Part 3 (2/2)

s.h.i.+ft over, the married couple had taken leave of one of Bannen's domes and were moving purposefully back towards Belial Base's main airlock a.s.sembly. Bannen had put in a requisition for a pressurized tunnel four years before, and had renewed it at regular intervals, but Moshe*Rabaan had vetoed it every time. Miles might have been in charge of the project, but it was Moshe*Rabaan who allocated the energy to carry out his instructions. Some considered the cool, distant woman to be the real voice of Eden.

In the time since Paula Engado's death, tension had skyrocketed. Tempers had stretched to breaking point on any number of occasions, even between Sam and Cheryl. They had been married on the trip out from Earth, and until now Project Eden had been nothing more or less than a prolonged honeymoon for them. On Earth, with living s.p.a.ce at an unprecedented premium, their records would have been stapled together in a memory bank somewhere and their living arrangements would have felt exactly the same as before: even married, their living s.p.a.ce allocation would have consisted of only two rooms; there wouldn't have been s.p.a.ce enough to swing a cat. Now here they were, two hundred and eighty light years from Earth, in orbit around a planet so big it made you dizzy just thinking about it. Okay so it was dark, cold and airless, the hours stank and so did the plumbing, but it was home now. A better home than Earth had ever been to them. Perhaps a better home than Earth could ever be, even if Project Eden were successful.

Sam s.h.i.+vered a little and adjusted the thermostat on his life*functions regulator. Sometimes the dark and the cold got to you out here. The Ring of Lucifer encircling the horizon didn't help either. The d.a.m.n planet was too well named. Nowhere on Belial even there, on the dark side of the moon could you escape its fiery gaze. Anywhere you went, reflections from the planet's atmosphere overwhelmed the clear light of even the brightest stars. He was glad to have Cheryl. She was, after all, the reason he was there.

The Doctor and Bishop were head to head across the refectory table. By now, other members of the crew who'd come off s.h.i.+ft had drifted in; the galley staff were up and running at full steam and the food dispensers were rushed off their null*gray units. Ace had become used to food machines and ration packs, and was finding it strangely hard to readjust. Her years in s.p.a.cefleet had affected her more than she had thought. The clatter of cutlery and the noisy munching of the off*duty roster were enough to put any thoughts of sensible conversation in an early grave. Ace wondered how the two could hear themselves talk over the din.

At the moment, Bishop was still trying to sound the Doctor out. Like many people before him, the Adjudicator wasn't really having a whole lot of luck. 'A chemical a.n.a.lysis of the blue paint used to disable security monitor five shows a high degree of magnetic alignment.'

'Yes, that's right,' said the Doctor, like a kid with a beetle in a box. 'It's a clever little c.o.c.ktail of my own invention: a universally compatible software encoded on magnetically aligned molecules of paint. Atomization gives instant access to any hardware which isn't hermetically sealed. The program acts autonomously; all its controls are built in. It's even colour*coded for easy reference. Rather neat, don't you think? And such a pretty colour!'

Bishop's bemused expression cleared. 'That would explain how the other security file blackouts have occurred. Software contagion can be dealt with. What cannot be so easily explained is why the contagion was introduced in the first place.' Bishop leaned even further towards the Doctor, until their noses were only centimetres apart. 'Just what was it you didn't want anyone to see you do down there, Doctor?'

Now it was the Doctor's turn to look puzzled. He blinked rapidly as Bishop leaned back confidently in his chair. 'Other security file blackouts? On no. No, no, no, no, no. I took special care over mixing that batch. It was my favourite colour. And it was definitely non*viral.'

'The facts seem to indicate otherwise, Doctor,' Bishop said with some satisfaction. 'For example, you casually walked into Miles Engado's meeting and announced that his daughter had been killed by a suit malfunction that, you claimed, could only have been caused by a deliberately*induced software infection.'

'Hmm,' the Doctor mused, 'I can see how you could leap unerringly to the wrong conclusion two and two making five, and all that. Still, it must have occurred to you that I wouldn't wander around incriminating myself unless I was a complete fool.'

'The thought had occurred,' Bishop said.

The Doctor leaned back in his chair. 'Two simple alternatives spring to mind, Adjudicator. Either your facts are wrong, or they are incomplete.'

Bishop rose to leave the table. 'Since evidence against you is still not conclusive, I will allow you the benefit of the doubt.'

The Doctor's expression was carefully neutral. 'But you'd appreciate us not leaving the star system without notifying you first, hmm?'

Bishop refused the bait. 'Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate your cooperation.'

The Doctor doffed his hat and smiled. 'You're very welcome,' he stated formally.

With a barely audible swish of ebony material, the Adjudicator left the refectory. Ace exchanged glances with the Doctor. 'Who pushed his b.u.t.ton, then?'

'Trau Bishop is just doing his job, Ace.'

'Yeah, right. His job is obviously to upset everyone.'

'The Guild of Adjudicators has a long and interesting history. You should respect it.'

'We called them ”ravens” in my time.'

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. 'My time?' he asked. time?' he asked.

Ace looked away. 'The twenty*fifth century.'

'What happens to them all?' Bernice asked. 'I wrote a couple of papers on Guild history. I'd love to know how it all comes out.'

The Doctor sighed, and gazed down at the table.

'A sad story,' he said. 'As Earth went through Empire and Federation, the fortunes of the Guild waxed and waned. Eventually, they became unnecessary. A thousand forms of local justice had sprung up. Every planet had its own laws, and its own police. The universe had pa.s.sed them by. The Guild of Adjudicators had nothing to adjudicate. They degenerated into a reclusive order of a.s.sa.s.sins known as the Knights of the Grand Order of Oberon, dreaming of past glories and crusades for truth.' He smiled bitterly. 'I went looking for them once, to return something that was theirs. I couldn't find them.'

The Doctor glanced over at Bernice to check her reaction, but she didn't seem to have been listening. She gave the appearance of having furled all sails and battened down the hatches.

'You're upset about Paula's death,' the Time Lord observed casually. 'You were good friends, weren't you?'

Bernice looked the Doctor full in the face. There was so much in that face, she thought. So many layers of motivation, experience, understanding. Why did she see nothing in there for herself any more? Eyes that had beheld the birth and death of the universe met her gaze with steady recognition. Had he done what she thought he'd done? Or was she being melodramatic?

'Yes,' she said finally, bitterly. 'I was a real friend.'

Cheryl Russell heard nothing as the outer airlock hatch glided into its fairing, but the air movement as the lock pressurized and the inner portal dilated rocked her starsuit on its gyros. Have to get that sorted, she thought, and soon. All they needed to complete the worst*case scenario was a scrubbed 'lock a.s.sembly.

Ambling noisily into the antechamber, Sam echoed her thought. 'No more parties till the 'lock's seen to, eh?'

Cheryl nodded as she released the seals on her starsuit's helmet. 'Could be messy if you wanted to step outside and puke, that's for sure.'

Cheryl disengaged her helmet and lowered it to the bench. 'Voice command: inner airlock door close, please.'

Sam removed his helmet and dumped it alongside Cheryl's. Condensation run*off from the starsuits was already collecting in the troughs in the flooring. It was always cold in the 'lock. Cold and wet.

'I dunno why you bother to say please. It's only a neural network.'

'Someday machines may have minds too. If the scurvy thing suddenly becomes spontaneously aware, I want it to remember I was nice to it.' She pitched her voice slightly higher for the neural net's benefit. 'Voice command: starsuit nine. Unseal please. Engage neural network linkage for systems check.'

Cheryl's s.p.a.cesuit parted down the chest and back, splitting like a walnut sh.e.l.l along predetermined paths. Sam watched appreciatively as Cheryl stepped out from the suit. Her pleasantly rounded face lit up in a cheerful grin as the disembodied voice of starsuit nine's brain stated: 'Command acknowledged. Thank you for using this unit. Have a nice day.' The wall hatch opened to receive it like an advanced exercise in origami. As it walked back into the suit holding area for its usual systems check, Sam could see the ranks of other starsuits gleaming in the shadows, along with a rack of flimsy emergency s.p.a.cesuits.

Cheryl swept back a matted wad of copper hair with an absent gesture. The necklace of diopals growing from the skin of her neck glinted in the bright, sterilizing light. 'There you are see?'

'Programmed inanities installed at the whim of a matrix generator guilty of watching too many bad simularities.' Sam dismissed the humanizing details of the machinery's software with a sweeping gesture. 'Voice command: starsuit seventeen. Unzip. Besides,' he continued, waiting for his suit to follow Cheryl's into the wall, 'neural networks might mimic human thought processes, but that doesn't mean they suddenly have to come alive to perform at optimum.'

Cheryl walked through into the ultrasound shower, and Sam became aware that he was still waiting for the suit to open. 'Voice command: starsuit seventeen. Unzip!'

He could hear Cheryl laugh as the suit replied: 'Please redefine command instruction. This unit is no longer programmed to receive colloquially*worded instructions.'

Sam sighed with frustration. It had been a long s.h.i.+ft; one way or another he was determined it wouldn't be prolonged by some recalcitrant hunk of s.p.a.ce*junk. 'Voice command: starsuit seventeen and before I take a can opener to you unseal! Please,' he added, as a concession to Cheryl's theory.

'Command acknowledged.'

Above the faint buzz of the ultrasound shower, Cheryl howled with laughter.

Sam continued, trying desperately to hold his temper in check. 'Thank you. Now engage neural network linkage for systems check and software update.'

'Command acknowledged.'

The suit unfolded. Sam stepped out, naked and s.h.i.+vering.

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