Hammer and Crucible by Cameron Cooper (easy books to read txt) 📗

raised his hand, to draw our attention. “I think, if we research, we will find that Keeler is one of very few stations where the engineers actually board all vessels that arrive and inspect from the inside.”

“Have to,” Sauli said. “Emissions don’t show on computer feeds. You have to sniff the real live atmosphere around the engine.” He realized what he had said and shook his head. “I don’t like this.”

I had to agree with him. “Lyth, if I ask you to do so, can you reach out to who gave you your orders and speak to them?”

Lyth shifted on his stool. He was squirming. “It would be…unconventional.”

“It might break his programming,” Sauli added.

“What if I make it an order?” I said. “An imperative?”

Lyth relaxed. “I can use that,” he admitted. “Are you ordering me to do so now?”

“Are they reachable right now?” Juliyana asked, surprised. “I thought we weren’t using live feeds.”

“They’ve been reachable ever since I received the orders,” Lyth said. “But I could not reach out without a directive. I will connect to them now.”

“Wait,” I said quickly. “I don’t want you to talk to them. I want to talk to them. Can you arrange that?”

Lyth frowned.

“Make an introduction,” Sauli said. “Analogue to analogue via a digital medium.”

I wouldn’t have thought of saying it that way.

Lyth’s frown cleared. “Let me try. A moment…” His face turned blank and inanimate. He just sat.

We watched. I wondered if everyone’s heartbeat was running as hard as mine.

Lyth stirred. “Yes, please come in,” he said to the air. “Captain Andela is waiting to speak to you.”

Then he looked toward the end of the table. Another chair built itself there. The back was not as big as mine. Then a pile of nanobots built upon the seat and began to flow in the fast melting, swirling way they did when Lyth was forming himself.

It could not have taken any longer for the figure to form than Lyth took to generate his avatar—which was generally only a second, perhaps two. Yet the two seconds seemed to last for long minutes. Subjective time dilation…I held my breath listening to my heart beat in my ears and squeeze my throat with every contraction.

The details took shape. Color formed. Smaller details grew sharper…

And finally, the man smiled at us.

“Hello, Danny,” Noam said, with that little curl of the corner of his mouth.

Juliyana bounced up off her seat. “What the fuck? Whoever it is, they’re hiding behind Dad’s avatar. This is bullshit!”

I shook my head, not shifting my gaze away from Noam. “He’s using the interface I know, as I asked to speak to him.”

Lyth tugged on Juliyana’s arm, encouraging her to sit down once more.

She blew out an angry breath and returned to her stool, her hands curled into tight fists, her eyes glittering.

Dalton was leaning back on his stool, his boot on the edge of the table. It looked casual, but I wondered if he had a knife in his boot and had put it within easy reach. Had he overlooked that this was just a construct made of nanobots?

I held up my hand. “Everyone, take a breath. Noam…should I call you Noam?”

Noam had been following the range of reactions around the table, his eyes bright and aware. Now his expression shifted. “Noam is…one of my names.”

“What are your other names?”

“Noam will do for now,” he said.

“He’s still fucking with us,” Juliyana muttered.

“I really am not,” Noam told her.

She sucked in a startled breath.

“I have tried to avoid damage where I can, but it is difficult…” Noam said. “I stopped using your implants,” he told me. “It was hurting you.”

“I appreciate that,” I said gravely.

“But I had to wait for you to set up the connection to be able to talk this way,” Noam said. “While I waited, I did what I could to help.”

“Like finding Noam’s death certificate in the Imperial Shield archives?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And the live feeds,” Lyth said softly.

Noam looked at him. “That was an error I have now corrected. I did not consider that the use of the feeds in the normal way would reveal your emergence point. This is all new to me, you see. I regret the trouble it caused. But now I am pulling from every gate, and you can use the feeds with impunity. Only, I had to wait until now to tell you that.”

“Every gate?” Sauli said sharply. “That isn’t possible. The only way to make contact with a gate when you’re in the hole is via the hole you’re in. No one can make contact with every single gate in the array.”

“The array can,” Noam told him.

Dalton’s foot dropped from the table. He leaned forward to look at Noam properly.

“You are the array,” I said.

Noam shook his head. “I am the gestalt of the array and all its components. I am me.”

21

The mountainside lookout got very noisy for a while. The sound sent birds from the nearby tree flapping into the sky, squawking protests. Everyone tried to talk over everyone else, except for Noam—for the array, which was Noam, it had said.

And me. I didn’t squeal out loud because in my gut, it made absolute sense.

I gave them ninety seconds, then slapped the table to get their attention. When that didn’t work, I put my fingers in my mouth and whistled.

Sauli winced and put his hands to his ears.

Everyone shut up and looked at me, except Sauli, who whispered, “It’s self-aware!”

Noam grinned. “I am.”

Sauli shrank back from him.

“So, all the amazing coincidences,” Dalton said. “This ship, Danny’s windfall, Juliyana finding the fake orders…they were you?”

“I had to ease Danny away from the station. She needed you,” Noam told Dalton. “And I needed this ship.” He looked up at the ceiling, around, and then at Lyth. “You are the reason I can appear to everyone in this way.” He gave Lyth a warm smile. “You are unique in the empire, Lyth. There is no one else like you and never will