The Red Tape War (1991) by Jack L. Chalker

Author:Jack L. Chalker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-02-01T01:16:57+00:00

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There were many obvious reasons why the Pete Rozelle was severely damaged structurally and electronically when it crash-landed on Uncharted, and only one reason why it wasn't totally obliterated. A leading factor on the first list was that the ship's guidance system was now occupied by the trespassing consciousnesses of Commodore Pierce and First Officer Arro, neither of whom had had much prior experience as a man-made Artificial Intelligence computer network.

The single thing that saved them was a miracle. God, or mathematics, allowed the passengers on the Pete Rozelle to live a little longer.

Not that the Pierce-Arro combined entity intended to abuse the privilege. "Hello?" said Pierce-Arro. There was no answer.

"What's happened?"

"Apparently," the entity answered itself, "our two separate Protean minds have become fused.

I don't know if it happened because of the deck-plate charging debacle, or as a result of the crash.

But we're in here together."

"Do I have to salute myself?"

"Very funny. Now, we seem to be trapped inside this computer. I'm beginning to learn how to extend my `thinking' and utilize the extended sensory and memory devices that haven't been too badly damaged."

"How are the others?"

"What others?"

"The flesh-creatures. Did they survive as well?"

Pierce-Arro watched and listened and consulted with all of its built-in meters and readouts. "I detect heart-beats," it decided at last. "No sign of consciousness, however. Perhaps they were damaged in the crash."

"I warned them to hang on!"

"Now, what about the others in our invasion? How will we contact them? Our ship—the Pel Torro—is trapped inside that giant android on the floor. And I suppose our bodies are under the control of one of these creatures' minds."

"Both bodies?"

"I hope so. The only alternative is that one gasbag body is alive and inhabited by an alien, and the other gasbag body has deflated unto death."

"I don't know which would be worse. Imagine having a loathsome alien awareness pawing over your inner being."

"We have communications equipment under our control. We could try raising the Pel Torro and giving the alien instructions on how to properly maintain our complex and lovely bodies. As I recall, it was almost time for my midwatch lubrication."

"Forget that for now. It's more important for us to establish a link to our invasion fleet."

"How?"

"I don't know. This requires more study." And the Pierce-Arro entity absorbed itself in the minute exploration of all of the XB-223's attributes.

Deathly silence reigned inside the damaged Pete Rozelle. The ship had plowed a long, smoking furrow across the weirdly alien face of Uncharted, the strange new world upon which it had crash-landed. The landscape of Uncharted had been created by a god with a splitting headache: The sky was a sickly maroon, and the shiny, broad-leafed vegetation was a ghastly blue color that belonged on the lips of a drowning victim. Reflected light from the world's two moons cast dreadful shadows across the unhuman prairie, but no one aboard the Pete Rozelle had yet seen any of that. Only Pierce-Arro was conscious, and that entity had more important things than sightseeing on its .

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