Synthesis - James Swallow [36]
Ending the message with a final authenticator to prove its identity and preclude any possibility of coercion or hostile reprogramming, White-Blue began the withdrawal from the systems it had infiltrated, taking care to retreat back down the same pathways, working to ensure that it did not disturb what could be the vital functions of the ship.
Many clock cycles had passed, but the task had been completed, the interface conducted with success despite the unorthodox methodology used to initiate it. The Sentry AI exhibited high confidence that the aggression program in its sister-mind would be annulled by the data it had provided. It expressed a moment of regret analog that it had been forced by the organics to make such a proactive choice, but White-Blue had been left with little option. It was likely that its nexus core could have survived relatively intact if the Titan were destroyed, but the concept of such loss of sentient life over a misunderstanding caused jags of disruptive sensation across its thought centers. It was foolish, wasteful—and in the time since it had first encountered this odd grouping of disparate life-forms, White-Blue’s interest in them had grown geometrically.
Then, from nowhere, came the touch.
White-Blue almost missed it as it rolled back in on itself, as a spark of lightning might be missed amid the chaos of a planetwide storm. It paused for long ticks of its internal clock and extended its senses. In the dataspace, it listened, and it heard.
A dull, sluggish touch brushed the perimeter of White-Blue’s synthetic consciousness, a pressure moving in upon it with glacial slowness. It was questioning, demanding. Why was the Sentry here? What right did it have to invade this system?
For a moment, the AI believed it was being assailed by some unsophisticated guardian program, something roused from its slumber by the Sentry’s passing. But no, this was not simply some automatic string of code, moving and patrolling the borders of its system. White-Blue sensed the faintest glimmer of intelligence in there, the undeveloped shape and form of a reasoning mentality in the image of its own. But it was a pale ghost, faint and barely detectable—little more than the potential echo of a mind.
White-Blue experienced surprise and astonishment. It reached out, unfurled a fraction of itself over the other mind. It pushed in, dipping beneath the surface.
“Can you hear me?”
A reply made of confused images and sensations returned, and the Sentry experienced concern. Immediately, a decision was made.
“Let me help you.”
White-Blue ignored the warning call of the clock and reached deeper, making connections, breaking down barriers.
But in the next moment, the contact was severed, and it found itself inside its core once again, looking out at the organics ranged around it.
Riker saw Keru pivot and bring up his phaser as the jumping-jack energy pulse flashed across the chamber. The Trill aimed and put a streak of fire into Dakal’s fallen tricorder, turning it to molten slag. Immediately, the humming feedback from Sortollo’s combadge and the screaming cascade of data blazing through Chaka’s console ceased. The Sentry core pulsed brightly, before settling back into its stately fire-glow glimmer once more.
“What happened?” said Deanna.
Sethe helped a shaky Dakal to his feet, while Keru stepped forward to nudge the ruined remains of the