The Trilisk AI Read Online Free PDF Page A

research. Get us a good deal. I’ll send the
funds. We’ll put together another crew and send some of these people you have
on the list out to find...who knows what.”
    “A
ship? Uhm, okay.”
    “That’s
everything then.”
    “Hey,
uh, Mag? I’m not going to have to head out to the frontier myself, am I?”
    “No,
I need you right there at PIT headquarters.”
    “Good.
All right then.”
    Magnus
smiled.

Chapter 4
     
    Leonard
Relachik gathered his few belongings and headed for the sole starport on
Malgur-Thame. Most people would have taken the elevator to the top of the
housing building and rented a glider to whisk through the green mist to their
destination. Relachik hoofed it. Even though the ground was spongy, wet, and
eternally green, he had a spaceman’s appreciation for real exercise across a
real distance as opposed to a VR helmet or a link program hooked up to a
treadmill.
    When
he arrived at the spaceport, he entered the facility at an automated checkpoint
and headed down to the berths below ground. Squat robots scuttled and rolled
about on errands for their unseen masters. The chemical smell of whatever the
locals used to kill off the tenacious green slime filled the air.
    He
looked up the berth number and found the name: Violet Vandivier . He
smiled. The vogue for naming civilian vessels was an adjective and a name,
supposedly necessary to sufficiently differentiate vessels for casual
conversation (of course, their unique identifier was simply an obscenely long
number). Relachik knew already the name would be shortened further to the Vandivier in shipboard conversation.
    Relachik
found the ship in another fifteen minutes. It was a small ship by his
standards, round, and predictably violet in color. The ship rested like a
flying saucer over a dish-shaped depression. He examined the depression for a
few minutes until Arlin arrived. Relachik decided it was thick metal or
ceramic. His link told him it was powered down, but it was capable of drawing a
lot of power from the spaceport reactor.
    “What’s
up with this berth?” Relachik asked.
    “You
don’t know? Hmm. I guess there would be no reason for you to know if you’re
used to capital ships in deep space. You probably spent all your time
off-planet. Anyway, a lot of the spaceports on the fringe are finally getting
these spinner shields. You can run your gravity spinner up much higher here
above this plate to save yourself some propellant taking off.”
    “Oh,”
Relachik said. Typically a modern craft could only use a small fraction of its
gravity spinner capability when taking off, or else people and debris would go
flying for a kilometer.
    Cilreth
showed up on Arlin’s heels. She had brought two silver luggage cases.
    “What
do you think of the ship?” Arlin asked her.
    “How
big is the data cache?” she asked.
    Arlin
and Relachik laughed.
    “I
actually don’t know,” Arlin said. “But I just gave you both the permissions you
need for all the services.”
    A
boarding ramp descended. Cilreth marched on board with her head down. Relachik
imagined her mechanically perusing its network capabilities. He connected to
the ship and performed his own summing up of their new home. He couldn’t help
but do it as a series of comparisons to his old ship, the Seeker . The
ship was clean but cramped. It was so much smaller than the Seeker .
    The Vandivier had two levels. The ship was designed to support up to ten
people, though only six could reside inside comfortably. The gravity spinner
was newer, and reasonably efficient for long distance travel. Relachik could
see from the interior layout service that each of them would have their own
tiny quarters. A small mess area and a tiny lounge dominated the center of the
main level. The lower level of the vessel as it now sat held a small cargo
compartment. It wasn’t of much interest to Relachik, who had brought so little
it would all fit in his cramped living space.
    The
ship had no bridge. There was