The Venom of the Serpent

March 8, m0039

Back on a maglev train, the group discuss the next phase of their investigation. First, though, Tiberius mentions that he has received a Web message from an acquaintance in Military Intelligence, which among other things, notes that, so far as that organisation has been able to establish, the hospital where he was uploaded is run ethically, and there have been no signs of the Chinese "Bureau" agencies taking an interest there lately; the privacy of his scan has probably not been compromised. Perhaps of more immediate importance, the agency has noted Tiberius's activities and concerns since his restoration, and having checked its own data sources, it has reason to believe that American Space Intelligence Agency operatives were active in or near the same part of Mars when Tiberius suffered his accident - although the SIA is unwilling to explain what exactly they may have been doing there.

This leads to a little discussion in itself. It seems unlikely that the SIA would be responsible for shooting down Tiberius's hopper - while they and the Europeans sometimes work at cross purposes, the two factions aren't actively hostile - but it's possible that Tiberius diverted to meet an SIA agent, although he can't suggest any reason why he'd have done so. Anyway, it's more information to consider. The group also discusses how to handle the visit to the Peruvians, although Florence rapidly loses interest as the planning grows more detailed and conditional.

As they travel, they are also contacted by Quentin, who tells them that he's arranged transport for them to the Nova Iquitos site. It's been hard to find a vehicle to rent - they're heading into more sparsely populated territory - but he's been able to book passage on a cross-country road train. However, the group aren't entirely happy with this; it will leave them on site with no transport of their own if they suddenly find that they have to leave in a hurry. Quentin is apologetic, but vehicle availability is a problem... Eventually, though, he says that, if they can avoid getting into trouble for twelve to twenty-four hours or so, he can arrange for a rented rover to drive itself to the site and make itself available for them after that time.

Eventually, the maglev train reaches the team's stop - which proves to be a halt rather than a station. They disembark, and determine that they have a couple of hours to wait before the road train arrives. Sitting around on their luggage proves boring, so they decide to take a walk and look at the local rock formations.

After a little while, they hear another maglev arrive from the other direction and stop, and Web tags indicate that someone else has disembarked. They contact the new arrival by radio, and discover that it is Dr Ming-Mei Liang, a Chinese planetologist, who is meeting the same road train; when they say what they are doing, she asks to patch through to their cameras, and promptly spends ten minutes telling them about the science of the rock formations. They return to the halt, and discover Dr Liang sitting with a large travelling case; however, she says that she isn't packed for a long visit - this is simply her professional equipment.

She's happy to talk, and explains that she too is visiting Nova Iquitos; indeed, it emerges that it was her who arranged for the road train to come this way and to have a passenger module installed - Quentin then got lucky on the party's behalf, as the module has enough spare capacity for them. Dr Liang, it seems, is heading this way to perform some research. Nova Iquitos have recently been reporting some much better-than-expected performance by the ecological "oases" they monitor - gene-crafted bacteriological/fungal cultures planted out in the Martian desert, part of the terraforming process. This has attracted a certain amount of attention, as it would be good news for the terraformers if these results are accurate, but they do seem very good, so it seems like a worthwhile idea for an impartial scientific investigator to review them in situ.

The road train arrives, and proves to be owned and run by a single driver - an organic human, not an upload like some Martian truckers. This is Harvey Hernandez, an American citizen who wears a Stetson over his heat suit and speaks with a definite drawl. Hernandez seems amiable and spry enough, but some of the party decide that he has something of the look of an elderly man; indeed, he eventually lets slip that this is his second career - he spent forty years working as an accountant. He's a rejuvenated eloi, and a recurver.

The PCs and Dr Liang load their luggage onto the road train and climb into the passenger module. This proves comfortable enough, with sufficient bunks for all of them (with sound-deadening curtains), giving Florence a chance to catnap a little, and also a fully functional miniature kitchen. It's docked immediately behind the train's tractor unit, with a linked airlock, and once the whole assembly is underway again, Harvey leaves the driving to his personal AI, Sundance, and comes through to join them and talk. He doesn't get company on many trips, and while this may not worry him, he's happy enough to have someone to chat to.

The travellers swap stories of Mars and elsewhere, and get on well enough, although Harvey's taste for Country and Western music on the sound system might become wearing (Florence decides that she likes it in small doses). Eventually, the group call up dinner; Harvey's systems specialise in Tex-Mex cookery, and can produce a passable taco if one allows for the possible provenance of the "meat". However, as the travellers eat and drink, both Harvey and Dr Liang look a little oddly at their drinks, although the Europeans, their taste buds adjusting to unaccustomed spicing, don't notice anything. Harvey steps over to the recycling system maintenance panel and begins checking diagnostics as all the organic travellers begin to look a little queasy.

Harvey sits down looking distinctly unhappy before he can complete the maintenance checks, and both Jianwei and Florence are feeling fairly seriously unwell by now; however, Dr Liang didn't eat or drink as much when she noticed the odd taste, and Tiberius has the benefits of a boosted liver, installed in his original body during his military career and carried over in the spec for his bioshell, which counteracts the toxins without difficulty. He considers the diagnostics available from his computer-body interface systems, and recognises the problem instantly; a bacteriological infection that sometimes occurs in some types of water recycling system. It's supposed to be a rare problem, easily eliminated by competent maintenance, but sometimes people do get sloppy.

As Florence takes to her bunk and then grabs a bowl more or less in time (leaving her cleaner swarm with a little work to do on her fur later) and Jianwei and Harvey sit groaning, Tiberius checks the vehicle's medical supplies and his own portable kit, and comes up with a reasonable set of treatments. Then he tells his AI aide, Vediovis, to load the system's maintenance manual, takes Harvey's place at the panel, and works out how to purge and reset the water recycling system. By now, Sundance is asking if it should turn the vehicle back towards the nearest community with medical facilities, but this is vetoed all round; Tiberius's treatments seem to have been effective, and there's some sense among some of the travellers that this may not be as much of an accident as it looks.

So Vajra sends a swarm into the interior of the module's life support systems, using it to look for anomalies - and finds one. Something - larger than a swarm element, small enough to fit in the access spaces - moves quickly across one microbot's field of view. So Vajra pulls up more schematics and consults with Jianwei, who has an eye for tactics. Then, he and Tiberius begin to move and dismantle some elements of the system, isolating their target. Eventually, they give it no more places to hide - and they are ready when the miniature snakebot pops into view.

Florence fires first, but the snakebot ducks away from her tangler shell, which merely makes a mess on wall. However, the thing is unable to evade Jianwei's electrolaser bolt, and lies twitching and writhing for long enough for Florence to score a clean hit with a second tangler shot. Then Tiberius's army background kicks in, and he suggests that everyone takes cover - he's trained to expect miniature cybershells to incorporate self-destruct systems. Everyone follows his lead, with varying degrees of agility and haste, but the snakebot takes a while to recover any sort of control, and any autonomous self-destruct systems it may include evidently aren't set too sensitive. Eventually, Vajra decides that he can afford to take a risk, grabs a cushion from the seating, and tries to use it to screen the effects if the snakebot does explode. He's still trying to get the cushion in place when it does explode, in fact, but it only carries a small charge, and the tangler covering it effectively absorbs the blast.

There are some parts of the snakebot left intact, though; it may be time to try some ad hoc forensics.