"Charles Stross - Escape" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

Something is wrong.

Everything happens simultaneously; there's no time to stop and think. That's best, isn't it? That's how I
wanted it. This way you don't have time to think about me, Oshi: as if you ever did. I know you're
ignoring me, the still small voice in the back of your mind, assuming I'm a figment of your imagination.
Well, I can talk if I want to. You don't have to listen. But I digress: your situation is dire.

For one thing, the starship is accelerating. Your friends were far too optimistic about its response time.
As soon as it sensed us, before the drones even touched its surface, it began to power up the drive that
had dropped it into Ridgegap system. The drive kernel is a black hole trapped in a magnetic bottle, like
the smaller hole it used as a weapon: methane drops in at one end swirls into a fusion-hot accretion disk,
is blasted out of the other end. The thing is preposterously powerful. Luckily for us, it has a mountain to
move; several billion tonnes, a starship twenty kilometres long. Acceleration is slow. Even luckier; the
controlling mind was dumber than even I thought possible, little more than a robot placeholder filling an
expansion processor sized for an Ultrabright pilot. It's very sloppy. You can tell the Ultrabrights have little
experience of working in the real world. Unlike us.

For another thing, we have bandwidth limitations. The drones are demanding, five hundred virtual
presences to maintain in parallel. Then there's the 'coder link to maintain, not to mention the interface
analysers, designed to crack the connectionist language of a neural network and allow your human friends
to inject their cannibal memes at will. All of this strains your facilities to the max. Bronstein and the other
ships of the fleet are crammed to overflowing, and you're hopelessly under-equipped for such a venture.
What you lack in tools has to be made up for in time. And finally, there's the other thing.

Me.

You've been dreaming about me for long enough, haven't you? But you refuse to admit I'm here. Maybe
refusing to face me down is your way of asserting your independance. "Saboteur" indeed! As if I would
be so crude. You betrayed yourself, Oshi. You thought the infodump I downloaded into you was just
passive data, background information for your edification, maybe a few simple survival routines. You
should have known better. That wisdom cache in your skull is big enough to buffer an entire mind during
the upload process. Why shouldn't it buffer a mind-sized entity going the other way? A mind-sized entity
coming from, say, your Boss? That is to say, a part of me sent to be your very own personal secret
policeman?

I really should resent your rejection, you know. It pains me to see how you've snubbed me at every
turning. I only wanted the best for you. I know I belittled you, called you my little scratch monkey, but it
was not entirely malicious. I have enjoyed your depth of experience greatly, your rash temperament and
vivid nightmares. I cherish your silly trust in love at first sight, your occasional homicidal rages and your
sulky silences. But I'm afraid you've gone too far this time, far too far. It's time to Stop.

I know I told you to report back then go your own way. I did not anticipate your way of reporting: that
you would do so at immense jeopardy to my other interests. However, I suspected things might get out
of hand, as indeed they have done, and I took precautions. I'm afraid I won't be talking to you again, my
little monkey. I have already moved out of your wisdom cache, into better accomodation: in due course I
will tidy up the loose ends and make my report. In parting, let me say that you really should be more
dispassionate: your tendency to fall in love will blind you to some of the more important elements of your
predicament, like the exigencies of survival.

Goodbye ...