Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(83)

Raul increased his focus, bringing every working part of the Rho Ship’s massive neural net to bear on his analysis. If only he had made more repairs to the ship’s data storage banks. Perhaps they held some data that would give him a better idea of how this could be happening. Instead, he had been so busy repairing the matter disrupter power cells that he had delayed further work on the ship’s computing systems. Now that decision had come back to bite him on the ass. Well, there was no help for it. Raul would just have to make do with the tools he had.

As he began analyzing the nature and pattern of the probe, it disappeared as suddenly as it had begun. Odd. Had it noticed his sudden attention? Raul replayed the incident, noting every detail of the intrusion.

The signal strength had been very low and had just appeared, moving around inside his neural network in jumps. That in itself was quite fascinating. There was no sign in any portion of the neural network that something had passed through it. The signal had just appeared at various points as if out of nowhere.

Out of nowhere! Almost like what he had been able to accomplish through his worm fibers.

Raul rechecked the data, cross-correlating with gravitation readings from the other instruments. Except for the low-level gravitational flux from the Rho Ship itself, there was nothing out of the ordinary, certainly nothing of the magnitude a gravitational singularity such as that would produce.

So this wasn’t a gravitational technology. That left subspace manipulation as the most likely source of the anomaly. Subspace! The technological realm of the Enemy.

Raul felt his heart rate jump. Had the Enemy somehow managed to track the Rho Ship to earth? Shit! In its current damaged state, this ship was in no condition to survive an Enemy attack. If that was the case, he was trapped in a bottle that was about to be shot off the fence.

But that scenario didn’t feel right. Raul reexamined every measurement associated with the probe. The signal strength was far too weak to be an Enemy scan. It had also been too random, almost as if the source of the probe had not known what it was looking at. With the Rho Ship’s shielding inoperative, an Enemy scan would have been very powerful and would have simultaneously engulfed the entire neural net and all other shipboard systems.

Raul looked around the room in which he hung suspended in the stasis field. The artificial lens that had replaced his right eye swiveled in the socket, the hinged mechanism extending out of his head to zoom in on the panel where his umbilical cable connected to the ship. No doubt about it. If he wanted to have enough computational power to figure this out he was going to have to get back to work on the computing systems. For too long he had delayed the next round of self-surgery, the drastic step that would grant him the level of access he now needed.

Raul had imagined himself beyond fear, but now that he faced the reality of what had to be done, a deep dread made him weak in the knees. Glancing down at the empty space where his legs had once connected to his hips, he managed a smile. Perhaps not.

Then, taking a deep breath, Raul turned back toward the umbilical connection panel, letting the stasis field gather the surgical devices that would be required. His artificial eye telescoped into a thin flexible tube, extending to a point where it could focus on the spot where the umbilical entered the base of his skull. Having acquired sufficient skill with his field manipulation, Raul could control the instruments without using his hands. Unfortunately, he would have to remain completely conscious throughout the operation. The necessity of allowing the ship’s neural net to monitor the surgical progress meant that he didn’t even have the freedom to damp down the pain.

At least, bound by necessity, here in the dim gray light at the heart of the Rho Ship, he retained one essential freedom. He had the freedom to scream.





85


“Oh shit!”

“Back out of there!” Heather gasped.

Jennifer’s fingers were already flying across the keyboard, activating the commands that would jump the subspace transmitter to another coordinate, still within the Rho Building, but onto a conventional computer subnet.

Jennifer leaned back. “Done.”

“Thank God.” Heather suddenly remembered to breathe.

Mark had begun to pace beside the workbench. “You know what this means? That damn Stephenson has somehow managed to activate the alien computer system on the Rho Ship. God only knows how long he has had access to it.”

Jennifer shook her head. “Just because it’s turned on doesn’t mean he’s able to understand the data. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“I wouldn’t make that bet. What about you, Heather?”

“Me either. I’d say there’s roughly an 84.61538 percent probability that he’s gotten at least some control over the system.”

“Roughly?” A grin softened the worry lines in Mark’s face.

Heather shrugged. “That still leaves two chances out of thirteen that I’m wrong.”

“Well let’s hope you’re wrong,” said Jennifer. “From the way the alien data pattern was changing, I’d say something noticed our intrusion. I’d rather think it wasn’t Dr. Stephenson.”

“I’m not sure I like thinking about what else might have noticed us either,” said Mark.

“Well they can’t have figured out much,” Heather replied. “We were only in there a few seconds randomly hopping around the neural net. There’s no way to trace the subspace signal back to us.”