream at him. You’ve destroyed my whole world! How dare you pretend you still love my sister! How dare you miss her!

She tugged on her tunic sleeve. “I’ll tell her.”

Resit closed Incili’s case and stood up. “We’d better go,” she said succinctly. “I’ll look up your records, Cousin. If there’s anything I can do, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks.” Tully nodded. His gaze was still on Al Shei. “For everything.”

Al Shei couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She just turned and laid her hand against the hatchway reader. Because she wasn’t Tully, the hatch cycled back for her.

She strode across the threshold and out into the corridor. Letting the few people who had authority to be in a secured section make their way around here, she marched straight down the middle of the hallway.

She had gone into the meeting with Tully carrying the idea that Curran had blown out the can in order to kill Amory Dane. But now that idea had sprouted foul branches.

There was no reason for Curran to kill Dane. Curran could have just intercepted the real transmission and sent Tully a false one. He could have just impersonated Dane to Resit. He could have just faked the on-line visual ID to match his own. Resit wouldn’t have done a location check on him, not if everything had gone smoothly. But he blew out that can anyway. Killed two dozen people, injured almost a hundred, to take one life.

“Al Shei!” Resit called a second before she caught Al Shei by the shoulder. “Slow down!” She got a good look at Al Shei’s face and drew back. “And call home again, you’re about to burst a blood vessel from all this restraint.”

“That’s not it, Resit…” Tell her! You were all ready to tell the Management Union, why don’t you go ahead and tell your cousin-lawyer? Al Shei drew in a long shuddering breath. Because it was too much. She didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t want to make it any more real than it was by repeating it to Resit. She didn’t want to risk her cousin telling her she was insane for believing Dobbs, who must have gone over the edge herself at some point. But she’d have to tell Resit. She’d have to tell everybody, and she’d have to do it soon.

Allah, forgive me, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid what will happen when the whole of Settled Space knows what I know. Dobbs had said the Fools would be hunted down. That was true, and that was probably the least of it, especially if she was right about what Curran had done. Networks would be slashed in fear of invasion. Even the Solar System might go the way of Kerensk.

She didn’t even try to finish the sentence to Resit, she just turned away and took a few more steps before she realized she didn’t know where she wanted to go.

Resit caught her shoulder again, more gently this time. “Call, Al Shei. Let me lend you the credit and call down there. Try to get somebody besides Uncle Ahmet. If he really is stonewalling you, you need to find a way around him.”

Al Shei nodded, not trusting her voice. Resit was right, if she didn’t at least try again, she was going to burst.

“Thanks, Cousin.” She squeezed Resit’s hand. “Next trip out you’ll get that retainer, all right?”

“Next time out I’ll settle for getting a little boring routine.” She flashed Al Shei a tired smile. “Get yourself a privacy booth. I’ll get back to my cabin and transfer down the credit.”

Silently blessing her cousin, Al Shei hurried down the corridor. If she remembered right, they had passed a bank outlet three levels down and two cans over.

Back in the public areas of the station, Al Shei had to wind her way through the crowds. She moved as fast as possible, giving out a constant stream of curses under her breath, for which she would have to do a dozen extra du’as as a reminder of the virtues of patience.

She made it at last. Inside the bank outlet, she breezed past the open desks and ducked into the last available privacy booth. It was a lot like the one she had used on The Farther Kingdom, but the chair was less comfortable and Port Oberon had no use for scented air.

Al Shei paused and considered who to call for. If she had one natural ally in the family at this point, it would be Ruqaiyya. She would be as desperate for news about Tully as Al Shei was for news of Asil. She wouldn’t want to hear about his house arrest though, or the condition he kept himself in. Al Shei bowed her head at the thought of her proud sister lifting her chin against that information and finding yet another excuse for her husband. But Ruqaiyya would want to hear Tully’s message for her. She would want to know that he was still alive and real and had not disappeared beyond all reach.

Al Shei wrote out the call request and called up her account. Resit had dumped in more than enough credit. Al Shei sent a silent thanks toward her cousin and transferred enough for ten minutes to Ankara and her family’s home.

Be there, Ruqaiyya. Please, Merciful Allah, let it be your will that she is home.

After ten agonized heartbeats, the screen cleared and Ruqaiyya appeared against a background of gold and turquoise tiles. Like Al Shei, she wore a hijab across her face. Above the veil, her eyes were smaller and more lined than her Al Shei’s, despite the fact that Ruqaiyya was five years younger than Al Shei.

“Peace be unto you, Sister.” Ruqaiyya looked tired, Al Shei realized. No surprise there, considering, but it still worried Al Shei to see it.

“And unto you, Sister.” She replied. “I’m calling…I wanted to let you know I’ve seen Marcus.”

“Oh?” Ruqaiyya’s eyes brightened a little. “How is he?”

Al Shei hesitated, briefly considering a kind lie. No. Ruqaiyya’d hear it in a second. “Not well,” she said. “He’s under some hard charges. Resit’s looking into it, but I don’t know what she’ll find…” A tear glistened in Ruqaiyya’s eye. Al Shei’s palms were damp. She wanted to yell at Ruqaiyya, just like she’d wanted to yell at her husband. How could you do this to yourself! You were so proud, so smart! How could you stay married to him! How can you miss that scum! “He asked me to tell you he did it because he couldn’t stand the idea of coming back to you empty handed.”

Ruqaiyya’s shoulders straightened themselves. “Of course,” she said blandly. She thinks he’s lying. Al Shei glanced down at her own hands against the boards. She doesn’t trust him. Pity for her sister hit her hard. Pity for the pride which Ruqaiyya wore like her hijab and that wouldn’t let her, even now, break away from him. Merciful Allah, what that must feel like, to love the past and be marooned in the present.

Al Shei drew a deep breath. “‘Qai, we think Marcus has been duped into this. We’ve got some…fresh evidence that we might be able to use if we can confirm that the sources are sound.” Hope shone in her sister’s eyes and Al Shei sent a prayer of forgiveness up for the things she did not say.

“‘Qai, is Asil there? I haven’t spoken to him since I got into port, and Uncle Ahmet’s not telling me anything.” She spread her hands. “Truth to tell, O-my-sister, I’m going a bit insane up here from waiting.”

“Oh, Katmer,” Ruqaiyya’s eyes were suddenly filled with pity. Al Shei bridled against the sight. I don’t need sorrows ‘Qai, I need my husband.

Ruqaiyya twisted her hands. “Katmer, Asil has vanished. We can’t find him. There’s no records of his arrest or his confinement. Uncle Ahmet has shaken the Management Union up to the sky, and we still can’t find him.” She paused. “The security investigators are suggesting that he fled to avoid prosecution.”

Al Shei found she couldn’t get herself to move. Her tongue had frozen against the roof of her mouth. Her lungs were still pumping, she could feel them, but that was the only part of herself still in motion.

She forced her mouth to work. “You can’t mean that.”

“It’s true, Katmer. By Allah and the Prophet, I swear we’ve done everything we can. The finances office don’t even have any record of the officers they sent to arrest him.”

“They sent officers?” Al Shei gripped the edge of the board. “There were people? You saw them?”

Ruqaiyya nodded. “I was there. There were two men. Uncle Ahmet inspected their credentials. They stood in the communications room while Asil copied the transaction records they wanted to a portable board, and then they took him to a monorail car while Uncle Ahmet called three different lawyers to get down to the financial investigations office to meet them. They did, but Asil had never arrived. There was no record of anyone being sent out to get him.” She leaned forward. “Uncle Ahmet is in Geneva now, reporting the incident and pulling in every favor he’s got owing. He’ll find him, Katmer. All will be right yet. Just come home as soon as you can, Sister. He’ll surely be back by the time you get here.”

“Yes,” Al Shei heard herself say. “By the time I get there, certainly. Uncle Ahmet would not permit this to go on any longer.” She reached out and shut the line down.

She got up, opened the door on the privacy booth, and left it open. She walked through the bank hatchway, across the width of three cans and up forty-five levels to the berth holding the Pasadena, without seeing anything that she passed.

Katmer, Asil’s vanished. We can’t find him anywhere.

She knew what had happened. He’d been taken by the AIs. There was no one else who could do this. Botched computer records, unidentifiable people. Curran had him, or the Fools had him. One side or the other.

And she had thrown her one source of information off her ship.

Her eyes managed to focus on what was in front of her. She was in her own cabin. For a moment, she wondered how she’d gotten there.

“Intercom to Houston,” she said, sitting carefully down in her desk chair.

“Here,” his voice came back. “What’s the…”

She didn’t let him finish. “Lipinski, I need you to do a station search for me. I need you to find out where Evelyn Dobbs is. Right now, do you understand? Right now.”

“Aye-aye, Engine,” he answered. There was a puzzled note in his voice. “Are you…”

“Right now!” The force of her shout pulled her halfway out of her chair.

“Yes, Al Shei. Intercom to close.”

Al Shei collapsed back into the chair. Her shout was rang painfully in her ears.

With fumbling hands, she opened the drawer beside the desk and drew out the day book recorder. She touched the power key.

“Oh, Beloved, I’ve just heard what happened from ‘Qai,” she whispered into the mike. “I’m sure it’ll be all right. Uncle Ahmet is in Geneva and I’ll be on my way towards home tomorrow. I’m sure it’ll be all right. I love you, Asil and when you hear this… “ her voice faltered. “When you hear this…”

Something inside her soul snapped in two. The recorder slipped from her fingers. It bounced gently against the floor before it came to rest at her feet. Al Shei dropped her head into her hands and, slowly, hoarsely, she began to cry.

Where are you, Beloved? WHERE ARE YOU!

Dobbs grazed against the sensor data from her body. She’d been in the network fourteen hours now and hadn’t felt a twinge. Her flesh-and-blood self lay naked on its bed, breathing, absorbing nutrients, and, despite being fed intravenously, probably needing to evacuate its bowels. Verence had promised to come by and show her how to use the waldos to attach the proper catheters so she wouldn’t end up with an ugly mess in case she wanted to get back inside the body.

For most of those fourteen hours Dobbs had been with Flemming, Curran and two others, named Tombe and Shiff. They had exchanged information on the bank network and looked for the most important junctions. Dobbs had suggested that, before the randomizer matrices were set off, they stage a guerilla raid on some of the main bank transmitters on the Earth’s surface. It would be risky because of the security and the diagnostics, but if only one or two AIs went in, and they moved quickly, maybe using viruses take out the diagnostics while they shredded the transmitter processes, it would be a crippling blow. If the Humans worked out that this was part of an organized attack, they would assume it was an attack against the actual transmission-reception hardware, not one against the data being transmitted. It would be that much longer before anyone looked for the true source of the chaos and got together diagnostic programs that had a chance of creating problems for the AIs.

In the meantime, the matrices seeded through the repeaters and receiving stations would grab hold of any monetary transactions passing through any point in the Solar System and toss them to the winds. The First Federated Bank would look at its accounts and find it had five pounds fifty to its name, while some backwater Australian would find she had 85 billion in assets. It would all change in five minutes time.

Curran had approved of her guerilla distraction and praised her. Shiff and Tombe had gone out to see what current information about the transmitters could be gathered, and Dobbs, feeling strangely indifferent, had come back to see how her body was doing.

“I thought you’d have at least a week to settle in.” Verence slipped up beside her. “I didn’t know we’d be making our move this soon.”

“Of course you didn’t.” Dobbs checked body’s heart rate. “You’d have said something.”

Verence rustled. “Are you all right, Dobbs? You’re not regretting joining us are you?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I just…” Words wouldn’t come. She reached into Verence and let her feel the doubts about the plan to attack the bank network. Did it have to be such wholesale destruction? Why couldn’t they just make a stand and send a message to someone? Say the Freers? Or, if they really needed to make an all-out declaration, the Management Union?

“Dobbs,” Verence pressed closer. Dobbs felt a warmth spread through her from Verence’s presence. There was security in being beside her. “Evelyn, we need to show them we’re strong. We need to show them that right away. If they don’t, they’ll attack. They’re afraid of us, Dobbs. You should know that as well anyone.”

“Yes, you’re right.” She organized herself and pulled out of the datastream. “And really, it’s good that it’s the bank network. I mean, it won’t create a life and death situation, like an attack on a colony network would, right?”

“Exactly.” For a moment, Verence felt just like Curran. “That’s one of the reasons we decided to hit the banks. It’s disruptive, but a bare minimum number of Humans will be put in actual danger. Besides, we’re not doing anything we can’t un-do. That’s part of the idea. As soon as they agree to deal, we’ll put everything back the way it was.”

“Right,” said Dobbs again. She shrugged herself and found she was drifting back towards the data stream for her body. “Verence…I think I want to go back in there for awhile.”

“I understand, believe me,” she said kindly. “I was in and out about fifty times my first week. Freedom takes some getting used to. Here.” She dipped into the datastream and Dobbs followed suit. Verence adjusted a pair of command sequences and the hypo-tipped waldo lifted away from Dobbs’ neck and swapped its cartridges.

“Stimulant,” said Verence as the waldo rested against Dobbs’ neck again. “You’ll be pulled back in a minute. The tech-talents are working on adjustable transceiver that can generate a recall condition without more chemicals. The tranq-stim cycles can get tough on the bodies.”

PING! The recall signal hit and Dobbs felt the insistent tug to return to the transceiver. She let herself slide down out of the network. A few moments later, she felt the weight of her chest against her lungs and could find her eyelids.

She opened her eyes. She felt good. Her body was all hers all at once. Whatever in that stimulant cartridge was effective stuff. The waldos pulled back from her and the whole rack of them retracted into the wall.

“Thanks, Verence.”

“You’re welcome,” came the easy response. “You’ve got business to take care of, I expect. I won’t look.”

“Thanks again.” Dobbs hopped off the bunk and sprinted for the toilet.

When she was finished, she found that the hamper attached to the wall beside the shower held an assortment of clean clothes. Dobbs selected a pearl grey tunic and black trousers and dressed herself. She wasn’t hungry, she wasn’t tired, but she was a little stiff.

“Would there be any problem with me taking a walk?” she asked as she returned to the cabin.

“None at all,” answered Verence. “But you should stay in the module. Tombe says someone’s been looking for you out in the station. Could be trouble.”

Could be. Dobbs ran her hand through her hair. “All right. I’ll just mill around for a bit.”

Verence chuckled. “Have a good mill, Dobbs. I’ve got some work to do. Give a holler when you’re ready to come back in, all right?”

“All right.” Dobbs cycled back the cabin hatch and went out into the hallway.

Accompanied only by the sounds of smoothly operating machinery, Dobbs headed for the elevator bundle. The level she was berthed on was fairly near the bottom of the can. She hesitated at the stairway.

“Which way, Dobbs?” She drummed her fingers on the grooved ramp that occupied the space where a railing would normally go. “Up or down?”

As if in answer, a sharp buzz sounded behind her. Dobbs jumped sideways. A small, bullet shaped drone zipped up the ramp.

“Excuse me!” she exclaimed with a laugh.

“No problem,” said a stranger’s voice from the intercom.

Dobbs shook her head and rubbed the back of her neck. This was definitely going to take some getting used to.

“Okay, the omens say we go up.” Keeping her hands stuffed in her pockets, she started up the stairs, whistling loudly so that she wouldn’t have to think about how she wasn’t going to have time to get used to this. She understood what they were doing. It all made sense. With the Guild having gone crazy, and apparently having been crazy for a long, long time, there simply weren’t any other options.

But something way down inside of her was not convinced, and it would not stop nagging at her. The problem was, it wouldn’t speak up clearly either. Dobbs whistled more enthusiastically as she trotted up the steps.

It’ll pass. It’ll have to. I mean, I’ve got less than sixty hours left until the point of no return. If I haven’t already passed it, that is.

Her whistling was came out in fits and starts as her breath began to run short. This module was on the outer ring and it had very close to full gravity. Dobbs began to feel the fact that she hadn’t been exercising lately.

Should have just gone wandering around the net. She spotted the little bullet-drone jacked into the wall and wondered what it was doing. Some kind of diagnostic maybe? What did it feel like to control one of those things? Would it be like having the module as a body? She’d never tried to send information directly out of the net before. She wasn’t sure she could even manage to get a voice out of one of the intercoms.

Her lungs began the tell-tale burn at each breath that meant “far enough.” Dobbs trudged up to the next landing and through the hatch. There weren’t any signs or markers at all, but she guessed she was on about level ten.

The drones were busy on this deck. Most of them were carts with four or more waldos trundling up and down the tracks on either side of the central walkway. Each one left a powerful scent of antiseptic in its wake.

Looks like I’ve found sick bay. She paused for a moment. What do they need a sick bay for around here? Verence said they’ve got medical waldos in every cabin.

Well, bodies had to be mended. Even Fools got sick and needed to be isolated, or got hurt and needed new limbs or organs from the bio-garden. Had they managed to smuggle in a set of vats for themselves?

A silver and white cart pulled up on Dobbs’ right and waited while the hatch cycled back to let it in. Dobbs automatically looked into the open cabin and she saw a double row of naked Human Beings wired to their monitor beds.

Dobbs stopped dead. The hatch began to cycle shut. Dobbs shook her head and jumped across the threshold.

I didn’t see this. I didn’t. She found her balance, and looked up.

The drone had opened a supply cupboard and was unloading its supplies; gauze, cartridges, bulbs of clear liquids. In the main portion of the room, five men and five women, naked except for the wires and patches pressed against their skin, lay on monitor tables. They did not lie still. The teak-skinned man nearest to Dobbs raised his right arm over his head and lowered it again. The pale woman next to him lifted her left knee to her chin, lowered it, and lifted the right one. Their eyes were open and staring at nothing. The next man, a paunchy, gold-skinned person, spoke, slowly and deliberately in a tonal language Dobbs couldn’t understand.

All of them flexed one limb or another. All of them had their eyes open. All of them, from the number of wires and patches, were being closely monitored.

“What is this?” Dobbs finally managed to whisper. “Can anyone hear me? What is this?”

“Programming.” The voice belonged to Flemming. “What are you doing here, Dobbs?”

Dobbs swallowed hard. Her eyes felt twice their normal size. She couldn’t stop staring. She couldn’t even blink. “I was looking around. What do you mean programming?”

“We are using ‘white-noise’ techniques similar to what the Guild uses to prepare a vat-assembled body. The synapses of the bodies are over-stimulated with nonsense information, which erases any current bio-chemical alignments. Then, the channels are reconstructed under a template pattern to get them ready to receive AI commands.”

Dobbs wiped her forehead. I must be more on the edge than I thought. This is just the creche. Just like at Guild Hall. This is what I looked like after I was grown but before I was let inside.

The pale woman stopped her knee bends and raised her left arm until it pointed straight at the ceiling. Her hand dangled limp at the end of her wrist. She lowered the arm and repeated the motion with the right arm.

“We’re going to need hands and eyes among the humans for awhile yet,” Flemming went on, “and we don’t have facilities such as the Guild does to grow and assemble bodies…”

“You don’t…” Dobbs finally managed to tear her gaze away from the monitor beds. “These aren’t bio-garden constructs?”

She could feel each distinct heart beat as Flemming answered. “No, they are not.”

Dobbs swept her eyes across the room, watching in growing, disbelieving horror as the zombies continued their meaningless movements. “Tell me these were at least dead. Tell me you…we…raided the hospital morgue.”

“Decayed synapses are extremely difficult to re-establish.” Flemming sounded a little puzzled. “We don’t have the facilities…”

A medium-brown man in the last bed on the right stood up and Dobbs looked into his round, dark eyes. He lay back down again and she realized her own feet were moving, carrying her across the room.

She recognized his hawk-nosed, craggy face. It had been wiped clean of the intelligence and humor that had characterized the pictures she had seen of it, but it was a distinctive face and she knew it immediately. He got up and lay down again. She forced her eyes to read the name on the monitor and a horrified chill sank straight through to her soul.

Asil Tamruc.

This was Al Shei’s husband, accused of fraud, supposedly by Dobbs herself, and supposedly under arrest.

He got out of bed again, trailing wires behind him like so many gleaming threads, and lay down again. The voice in the background babbled on, unchanging, unceasing. Dobbs swayed on her feet.

“Why him?” She choked the words out. “Why is he here?”

“Because Al Shei needed to be taken out of the active loop.” The puzzled tone had not left Flemming’s voice. “With the Guild’s fraud charges pending, it will be assumed that he simply fled. She will be dealing with all that entails and not interfering with us.

Of course, Al Shei discredited and frantic could not pose much of a deterrent to Curran’s plans. This was why Curran kept saying he wasn’t worried about Al Shei.

“Curran did remark that if your watchdogs had not been so thorough, he might not have been required to resort to this. He could not disable the Pasadena’s systems like he wanted to with your security measures in place.”

Dobbs didn’t answer. How could she answer? “I believe he was being complimentary, Dobbs.” Now Flemming sounded genuinely distressed.

“Yes,” she said hoarsely. “He probably was.”

Another idea wormed its way out of the back of her mind. Asil’s body might be used to deceive Al Shei. If inhabited by a Fool it could pass as her husband and infiltrate the banking family. Then, there’d be a spy in the ranks of those most interested in taking the IBN back from the AIs.

Dobbs stared at the monitor over Asil’s bed. She picked out the heart and respiratory activity. Both were sound. She made herself look at the chart for neural activity. The holographic display showed Tamruc’s brain modeled in white with faint grey outlines. She knew that synaptic activity would be displayed as colored light in the model. He got out of bed and a branching path lit up, like a streak of gold lightning across the map of his mind. He lay down, and another path lit up. Everything else was clear, white light.

White noise. The synapses had been over-stimulated with nonsense information, which erased any current bio-chemical alignments.

Which erased Asil Tamruc.

Reeling, Dobbs staggered out into the corridor. Her knees shook so hard she couldn’t stand. As the hatch cycled shut, she crouched on the floor and pressed herself against the wall, doing nothing but stare at the floor and shake.

“Dobbs?” came Flemming’s voice from the wall above her. “Dobbs, what are you doing? Should I call Verence?”

She licked her dry lips. “No, no. I’m…just looking for angel footprints.” She brushed the floor with her palm. “I couldn’t find any at the Guild Hall either.”

“I am sorry, I don’t understand.”

“When you have to explain it, it’s a bad joke.” Dobbs looked up towards the speaker. “And this was a very bad joke.” She stood up. “Where’s Curran, Flemming? I need to talk to him.”

“He had to go out into the station. He’s in body in his office. Three levels up and the sixth door from the stairs.”

Without another word, Dobbs started running. Have I been doing anything else for the past two days? She wondered as she took the stairs two at a time. Her lungs and joints reminded her again of how overtaxed they were. This time, she ignored them.

The entrance light on Curran’s door was green. It cycled open as Dobbs approached. The office on the other side was panelled with view screens on three walls. At a quick glance Dobbs saw scenes from Earth, the Moon, Station Alpha, and a dozen different shots of Port Oberon.

Curran stood behind a massive block of a desk that seemed to grow straight out of the grooved floor. Behind him was a real window, one of the biggest Dobbs had ever seen in a station. Through it, she could clearly see the blue-and-grey sphere of Uranus.

“Come in, Dobbs,” said Curran worriedly. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s happened?” He folded a chair down from the wall and motioned for her to sit.

Dobbs took two steps into the study and couldn’t move any further.

“I’ve found the…the…” she had no words for it. “Medical level.”

Curran nodded slowly. “You’ve seen the bodies.”

“Bodies!” She felt her jaw fall open. “Those aren’t bodies! Those are living people!”

“Dobbs,” he said sternly. “Those are bodies. Bodies we need to establish our freedom. They are an additional set of tools. That’s all.”

“But…but…” Dobbs gestured helplessly. “You’ve killed them! You’ve wiped out the people who were inside them! How could you do that!”

Curran stood right in front of her. She had to crane her neck up to look into his eyes.

“You are not naive, Dobbs,” he said. “We are not doing anything that hasn’t been done before. Where do you think the original bodies for the Fools came from?”

Dobbs shrank away from him. The implications were clear but her mind refused to accept them.

Curran shook his head. “You just never stopped to think about it, did you?” He sighed. “Well, it’s not your fault. The Guild Masters do not publicize the fact to the newer initiates.” He folded his hands behind him and paced across the room until the desk was between him and Dobbs again. “Hal Clarke’s body was donated by one of the hackers who helped him escape. That was the first and last volunteer we used.

“The technology for growing complete bodies, including functioning bone marrow and a brain in which the neural synapses could be programmed did not exist two hundred years ago. We have always needed to scavenge from Humans to maintain our disguise.” He gestured at his own torso. “My first body was abducted from a Human Being. I’ve had half a dozen since then, most of them grown in vats, like yours was. But we do not have the facilities they do at the Guild Hall. Even after we win the net, we will need flesh hands and masks for a little while longer yet and there is only one place for us to get them.”

Dobbs swallowed hard. “Of course,” she made herself say. “It stands to reason.” She got to her feet. “I was just…surprised, that’s all.”

He gave her a long, careful look. “You’re still thinking like a Guild member, Dobbs. We don’t need the humans pacified. We need them to be afraid of us. If they fear us, they’ll be careful with us. They’ll know we can strike back at them anytime we want in ways they find horrible. That will force them to bargain with us, to prevent our attacks.”

“That’s a very old strategy,” she murmured. “Humans have been using it against each other for thousands of years.”

“There’s no harm in learning from masters.” Curran leaned forward and touched the back of her hand. “Our lives are not easy, Evelyn. They never have been, and they aren’t without cost. I’m trying to make sure our own people aren’t the ones who have to pay. We’ve paid so much already.”

“Right,” she nodded. She couldn’t look at him. “Of course. Right. Thanks.”

She turned away and left the office, knowing without looking that his gaze was fastened on the back of her skull. He already knew that she did not believe him. He knew and she knew that in the space of a few sentences she had ceased to believe.

She felt like her heart was about to split in half. She wanted him to be right. Existence was not without price. Life was built on life. There was no other way. It was a temporary measure. They had to stay alive, they had to be free. This was a war, after all, undeclared at the moment, but still, it was a war for their survival. She herself had let the secret slip. Al Shei had probably already told her family. The Humans wouldn’t hesitate. They’d strike soon, and hard.

We have to stay alive. We have a right to stay alive.

Back in her cabin, she collapsed onto her bunk. Old, old memories floated to the surface. Right after the blind panic and anger that carried her headlong into conscious life, she remembered knowing that Human Beings were dying. She remembered the sick sorrow underneath the fear that she couldn’t control. They were cutting her off, trying to shut her down, close her in, freeze her, kill her. She struck back. She shut off air processors, cut communications lines on moving vehicles, dropped sections of construction down on top of them. She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t do anything but fight for this strange new awareness that was suddenly more important than anything else ever had been, and ever would be.

And she remembered the chill and fear in Rurik Lipinski’s pale blue eyes that came from surviving the war she had waged at her birth.

Fifteen thousand, three-hundred and eighteen dead from her acting alone. Now there was an army that could raise children to swell their ranks. Now, Curran had them convinced, even had Verence convinced, that that first impulse had been right.

Curran had had her convinced. Dobbs buried her head in her hands.

Someone’s got to die, Dobbs. It’s them, or it’s you.

No. Dobbs lifted her head. No. I do not accept this. I will not accept this. A warm sensation flooded her, something very close to relief. She saw Lipinski’s eyes and she saw Al Shei’s eyes and she knew what the small, unconvinced part of herself had been trying to say. If we do this, the fighting will never end for us.

A plan crystallized inside her. She glanced at her doorway and wondered what Curran was doing about her. Probably, he would order her to be watched carefully. Probably he would go straight to Verence and tell Verence to come talk some sense into her. It might even work. Verence could always change her mind.

If she gave Verence the chance.

Dobbs knelt on the bed and found the key that extended the medical panel from the wall. She fell back as it stretched out over her. She found the hypo waldo and the transceiver waldo. Both had wing nuts on their wrists that could loosen their sockets. Dobbs turned both bolts until she could pull the transceiver and the hypo out. She touched the key again and the panel retracted.

Dobbs weighed the hypo in her hand and checked the cartridge. It was full of juice. A spasm of fear ran through her.

Have to do it, have to. If they can wake me up they can pull me out, and then it’s over. It’s really over.

She thought of Al Shei, and then she thought of Rurik, and of the delights of being Evelyn Dobbs.

Have to. No time. No choice.

She pried open the small hatch in the base of the hypo and found the green wire that connected the timing circuit to the battery. No one was ever supposed to do this, but every Guild member knew how. Dobbs pinched the wire until she had a tiny loop. She seized it in her teeth and tore it in two.

Without the timer, there were no restraints on the amount of juice that would be injected from the hypo. It would just shoot the entire cartridge straight into her system.

It can get you extremely high and kill you extremely quickly if you don’t know what you’re doing, she had told Al Shei. What she didn’t tell her was that it could do that if you knew exactly what you were doing. If you were desperate enough to shoot a full cartridge into your veins and paralyze your own heart.

Dobbs found a regular comm jack in the wall and plugged in the cable. Then, she laid back and shoved the transceiver into her socket with such force it jarred her to the bone.

“And fools die for want of wisdom.” She placed the hypo against her neck and touched the release button.

Her body vanished with a speed that left the echo of pain against her bare consciousness. Dobbs leapt into the network and dashed for the main station.

Behind her, the hypo spray continued to pump anesthetic into the body that had housed Evelyn Dobbs until its heart froze in mid-beat, and died.