Synthesis - James Swallow [74]
“Confirmed,” he replied, and cut the signal.
“You may observe the tanking process from here. Your environmental survival gear is not a prerequisite for this.” The AI remote stood in the center of the chamber, watching the away team.
Below, large egg-shaped cargo pods were being maneuvered into place along the line of the scaffold by insectlike mechanoids that resembled the droneframe used by White-Blue. Tuvok noted what appeared to be coolant control devices fitted on collars around the pods; clearly, these units were the containers for the semifrozen deuterium slush bound for the Titan.
He turned and faced the machine. “This is inadequate,” he told Cyan-Gray. “We are here to supervise this transfer of materials directly.” He gestured at the engineering team. “Lieutenant McCreedy and her officers will monitor the tanking of the deuterium from close proximity, and your remotes will follow their instructions.”
“Negative—” began the AI, but Tuvok kept speaking.
“This is not a negotiable point. The lieutenant and her team will supervise and accompany that vessel on its journey. Do you understand?”
There was the smallest of pauses. “Understood,” said the machine. “Please stand by.”
Cyan-Gray’s communications link flickered through the glass, and in an instant, the signal had flashed between all the drones. A hatch in the far wall opened, and a second remote identical to the one that had met them at the shuttle ambled into the room. “The supervisory group will follow me.” It spoke with the same synthetic female voice.
McCreedy threw Tuvok a nod and put on her helmet. “Let’s go,” she said, and walked out after the second remote, with Meldok and Ythiss following her.
The first remote watched the Vulcan. “You are not joining them.”
“No,” he replied.
“Interrogative: You are not here to ‘supervise’?”
“We are here to observe.”
“Among other things,” added Lieutenant sh’Aqabaa in a low voice.
McCreedy and the other engineers emerged below in the loading dock, and Tuvok watched the woman converse with the other Cyan-Gray remote. Glancing around, he became aware that there were at least two more units of the same design elsewhere, each busy at different tasks. There were probably others out in the complex as well, linked in some fashion to the AI’s shipframe.
“You pushed the point, and they gave in,” Sethe said quietly, close to the Vulcan’s ear. “Perhaps they’re not so inflexible after all.”
“The scale of the matter in question will determine that,” he replied.
Dakal sat in the cockpit of the shuttle and tapped a string of commands into the console. On a tertiary screen, a rolling series of readouts from the Holiday’s limited sensor suite relayed basic data on the operations of the refinery—or at least as much data as could be gleaned without lighting it up with a full-power scan. The Cardassian wondered how the AIs would react to such a thing. They seemed very protective of their privacy on some matters and totally unconcerned about it on others. He mused on this for a few moments. Whatever he might have expected from a culture made up entirely of machines, the Sentries were confounding those expectations at every turn.
Something on the screen caught his eye, and he highlighted it, opening a readout window. The small moon that lay out in a long orbit over the ice world was now fully visible, but the information streaming back to the shuttle’s sensors was conflicting. The satellite’s surface reflectivity did not suggest rock or more ice. It appeared to be of a very different order, indeed.
“It’s artificial,” he said aloud.
In the rear compartment, he heard the shuttle’s hatch hiss open, and with quick motions, he was up and out of the pilot’s seat, his hand reaching for the small palm phaser holstered in the small of his back. If any of the away team had returned, they would have contacted the shuttle to let him know. Intruder! screamed his thoughts.
Dakal felt a moment of panic as he belatedly realized he had left his suit helmet back in the other cabin. Without