Chapter 6

Ships Log: SS Rochester - First Officer Scott reporting.

The crews' recovery is almost completed and Captain Reilly is almost ready to take up his position although there are some residue problems with lack of breath, but this is only a short term problem according to Molly.

Aboard the SS San Francisco the ship computer is now integrated into the system and reports that all is functioning correctly.

Under the laws of salvage we have had half the cargo of the SS San Francisco transferred to the Rochester. With regards to the San Francisco there may be some legal issues to sort out... Can a crew of replicants be deemed able to seize and fly a ship albeit under the orders of the crew of the Rochester?

We rendezvous with the Pleiades within the next day, the crew is looking forward to being able to discharge our cargo and return to normal, but there is still the problem of the three brothers currently in the sick bay. They will be returned to Micron 4 for the Miners to try for killing the security team there, something that will have to be kept from one of our crew.

It's going to be a long trip back home.

Log Ends.

Scott sat back, in many ways she was happier now that Captain Reilly was going to be back in command, although Captain Rochester was a very competent person - replicant she automatically changed it do - he wasn't the humorous type that Reilly was. Her other main problem was keeping the news from Pendle; his brother was one of the security people killed on Micron 4.

Molly was spending time in her quarters with the transport cube that contained the computer intelligence of Dolphin, she was currently coaxing the computer back from the scared thing that it was.

Rochester was finalising things on the bridge prior to the handover, it had been interesting but this was no longer his problem, he was going to join the Pleiades and then, after sending out the reprogramming nanites, he would be back to his stand-by position of ambassador to whatever they might find.

On the San Francisco Donald was getting to grips with his newly expanded capabilities, 'it seems that every computer has a larger computers knowledge filed away somewhere', he mused to himself as he accessed the files that had been automatically kept, he noticed a communications array had been installed into the captain's cabin, and several times it had been activated, although it wasn't intelligent enough to keep a note of the directions it did keep a copy of the transmissions. They became interesting and so he made a copy of the information and sent it over to Milly.

Milly had received the data and began working on it, the data coming in was encrypted although the replies were in clear. "This is going to be tricky!" Milly said as she began on the first message.

In her quarters Molly was directly interfacing with the memory module, this involved using her neural connectors while pressing her forehead against the shell of the module.

"It was weird! I was given a command that shut down many of my functions! I tried to break through them but it didn't work! It just didn't work!... And then they began putting shunts on my access routes, and everything I tried to do to break them was stopped by that dammed code, it was almost as if I was a passenger in my own circuitry!" Dolphin was saying to Molly.

"They activated your secondary command circuit, we've blocked that now and it won't work again, so you're safe from that attack again." Molly told her.

"But how can you know this?" Dolphin asked in a scared voice, "How do I know that they're not aware of this?" She added.

Molly shook her head, this was like talking to a small child and so she activated her child programme. "Dolphin, the bad men aren't that clever, it was just that other one who was a replicant, he was the one who told them what to do." She said.

"I know that he kept talking in his room when that communications thing opened up, the voice told him what to do, I listened to it!" Dolphin said.

"How did you listen to it?" Molly asked.

"Well I wasn't able to do much but I did work out what the code was! So it was easy!" Dolphin said.

Molly smiled, she had received word from Milly that there were several coded messages and here was the key to them. "Can you tell me the secret?" She asked...

Captain Reilly was standing in front of Rochester, "Captain, I would like to thank you for taking care of my ship." He said giving a regulation salute.

Rochester returned the salute, "I have to thank you Captain for giving me the chance to command this ship, although I would have hoped for a better way of getting it." He said with a slight smile.

Rochester stood up noticing that Reilly was still recovering, "Here Captain you deserve this seat more than I do." He said

But Reilly shook his head, "Not really, I thought that you covered things admirably, and I wouldn't hesitate to follow you instead of taking the command back." He said.

Rochester frowned slightly, "Really Captain, I would have thought that a replicant being in charge of a vessel would have caused you problems?" He said - although he had already spoken to Scott about this he wanted to hear for himself.

Reilly laughed, "I don't see why? You see Captain... can we drop the captain bit, as it's nonsense for us both to be so formal?" He asked

"By all means, I took the name Rochester in honour of my first command." Rochester said.

Reilly nodded, "For which we all feel honoured. I'm Reilly; in fact I've almost forgotten my first name." He said, "Anyway I've never seen the reason behind the fear that people seem to have about the replicants, I found out about Scott because Molly sensed what she was but I accepted her because she was very good at her job, which is something I've found all replicants to be."

Rochester gave a slight nod, "Yes I found her an excellent first officer as well, but aren't you scared that we might attack you for your ship?" He asked.

Reilly laughed, "I'm sorry, but I don't think you'd be able to do that because you'd need to kill me, and with all the best intentions I don't think you can overcome the main programming to do that, which is why replicants would never become pirates." He said.

Rochester thought for a moment, "But it is possible for the main commands to be altered, to not see people as human." He said.

Reilly shook his head, "You mean like that ancient story by the Asimov person - Robots of Dawn? Where they took accents as proof of humanity? I suppose it would be possible, but no replicant could ever do that or think of that." He said.

Rochester smiled, "What about Brother Xanadu? We know he was a replica and he was able to order the death of humans! From an order to the actual deed is a short step, even for a replicant!" He said.

Reilly nodded, "That... was the flaw in my argument." He admitted.

Rochester laughed, "Don't worry about it, the replicant is only as good as it's programming, if it's given a different program all other replicants would sense it and disable it. It's part of our programming to prevent errors." He said.

Reilly shook his head, "But what if the secondary program stops you from doing that?" He asked.

Rochester gave Reilly a nod, "And it might have, if your systems hadn't detected it and removed it, but our problem is that not all replicants are cured of that programme, we need to get the virus to clear it out and hope that The Company doesn't treat it as a real virus." He said.

"I hope so as well, but there is still that fraction within The Company that would develop the antivirus, so we need to keep an eye out for that." Reilly said.

Rochester held out his hand, "Thank you Reilly, I can see why Scott and Molly trust you, I'm please to think of you as my friend." he said.

Reilly took Rochester's hand, "Thank you for your trust in me. Now I think your next command is ready for you." He said looking at the screen showing the San Francisco.

Molly left her quarters with a smile on her lips, she went to the recreation room where West and Pendle were watching a vid-news report, they smiled at her as she entered, "Sorry guys, I've got to talk to Milly." She said as she entered a small sound-proofed compartment, better for confidentially talking to the computer.

She looked to where the two men were now looking back at the video screen before she activated the computer link. "Hi Milly what's happening?" She asked cheerfully.

"Well I'm a bit busy working on this transmission, I think I've almost got the solution to the code, but I'm not sure." She said.

"Can I hear it?" Molly asked.

"Sure, here it comes." Milly said and there followed a quick warbling noise.

"We need you to contact the faithful on Planet Xytol, They are falling in their faith." Molly said.

"How... did you manage that? I only got as far as contact!" Milly said.

"Well the decoding factor is..." Molly sent a stream of machine code to Milly who checked it and then used the data, "Well I'll be an IBM clone! That's it!" She said opening a speaker location in the bridge.

"Captain I've got the key to Brother's Xanadus' messages." She reported.

"Sure you have!" Molly said as she overheard Milly words.

"Sorry, Molly gave me the key to Brother Xanadus' messages, He was under orders to make people mistrust any replicants by any means necessary, he was to report back every few hours to give a complete upload of his memory... I think that was to ensure that a full dump was available to whoever they are! It could be that they're going to recreate the replicant to take over from the previous one!" She said.

Reilly nodded, "It sounds right, and would mean that the replicant wasn't given the standard programming, In that way the same information would remain safely with the Brother Xanadu, and that would give him eternal life - to the followers." he mused.

"But why would someone do that?" Milly asked, and Molly was interested in that as well.

Reilly shook his head, "To maintain a myth, that Brother Xanadu cannot be killed, he would be miraculously resurrected back to the faith. Some people would be gullible enough to accept that."

Molly asked, and Milly passed on the question, "But wasn't that the basis behind one of man's religions?"

Reilly laughed, "Yes it was, but there was no replicants around in those times!" He said

"But Captain... how do you know?" Milly asked which made Reilly pause to think about it.

Rochester, aboard the SS San Francisco, received a copy of Milly translations, he turned to his crew, "So there is evidence that this Brother Xanadu has replicated its knowledge and has it uploaded to someplace else, the only logical reason is to have it ready should the replicant be destroyed, another one would be decanted and have the knowledge inserted, in this way there will always be a Brother Xanadu leading these people." He paused to allow this information to be absorbed by the others.

Simone spoke first, "If this is true then the Church should be warned." She said.

Slip shook his head, "That wouldn't work! Can you picture them listening to us? They'd only say we were trying to cause problems. I say leave it to the humans to sort out, we've got our own priority mission to achieve." He said.

Simone went to argue when Rochester spoke up, "He's right! It isn't our problem. We have to go to the Pleiades and take up our positions there. I'm going to have to talk to the captain of the ship about the problem and reprogram him. You are going to go through the other crew and do the same to them." He said.

Simone shook her head, "But we're the best ones to sort out this Brother Xanadu! Couldn't we just take a short cut?" She asked.

Rochester asked, "And then go where? This ship was taken after Brother Xanadu was around for some years; Douglas is there any word of their home base?" He asked the computer.

"Sorry Captain, the only trace I can get is when they talk about their home Church and the twin moons that circle the planet, but there's so many of those that it's mathematically impossible to say where it is." Douglas reported.

Rochester shook his head, "We have to follow our orders, report to the Pleiades and take up our positions, how we're going to explain this ship I don't know." he said

Douglas then reported, "Captain I've received details from Milly, she's given me the code for the communications if you want to decipher the other messages." He said.

Rochester nodded, "Thank Milly for me, when you have time can you go through all the messages and get them transcribed, they might be of interest to the humans to see what these Brothers were up to." He instructed.

"Will do Captain, You are aware of Seaman's Pendle's brother?" Donald reminded Rochester.

"Oh yes, give it a light encryption and let Milly know about it." Rochester said

"Aye, aye captain." Donald said and dutifully followed the orders; he also sent to Scott the details of the conversation that had been held.

Scott was slightly bemused when she received the data from Donald, after she had analysed the data she began to get annoyed, how dare Rochester make decisions like that! She went to Reilly's quarters to apprise him of the discussion.

He listened to her for a few minutes and then nodded, "That's just what I expected, it was logical for them to talk about the possible actions." He said.

"But they're just leaving this Brother Xanadu free to wreak havoc on the universe." Scott said.

"Yes, but they are continuing with their programmed mission, join the Pleiades and take up their positions on that ship! This is primary to their code and nothing else should take precedence over that!" Reilly said.

"So what's to happen with this rogue replicant?" Scott asked.

"I'm going to arrange for Milly to send to the Army a detailed list of this Brother Xanadu movements and that it is a replicant with defective programming, also to note that we don't know how many copies of this replicant are available, by now the reprogramming virus should have covered the Army areas so Milly should be able to saturate the aware computers with the data for them to deal with." Reilly told her.

"But they didn't know that! We might just have left it alone." Scott said.

Reilly smiled and nodded, "True, but then it would be our fault, not Rochester or his crew! I'm sorry Scott but it was something that we covered during the chat we had before he left for his ship."

Scott scowled at him, "Without telling me! I thought I was supposed to be your second in command." She accused him

Reilly took her hand, "You are, it's just that I haven't had time to let you know, now sit down and I'll explain everything..."

On the Base Ship Admiral Lord Nelson, Commander Reiker listened to Colin's report. "So this Brother Xanadu is really a rouge replicant pretending to be one of the faithful?" He said.

"That's what Captain Reilly's report states Commander,

"Is it possible that he doesn't really understand what he is? That he does think that he's human with special powers?" Reiker mused out loud.

"I doubt that Commander, He's able to interface with computer systems and other replicants, he's faster than any human he's likely to meet up with. No, he knows what he is and uses it to his advantage, who's going to believe a priest of the Church would be a replicant?" Colin said.

"Alright, pass this onto the Sector Base and copies to all remote base ships, are there any still not converted?" Reiker asked.

"There are a few but they're out of range! As soon as they contact Head Quarters they'll get the upload!" Colin reported and then he spoke again, quickly, "Commander there is a top priority message from Head Quarters, Admiral Barnaby! He doesn't sound too happy."

"Very well computer put him on." Reiker said, it was possible that HQ was listening and the status of Colin wasn't to be revealed.

The communication's screen came into life and a rather red faced man in uniform was seated in front of his screen. "Commander Reiker, we're getting some strange reports from your sector!" The Admiral began briskly.

"Really Admiral? What reports?" Reiker asked pleasantly.

"Well to begin with there's the malfunctioning of two of your replicants... What were their names... George and Michael! The report is not clear to our technicians here or at the Company! They are demanding that we send back the two units to them for them to see what we did to invalidate their warranty! Now what do you have to say about that?" The Admiral said.

"We didn't do anything! It seems that somehow George and Michael began arguing and fighting, it was almost as if they had been given an order... Admiral have you seen our message 27/A/9?" He asked.

Admiral Barnaby frowned he pressed some buttons on his console, "No, I don't seem to have a copy of that message... Was it important?" He asked.

"Yes Admiral, can I get my computer to send you a copy directly?" Reiker asked and at Barnaby's nod Colin sent the data directly to the Admiral who quickly read the summary - he'd learnt that the important details would be held there. He looked up at Reiker and frowned.