Network Effect

I was hoping ART would comment, even if it was going to say something like “or else,” but there was nothing.

Thiago had been looking thoughtful, which I tried not to see as a bad sign. He said, “Arada, I’d like to get Eletra back into Medical for a thorough neurological scan. Also, that will give me a chance to speak to her myself. I’ll review Amena’s full report and then see if I can get us any more information.”

Arada told Thiago, “Good idea. Optimism aside, we need to know if she’s lying and plotting something or if she genuinely thinks she’s telling the truth. Let’s try to get as much information as we can before … before anything else happens.”

I established a private connection to Arada’s feed and told her, You all need a rest period.

Arada hesitated, then she winced and rubbed her temple. You’re probably right about that. I’ll talk to the others.

I put the vid display back on standby. Amena scraped the last vegetable matter out of the container and said, “Is ART really working on something?”

“Sure,” I said. She stared at me. “Maybe.” I secured a channel just for the three of us, me, ART, and Amena. I sent, ART, answer me. You’re scaring Amena. Ugh, I needed to be honest or this wouldn’t help. I added, You’re scaring me.

It was a relief when ART said, I’m continuing the repair of my normal space drive and examining long-range system scan data to determine possible search patterns for the explorer.

“Are you okay?” Amena asked.

No, ART said.

I hadn’t expected ART to admit it. Really hadn’t expected. Right, so, that isn’t good.

Amena took a breath, visibly regrouping, and nodded. “Sure, I can see that. But we’re not any worse off now than we were before you two figured this out. In fact, we’re better off, because now we’re helping you find out exactly what happened. And it’s always better to have more information to act on.” Her glance at me was wry. “My second mother says that.”

ART pinged me for a private connection and I let it establish one. It said, My crew. What if they never left?

I knew what it meant. I said, ART, there was nothing indicating that humans were killed or injured onboard. I checked. It was the first thing I checked for in the quarters module. There was nothing. And you’ve scanned yourself. The Targets trashed some cabins and left debris and their own fluids, they wouldn’t have cleaned up after a … I hesitated but I had to be completely honest about what I thought or ART would know. They wouldn’t have cleaned up after a mass murder. I’ve seen mass murders, ART, they leave a lot of mess.

It didn’t reply, but I could feel it listening.

I said, Once we get your drones fixed, we can have them check again for bio traces, but I don’t think we’ll find anything. I think that whatever happened, your humans were fine when they left here.

ART said, Is that an indication they left voluntarily?

It was a point to consider. Doing what ART would normally do (if it wasn’t emotionally compromised) and looking at just the verifiable data, we didn’t know if the crew had been abducted, left voluntarily, or escaped. Since ART’s two shuttles were still docked, we knew the crew hadn’t used them to leave.

(Or the crew could have tried to escape and been spaced. I wasn’t going to mention it, because ART had to know that it was a possibility. But it might have eliminated it from its decision tree, knowing it couldn’t function otherwise. There was no point in considering it, not now. We had to search until we found an answer. If that was the answer … we’d deal with it then.) I said, We need to do a full inventory, particularly of your hand weapons storage. If your crew had to abandon you when the Targets compromised your systems, they may have forced their way onboard the explorer.

The pause was long, 3.4 seconds. Then ART said, Agreed.