“Yes, I’m not a computer pretending to be Ivan. I’m Ivan. I’m just not running on wetware anymore.”

“Well, that’s good, right?”

“I think so. I get the impression it might be temporary. I can’t explain why.”

“Ouch. Can’t you ask the computer?”

“It doesn’t really work that way. There isn’t a conversation going on. It’s more like information is leaking my way. I think the computer is still figuring out how to communicate. And since the human brain is a dog’s breakfast of emergent properties, it’s slow going. The computer can’t afford to break something in the process. It’s doing simulations—making copies of me then trying to modify them for communications. Not going well, so far, though.”

“How is the computer able to handle that? How powerful is it, anyway?”

“Pretty damn powerful, Doc. I’m getting computer-related stuff faster than anything else because of my background, I guess. The computer system seems to encode information directly on the fabric of space, at the Planck level. In principle it could encode the state of every particle in the known universe in a cubic micrometer of vacuum. Of course, processing all that data is another matter. No matter how you shuffle it, light-speed delay is a limiting factor. And that’s the trouble it’s having with me. Apparently, humans are extraordinarily messy.”

“Will you be able to talk to the computer at some point?”

“I think so. I hope so. I’ll want to ask it if it can make me human again.”

37.Enemy Threats

37.Enemy Threats

Moore settled into what he privately called his command chair, took a sip of his coffee—nothing beat the first sip from the first cup of the day—and picked up the briefing notes from Bentley. One of the advantages of a personal assistant was that you didn’t have to wade through the news channels and all your emails to figure out what was critical and what could be ignored.

As he read the first item, his eyes widened and he almost choked.

Multiple news items about the quarantine. Not all details correct, but enough to suspect a leak.

Oh, Great God in Heaven. “Bentley!”

The lieutenant appeared within seconds. He’d probably been anticipating the call.

“First item. Summary, please.”

Bentley took a breath, and began. “Multiple news stories appeared overnight with concrete details about the Astra and the crew. Enough accurate hits to make it more than conjecture. Enough similarities between the stories to indicate that someone sold the story multiple times.”

“Reaction?”

“About what you’d expect, sir. Public hue and cry, demands that the government do something, a couple of demonstrations already.”

“Anything from HQ?”

Bentley shook his head. “Not yet, sir, but I am expecting—”

The ringing of an incoming call interrupted him. Moore recognized it as the ring tone Bentley had assigned to Naval Intelligence. “Get that, Bentley. Update me afterward.”