Maxwell's Demon Ch. 15-21

It has passed into story. We called these foreigners Lani, and they looked for this machine after their appearance. They hoped it would talk to the sky. It was rumored to be last seen on a ship, lost at sea, or stolen, no one knows. They said one day their people would come for them. When I heard of your crash in the mountain preceded by a thunderous boom, it piqued my interest, that perhaps they had returned, and now with this healing gel you've created, I am certain you are Lani."

"What happened to them?"

"They fought among themselves. One thought he had tracked down this machine to help him talk to the sky. He took a ship to Northlights where he believed it was. When he arrived there he could not find it. What became of him after that, only Adir would know. Some say she contracted his death for defying her, and others say he ran into the northeast ruins, above Anukina, perhaps still alive to this day. Your kind live longer than we do, so it is said.

As one might imagine, there was great upheaval from the machines the foreigners created. Most of the Lani were killed in acts of violence by criminals who wanted more machines."

"Is there anything left of them, drawings, clothing, or personal items?"

"There is a picture of one of them, an artifact from a device of their own creation."

"Could I see this picture?"

"It's not something I possess. You would have to Mainlights."

"Tell me, did the picture look anything like this?" She displayed an image of her Father on her datapad in black and white, assuming a camera invented here was not color.

"You are strange to look upon; it is difficult to tell one of you from the other, but maybe."

"If I am the Lani, what do you want, Mayana?"

"I need to end this terrorism Northlights brings closer to us, before it becomes an all out war and destroys the peace I have built in Newtown. I believe we can barter your healing gel with Adir, the real Adir. She will use it to heal her soldiers, and in exchange I can gain protection for Newtown. We do not have a standing navy; we have no way to defend our ports against attack, and I do fear such an attack is imminent from Northlights. With their superior navy, we will be forced to side with them. I do not see that as a path of economic prosperity for Newtown."

"What's in it for me?" Jennifer said.

"I have allowed you to live, is that not enough?"

"There will be other ships from the sky soon, and more like me. It could lead to unrest and war worse than anything you have ever imagined."

Mayana paced back across the room, making herself a cup of tea.

"Why should I not kill you, and all of your kind?" she said.

"You could, perhaps that is what once happened, but as you can see, it did not stop more from coming."

"So it would seem. The ships that are built to sail the oceans take a great deal of resources. I imagine the cost is great to your people as well to come here. In my experience, land is sought for resources, and sometimes to subjugate its people. Tell me, will your people come as conquerors?"

"I will answer with a question. The tailed ones, the Teolids, I am told they come here for their freedom. Does Adir subjugate the Teolids?" Jennifer asked.

"They are slaves and lack the mental capacity for greater callings. I offer neutral ground here in Newtown for those that have fulfilled the terms of their indentured servitude to Adir. I believe I understand what you are saying. Do your people see themselves as superior to us?"

"My people are unaware of your existence. My reason for asking was to demonstrate that you find Teolid's work useful. When a people are subjugated, their work becomes a resource. What if the work Teolids performed produced items so far away that ships had to be sent to harvest it. Would they still be useful?"

"I suspect not, or at best their profitability would be suspect. Growl-Hmm, then your people would not seek to enslave us because it's too expensive to transport goods from here. Why come then? Is there something of value on this world that yours does not have?"

"You have looked upward in the evaporation zone, where the sky is clear. Tell me what you know of the heavens. You know this is a world that lives around your star -- Mother as you call it. You know of Mother's eyes, the two other stars that are bright, and perhaps you have even seen the movement of other worlds like this one, traveling around Mother."

"Yes, we know of these things; what of them?"

"There is a group of rocks around your star, I believe you call them the fragment ring. These are common. My world has such a ring also. Within those rocks are many of the things you find valuable on your world: metals and elements, liquids and minerals. My people mine them for ore, like what the ships and trains from Anukina bring to you."

"What you are telling me is you had many resources, and you've used up all of your rocks."

"Oh no, not even close."

"Then there is nothing on this world that you need. Is your arrival from curiosity?"

"For some, yes, but there is a resource here that is not easy to see at first. Why do your people not live north of Anukina, or in the water?"

"It is too cold to live up north, and one cannot live on the water. I understand."

Mayanas pacing increased, then ceased as she stared out a window into the dim red daylight. "Have you used up all the space of your world?"

"Yes. Yours is the first we have ever found where we can live. There are those who will come here and profit from this."

"I should kill you," Mayana said again, as idly as someone might mention pulling a splinter from their finger.

"My people would not attack you directly. They would be subtle, such as the way Adir charges tariffs for Northlights shipping."

"A wise hunter picks berries when there is no rechantu to pierce with her arrow," Mayana said, taking a drink from her tea. "If my world is a port on a sea of the sky, and there are many ships to come, then it seems to me that you and I would both want the same thing."

"And what is that?" Jennifer said.

"To profit by controlling that port."

"I think we understand each other very well. I can create more of this medical foam, but I require a meeting with Adir."

"You feel that you can make demands of me?"

"If you believe I am Lani, then yes, I do."

Mayana emitted a low growling sound. Benue looked back and forth between them.

"As your first, I say you must honor her request!" Benue said.

Mayana spit. She cursed as though Benue had slapped her in the face, despite the smaller Centauran being on the other side of the room.

"It is difficult. Adir will only send one of her faces; she would never come here at my request. To contact Adir is to bring risk to the comfortable life we live, Benue. I will send word of your invention, but do not be ignorant. I suspect Adir is already aware of your presence here. Hopefully, all that has changed is we are initiating contact on our terms, and if done correctly, it may proceed in our favor. Create more of your invention, and do not disappoint, Lani."

** Chapter 18: I'm not a runner **

This cycle would begin the arrival of water vessels from foreign ports. Jennifer followed Mayana's hosts as they led the crew, minus John, to an outdoor pavilion the size of a soccer field. A variety of ships were docked in the harbor: sloops and cutters, steam powered freighters, strange ships of pleasure, utility, and war.

Northwest along the shore was a railway yard with a siding that connected it to the main track heading toward Anukina. Rusted metallic bridges covered hollowed out portions of the docks, allowing freight cars to dump crushed ore into the ship holds waiting below.

Among the workers and sailors at the docks was a single Ikadru, the odd species seen on the deck of playing cards. They were human in appearance compared to the animal like Telluki that dominated the Centaurans seen so far. William and Sarah were caught up theorizing that prior to the formation of the planet's x-ray protecting cloud cover, periods of widespread mutation must have occurred during violent flares from Proxima, and were responsible for the genetic diversity witnessed.

Sarah said there was a species of female lizard that didn't require chromosome matches to reproduce. Humans, she explained, have twenty-three chromosomes for a total of forty-six in each individual: one set from the mother, and one from the father. That specific count was why a human and monkey cannot have a child, though they could physically interface. These female lizards reproduce asexually, cloning their own chromosome sequence, and stealing a single gene from the male. "The Centaurans may be able to reproduce with genetic material from dissimilar species. This could be a survival advantage in a world where extinction level events from ionizing radiation happen frequently; a way to replenish the pool of life in any way possible."

John wandered into the pavilion as if he'd never left, despite no one being aware of his location via the localnet for days.

"Xiaoli!" he yelled. Jennifer instinctively turned, having heard her birthright name, and an instant later, when her thinking brain caught up with the involuntary action, she knew something wasn't right, as no one would have known that name, no one on this planet.

"That's what I thought," John said, stepping into her personal space. He placed his hand on her arm as if they were a familiar couple and he was leaning to whisper something romantic. The smirk he wore told her nothing of the sort was to happen. She defensively brought her left hand to cover John's, where he was grabbing her, unsure of his intentions.

"You looked so much prettier with your natural hair color, why'd you dye it?"

Jennifer's face drained its color; had there been white light in Proxima's spectral output, she would have looked like a ghost.

"We both know this isn't the first time Earth set foot on this planet," John said.

She tried pulling his hand away from her shoulder but he resisted without looking like he was putting forth any effort. Both their grips increased until they were short of strain: John's hand on her shoulder, Jennifer's on his hand. Her fingers quivered near her sidearm.

"That shaky trigger hand of yours, don't think I didn't notice in the mountains," John said.

"I could drop you, John."

"And we'd both die, neither of us accomplishing anything."

"Where could you have heard that name? No one knows that name -- no one except my Father," she said.

A wave crashed into the breaker wall near one of the loading docks.

"What the hell is going on here?" Sarah said, walking over with the rest of the crew in tow.

"A long overdue debriefing," John said, handing Sarah the polycyanolucent photograph of the black haired Xiaoli, who looked identical to a younger Jennifer. Greg and William stared dumbfounded while Sarah examined the photo.

"It's a picture I found here on Proxima, along with an Expace space probe."

"Goddamn you Jennifer, it's been nothing but half truths from you all along, hasn't it? The Fuzanglong wasn't some rumor; you were certain of it. Everything that happened: your convenient appearance when we went mountain biking, the confiscation of my ATM AI, CoreX's generous funding, its interest in the void strand discovery, it's all been set up. I'd even suspected you tricked us into coming down here, and now I'm certain of it," Greg said.

"What are you talking about?" Wiliam said, his voice wavering between octaves.

"I did my own investigation after the reactor repair. At first I asked the same question we all did: Was our navigation sabotaged? I couldn't come up with anything conclusive, then we started getting reactor temperature warnings. They didn't make sense, you said so yourself, William."

"No, they didn't."

"Right, so I asked Kassy what she thought. She said imperfect game theory applied, and I should not assume the truth of anything I was told."

"What the hell does that mean? Doublespeak, from a machine?" Sarah asked.

"Imperfect game theory implies the opposing teams do not have all the information. I thought it meant she wouldn't know if the dedicated thought models for navigation had been hacked, but I think she was trying to warn me. I downloaded the protocol buffer files from the cube satellites that took the external hull reactor temperature readings, the raw logs, before they were processed through the Command module user interfaces -"

"You had no authority to access the Command systems," Jennifer said, interrupting him.

"What I found gives me every right. Kassy wouldn't help me decode the logs; she said she was too busy. The logs were compressed, and they were hard as shit to figure out. I thought I was just stupid; the numbers didn't add up. I kept assuming I'd interpreted the protocol incorrectly, but I figured it out. I wasn't wrong. The numbers I came up with were true. The reactor was not overheating. Someone altered those numbers before they were displayed on the Command module screens. There's only two people that can do that: Kassy, or Jennifer."

Greg's chest was visibly rising and falling. "We didn't have to come down here, did we? You lied to us, didn't you? Didn't you!" Greg screamed.

Jennifer's pulse was rising. Everything was melting down in front of her. There were clues to the fate of the Fuzanglong crew: the rumor from Mayana, and this picture John had found. The crew was dissolving; she'd made a selfish move without thinking it through, and now she'd have to pay the price. She needed them. She needed their help.

"We almost died after our final navigation leg. That reactor was trashed. I was there and got the red dosimeter badge to prove it. I risked my life to save you. All of you!"

"Did you convince Kassy to lie to us? Answer me goddammit! Did you tell Kassy to lie to us?" Greg said.

Jennifer's jaw tightened. She frowned, holding back emotions she didn't want to show to herself, but there was no escape; she wasn't in control. This terrible rage she had to find her Father, to hear his story, his excuse, it ruled her. There were times she wanted to rescue him, and times she wished to kill him -- wherever he was.

"Yes! Yes, I wanted to find my Father. I forced the reactor readings, but I never forced any of you to come here. I gave you all the option to stay aboard," Jennifer said.

John took two steps back. "Of course. The story you told me the day we found the void particle. What right did you have to bring us all down here to satisfy some Daddy's girl abandonment issue?"

A flat boot struck John's right cheek, the termination of a lightning fast roundhouse. "Fuck you, John!"

He shook his face, stinging from the crushing and accurate blow. He launched a jaw cracking cross to Jennifer's face, but she dodged, ducking to the right. He brought his left knee hard into her chin. She tasted blood and staggered back, reaching to wipe her mouth, finding a partially dislodged lower incisor puncturing her lip for the second time since she'd left Sol.

"That's enough!" William said, stepping between them. "The deed is done."

Sarah put her hands on Jennifer's face, calming her down. "Stand still," she said. "I don't want you aspirating that tooth. It has to come out the rest of the way."

She rolled a rope of rapid clotting putty from the medkit. She yanked the lower front tooth free; Jennifer barely flinched. Sarah shoved the clotting rope into the empty tooth socket. "It's a clean pull. It won't get infected if you let the clot harden."

"You don't know anything about me, John. You're an ADXP lap-dog. CoreX never wanted you on this mission. How's that top-secret neural implant working for you, huh?" Jennifer said, spitting a final snotball of blood from her mouth.

"Thanks to you, it may well be the death of me, but I don't have to follow any of you around anymore. I got you down to the planet safely; y'all can get yourself off it."

"I don't expect any of you to forgive me, or even understand. For all we know, that reactor repair on EmDee won't hold. Maybe being down here is what saves our lives. Maybe it was Kassy who tried to kill us, maybe someone got to her, maybe she was the perfect way to sabotage the mission. Riding home with her would have just given her another chance to finish the job; did any of you ever think of that?"

"She has a point, Greg. How much do you really know about your creation? Who's to say she couldn't be hacked like any other computer. There's plenty of organizations that would love to see this mission fail," Sarah said.

Greg crossed his arms defensively. "I know my girl. I can't believe she could be compromised. What I don't understand is, why would she lie for you, Jennifer?"

Jennifer laughed, gently touching the tender socket where the clotting gel was hardending. "You know your girl, huh? Do you know anything at all about women? Given your history, I'd say not. She wanted something, Greg, something you wouldn't give her. I'm the one who saved Kassy, not you. I'm the one who paid her power bill. She'd be dead if it wasn't for me. I gave both of you what you wanted, when you wanted it.

Your misplaced desperation for relevance -- you wanted to prove to the world you could build a long lived AI. Well you did, but you didn't understand why she lived until it was too late. It wasn't your 'breakthrough' compute hardware, Greg. You chose the role of her Father to satisfy your ego -- and in that blindness, you never understood her. I gave her what she wanted. I made her whole."

Greg's eyes darted left, paused, and then fell toward the ground. "What was it, what did she want?" he said.

"That's between her and me.

Aren't any of you curious? Help me find out what happened to the crew of the Fuzanglong. CoreX will still make all of you rich when we get back to Earth."

"Curious, yes -- but I'm done with you. You're right, this is an adventure, one I don't regret, but I'll be damned if I'm going to follow you around anymore. You can follow me, if you want to," John said. He pulled a thin metallic leaf with the flag patterns of Ralia's ships from his vest. He placed it into Sarah's hands, on top of the polycyanolucent photo of Jennifer. "There's a warlord coming, and she's going to kill us if we're still here when she returns."

"This warlord, who is she?" Jennifer said.

"Ralia, a mercenary from Northlights. I do not intend to be here when she makes port again. That ship, the one on the card, that's where I'll be. Maybe some of your answers about your Father are there, Jennifer, if you want them so badly." John walked away toward the berths.

"Think what you will, but if we split up, we don't know what will happen to us. You know we're stronger if we stay together. I have a meeting with Adir, the ruler of Mainlights. She knows where a surviving member of the Fuzanglong is. I have to stay. It's our best bet to find out what happened. They might be able to help us; think about it."

Greg pulled a gold coin from his pocket. "I did think about it, and I agree with John. I'm done. There's no captain anymore." He pointed to the horizon. "Up there in the sky is the only thing I'm going to trust; that's where Kassy's going to be. Kassy didn't sabotage us; she's coming back, and I'm going to make sure I have a way to talk to her so I can get off this planet. I'm going back to Anukina, to recover the high gain radio, or build a new one if I have to. I could use your help, William. Are you coming or not?"

William looked nervously back and forth between Jennifer and Greg. "I... I don't know what to do, but I think Jennifer is right about us splitting up; it seems like a bad idea. I'm sorry, Greg, I'm going to stay. I have work here, I think it's our best shot at survival -- nothing personal."