Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)(15)
Chapter Five
I MET THEM AT the embarkation zone. I had the knapsack, which was part of my human disguise, but the only important thing I was carrying was the comm interface from ART. It would allow us to communicate once I was down on RaviHyral and let me continue to have access to ART’s knowledge bases and unsolicited opinions. I was used to having a HubSystem and a SecSystem for backup and ART would be taking their place. (Without the part where those two systems were partly designed to rat me out to the company and trigger punishment through the governor module. ART’s freedom to weigh in on everything I did was punishment enough.) I had inserted the comm interface in a built-in compartment under my ribs.
All three of my clients were waiting, each with a small bag or pack, since hopefully they would only be staying a couple cycles. I hung back until they finished saying goodbye to the other members of their collective. They all looked worried. The collective was listed in the social feed as a group marriage, and had five children of various sizes. Once the others had left and Rami, Maro, and Tapan were alone, I came forward.
“Tlacey bought us passage on a public shuttle,” Rami told me. “That could be a good sign, right?”
“Sure,” I said. It was a terrible sign.
The employment voucher got me through into the embarkation zone and there was no weapons scan. RaviHyral allowed private weapons and had a low security presence in public areas, which was one reason small groups of humans needed to hire private security consultants to go there. As we approached the shuttle’s lock I sent to ART: Can you scan the shuttle for energy anomalies without transit ring security detecting the activity?
No, but I’ll tell it I’m running scanning diagnostics and testing systems.
As we reached the lock, ART reported No anomalies, 90 percent match to factory specs.
That was normal, and meant if there was an explosive device, it was inert at the moment, buried somewhere inside the hull. Five other guest workers waited to board, and my scan read no energy signatures. They had stuffed packs and bags, indicating packing for a long-term stay. I let them board first, then slid in front of Maro and went through the lock, scanning as I went.
The shuttle was bot-driven and the only crew was one augmented human who seemed only there to check employment vouchers and shuttle passes. She looked at me and said, “There’s only supposed to be three of you.”
I didn’t answer, being in the middle of wrestling the security system for control. It was an entirely separate system from the bot pilot, which was non-standard for the shuttles I was used to.
Tapan’s chin jutted out. “This is our security consultant.”
I had control of ShuttleSecSys, and deleted its attempt to alert the bot pilot and the crew member to the fact that it was compromised.
The crew member frowned, checked the voucher again, but didn’t argue. We went on into the compartment where the other passengers were getting seated. They were stowing their possessions or talking quietly. I hadn’t eliminated them as potential threats, but their behavior was lowering the probability at a steady rate.
I took a seat next to Rami as my clients got settled and pinged ART again. ART said, I’m scanning for targeting anomalies and situation is currently clear.
It meant it couldn’t see anything on the moon aiming at us. If that was the plan, it wouldn’t happen until we were underway. If somebody fired at the transit ring from the moon’s surface, I was pretty sure that would be a huge deal and there would be legal ramifications, if not immediate violent retaliation by ring security. I told ART, If they fire at us en route, it’s not like we can do anything about it.
ART didn’t answer, but I knew it well enough by now to know that meant something. I said, You don’t have a weapons system. There hadn’t been one on the schematics. At least the schematics that ART made available in its unsecured feed. Do you?
ART admitted, I have a debris deflection system.
There’s only one way to deflect debris. I had never been on an armed ship but I knew they were subject to a whole different level of licensing and bond agreements. (If one of them accidentally shoots something it’s not supposed to, somebody has to pay for the damage.) I said, You have a weapons system.
ART repeated, For debris deflection.
I was starting to wonder just what kind of university owned ART.
Rami was watching me worriedly. “Is everything okay?”
I nodded and tried to look neutral.
Tapan leaned past ter to ask, “Are you in the feed? I can’t find you.”
I told her, “I’m on a private channel with a friend in the ring who’s monitoring the shuttle’s departure. Just making sure everything’s okay.”
They nodded and sat back.
The shudder went through the deck that meant the shuttle had uncoupled from the ring and started to move. I cozied up to the bot pilot. It was a limited function model, not nearly as complex as even a standard transport driver bot. I had the ShuttleSecSys tell it I was authorized by ring security, and it pinged me cheerfully. The crew member was sitting in the cockpit with it, using her feed to catch up on admin tasks and read her social feed download, but there was no human pilot aboard.
I leaned back in my seat and relaxed a little. Media was tempting, and from the echoes I could pick up in the feed, that’s what most of the humans were doing. But I wanted to keep monitoring the bot pilot. This may seem overcautious, but that’s how I was built.