Things Fall Apart: Chapter 67

Better Nate than lever, a chapter for this week after all!

Robinson Station, Tau Ceti, 16.12.775 CW

21.5 megaseconds since the catastrophe

Karenski had taken advantage of both the communication lag and the travel time to dither over whether he wanted Zephyr's command crew to come to Robinson first, or whether he would take a boat and a small cohort across to greet them on their boat bay deck. Precedent offered either protocol without much to choose between them. He would be lying if he said he didn't want a tour of the new ship as soon as it could be arranged.

In the end, however, guilt won out. He could commandeer a boat for the trip, but both the boats and their pilots all had more important things to do than play taxi for his doddering carcass. He could have Zephyr send a boat, but if he was going to do that, he might as well just ask Singer and Alexander to be aboard it. Since he was planning to tour soon anyway, it would not postpone offering his appreciation for each and every officer and crewperson aboard by very much.

So it was that Karenski found himself at the head of a side party for the first time in decades, with Captain McCaffrey and her seconds at his side as what passed for his command staff. There was a small marine guard, and he'd made a point of having the station's senior chief petty officer learn the art of piping a captain's party aboard.

He felt unaccountably nervous about the whole thing, as if he were the junior officer in this exchange. McCaffrey had decided to make a point of reminding him when she had an opportunity, that he really knew nothing about Singer or Alexander as they were today. All he had were memories of two promising students who, as far as he knew, had not known each other at the time, and who had since been through horror together.

Well, that was not quite true. He also had the testimony of Admiral Donato, who was not a man easily impressed; and of Governor Silverman, a politician and diplomat of the first rank who nevertheless would have expressed any grievance she felt without hesitation. No such grievance had appeared in his queue in the time since the relay had been re-established.

Less conclusive, perhaps, was the somewhat gushing correspondence he'd had from the unexpected quarter of President Robina Thirteen of Revi'i. Karenski had always known Alexander was Revi'ini, having met other Rob types, so Singer's report of the relationship between zir and Madame President hadn't been much surprise. That made what Robina had to say less than objective, perhaps, except that the bulk of her letter had not been about her wayward protege, but Singer.

Idly, Karenski wondered if Singer realized she'd been adopted, there.

Before he had time to pursue that thought further, the speakers announced the arrival of Zephyr-1 in dock, and not long after, the lift doors parted to admit Singer and Alexander themselves, fully kitted in their dress uniforms, into the boarding lounge. The senior chief, somewhat nervously Karenski thought, blew his pipe.

The two came several steps forward, then stopped and came to attention, saluting, with Singer saying, "Permission to come aboard?"

Karenski tried to look ceremonially serious but simply couldn't, and he smiled widely as he said, "Granted, and welcome home!"

Unbidden, Alexander's first thought on seeing Karenski in person after so long was, He looks old!

Of course, he was old, but the weight of recent events had clearly pressed upon him.

Still, ze found him a welcome sight.

After introductions to the side party, they had all moved fairly quickly to the nearest meeting room. This was not intended to be a long stay, as ze understood it. Rather, Karenski had admitted an eagerness to meet with them and discuss matters in a way that went beyond mere reports—which he'd had plenty of time to digest already. The fastest way to make that happen was for them to come aboard; then they'd all go back so he could see the new, shiny ship that shouldn't exist.

Well and good. Certainly, he seemed genuinely happy to see them. More restrained was his second, Tower Actual, Captain McCaffrey. Alexander was not, of course, an empath like Singer, but ze was getting better at reading people, as part of zir job. McCaffrey, ze thought, had a chip on her shoulder. She was not openly hostile to the new arrivals, but where Karenski was playing—perhaps overplaying—the proud mentor as they walked to the conference room, McCaffrey was clearly reserving judgment. Not quite hostile, but not really friendly, either.

At the moment, she seemed particularly cranky about Zephyr's choice of itinerary. "It seems to me, Commander, that your first priority should have been getting back in touch with us, here."

Singer and Alexander had actually rehearsed some scenarios like this one. It wasn't hard to guess that somebody would take exception to Tau Ceti being their second port of call. Fortunately, this was also an easy one to brush off.

"Commodore Haraldsdottir was senior officer on the spot, Captain," Singer responded without hesitating. "At that moment, Zephyr, Bellerophon, and the rock stations of Gliese 581 were the entirety of the TCTF, from our perspective. Bellerophon was needed as refuge for personnel who had been living for megaseconds in rocks that had never been intended as habitations, so that left Zephyr—"

"—a ship that should never have been completed without authority—" McCaffrey interrupted, or tried to. Singer wasn't having it.

"I repeat: Haraldsdottir was the authority. The only authority, at the time. There was no other. Further, as I understand it, the reason Zephyr had been put on ice in the first place was a lack of trained crews and a reluctance to retire old ships to free them up. We had an old ship that needed to be retired, and therefore a trained starship crew to put aboard Zephyr. We had one ship that could actually go anywhere, and it needed to be fast."

"Precisely," McCaffrey went on, "why you should have come here, first, to re-establish a proper chain of authority. I've read your reports. Bellerophon would have been up to one more leg to come here. Instead, you took on a diplomatic mission you had no qualification for, on a ship that should never have been commissioned, under the orders of someone who had no authority to issue them."

This was going further than they had rehearsed. Alexander found zirself on the verge of interjecting, and looked to Karenski, who appeared content to let the argument play out, his face inscrutable.

Right, then. This was Command 301 all over again. Alexander wondered which of the three of them—if not all of them—Karenski was hoping to teach. Ze also wondered what Karenski was going to do if Captain McCaffrey decided to press insubordination charges against Commander Singer if this went on much longer. Because Alexander was almost certain ze knew what was coming next, and interpreting regulations for a senior officer was sometimes frowned upon.

Sure enough, Singer said, "Captain, how recently have you been in the hotseat of an independent command?"

McCaffrey flushed at that. Alexander was not sure if it was anger or something else. Either way, her voice was level enough as she said, "I have not."

Singer nodded, and said, "Then perhaps you're unfamiliar with Fleet Command Doctrine, Element One?"

To her credit, McCaffrey did not look to Karenski for guidance or rescue, any more than Singer had, and simply admitted, "I am not familiar with that document." And then, she did look at Karenski, who remained unreadable as he ever had in the classroom, looked back to Singer, and took a breath before saying, "Perhaps I should familiarize myself, Commander."

"With due respect, Captain, our future discussions on the subject of my command conduct, and Commodore Haraldsdottir's, will be more fruitful should you do so."

That, Alexander thought, was right on the ragged edge of insubordinate, all right. But ze also saw just the quickest quirk of a smile on Karenski's face. Alexander made a side-bet with zirself: Karenski had himself, at some point, had a similar conversation with McCaffrey before their arrival. Ze wasn't sure when ze'd get to verify that, one way or the other, but it scanned with Karenski's behavior, right now.

Regardless, McCaffrey had lost this round and had the grace to take it. "I believe you're correct, Commander. I look forward to taking this up at a later time."

Clearly, McCaffrey knew she'd get nowhere standing on protocol at this stage. She had not exactly made a fool of herself, but she hadn't won any points with anybody in the room, including her boss. Given that she was clearly clinging to whatever remained of established authority and chains of command, that was that.

Without further comment, Karenski finally invited them all to sit down, and began immediately they'd all done so. "Singer, of course I've read your reports. Very thorough, good level of detail, appreciate them greatly. Now, I need to know some things you don't usually put in a report—and before we begin, blanket permission to speak freely. Start with Donato. I've only met him briefly a couple of times, and one of them was when he was a callow youth. Can we trust him?"

"I believe we can, sir," Singer said without hesitation. "Although since we're speaking freely, I have to tell you I don't like him much. Well, no, that's not quite right. I disliked him intensely on first communication, but I came to understand him a little better during our visit. Gained respect for him. I still would hesitate before inviting him to a party, but yes, we can trust him."

Karenski nodded, then asked, "Please tell me, by the way, that you addressed his behavior at some point. The record includes his questionable effort to rattle you, but nothing more about it."

"Sir, I did not," Singer started, and then continued as Karenski drew a breath, clearly planning to object, "but only because Ambassador Ellison had already done so by the time we were piped aboard."

Karenski let out his breath, but continued to look at her expectantly. She relented after another beat. "He was sporting a lovely mark on his cheek where the ambassador had hauled off and slugged him, and then informed him that was the official opinion of her government."

The admiral burst out laughing. McCaffrey was looking conflicted but not as sour as Alexander might have expected. Ze chose to venture at that point, "If I may add, we were also treated to him limping into a session after having stepped directly on a child's toy." Ze said it as deadpan as ze could.

That got Karenski howling again, and even McCaffrey couldn't quite suppress a smile. Schadenfreude is still a consistently unifying force in human affairs, ze thought.

When he had himself in hand again, Karenski said, "What about Ellison? She dead set on retiring?"

"I should really leave that for Ra—Miss O'Halloran to discuss, but my impression was that she'd never been so serious about anything in her life. Whatever comes next, she intends to face it as a Newer Yorker, not an ambassador."

Karenski looked thoughtful, and said, "I don't think I can blame her. She has a lot of ties there. We could use her help, in the work ahead, but...well, maybe we'll get it anyway, just from a different angle. David's Star is being unusually cooperative right now, and I promise you I'm showing proper appreciation in my missives back to them. Donato says their ship Baldursdottir has left dock, and he hopes to have a report from this Captain...bat Chaya was it?...in a megasecond at most. So, while their good will holds, we have two fast ships between us. Soon, he tells me, there'll be a third—just waiting on that crew to arrive on their old ship. Say one thing for worlds ending catastrophe: you find out who your friends are!"

There didn't seem to be much to say to that, nor did he seem to expect it. Instead, he sat a moment, as if deciding which question in his list to ask next. "This big signal of yours. We've started going through all our own comm buffers for every trace of it in storage. There are some definite gaps, like there were on Bellerophon—places where something or someone clearly erased something—but we've got traces of it going back almost a hundred megaseconds. It took time to ramp up, is how we're reading it, both in terms of data stream density and actual signal strength. Right at first, it's only got those nonary packets periodically, and nothing meant for other ears. I don't suppose you've had any luck with those?"

Singer, of course, could only shake her head. "Nothing yet. David's Star's working on it, too, but I didn't get the sense they had any real geniuses in cryptography the way they do in computer science."

McCaffrey nodded, in accord on this topic. "And neither do we, really. The sad truth is, until recently, we'd mostly have handed any really tough nut off to our AIs to chew on. But with this? I don't think we dare, in case there's some more surprises buried in it."

Alexander found ze had something to contribute. "All three of our surviving AIs—the same three that survived Bellerophon and came over with us—insist on that point. They wouldn't refuse a direct order, but they think it would be a terrible risk. They've got enough survivor's guilt; they have no interest in being subverted."

Karenski was looking staring into a corner of the room, swiveling his chair back and forth, clearly working on another idea. Alexander was reminded of how he would pace in class when posed a question he needed to think about, and got the same sense here.

"The whole question of AI free will has gotten even more complicated than it had been," he said finally. "There have always been people, you understand, who give no thought to the matter. They're perfectly happy to see AIs as machines, and machines don't vote. In my personal experience, most such people are equally dismissive of biological people, to boot. So, now the AIs know that they're not entirely free agents, that their emotions are circumscribed, for example. But they've seen what happens when AIs are set loose from those strictures. I know we have evidence now that it was more than that, but still. They have conscience. They don't want to be agents of destruction. I can respect that."

"So," McCaffrey said, "we'll have to do it the old fashioned way—computers, yes, but entirely human driven, and isolated as possible. Which means, honestly, we're leaning on someone having some insight, some hunch, that will short-circuit what could otherwise take ages to unravel."

"That about sums it up," said Singer.

Karenski seemed on the verge of another question when there was a chime, and the uncanny voice of Robinson's instance of Chef said, "Admiral, tower asked me to interrupt you. A message flagged urgent has just made it downwell from the relay, originating with Admiral Donato of David's Star."

All three junior officers fixed similar looks on the admiral for a beat, and then he said, "Read it."

"Message reads: Karenski, Doctor Gupta of the AI institute has been found dead. Details to follow. Donato."