His Majesty's Starship Read online

  The chance didn’t come until the transporter was airborne again and they could get out of their seats. The prince looked annoyed.

  “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” he snapped, and moved off to one corner of the lounge that was the transporter’s main cabin. Gilmore shrugged and watched him take out his aide. He spoke a few words into it, listened, spoke again, listened-

  -and his face turned to thunder. He looked around, then strode towards the washroom at the rear of the cabin. Gilmore saw his expression and decided that, if the prince was talking to one of his crew with a face like that, it was his duty to get involved.

  In the washroom the prince was raging. “You ... you incompetent! You fool, Kirton! By God, you cretin, I’ll have your stripes for this, you bungling, stupid-”

  Gilmore snatched the aide from the prince’s hand. “That’s all, Lieutenant,” he said, and broke contact.

  The prince’s face turned a deeper shade of red. “Stay out of this, Gilmore.”

  “How dare you talk to one of my crew like that?” Gilmore said sharply. “They are service, you are a civilian and you will damn well keep your temper to yourself.”

  A sneer spread over the prince’s face. “I said, stay out of this. You’re captain of your toy ship but I’m-”

  “-the son of the man who appointed me,” Gilmore said. He spoke clearly and slowly, to give the prince the benefit of every word. “You may have his ear, but let me remind you of one or two things. I was appointed directly by him. Not by Parliament, not by the Admiralty, but by the king. I was given full authority in the running of Ark Royal and I don’t recall you being given any. You have no rank or position within the Royal Space Fleet, prince, and your threats don’t amount to anything.”

  “I have the rank of Rear Admiral in the Fleet, Commander Gilmore.” The prince’s grin was malicious.

  “Then your behaviour is unbecoming your rank,” Gilmore said. “Good officers, sir, do not scream and swear at subordinates, as you’d know if you’d actually earned that rank or ever passed an exam in your life.”

  The prince was still breathing heavily and he held a trembling finger out to Gilmore. “I knew appointing you was a mistake, Gilmore. You’re actually taking this seriously, aren’t you? You think you’re pretty grand. No, I’m the senior on this mission and your blockhead of a software officer-”

  “-has just successfully produced the first human translation of the Rustie language. We’re talking Nobel prizes here, prince. We’re talking guaranteed tenure in any AI research department the man chooses. We’re talking the most amazing prestige for the Fleet and for UK-1. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “He tried it on the Rusties!” the prince bellowed.

  “Well, of course he did,” Gilmore said, actually taken aback for the first time. “He couldn’t trust the test set on its own. He had to compare it. That’s basic science, prince. Lieutenant Kirton acted on his own initiative and I back him all the way. My report to the king will endorse everything the lieutenant has done.”

  James shook his head. “You don’t understand, Gilmore, you ass. He-”

  “What’s the problem, anyway?” Gilmore said. “Presumably you were-” He broke off as it finally dawned on him, followed by a wave of contempt. “Oh, of course. I see. He stole your thunder, didn’t he? You wanted to be the first! You wanted to be the one who would stroll over to Iron Run and address him in his own language. What a coup for us all!”

  “Now you’re getting the picture, Gilmore,” the prince said.

  Gilmore shrugged. “So? Lieutenant Kirton is a UK citizen. He was acting on your orders, with data supplied by you, and his program belongs to the Fleet. And Iron Run hasn’t heard of it yet, has he?” He jerked a thumb at the bulkhead, to indicate the rest of the transporter. “As far as everyone in there’s concerned, you’ll be the first. Walk out of here with a broad smile on your face, as though everything’s dandy, go up to Iron Run and say whatever clever phrase you want to go down in the history books.” He studied the prince’s stony expression. “Unless you want a potential triumph ruined by a little man’s petty tantrum,” he added.

  The prince held out his hand silently for his aide and Gilmore gave it back. “Get me Kirton,” James said. A pause, then Kirton’s voice spoke.

  “Kirton?” He managed to make the statement of his name a question: the aide would have told him who was calling.

  “I owe you an apology, Lieutenant,” the prince said, never taking his gaze off Gilmore. He put as much inflection into his statement as if he had been stating that water is wet.

  “Ah ... very good, sir,” Kirton said.

  “I commend you on your successful program design.”

  “Ah, actually sir, I-”

  “I’d be grateful if you’d download a copy to my aide. Now.”

  “Very good, sir,” Kirton said again. “Coming through.” A pause of a couple of seconds. “You have it, sir. Filename ‘polyglot’, password whatever you choose.”

  “Thank you. Where is the original?”

  “On the ship, sir.”

  “Secure it and delete your own copy from your aide. This is a very valuable asset. Out,” said the prince. He flipped the aide shut without waiting for a reply. “Happy, Captain?”

  Gilmore stood aside without answering and indicated that the prince should precede him out of the room. To join the others, to speak to Iron Run and to go down in history, however inaccurately, as the first human to speak to the First Breed through a human-made translator.

  But if Kirton wasn’t happy with Polyglot’s suddenly perfect performance then Gilmore wasn’t happy either, and he was going to get to the bottom of it.

  - 13 -

  19-20 May 2149

  “That is one pissed off Prince,” said Adrian thoughtfully. Peter was still pale.

  “Do ... do you think he meant it?” Peter said. “About my career-”

  The aide spoke. “Call from-” Peter tensed “-Captain Gilmore.”

  “Oh.” Peter sighed in relief and took the call. “Yes, sir?”

  Gilmore’s expression was cold. “I’m sorry about that, Lieutenant. Ignore his threats – he can’t touch you, I’ll make sure of that. I’m commending you in my report.”

  “Thank you, sir. But there’s still-”

  “I know,” Gilmore said. “What do you suggest?”

  Peter realised, with relief, that Gilmore believed him. Peter was the software expert and in that area the captain was willing to be guided by his opinion alone.

  “I’ll pursue my own investigations, sir,” he said. “I’ll report directly to you, if I may.”

  “Agreed. Out.”

  Peter looked up at the others. Hannah looked thoughtful, Samad and Adrian puzzled. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said, his mind already filling up with images of Ark Royal’s systems and the tests he was going to have to run. “I’m going back to the Dome.”

  *

  There was silence in the lounge of the transporter. Fifty humans and several Rusties were looking at the tableau made by the prince, aide in hand, and Iron Run, standing facing him. Gilmore saw what Peter had meant by being able to read Rustie surprise.

  After a long pause, Iron Run spoke to his mouthtalker.

  “Iron Run congratulates you,” the other Rustie said. “It enquires how you achieved this.”

  Prince James was basking in the respect of the Rusties and the envy of the other humans. “Data for this program, Polyglot, was compiled from recordings of the natural speech of the First Breed delegation to Earth, and their own translations,” he said. “The program was prepared by Lieutenant Peter Kirton, the software officer on the UK’s ship Ark Royal. Captain Gilmore’s ship.”

  The prince indicated Gilmore but only the Rusties looked over at him. The other humans were looking at the aide and, one by one, realising just how great a coup the prince had just pulled. As well as kudos for the UK’s software talent, whoever had Polyglot would be able to conduct
their own negotiations with the Rusties – regardless of who won this bid.

  “Captain Gilmore.” As usual, Arm Wild was beside him. “Your upper limbs are crossed, one corner of your mouth is inclined slightly upwards and your head is in motion from side to side around your vertical axis. Forgive me, but this is a stance I have learned to equate with amused disbelief in your species.”

  Gilmore quickly uncrossed his arms and straightened up. “If you want to learn human body language,” he said, “Look at that lot.”

  “What will I see?”

  “Naked greed.”

  “How interesting.”

  The prince’s cabal were gathered together, awaiting a moment to be alone with their colleague. When he and Iron Run had finally finished speaking, the prince turned away and they intercepted him before any of the other humans had a chance. James had his own arms folded and he held his head high: every now and then he would nod or shake his head or say something brief.

  The tables had suddenly turned. Prince James had been the poor man of that little clique, his membership based on pure expedience and his father’s clout back home. Even Ark Royal’s armaments were a minimal contribution to what the other ships could offer. But now ... now the others were coming cap in hand to him, and he could name his price.

  *

  “Caution,” said the aide. “The limited memory capacity of this unit will greatly increase the time taken for your program to execute.”

  Sitting in his cramped little room in the Dome, Peter Kirton thought wistfully of the vistas of memory space up on the ship. “Execute,” he said.

  “Complying.”

  A long range diagnostic of the entire ship’s systems, conducted through an aide on a signal that bounced around the Roving’s communication network ... it was going to take hours.

  On the way back to the Dome, he had had time to think. Polyglot’s output was too perfect and three possible reasons came to mind: someone had substituted the program’s output for their own; someone had rewritten the neural net that generated it; or someone had substituted the input data that the neural net filtered.

  All seemed equally unlikely and it came perilously close to being just a problem to be solved out of intellectual curiosity, but for one thing: Peter Kirton was convinced that some entity had got into Ark Royal’s net undetected and tampered with his program, and that made it personal. He would leave the whys and wherefores until later: the who was most important now.

  But entities capable of interfering seamlessly with other people’s programs didn’t just appear out of nowhere. They had to know precisely what they were doing, which meant being familiar with the style of the person who had written the program in the first place, and they also had to be in situ. Peter could only think of one entity fitting this description.

  Peter picked up his aide and called Gilmore, to ask permission to return to the ship.

  *

  Julia Coyne slowly reached out a finger to the display that glowed in front of her over the watch desk on Ark Royal’s flight deck. It was divided into a grid of eight squares on a side and her finger hovered over a symbol in one of them.

  She touched it, then touched another blank square.

  “Knight to king five. Check mate in fourteen,” said Plantagenet.

  “Bugger.” Julia touched another square.

  “Check mate in nine,” said the prince’s AI. “Strictly speaking, Lieutenant, once you have made your initial move you cannot undo it. When playing with real pieces, a player is committed if she removes her hand.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Julia said. “Anyway, who’s the human?”

  “You are.”

  “Thank you.” Julia repeated her initial manoeuvre: she didn’t doubt it would be check mate in fourteen but at least it gave her slightly more of a chance of finding a way out. Some way. Any way.

  The game was going the same way as the last seven, when suddenly the collision alarm sounded and everything else was forgotten.

  “Show emergency.”

  A schematic of the delegation fleet orbiting around the Roving appeared over the board and the nature of the emergency wasn’t difficult to spot: four ships were all converging on Ark Royal. Just as she was opening her mouth to demand thruster control and an audio link, the readouts by the four ship icons changed. They were no longer moving but they had undeniably changed position. They were the Americans’ Enterprise, the Russians’ Nikolai, the Euros’ Bruxelles and Starward’s Algol and they were now above, below and to either side of Ark Royal, enclosing the smaller ship like a shell.

  “Who’s the most senior captain of the four ships that have just moved?” she demanded.

  “Based on length of service, Captain Andrew McLaughlin of the Enterprise has seniority by four months,” the ship said.

  “Get me a link to Enterprise,” she said.

  A moment later a man’s voice spoke: “This is Enterprise, First Officer Davis. Captain McLaughlin is on the planet’s surface. How may I help, Ark Royal?”

  “Coyne, officer of the watch. What the hell are you lot playing at?”

  “Sorry, Ark Royal.” The American sounded genuinely surprised. “We received orders to move in around Ark Royal.”

  “Without asking?”

  “Hey, space is free, Ark Royal! We’re not within your blast distance, are we?”

  In other words, because the ships hadn’t come so close to Ark Royal that it would be unable to fire its main engine, they had simply repositioned themselves without letting Ark Royal know – as they had every right to do.

  “Ark Royal out,” Julia said ungraciously and called her own captain.

  “Wait there,” he said when she had explained the situation and his image was replaced with a red glowing ‘Hold’. He reappeared after a minute, looking furious. “Communications breakdown, Lieutenant,” he said. “Ark Royal has some valuable property on board and the prince’s allies want to safeguard it. I’m sorry you weren’t told. I’m sorry I wasn’t told.”

  “Are you sure they’re allies, sir?” Julia said, glancing again at the orbit schematic. It really did look quite menacing. Purely tacit, but the menace was there.

  One corner of the captain’s mouth twitched in a vague smile. “So I’m told,” he said. “The prince says, ask Plantagenet to show you the file ‘tontine’ from his archives. It’s authorised for the most senior officer on board and the other ships all have copies too. I’m sorry I’m not there, Lieutenant.”

  “No problem, sir,” Julia said. There was very definitely a problem but neither of them could do anything about it. “Ark Royal out. Plantagenet, what is file ‘tontine’?”

  Plantagenet spoke for the first time since the game of chess. “File ‘tontine’ is an agreement between Prince James and the delegates for Starward, the North American Federation, the European Union and the United Slavic Federation. In summary, it says that if any of the above wins the bid for the Roving, the other four will receive preferential terms. It also incorporates a mutual defence pact, to the extent that their five ships will form a single defensive unit if necessary, and that if one ship is imperilled, all the others will come to its aid. The defensive unit will be commanded by the senior officer commanding a ship present.”

  “Well, nice of them to let us know,” Julia said. She let her mind linger on the implication that Ark Royal was, or might be, imperilled.

  “We are being hailed by the landing boat from Christopher,” said the ship.

  In all the excitement, Julia had almost forgotten her relief was due. “At last,” she muttered. She pushed herself over to the command desk. “Ark Royal here.”

  “Loyola, tender to Christopher,” said a voice. “We have your relief on board. Request permission to dock.”

  “Granted, Loyola. Please come to the forward lock. I’ll put the beacon on for you.”

  “Thank you, Ark Royal. Loyola out.”

  Five minutes later came the clunking noise of a ship docking, and Julia air
swam forward. The green light glowed on the lock door to show pressures equalised. When it opened, Hannah and Adrian were waiting the other side.

  “Permission to come on board?” Hannah said.

  “Granted. Come in, Hannah, Ade ... Pete!” Julia had just seen Peter Kirton waiting behind them.

  Peter looked preoccupied as he pushed himself into Ark Royal behind the others. “There’s work I’ve got to do,” he said.

  “It’s a long story,” Hannah added.

  One of Christopher’s crew waited behind Peter, not coming on board. “Do you need a return trip?” the man called.

  “Um ... yes,” Julia said. “Thanks. Wait – I’ll get my things.”

  “Five minutes, Ark Royal.”

  “No problem.” Julia went back to the flight deck.

  Peter had pulled himself into the chair at the watch desk and had seen the display. “Chess? Who’re you playing with?” he said.

  “Plantagenet.” Julia was surprised to see Peter frown slightly.

  “Is he any good?”

  Julia shrugged. “Not bad. He’s won a few.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Something you want to tell us, Lieutenant?” Hannah asked.

  Julia started. “Oh – you have the watch, sir.”

  “I have the watch,” Hannah said. The formula absolved Julia of responsibility for the ship from that moment on. “Anything to report?”

  “Standard orbital correction at 06:47,” Julia said, “and one other thing.” She told them about the sudden manoeuvre of the other ships. “Apparently we’ve got something important on board?”

  “We have,” Hannah said.

  *

  Peter sat at his desk. He had already forgotten the presence of the other two.

  “Would you like to complete Lieutenant Coyne’s game?” Plantagenet asked.

  “No thanks,” Peter said. “I’m going to run some tests on the ship’s systems.”

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’ll let you know, thank you, Plantagenet.”

  “Very well.”

  Peter took his goggles from his toolbox and slipped them on. Ark Royal’s internal net appeared virtually around him: systems, pathways and programs in a familiar pattern that he himself had designed.