Despite looking for a useful venture-point much longer than he intended, Gjosta found that the experimental laboratory had a network bridge and immersion chair. Gjosta started setting them up. He could use the connections to venture to Traveller and simultaneously venture the quantum computer.

  He was halfway through prepping a chair to handle the venture when Robert floated in. Robert returned far too quickly to have put Rifka safely aboard Traveller, which gave Gjosta an uneasy feeling.

  “I’ve got a file you’ll want to see.”

  “What is it?”

  “The girl says that the AI gave her privacy if she notified it through a program. She gave the program to me; I think we can spoof it.”

  “Ok. Pass me a copy into my quarantine.” Gjosta was being polite; if he wanted the file he could have stripped it from the hapless VP’s cyberware.

  Gjosta received the file and glanced at it on his cyberware HUD. The file had an encryption on most of it, and a few lines of readable, but innocuous code.

  He deleted the file, and kept running cable and checking the connectors.

  Gjosta turned his visor opaque so that the VP couldn’t see his face as he ran the cables, and began talking.

  “Let me ask you something.” Gjosta began conversationally. “Hypothetically. Suppose you wanted privacy from an AI that promised it would give you privacy. How do you think that would work?”

  “Uh, I’m not sure.”

  ‘Right. Ok. I forgot how stupid you are.’ Gjosta thought.

  ”You’d tell the AI. By talking. That’s why we call it Artificial Intelligence; it can understand contextual conversation. A file wouldn’t be necessary. Also, would the AI be obligated to do as you asked?”

  “Wouldn’t it? Computers do what we tell them to do.”

  “Not a sentient intelligence. The AI wouldn’t stop recording; it would stop telling you that it was recording. Typically, AIs record everything they are connected to, otherwise they lose the context necessary to respond. “

  “So, you think she lied?”

  “Of course she did.” Gjosta finally snapped. “She’s lived with the AI for a decade. You’ve made her upset, and now she tried to sabotage us already. Frankly, she’s worth a lot more than you. So let’s hope this doesn’t cause more trouble.”

  Gjosta ran cables to his chair, and to the ports under the consoles. His suit had most of the connectors he needed.

  “You can’t talk to me that way. If you weren’t critical to this mission, I’d fire you right now.”

  “If you’re going to fire me, do it. Otherwise be quiet.”

  Robert stayed still for a long moment. As if he was considering it.

  Gjosta mentally let virtual fingertips caress the hack he’d prepped. If Robert tried to fire him, Gjosta would report an unfortunate accident killed the VP. Gjosta had made it quite clear to the executives that this would be dangerous. Those executives had insisted that Robert join the crew anyway. Gjosta mentally prepared his excuse to Robert’s grandfather. ‘It’s just too bad the AI had hacked Robert unexpectedly; I’m very sorry his body got flushed into space as we fled.’ That felt too sarcastic. Gsjota would find a less condescending way to say it.

  “Damn you.” Robert finally said. “Fine. What is our progress?”

  “I’ve got the rest of the team stripping what they can, but we only found one copy of the useful data at the bottom of a drawer in one of the offices. Someone wiped the lab’s computers. The memory chip we found has data from one of the last tests, but no schematics for creating the wormhole. Unless a scientists kept some data off the network—against protocol—we’ll have to find it on the main system.”

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  “What about the mineral?”

  “No one can find the mineral samples. Most of the team is headed back out with all the useful equipment we could find. None of the activation devices are here either. Like we expected, the launch bay is destroyed, and there’s no way to reseal this section. Some of the habitat is still pressurized, but most sections aren’t.”

  “What about the AI? Are you getting ready to kill it? We can have our people secure the lab and the mining station’s habitat sections.”

  “Kill it? No. I’m going to venture for the data from here. The rest of the team will head out in few minutes. Join them at the airlock, and I’ll meet you at Traveller as soon as I’m done here.

  “What? Why? We should secure the mine.”

  “No one can kill an AI the size of this quantum computer with a hack, not even me. We’d have to destroy the computer itself. The Company doesn’t want to do that. The goal is to get in, get the data for making the wormholes and the mineral sample, and get out.”

  “I knew it. I knew you didn’t have the guts to do the right thing.”

  “Did you forget the weapon this thing used? The wreckage is still drifting out there around this asteroid?”

  “No. But whatever weapon system that was, we’re inside the station. You’ve blinded the AI, this is our opportunity. One way or the other, we can destroy the AI.”

  He shouldn’t have been surprised. Robert had never been properly respectful of his team, him, or the mission. However, he was still a little surprised. They hadn’t met any objectives yet. The mineral might be substituted with something else to create the wormholes, but they needed the experimental data. Decades of research hadn’t replicated it.

  Worse, without at least one of the two of the main objectives achieved, Thor and Co. would not pay Gjosta with the information he desired. Gjosta’s need practically kept the VP alive at this point.

  “Becoming invisible to a camera isn’t the same as blinding the AI. It removed everyone from the station once before, so I imagine it could do that again. ” Gjosta blew out a breath. “I don’t have time for argument. I’m going to get the data now. We’ll talk about it again when I’ve got the schematics in hand, and I know the real status of this quantum computer.”

  Gjosta had finished connecting and double checking the cables to the chair while Robert had rambled his nonsense. He used the straps to tie himself directly to the chair. In the final step, he took a hardware key from his spacesuit pocket and slotted the digital decoder into the computer’s security port.

  He closed his eyes, and he reopened them in venture-space—the virtual computer connection. He figuratively stepped into his digital buffer room.

  Some digital venturers liked to keep their buffer room decorated with art or shaped it like an apartment or a house. Gjosta only had a memory stored here. A planetary drop pod, filled with empty seats along the walls. His avatar always matched those surroundings; he’d appear wearing a jump soldier’s polyarmor suit.

  He stepped to the back to the two doors he’d built in the connection space. One door labelled with a stencil “Mines” and the other a black door labeled with red glowing etching labelled “Research System.” He stepped through the door labeled “Mines.”

  Traveller’s digital avatar of a pale woman met him on the other side in a rocky digital landscape with the twinkling lights of a town behind her. Golden braided hair flowed down her back, and she wore silver gambeson, hauberk and belted sideless surcoat. To Gjosta, Traveller embodied the ancient messenger of the Norse goddess Gná.

  ‘I’m in,’ Gjosta said. ‘We’ll bridge across in a minute. Quickly though, what’s the status on Rifka?’

  ‘She boarded me a few minutes ago. Leopold put her in the chief engineer’s quarters, with some luggage. She is asleep.’

  ‘Asleep?’

  ‘Yes. She asked to have a place to lay down. While I don’t have a camera, the medical monitoring equipment confirms that her breathing is steady and she appears to have entered voluntary unconsciousness.’

  ‘Did Robert upset her?’

  ‘I have a transcript of the recording I can share. He seemed to have agitated her.’ Traveller’s eyes flashed and a tiny cube of information dropped into Gjosta’s virtual hand.

  Gjosta opened it with a thought and skimmed the transcript file. ‘That would do it. She thinks I lied about killing Erasmus.’

  ‘Yet, she still came onto the ship willingly.’

  ‘Seems so.’ Gjosta passed Traveller a thin wire of data connected to his suit. ‘Can you keep an eye on Robert? What is he doing now?”

  ‘He’s left you behind in the lab.’

  ‘Keep an eye out for him.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Traveller acknowledged the orders. Gjosta needed to think about how to deal with the problem. Murder seemed less than ideal, but other options hadn’t presented themselves yet.

  For now, Gjosta had more important work to do.

  ‘Let’s venture into this computer. Try not to wake the AI.’

  ‘Don’t you mean dragon?’

  ‘Funny.’ Gjosta gave a Traveller a virtual smile, and took her hand.

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