Read Online Echoes of Earth by Sean Williams, Shane Dix - Free Book Online Page B

“Sorry,” she said, slightly embarrassed for having voiced her thought. “I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s something else going on. Something we’re not seeing.”
    “You think it’s a test?”
    “Think, no. Fear, yes.” What had Alander called it? A rabbit trap . She found herself hoping more than she had ever hoped for anything that he was wrong.
    “He’s preparing to move off again,” said Sivio. “I can tell him to hold off a little longer, if you like.”
    She briefly considered waiting another hour or so to see if the Spinners would make a move. But what would the point of that be? If Alander was right, then they were listening in and would know what they were doing anyway.
    “No, it’s okay,” she said. “Tell him he can go whenever he’s ready.”
    Sivio went off to confer with Alander, and this time she followed him to see how the human representative to the Spinners was faring.
    Alander’s image, based on scans taken from the interior of the shuttle, looked tired. His artificial body possessed the same basic chemistry as a natural human, plus a few modifications designed to make survival easier in the difficult environments found on Adrasteia. It was ironic, she thought, that their mental states should share a common feeling of fatigue despite neither of them having a genuine body. How far we have come, she thought, yet how unchanged we remain.
    “I’m ready to leave, Caryl.” For all his appearance, Alander sounded alert.
    “Are you sure?”
    Alander nodded. “The sooner we get this over with, the better.”
    “Sounds like you’re having second thoughts.”
    “Try third or fourth,” he quipped humorlessly. “I’m terrified, if that’s what you want to hear, Caryl.”
    “If you’d told me you weren’t, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
    He instructed the autopilot to resume its journey to the base of Tower Five. Nothing was said as the burn began, and silence reigned until the craft was cruising rapidly above Adrasteia’s swirling cloud layer.
    “Answer me one question,” Hatzis asked him. “Where did you get the shuttle overrides from?”
    Alander didn’t hesitate. “I’ve always known them.”
    “Really? They’re supposed to be top secret.”
    He smiled. “I can’t explain it. My original knew them, so I do, too. I never expected to need them, but they were there if I did.”
    “What other overrides do you know, Peter?”
    “I’d hate to say, really. You’ll just change them.”
    “You’re damn right I would.”
    “Why, Caryl? It’s not as if I’m going to use them to harm the mission. I haven’t so far; why should I now?”
    “That’s a moot point, Peter. I’m still not happy about the way you’ve handled yourself in the last few hours. How do I know you won’t subvert my authority again next time we disagree on something?”
    “You don’t,” he admitted. “But you must know that it would take more than a simple spat for me to use them. We’ve had plenty of those in recent weeks, and I’ve managed to avoid the temptation.”
    True enough, she thought, but she still didn’t like it.
    Switching to a private channel, she sent a brief message to Sivio: “Still think I’m paranoid for worrying about a company spy?”
    “Less so, now, I must admit.” His tone wasn’t entirely serious. “If Alander is the plant, though, they miscalculated rather badly.”
    Hatzis thought back to the rumors she had heard during entrainment and preflight preparations: that on each of the missions, one crew member had been subtly altered in order to make them a dupe for UNESSPRO back home. Each plant had been preprogrammed to respond to certain stimuli in order to ensure that the missions ran the way the survey protocol demanded. But no one knew exactly what those stimuli might be, and no one could name who might be affected by the subconscious programming. Indeed, the most sinister rumor ran that a different crew member was chosen for each mission, so