Sheridan fell silent for a moment.

"Done."

Aldriena walked about two hundred paces back toward the s.p.a.ceport. She found a long faux wood bench nested between two ma.s.sive support struts decorated with virtual advertis.e.m.e.nts.

They sat down on the bench and waited. People walked by on their silent marches down the concourse. It made Aldriena think of a scene in a link flick where some toxin had been released into the atmosphere and everyone had to wear biowarfare armor everywhere. Except this was real, not a computer-rendered scenario.

Aldriena"s Cascavel monitored Sheridan"s link. But Sheridan hadn"t tried to signal anyone.

Is she smart enough to feed me bad information and then wait patiently without giving herself away?

"It is, you know," Sheridan said.

"What?"

"Incredibly dull. This place is incredibly dull. It used to be a wonderful place, better than any place on Earth. Before Claw showed up and the execs started acting wonky. I believe you about the AI. Your explanation fits perfectly."

"I must admit, I wondered why you were being so helpful to a stranger," Aldriena said.

"You trusted me by taking your helmet off."

"When the UNSF announces their arrival, take your helmet off quickly," Aldriena said.

"Why?"

"It may ... the AI might pull some tricks. There"s something in the helmets we don"t understand."

"So our execs screwed up ... I guess they figured it would be safe to play with AI this far from Earth? But it seems to me that it could spread through our communications links anyway, couldn"t it? Has it?"

"So far, no. But I honestly don"t know why not. I think the UNSF has new systems to screen for such events."

"I don"t think so. How can you detect the data movements designed by something smarter than you are? That"s scary. That means it probably did spread and you don"t know about it."

That"s why the s.p.a.ce force people said aliens taking over a s.p.a.ce station was actually good news. Better than a rogue AI.

"You know what? We should eat. The UNSF will probably throw you into a holding cell, and it may be awhile before things settle down and they get around to feeding you more than a subsistence ration."

Sheridan looked at Aldriena. "Yes, I suppose that"s a good idea. I"m not particularly hungry but I can appreciate the necessity."

Sheridan led the way to her quarters. With the addition of the gear to everyone"s lifestyle on the workstations, eating only occurred in the private areas of the station. All of Avalon"s restaurants and snack bars had been closed down, another of the edicts contained in the archaically styled books distributed to the citizens.

Sheridan"s quarters were small by Earth standards but luxurious for a deep s.p.a.ce station. Her quarters extended across a twenty by twenty meter block of the housing level. The cost of every cubic foot this far from the home planet had to be, well, astronomical.

"Time to blow my best," Sheridan said, ordering her food. "You"re welcome to whatever I have left for this month."

Aldriena shrugged. "Pasta is good," she said.

"No problem. Pardon me for asking, but do you have some Asian blood?"

Aldriena smiled. "j.a.panese."

"Ah. Good. Because I"d hate to think I"d been fooled by a Chinese agent," Sheridan said. She watched Aldriena carefully.

"My name is a b.a.s.t.a.r.dization of ... never mind. I could have lied to you about my name. My father brought me to Brazil from j.a.pan. Having some Asian blood often helps me in my job, since we"re rare in the West now. I guess in this case, it hurts me."

"I still believe you. You gave up on the idea of getting into the lab once we decided it wasn"t necessary for your claimed objective. If you hadn"t, I"d still be suspicious."

Sheridan brought the food over to her simple round table. They sat down on leather strap chairs and started to eat.

"On some of the stations, they have Asian slaves," Aldriena said.

"Really? Are they really slaves, or just paid to pretend?" Sheridan asked.

"I think they"re real slaves. Chinese most likely. A Chinese person caught in the West would have limited options. It would be easy to traffic them out here and trap them."

"And how do you feel about that? About Chinese slaves?"

Aldriena shrugged. "Living at subsistence on Earth is worse than being a slave out here. I hear they made slaves out of my people after the invasion."

They finished the food in silence. Aldriena watched the time in her PV.

"You should send the message. I think the UNSF will arrive sometime within the hour," Aldriena said.

"Okay," Sheridan said. "I"m nervous."

"Of course you are. But send the message anyway."

"I sent it," she said. "Maybe we should move out closer to the s.p.a.ceport, though."

"Sure."

She must a.s.sume the UNSF will arrive at the s.p.a.ceport. I won"t mention the police cruisers breach the station wherever they want. The s.p.a.ceport is as good as any place though, plenty of elbow room there if things get tricky.

They walked quietly for a minute. They still weren"t too far from where the grenade had been set. The thought that the spinner approached their trap nearby gave Aldriena an irrational urge to sprint away to the opposite side of the station. But she kept her stride relaxed.

It wouldn"t do to trigger some HIT now. Who knows how many of them are hidden around here?

"Why didn"t it make more than just Claw? Why hasn"t it s.p.a.ced us all?"

"There is more than Claw. On other stations," Aldriena said. "I think it wants to control the people for now. I don"t know ... can any human really understand the AIs?"

"I wonder if he is going to respond to my message," Sheridan said.

Aldriena"s Cascavel received a transmission.

Target acquired. Actuating.

"It went off," she said.

"Do you think it got him?"

"No idea," Aldriena said. "Keep heading to the s.p.a.ceport. When the marines come, don"t resist and don"t get in the way of the heavies. Other than your helmet, leave your gear on, just in case. It might protect you from shrapnel or a rubber bullet."

They walked beside a large trafficway and took a branch toward the s.p.a.ceport. Aldriena and Sheridan approached one of the long conveyors moving people in and out of the area.

Crump.

A distant explosion shook the deck. The other people around Aldriena didn"t take it well. Aldriena heard a woman"s scream m.u.f.fled by a gear helmet. The base inhabitants broke like a herd of gazelles. Clumsy gazelles, Aldriena thought, jogging along as everyone around her struggled to run in their gear.

This is the United Nations s.p.a.ce Force. We are conducting a surprise inspection of this facility. Report to your personal quarters and stay there or face possible severe injury or death.

Sheridan took her helmet off. "Thank Cthulhu," she said. "You were telling me the truth."

Aldriena fell into the stream of people. Like Sheridan, she wanted to know if the grenade had worked, but didn"t dare investigate. She imagined the ordnance bolting forward, rolling toward its logged target to activate at its base ... then what? The machine had been enveloped in foam and helplessly trapped? Or had it evaded with superhuman agility, and even now roamed the halls seeking its attacker?

A person pushed Aldriena aside, trying to sprint in their gear. He tripped stepping between conveyors and sprawled. Aldriena laughed. Then she tore her helmet off and tossed it aside.

No reason to put up with this. I"ve already put my money down on the UNSF as the winner of this fight.

She pulled off the suit coverings on her arms.

"Don"t do that!" someone said behind her. "It"s against the rules!"

Aldriena laughed again and shed the frontal torso section. Her Veer skinsuit showed under the remains of her gear.

She danced aside off the walkway and started to run, working on her gear as she went. She had managed to get her back piece off when she felt a sharp pain in her left leg. Her run faltered. She felt another flash of pain in her right arm. An ominous whining noise grew behind her.

She turned around and reached for her new C4B. Another flash of pain struck her other leg and she fell backward onto her rear end. She brought her gun up in her right hand, but it was smacked away in an instant.

The next second a shining orb hovered over her. A single straight flamingo leg of silvery metal extended straight downward, pressing into her chest above her heart. The other legs of the machine extended outward radially, except for one, which extended toward her throat. It had a long curved blade built into the tip that resembled nothing so much as an oversized silvery claw.

"Merda," she whispered.

Thirteen.

Only seven a.s.sAIL units warmed up in the Guts while Jameson and Jackson played their delicate games of stealth with the Avalon detection grid. Bren didn"t understand the details of hiding the Vigilant"s approach to the s.p.a.ce station. He only knew that the electronic warfare folks strove to avoid detection for as long as possible so the BCP would have the element of surprise.

Officially, Gauss Systems had constructed Avalon for the production of Internet infrastructure equipment and software. Like most of the corporation facilities placed millions of miles from Earth, it didn"t need to be out this far to do zero-G manufacturing. It was a way of escaping the grasp of the world government.

Bren worked with his a.s.sAIL handlers through their pre-mission checklist. They monitored logs, measured resource usages, and ran tests to verify the cold intelligences inside the hard metal spheres. Bren embraced the monotony of the launch ritual because it helped him forget the nerves that had prevented normal eating and sleeping for the last twenty-four hours. It bothered him deeply that they didn"t have enough machines to a.s.sure victory. At least they had a lot of new marines to back up the a.s.sAILs.

I wonder if that amazing woman managed to take out the radar on Avalon. She probably succeeded, if she didn"t turn on us. She seemed supremely confident. Then again, maybe she held her position solely through her astounding looks.

He"d moved up the core startup schedule another twenty minutes, allowing for even older cores going into the a.s.sault. What else could they do to compensate for having only seven heavies? The cores would be more mature, more capable, and more dangerous to both the Avalonians and the UNSF.

Finally, the a.s.sAIL units stood ready. Their cores were grown, tested, and placed inside the cha.s.sis that would carry them into combat. As soon as the Vigilant breached the hull, they would move through. Bren listened to the activity as the breach team worked on another channel.

"Soon now," Bren said. "The breach is near the s.p.a.ceport, just beyond the arrival security points."

"You"re hunting these creatures. They"re very intelligent. They"ll escalate their defense," a voice said over Bren"s link.

Bren was startled. He hadn"t prepared himself for the possibility that one of the a.s.sAILs would talk to him so early on. His PV showed that Meridian had engaged him in conversation. He reminded himself that the cores had been started earlier than last time.

"Advise a counter strategy," Bren said calmly.

"Send the a.s.sAIL contingent forward alone," said the a.s.sAIL. "The marines are vulnerable. They"ll need to withdraw or face heavy losses."

"That isn"t possible. We can"t comply. The marines provide support and consolidate what you"ve cleared out. You don"t believe that the operative Niachi has given us the element of surprise?"

Bren referred to Aldriena"s mission, which had been included on the pre-mission information module supplied to all the cores.

"The attempt at containment failed. There"s a high probability that the operative Aldriena Niachi is dead," said Meridian.

"How in the h.e.l.l does it know that?" he yelled aloud in the Guts. He kept his comment off the link traffic with careful concentration. He didn"t want the machine to overhear his emotional outburst.

"Which one is talking to you?" Hoffman asked.

"Meridian. It"s Meridian again." Bren said, and then transmitted on the channel. "The decision has been made to send the marines in with you. You"ll have to plan accordingly."

Bren considered repeating the mission priorities but he stopped himself. The machine wouldn"t overlook them. Saying everything again, as if talking to a child would speed the machine"s negative judgment of its masters.

"I advise the soldiers to shoot at anything that moves," Meridian transmitted.

Bren"s eyebrows rose. For a moment, he thought he"d been the victim of a practical joke. Was someone pretending to be Meridian? He ruled it out. He didn"t have a single handler or tech who wasn"t utterly serious about the mission.

"Major Henley," Bren transmitted directly to the major. "I have it on good authority that the marines are ... you may be a direct target of the Reds this time."

"They"re trained for it. There"s nothing more we can do."

"Meridian says ... you should shoot anything that moves. That"s a direct quote."

"s.h.i.t. Bloodthirsty thing. I"m glad it"s on our side."

"Perhaps you should tell your men that if it hits the fan, they should shoot, even if it means civilian casualties."

"My men know the rules of engagement. They"ll do whatever is necessary."

Bren nodded. What could he hope to accomplish at this stage? The BCP could hardly be given orders to gun down the natives because a core said it would give them some edge against the Red. Or could they? Bren packed up the conversation buffer and sent it with a high priority flag to Admiral Jameson.

Bren fidgeted uncertainly for three more minutes until they received word that the heavies were needed to exploit the breach.

"Here we go again," Bren transmitted to the a.s.sAIL team channel.