Spheres of Influence-eARC by Ryk E Spoor
Authors: Ryk E Spoor
equivalent, or maybe Jupiter at this angle, but as far as I can tell we are—right now—the only ship here.” He could hear the frown in Ariane’s voice.“How about the Dock? Can you tell if she’s locked on one of the ports?”
“Hold on, let me see if I can get a visual…the Dock emits some light of its own.” Wu remembered that it would take a little time to get from the Transition location to the Dock area. “Damn. No, no sign of her at all.” The muttered curse DuQuesne muttered was barely audible to Wu—he guessed the others wouldn’t hear it at all. “Where the living hell is her ship—”
“The Straits,” Simon said with sudden conviction. Wu Kung remembered that term; it meant the large ports in the side of the Sphere that could be opened from the “harbor” area they were in now, to let ships go outside.
“What? Oh hell . Could she have…she couldn’t have…could she?” Wu understood the conflict in DuQuesne’s voice. If she gets away from us…and if she’s…really bad now…well, that could be a very not-good thing for everyone. But it’s so hard to think of her that way.
“I don’t know, Marc. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to even think of it.” Ariane glanced curiously at Simon. “I’m surprised you thought of it.”
By his expression and scent, so was Simon. “I confess I’m not sure why I did, but as soon as it occurred to me I was quite certain.”
“How can we check it?” Ariane asked.
“Oh, I think that’s just plain simple, Arrie,” Gabrielle’s voice answered. “Gimme an outside transmission line, DuQuesne, please?”
“You got it.”
“Strait doors, open,” Gabrielle said.
A blaze of light appeared in the pitch blackness, a brilliant line of undifferentiated white that slowly widened, grew into a perfect defined circle larger than the full moon, slightly oval from their current point of view.
Ariane groaned. “Of course . We secured the Sphere from intrusion, but I’ve never specified who could operate anything internally . And the Sphere—probably through the Arena itself—is always completely helpful that way.” She sighed. “Strait doors, close and lock.” The distant circle of light slowly dwindled away to nothing.
“Better fix that right quick, then,” Gabrielle said.
“Not right this minute,” said DuQuesne, “we’ll want to think about the exact wording; we don’t want to limit it in a way we’ll regret later. But Gabrielle’s right; we’d better fix that, and any other unexamined assumptions, too.”
“Even the simple things can trip us up.” Ariane glanced at Wu. “You understand what just happened?”
“I think so,” he said. “I read the very simplified account of your adventures that DuQuesne and his friend Isaac made. The Sphere does what…what was the word? Citizens, citizens of its faction tell it what to do, unless the leader of the Faction’s told it otherwise. So since you hadn’t told it to restrict who could unlock the Straits, anyone could open them.”
“You got it,” DuQuesne said.
“The other alternative,” Ariane said, “is that she didn’t take much in the way of equipment, just extra power coils, and once she was here, she sent it back out and had it transition home on a vector way out at the edge of the system, where no one’s likely to find it.”
“Maybe,” DuQuesne said reluctantly, and Wu saw Simon’s head shake at the same time. “But going through the records of available satellites and other ships we could access back during that period of time, we did get a couple images that were probably of her ship, and it’s built streamlined —like, for atmosphere. Which pretty much tells me what she meant to do with it. Even stupid automation could make the ship follow some pretty broad rules of performance, get it to go somewhere near enough that she could retrieve it later.”
Wu could see Ariane take a deep breath, force herself to relax. “Well, there’s no point in
“Hold on, let me see if I can get a visual…the Dock emits some light of its own.” Wu remembered that it would take a little time to get from the Transition location to the Dock area. “Damn. No, no sign of her at all.” The muttered curse DuQuesne muttered was barely audible to Wu—he guessed the others wouldn’t hear it at all. “Where the living hell is her ship—”
“The Straits,” Simon said with sudden conviction. Wu Kung remembered that term; it meant the large ports in the side of the Sphere that could be opened from the “harbor” area they were in now, to let ships go outside.
“What? Oh hell . Could she have…she couldn’t have…could she?” Wu understood the conflict in DuQuesne’s voice. If she gets away from us…and if she’s…really bad now…well, that could be a very not-good thing for everyone. But it’s so hard to think of her that way.
“I don’t know, Marc. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to even think of it.” Ariane glanced curiously at Simon. “I’m surprised you thought of it.”
By his expression and scent, so was Simon. “I confess I’m not sure why I did, but as soon as it occurred to me I was quite certain.”
“How can we check it?” Ariane asked.
“Oh, I think that’s just plain simple, Arrie,” Gabrielle’s voice answered. “Gimme an outside transmission line, DuQuesne, please?”
“You got it.”
“Strait doors, open,” Gabrielle said.
A blaze of light appeared in the pitch blackness, a brilliant line of undifferentiated white that slowly widened, grew into a perfect defined circle larger than the full moon, slightly oval from their current point of view.
Ariane groaned. “Of course . We secured the Sphere from intrusion, but I’ve never specified who could operate anything internally . And the Sphere—probably through the Arena itself—is always completely helpful that way.” She sighed. “Strait doors, close and lock.” The distant circle of light slowly dwindled away to nothing.
“Better fix that right quick, then,” Gabrielle said.
“Not right this minute,” said DuQuesne, “we’ll want to think about the exact wording; we don’t want to limit it in a way we’ll regret later. But Gabrielle’s right; we’d better fix that, and any other unexamined assumptions, too.”
“Even the simple things can trip us up.” Ariane glanced at Wu. “You understand what just happened?”
“I think so,” he said. “I read the very simplified account of your adventures that DuQuesne and his friend Isaac made. The Sphere does what…what was the word? Citizens, citizens of its faction tell it what to do, unless the leader of the Faction’s told it otherwise. So since you hadn’t told it to restrict who could unlock the Straits, anyone could open them.”
“You got it,” DuQuesne said.
“The other alternative,” Ariane said, “is that she didn’t take much in the way of equipment, just extra power coils, and once she was here, she sent it back out and had it transition home on a vector way out at the edge of the system, where no one’s likely to find it.”
“Maybe,” DuQuesne said reluctantly, and Wu saw Simon’s head shake at the same time. “But going through the records of available satellites and other ships we could access back during that period of time, we did get a couple images that were probably of her ship, and it’s built streamlined —like, for atmosphere. Which pretty much tells me what she meant to do with it. Even stupid automation could make the ship follow some pretty broad rules of performance, get it to go somewhere near enough that she could retrieve it later.”
Wu could see Ariane take a deep breath, force herself to relax. “Well, there’s no point in