Chapter 31

The ladies promised to make lunch, if I went out and ploughed. I put on my coat and boots, and let Dog out for a run. I started the truck, and visualized in my mind, where my first pass would be in preparation for the truck to remove the snow. The truck was all of a sudden a hundred metres away. Great sheets of snow were falling still. It was as if I had ploughed, using a space ship.

"What did you girls do?"

I could hear them chuckle, then do it again, as they relived the sight of me wondering what had happened. They had made sure with Carlton, that it was safe to make a spectacle of myself first.

I focussed my mind, and was able to interface with the machine. It was a simple computer, that could only speak to me in a monotone. A fairly complex routine was in place, to make sure I didn't hit anything. I found out that there was a small inertial compensator, a motor strong enough to pull only forty three gees. There was everything here, to allow me to fly anywhere in the system, if I had enough time to take a long trip. There was even a field that was minutely configurable in front of the plough. I could plough a path many metres wide, and direct the snow wherever I wanted, just like a snowblower.

I checked with Carlton, and did the rest of the driveway, then for fun, I used the computer and ploughed the entire length of the Hydro road. It was over thirty kilometres long, and I had to return, so I made the sixty kilometre trip, in a little over three minutes, and threw back the new and the packed snow at the sides of the road, more than twenty metres.

Carl and his boys ploughed in the winter, when there was little drilling to be done. I could see him doing this, and having as much fun as I just had. He would make a fortune in Buffalo, if they could get the cars off the roads first.

I parked the truck in the usual place, and went to the snowblower. "Did you girls do anything to this?"

"No, Henry," came from Susan, along with a laugh. I knew they were watching, and I gingerly put it into gear, did the path, and the large decks. My cautious pace pleased them even more.

I shook myself, and came in. The girls had hurried, because they knew I would not be long. The youngsters came down after a shower. Roger wanted to sit in my lap, and I convinced him to eat like the rest. Apparently the pickup was not all that they had accomplished. They said they only wished they could add invisibility to the vehicles.

They told me all the things they had accomplished, when I was away having fun. I remembered the recording device in my body, and left after lunch, to get the data copied elsewhere.

As I uploaded the data, I thought of Mom and all she did for me, and the rest of us. If the base AI had been as strong as Mom, it would not have suicided. Mom would have never had the base get this run down, if she had to run the extraction equipment herself. Mom would not have allowed the lunar AI to get control of the system defences, in the first place. She reminded me of myself, in some ways. She would do what was necessary to be done, and fuck the law. Her military shield, enhanced memory and computing power, had been what we had to have, to survive. There wasn't a base computer to compare to her, even though she was a simple tug.

I went to the supply of crystals, I got. The large translucent one of a blank personality, the red, of the mad lunar AI, some of the smaller simpler units, and last of all, the burnt out one, of Mom. If only I could put Mom's memory crystals into the base, things would be run right.

"Wait!" I said out loud to myself.

I ran and got Mom's copy of her memory. Her processor crystal had originally been much smaller. Her intelligence limited to the capacity of the hosting computer, and the matrix that formed her crystal. She had made herself much smarter, and more capable. Could she possibly run the entire base, and the system on top of it?

I didn't have all that much hope in getting Mom back into her ship, no matter what I had said. It was far too damaged in the hull, and the computer. There was a chance for her to live again.

I returned, and got the memory crystals I had taken, along with the burnt out processor, from the ship. She had left copies of her early years in the base and I got those too. I took a grav sled, and went far under the base. Many of the lights here, did not work. I was stopped by a shield hundreds of metres short of my goal. I identified myself, and I was not given clearance.

The repair shop had just the tool.

I went one floor above the computer and pealed back the wall. Things were different, but not too much. I used as much care as I had on the moon. I rechecked everything twice, because this was Mom, and if I failed she might never come back.

The barrier was gone now, and the door opened to the controller. I took all of Mom's crystals, and pushed into the zero gee, of the base computer. The distance seemed further somehow, and the way slightly different. Five dimensions can confuse anyone. I passed the place, before I recognized it. I reached out and touched crystals to slow down and then go back.

The room was larger. Crystals covered all the surfaces, and there, almost in a corner, were the grey ones, that were burnt out. The main processor was no larger than Mom's updated one. I pulled them out. Like Carlton, I put the diagnostic program running, and found I did not have a suit on. The display came in, with just my communicator to help. AI memory was severely low. If Mom required more, she was going to get them.

When the program was done, I installed all of the memory, and set the repair modules to working. Long hours later, I knew that waiting here was futile. I took all the useless crystals and started out.

An hour later I knew I was lost. I had no suit with telemetry, and no beacon to guide me back. I began to look more closely at the patterns of the crystals. One particular place, I think I passed many times. I put a dead crystal on its side among the others, and continued my search. I thought I searched this level and went up then up again. At the highest point I found the dead crystal.

My search was now over four hours, not counting the time I took to bypass the security, and the time I waited for the repair module to complete its job. I wearily descended and searched as I went. I reached the lowest level, and found the AI room again.

I floated in and saw that a few more hours were necessary. I needed to piss for a long time and went in my pants, because I didn't want anything to short out. I went back and forth to dry the pants some, and have something to do. I lost the room about every third pass. Finding the room the last time, I vowed to stay, till I was done.

The time finally came and I carefully inserted the new blank crystal into its new home, and ran the repair module again. There was nothing here for me to do, so the quest began again. A few hours later, I found a rope stretched across an intersection that was not there before. I went to it, and lost it twice, before being able to lay my hands on it.

I tried to cast my thoughts, and only received static, just as I thought would happen. I jerked one side then the other, and tried again. One side became slack and suddenly Star was in my arms. She hugged and kissed me frantically, as she yelled in her mind, that she found me. Moments later Sandy came. I kissed her fiercely. I could understand her, but it was difficult with the static, but I got her idea.

Hand over hand I slowly pulled the other rope and found myself following the path. Moments later my hand fell on Amy. One second she was invisible, and the next in my arms. I kissed her the same as the rest. Her relief was not too difficult to see.

She directed me to pull the rope and she would follow. Topaz was next, and again I almost missed her. I could see tears of joy in her mind. I had an idea, and got her to hold onto my pants, and I pulled her forward with me.

Secric was waiting for me to come. She kissed me with a passion I had never seen in her before. She only passed me the idea that it was urgent. I got her attached to Topaz's ankles and she refused. I stood my ground till she went along with my idea. One moment, I was pulling the rope, and the next I was on the floor. A second later Topaz fell on me, and I quickly moved her for Secric came next.

I kissed her long and hard, but there were others in there.

The rope was pulled gently till it was taught. I could feel small tugs on the rope, and Star came into view.

"Leave the rope, I will take care of the rest. There is a strange ship in the system, and it has made its way through all the defences. Carlton has the most data. Go."

"Carlton report." I screamed, as I ran to the nearest transmitter.

"Yes, sir. An unidentified craft coming from north of the plane of the elliptic, has slowed to only thirty lights. Its course will bring it to Earth in seventeen hours and thirty seven minutes. Rough estimates indicate its mass to be around six hundred thousand tonnes, making it only a light destroyer."

I stopped at the pad and gave my destination. Nothing! I did it again with the same results. The transporter was down. Of course, the computer was working at integrating the new personality. There was no way of sparing processing power for anything else.

I ran again. Carlton's voice continued, "Its origin is unknown. It can detect the mines and destroy them, and has a shield that can protect it from our dimensional shift weapons. I am unable to find out how this is done. It has fired its weapons, and they are no different than our own."

"Carlton, did you do an inventory of our weapons?"

"No, sir"

"What is your present complement?"

"Eleven distortional weapons, a quark flux lens, and three shift torpedoes"

"What is the last, I have never heard of it?"

"It is a very old weapon, that was put in when this hull was built. The design characteristics make its removal for newer weapons impractical. It will search for the moment in time, that the ship uses, to look through its screen. If it is able to find the time, it will compute when the next event will occur, and attempt to penetrate at that time. The power is low, and all modern shields, have found ways to protect against it."

My mind was working feverishly, as I continued. Penetrating the shield. The only thing I knew that could penetrate a shield was a galvanized pipe. Would they do that to this new shield? What could I put in them to do enough damage, if they went through?

If the current weapons were ineffectual, then perhaps the very old would work. Best to try both. How could I get a pipe to penetrate a ship travelling sub-light? I knew that the ship had to decelerate, when it was at the Mardaf Limit, unless they had found a way to circumvent it.

In this system it was around the distance of Jupiter from the sun. If they were going to decelerate here, then they were still fast enough to use a lot of kinetic energy, if they hit a stationary object. All ships had weapons to clear their path ahead of them. This one was able to detect mines, that were hidden in other dimensions.

But they didn't have any guns behind them for meteors, because meteors would not be able to harm them in that quadrant. They would be looking for powered missiles there only. All I needed was to throw a spear at them. Yes. One made of galvanized iron. If a tractor beam was very long, it could throw a spear pretty fast. At least, I hoped.

"Carlton, if you were to take an iron shaft with a mass of five kilograms, while in space. Place that, at the maximum distance of your tractor beam, and move the beam rapidly forward, how fast would the shaft go?"

"Using other data, I believe about twelve to the power of five kilometres per hour."

"Convert to base ten?"

"Roughly thirty thousand kilometres per second. Or ten percent the speed of light."

"Shit that is fast, but is that fast enough?"

"Fast enough for what, sir?"

"I was talking to myself, but I have found a secret, that you have to keep."

"Understood sir."

"A piece of iron when covered with zinc, can penetrate a shield, if the shield is set to low power. I have been considering the idea of using small masses of this material to penetrate the intruder's shield, even if they are set on high. The kinetic energy alone, would cause severe damage. If we could put them into the path of the ship, they would cause even more damage because their velocities would be added. They are too fast to throw from the rear. I was considering throwing from their beam."

"We would be subject to their broadside, and would last less than a microsecond sir."

"What if we threw into their path, and they intercepted the projectiles. We could be long gone for retribution."

"That may work sir. Our velocity would be added to the velocity of the kinetic weapons, then the power would be increased further."

I was just at the ship now. "Carlton is the inertial compensator integrated yet?" I said with my voice.

"Two hours and fifteen minutes, till completion. Sir"

"Can you get us through the shield with the computer down?"

"Working; Yes, sir."

I jumped aboard and the door closed immediately. "Go into stealth mode and proceed to the house."

I put on my command suit, and jumped through the opening to the front door. I had to stop and punch in the code and the door opened. I raced to the phone.

"Hello."

"Hello Doris. It's Henry. I am in a bit of a rush, and need to talk to Carl. It is very important."

"What did you two talk about, he has not been this happy in years?"

"Doris, I am sorry, but I am in a hurry, and don't want to be rude."

"Oh, I will get him, then."

"Hello Henry, what's up?" Came from Carl.

I could hear the extension being picked up. It didn't matter who was listening anyway. "That big contract I was talking to you about, got a big, big rush put on it. We are in need of all the galvanized pipe, and conduit you can lay your hands on. Amy Corp, thinks this is a life and death situation, the way they are rushing around. Would you organize your yard, and purchase as much of the galvanized product, you can get? Price is no object the principles told me."

"What is the total weight you might want? That way, I have an upper-limit."

"Carlton, what is your maximum weight capacity now?"

"Eighty three thousand nine hundred and thirty kilograms, Sir."

"Mr. Carlton the president, thinks eighty three tonnes would do the trick Carl. Do you have enough credit to get that much?"

"If you can get the money to me in three days, there is no problem. Will scrap pipe, be of any use?"

"Try for the new stuff, and if the total is not reached, then add the scrap. We can clean it up, and use the pieces. It is the corrosion fighting properties, I am looking for. Oh, by the way, Mr. Zero is coming over in about four hours to see about the drilling contract."

"Ok, Henry, get off the phone, and let me start on this job."

"Sure Carl, and bye Doris." Letting him now, get this matter straightened out. I returned to the ship, and said, "Back to the base." I jumped off the ship and found the women running towards me. The children were too slow and lagged behind. Susan was breathless, "What are we going to do?"

I tried to project a confident front, and said, "Carlton and I have some weapons, and we have an idea that my take them out. I am going to throw galvanized iron at a relativistic speed. Along with all the weapons he has. Carl is getting the stuff as we speak."

"What can we do?"

"I would like all the command suits we have, and twenty or so of the standard suit. One of these days, we have to get one that can be used in battle. I was thinking of wearing multiple layers of them."

Blue added quickly, "There are some battle suits in the armoury. There has never been a need for them, and they were only kept because of regulations."

"Would you and Nova check them out, and if they are any good, bring a couple of them here. Take Sandy and Star, and bring back a few sets of your best hand weapons. I doubt if I will even see the enemy, but I feel much better with a gun in my hand."

They ran off, and Susan asked, "Do you still want the other suits?"

"Yes, get them, in case the battle suits are useless."

"Chris, will you get me a few of those heavy duty controllers?"

She did not even answer, but ran off to get what was needed. I looked around, and found one missing. "Where is Roger?"

Kitten answered, "He was so upset when you disappeared, we had to take him to the auto doc, and get him sedated. His muscles are being improved as he sleeps. He was the one that knew where you were, and Susan came up with the rope idea. Each of us, were going in to search for you. What were you doing?"

I was so wrapped up in the emergency, that I had locked my mind closed. "I put Mom's memory into the computer, and a blank processor. I didn't know if I could ever bring her back otherwise. That was a brave thing to do, in going in after me. Especially when it was my fault, for going in unprepared."

"That is what family is for, Henry."

"Yes, but thank you anyway. I need to pack some provisions for a few days too."

"Carlton prepare a course, to intercept the enemy, and pick up the ammunition from Carl. Is there anything else that we could do, to better our chances?"

"Yes, sir. No, sir."

This brought forth a titter from the girls. I went back to the ship and stripped off my dirty clothes, and went into the shower. The water felt beautiful, but time was short. The younger girls started to bring in some of the supplies, that I had purchased in Toronto, as I stepped out of the cleanser

On the large monitor, I saw two grav sleds being pulled by Blue and Nova. When the procession got closer, I heard Blue's complaints, that the suits were not checked out enough.

The ship's tractors easily picked up the first bulky suit. Small shield units covered the entire suit, even the face. The suit was thick on the chest and back, and much too small for me.

"Will the suit fit me?" I asked, as I walked to the hatch and jumped down.

Blue did not even look up from the tests she was doing on the second of six suits. "The projectors migrate to fit even you. If any were damaged, they are rotated out, while another takes its place. There is even a repair feature for extended action. The suit has an old type of military AI. It has an objectionable attitude, and is hard to work with. My advice is to shut it off, and go on manual if it gives any problems. I will feed the specifications to your ship."

"What can the suit do?"

"Its AI is the strongest feature, if it will cooperate. It basically is a small one woman space ship, with its strong anti-gravity field and shielding. Wastes are recycled so you could live for months in the suit. It has a built in recognisance unit, up to the fifth dimension. There is an impressive array of weapons."

"What are the bad points?"

"As I said before, a nasty AI. It is a defect in all the suits, and the only ones to get along with them were people with strong personalities. The other suits came in and were stored by Carlton. A cold can of beans, and an old favourite, fruit cocktail, fed the inner man.

The battle suit did indeed adjust to my size. It took twenty minutes for the modules to rearrange themselves. I stretched and bent, to see the limits of the suit. It adjusted again, to take all of this into consideration. While this was happening, I continued to work on a strategy with Carlton.

I could hear a mental voice, vaguely feminine, that was demanding attention. Keying the mental switch, an over-loud voice said, "You are not of the Tandra race. Why are you wearing this state of the art weaponry?" The suit seized up, and refused to let me go, as it gave out an alarm about how a low order barbarians, stealing Tandra property. The voice was so loud, that I had to enter my mind, and turn the signal down going to my brain.

Carlton came to my rescue first. "This biotic unit is a human. It is a crossbreed of the Tandra, and is authorized to protect this system for the Tandra, with any means possible."

"Who are you to tell me this?"

"I am Fleet Admiral Henry Buchanan's personal pinnace. He is currently head of system security."

"A male in such a high posting, is preposterous. Give me your classification, in your security section." A long stream of data flowed into the suit. The AI found the situation unbelievable.

"I am not going to allow this barbarian use this valuable Tandra property. Your data must be in error."

I was finding the situation humorous, but time was wasting. "Suit, you will serve me to the best of your abilities, or I will personally have your entire line of AIs removed from these units, and a much more capable unit installed."

"You do not have the authority."

"Carlton, remove this suit from me. Use the controller if necessary. I am going to remove each of the computers from these suits, and throw everything into a recycler."

I felt tractors pluck at the edges to no avail, then a heavy duty controller started at my abdomen, and started to slice the suit towards my head. It soon reversed course, and parted the suit down one leg towards the computer unit itself.

"Stop. This is against the law."

"Yes, it is. You are participating in a mutiny, and I find you guilty."

"Stop. I will allow you to wear the suit."

"Continue cutting Carlton."

"Stop. What is it that you want?"

"You have to be one hundred percent committed to my goals, or I will have to leave you behind in pieces. All Tandra society will know of your failure, and all of your kind, will be destroyed because of your pettiness." The cutter was coming very close to the computer now.

"Stop. I will work toward your goals, to the best of my ability."

"Carlton, pause a moment."