"The Measure of a Machine"

[Atoz 77]

THE MEASURE OF A MACHINE >>>



"You don't have a very good view of the planet," remarked Lieutenant (j.g.) Henry Rhine, looking around Science Officer Diane Weir's office on the starship Odysseus. The office was on Deck 4, along the starboard side of the ship, and had only one small porthole looking out into space. And since the majority of Class M planets tend to rotate counter-clockwise, the ship normally kept its port side to the planet in maintaining a geosynchronous orbit.

"I like it that way," Weir explained, looking up from her desk with a wry smile. "Goodness knows some of these survey reports are tedious enough. If I had the distraction of a planet outside my window, I'd never get them done. Speaking of which," she added, holding out her hand for the data file the lieutenant was carrying, "is that the Life Sciences report?"

"Yes, sir," said Rhine, as he handed it over. "No surprises. Pretty typical flora for a warm temperate planet. No sentient vegetables bent on ruling the galaxy."

"Well, there's always the next planet," Weir said jokingly.

Rhine turned to leave, but paused. "Commander, we are done with this survey, aren't we? Do you have any idea why we're still hanging around in orbit?"

"I'm only the Science Officer," said Weir liltingly, getting back to her report. "I have nothing to do with flying the ship." Rhine gave her a friendly wave and left.

"If you like, Lieutenant commander Weir," said the pleasant feminine voice of the ship's computer, "I could write your report for you. It would be my pleasure." The sensor array status monitor on the nearby bulkhead now displayed the holographic image of an attractive young woman dressed in the flowing white gown of a Greek goddess.

"I'm sure you could, Arachne," said Weir almost absently, then looked up at the monitor with interest. "Would it really be a pleasure? Would you enjoy doing it?"

"Please forgive me," said the avatar, looking a little abashed. "This is a figure of speech I've heard Humans use before. Did I use it wrongly?"

"No, not at all. It's just that... well, we've talked about feelings before, remember?"

"Yes," said Arachne. "Happiness, sadness, fear, love, and so on. There is positive feedback when I am fulfilling my assigned function. I do not really feel anything else."

Weir raised an eyebrow. Arachne was so good at simulating the various behaviors of the people she observed around her, it was hard to believe that she couldn't feel the emotions attached to them as well. "But your function has changed since Athena programmed you," she said. "Your job is now to act as an interface with our ship's computer. On your own initiative, you've just offered to do more than that. Does that mean that you're bored?"

Arachne's simulated eyes flicked to one side for a fraction of a second. "The state of being fatigued through repetition or tedium," she quoted. "I do not know. My programming includes a desire to be useful. Does that count?"

"Including the desire to help out a friend?" said Weir.

"Friend?" said Arachne pensively. "One attached to another by affection or regard. An intimate or acquaintance. A member of the same nation or group." Her avatar put on a bright smile. "I've never thought of it that way, Commander, but yes, I suppose I do consider you my friend."

***

"Captain's log, Stardate 52019.4: Even though we have completed our survey of the Pi Carinae system, I have been instructed by subspace communique to wait here for rendezvous with the USS Valley Forge. The message contained no reason for the meeting, so naturally I am a little bit puzzled and, it would be fair to say, worried."

"Captain, a Yorktown-class starship has just arrived in system," said Lt. Rosh at the bridge Tactical station. "The USS Valley Forge, Captain Hussein."

"Message from the Valley Forge, Captain," said Penner at Communications. "Prepare to receive Admiral Francis Taylor at 1300 hours. With a clash of shields, the heralds depart. Message ends." She turned towards the command chair with a bemused expression on her face.

"Acknowledge, ensign," said Captain Atoz, with a genuine smile. Captain Taylor had been his CO on the USS Valkyrie, something like fifteen years ago, when Atoz had been a mere lieutenant commander. This would be like meeting an old friend again.

And at first it was just like that when the thin, balding Admiral Taylor beamed into the Transporter Room along with his flag lieutenant, a hard, muscular young man named Heihachi Sagura. The admiral shook Atoz enthusiastically by the hand, nodded warmly when First Officer Fawkes was introduced to him, and showed all the appropriate interest during a brief tour of the Odysseus. "She's a fine ship, Atoz," he said more than once, which of course was a pleasure for any captain to hear. It was almost twenty minutes later that he revealed the reason for his visit.

"It's about your AI, Atoz," he said with a heavy sigh.

"Arachne?"

"Starfleet has always been a little uneasy since you reported that your ship's computer was infected by an alien Artificial Intelligence."

"Infected is hardly the right word, Admiral," said Atoz. "I thought I made that clear in my reports. She resides in a separate module of her own. She merely interfaces with the Library Computer." Arachne had originally been the guardian of an alien artifact, trapping and interrogating all those who might steal it – including his Science Officer, Diane Weir. In the process of escaping, Atoz had been forced to destroy the artifact. He had saved her program himself; otherwise, with the original purpose for her existence gone, Arachne would have sat idle in her computer until its power ran down -- idle, of no use to anyone, and all alone.

"Yes, I understand," said Taylor. "But we're talking about a sentient computer program. There's no telling what it could do if it made up its mind."

"Not really, Admiral," said Fawkes. "Arachne may have a really sophisticated response algorithm, but she has no more real consciousness than an Emergency Medical Hologram. She's never shown any desire to take over the ship."

"But she could..." Taylor said ominously.

"My Science Officer keeps a very close eye on Arachne, sir," said Atoz. "I can summon her if you like..."

"That won't be necessary," the admiral said shortly. "I'll cut to the chase, Atoz. I'm here to extract the AI and take it back to Starbase 124 with me."

"Sir?" For a moment, Atoz was speechless as he thought of how he could resist any such action. But he prudently realized that he had no grounds. Technically, Arachne was just a computer program, and Starfleet Operations had every right to remove a piece of ship's equipment which they felt might constitute a hazard. True, he had personally come to think of her as a person, but hadn't Fawkes just finished arguing that she wasn't a sentient being and therefore didn't have the rights of a sentient being?

"I really don't think it's necessary, Admiral," was all he could think to say.

"We think it is," said Taylor.

[Atoz 77]

Admiral Taylor wanted to speak with Arachne, ostensibly to assess the situation for himself. Dismissing Fawkes and Sagura, he and Atoz went to the ship's holodeck. As Taylor waited, standing under the Arch and looking around at the matte gray walls of the room, Atoz reluctantly called her up. "Arachne, I'd like a tangible, face-to-face meeting in Holodeck One please."

Arachne's avatar appeared in solid three dimensional form, looking pleased to see him as she always did. "What can I do for you, Captain?" she said, with a faint smile.

"Hello, Arachne," said the admiral, stepping out of the Arch. "My name is Admiral Taylor."

"Hello, Admiral Taylor," she replied warily. Although Arachne was acquainted with the ship's hierarchy by long experience, as far as Atoz knew she didn't recognize things like uniforms or rank insignia -- so she must not have known what to make of him except as a stranger she had never before met.

"How are you doing today?" the admiral asked, and Atoz winced. That was not the sort of question you asked of Arachne, and he couldn't imagine why Taylor was doing so, unless it was a futile attempt to ingratiate himself.

"I am receiving auditory and visual input from the ship's LCAR system, the same as I do every day," she replied. "And responding by means of a multi-functional--"

"That's enough, Arachne," said Atoz quickly.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said, "but I did not understand the question."

"It's very literal minded, isn't it?" said Taylor.

"The first time she hears a question, yes sir," said Atoz. "But she learns very quickly."

Here on the holodeck, Arachne had not only an image, but a fully formed physical body made up of pliable force fields. The admiral walked around her in a full circle, examining her with his eyes from every angle. She stood motionless, following him with her own eyes and giving Atoz the clear impression that she was unsettled by such close scrutiny but struggling to act as if she weren't.

"What can you tell me about Athena?" Taylor asked suddenly.

"Pallas Athena was she who created me," said Arachne. "She was an organic being much like yourselves, but much more highly evolved. She visited your planet Earth five thousand of your years ago, and she left with a variety of genetic specimens, which she used to create a society of--"

"Stop. What can you tell me about the Aegis?"

"The Aegis was an artifact capable of direct conversion of matter to energy, capable of both defense and offense, capable of absorbing the energy of any attack and---"

"Stop. Can you tell me how it was constructed?"

Atoz' eyes widened in alarm. So that was what this was all about! "Admiral, I don't think--"

Taylor held up his hand for silence. "Repeat: Can you tell me how the Aegis was constructed?"

Arachne's simulated eyes darted to Atoz for assistance, but although she could mimic human emotions perfectly, her ability to interpret them was less so. "I... I am sorry, but I can tell you nothing about the inner workings of the Aegis."

***

"What was that about, Admiral?" said Atoz angrily, out in the corridor.

"Watch your tone of voice, Captain," said Taylor stiffly. "I thought it was obvious. If your AI was part of the programming that ran the Aegis, it should also contain programming for building one."

"I hardly think that's likely, sir," said Atoz. "She was merely given the task of guarding the artifact, to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands."

"We disagree."

Atoz struggled to keep his temper. "Why didn't you ask me first? Don't you think that Commander Weir and myself haven't already questioned her about this, many times?"

"Yes, it had occurred to me. Don't take this the wrong way, Atoz, but all of you seem to treat this AI as a pet or a mascot or something. Maybe you're just not questioning it hard enough."

Atoz allowed the implication in this statement to pass without comment. "We always get the same answer you did, Admiral. She doesn't know."

"That's not what she said," Taylor replied. "She said she can't tell us. That's quite a different kettle of fish."

"Meaning...?"

"Meaning we have cybernetics specialists at Starbase 124 who can tear her programming apart line by line if they have to, until we get the answers we want."

***

The chime on the ready room door sounded. Atoz, staring out at the stars and at the curve of the planet below, had been expecting it. "Come in," he said with a sigh.

"You wanted to see me, Captain?" Weir said, striding up to his desk.

Atoz had been dreading this, and the only way he could think to get through it was to be brutally straightforward. "Admiral Taylor is taking Arachne back with him to Starbase 124. It would like you to disconnect her module and get it ready for him."

The Science Officer gaped, her mouth working as she tried to speak several different thoughts at once. "He what... he can't... how can he...?"

"Listen, Diane," said Atoz, coming around the desk, "I understand how you feel about Arachne..."

"What I feel has nothing to do with it, sir," she insisted, getting herself under control and playing the cool, efficient Science Officer for all she was worth. "It just doesn't make any sense. She's my..."

"She's a machine," said Atoz. "We've talked about this before, haven't we? She doesn't meet the accepted standards for sentience, she has no legal standing, and in that case we have no grounds to refuse."

What he said was true. "But I'm... I'm in the middle of a research project," said Weir, grasping at straws. "I'm the Science Officer of this vessel, engaged in research on an alien AI. He can't just take her! I don't understand why--"

"Diane," said Atoz, reaching out with the intent of touching her, but deciding against it. "It's the Aegis. Admiral Taylor thinks he can make her tell him how to reconstruct the Aegis."

Weir's eyes, already narrowed in anger, now widened in outright alarm. "No! Doesn't he have any idea how dangerous that is?"

***
"Computer," said Admiral Taylor, standing with Lt. Sagura under the holodeck Arch, "set up a tangible, face-to-face meeting with the AI known as Arachne."

Arachne's avatar appeared, just as before. "What can I do for you, Admiral Taylor?"

"You can tell me about the Aegis."

Arachne looked decidedly uncomfortable as the lieutenant circled her with his tricorder out. "I have already explained, Admiral Taylor," she said. "There is nothing I can tell you. Please do not ask this question again."

"What harm would it do to ask it," said the admiral, raising his hands and smiling as if in triumph, "if you really don't have any information? Do you see the contradiction?"

"There is no contradiction. I cannot tell you--"

"You're lying," Taylor said inexorably. "Tell me about the Aegis."

Arachne looked frightened now. "Please do not ask..."

Sagura punched buttons on his tricorder. He looked up at the admiral and nodded. Encouraged, the admiral moved closer to Arachne, until he was nearly nose to nose with her. She whirled around, trying to hide her eyes, but he grabbed her avatar by the shoulders, forcing her to face him again. "Drop this pretense of ignorance," said Taylor sternly. "It's not fooling anyone! Tell me what I want to know. Tell me about the Aegis."

***
"How could it be dangerous?" asked Atoz.

"Captain, you weren't with me when I first encountered Arachne, when she was the guardian of the Aegis." Weir hugged herself, clutching her forearms and shivering. "It was horrible! She was a monster, literally! If she's put into a position where she thinks she's defending it again, she could easily revert to that personality!"

"But in that case--"

He was interrupted by the raucous tocsin of the Red Alert siren. Atoz and Weir glanced out the porthole at the stars suddenly streaking past at Warp speed, then rushed out the ready room doors and onto the bridge. "Who ordered a Red Alert?" Atoz demanded.

"Nobody did, Captain," said Fawkes, rising out of the command chair.

"Mister Caeli, drop out of Warp and return to the planet."

"I can't, Captain," said the helmsman, frantically punching at his control panel. "I think Arachne's taken control of the computer. I'm completely locked out."

"Arachne, what's going on?" There was no answer. Atoz was so accustomed to the AI's prompt appearance whenever he called, her total absence was disturbing. "Arachne, stop whatever you're doing and return helm control, that's an order!" Still nothing.

"Our velocity is Warp Eight, Captain," reported Caeli. "Heading is 180 mark 84."

"Toward the edge of the galaxy," said Fawkes.

"Computer, this is a Command Override! Restore helm control immediately!" There was no response of any kind -- neither from Arachne nor from the normal computer voice -- nothing.

"The Valley Forge is in pursuit, Captain," said Rosh at Tactical.

"Our velocity is now Warp Nine, Captain," said Caeli.

"The Valley Forge is closing." Rosh tried entering commands into his console, to no avail. "Captain, Arachne is charging phaser banks. To Maximum!"

The stars on the viewscreen suddenly streaked sideways as the Odysseus spun around to the left at Warp Nine. The frail humans on board all skidded to the right, thrown off their feet and slamming hard into consoles and bulkheads as the inertial compensators lagged behind such an abrupt maneuver. The bridge lights flickered momentarily.

"Structural damage on decks five through ten, Captain!" said Rosh, desperately holding onto his station. "Fusion reactor number one is off line..."

"Primary life support failure!" reported Fawkes. "Switching to backups!"

But Arachne wasn't finished. The ship was now driving straight back upon the oncoming Valley Forge. "Both phaser banks are locking on target, Captain!"

"Arachne!" yelled Atoz. "Don't!"

Two phaser beams plowed into the engineering section of the Valley Forge, which hadn't raised its shields, scouring deep furrows in the hull. The ship tried to veer off to starboard, but the Odysseus shot past, spinning sharply around to once more bring its weapons to bear and fire. "Arachne, please stop!" Atoz said, almost under his breath.

And she did stop, but only because all hostile activity on the other ship had ceased. The Valley Forge was drifting, dead in space. "Their primary and secondary power grids are both completely down, Captain," reported Rosh, who then heaved a sigh of relief. "Minimal casualties. Their life support is still active on tertiary power cells."

The Odysseus had already turned away, resuming its course for the edge of the galaxy.

[Atoz 77]

"Life support, gravity, and inertial dampers are on manual," reported Fawkes, studying the operational functions panel. "It looks like Arachne has pretty much everything else."

"Our velocity is now Warp 9.5, Captain," said Caeli, rapidly calculating. "At this rate we'll hit the Puppis arm energy barrier in ninety minutes."

Atoz frowned. Not quite a uniformly round disc, the edge of the galaxy meandered in capes and inlets. The Puppis arm was one such inlet, bordered with a powerful electromagnetic field of energy. If Arachne neglected to raise the ship's deflector screens to full power – and she was showing no sign of doing any such thing -- the radiation could easily kill all of them.

"Can you alter course at all?" asked Atoz.

The helmsman's fingers danced over his console, but nothing happened. "I'm afraid not, Captain."

Weir had gone to the Sciences station to see what she could do with the main computer. As she set to work, there was a whistle from the comm system. "Engineering to Bridge. What in Zarkhon's name is going on up there?"

"It appears that Arachne has taken over, Commander Vespis," Atoz replied. "Is there anything you can do about it?"

"She caught us by surprise down here, Captain," said Vespis. "I don't know how she managed it, but it looks like she's taken over the supervisory pathways and changed the access codes. I can probably bypass the main computer and re-initialize the root structure, but that'd take... two hours maybe..."

"We may not have two hours," said Atoz, uncomfortably aware that Arachne was capable of thinking and acting a hundred times faster than any of them. "We have to stop the ship before we reach the edge of the galaxy. How about interrupting power to the warp core itself?"

"That might be tricky," the Andorian replied. "There are safety systems I'd have to disable first, and it's a good bet Arachne's already thought of that. Give me fifteen minutes to see what's possible and what isn't."

"You've got ten."

Rosh noticed a winking indicator on the Tactical board. He touched a control, reading the brief text message. "Captain, the admiral's aide has been found unconscious and severely injured -- outside Holodeck One."

Atoz glanced over at Weir, whose face was wearing a stunned expression as if her worst nightmare had come true. "Is the holodeck still active?" he asked in amazement. Standard procedure under Red Alert was to automatically lock down all nonessential systems, including holodecks, replicators, and transporters.

"Yes it is, Captain," said Ensign T'Pana at Ops, raising one eyebrow. "Holodeck One is currently running a non-specified program. The User is listed as... Admiral Francis Taylor." With Fawkes looking over her shoulder, she tapped in commands. "It will not disengage."

Atoz was thinking fast. This was all his fault, of course. Although the AI's module was supposedly confined to the Library Computer section, completely separate from any and all command structures, the fact is that once, confronted by a Gorn battleship, he himself had allowed Arachne temporary control over the weapons and engines systems. It had been a desperate situation, when their survival had depended upon speed and accuracy which only the AI could have provided. Apparently that one situation had been enough for Arachne to learn how to access those systems on her own. Clearly Atoz had severely underestimated her.

And now he had to somehow out-think her. How? She was a computer. Her had all the advantages – speed, lack of emotion, intimate knowledge of the ship's systems from the inside. Her only disadvantage was...

"Fawkes, you and Weir get down to the holodeck and see what's going on."

"Shall I go with them, Captain?" asked Rosh, resting his hand on the butt of his phaser.

Atoz shook his head. "No. You and I have to try and get Tactical control back. If we can't get the metaphasic shields on line, we're all dead."

***
Vespis stood in front of an open computer panel, her antennae wriggling in frustration as she consulted the readings of her circuit tester. "The A-12 system has been fused solid," she hissed. "Looks like a power surge from the... zek, from the aft deflector couplings!"

"Impossible," said Lt. Vilenkin, looking up from working on the main engineering data bus nearby. "Those circuits don't even run through the same conduits! That would require re-wiring of the whole EPS trunk."

The Andorian paused thoughtfully. "No, it would just take some seriously time-consuming power balance computations. I could probably do it myself if I had nothing better to do for about a week. Looks like Arachne did it less than a minute."

Vilenkin muttered something under his breath in Russian. "What if we bypass the primary data line to the Z-22 junction? Pull the plugs manually?"

"Not a good idea," said Vespis. "Arachne's already added a subroutine to the main computer that will fry the inertial compensators if we try that. We'd all end up spattered against the bulkheads like so much modern art." She sighed as she checked another circuit. "How does the Captain expect me to out-think a frigging computer?"

At that moment, her comm badge chirped. "Mister Vespis, how's it coming?" asked Atoz' voice.

"Er, very badly," grumbled the engineer.

"I expected someone like you would know a dozen different ways to disable a warp engine."

"I do, sir. It's just that Arachne seems to have thought of most of them, too." Vespis bit her lip. "The only thing I can think of is to generate a positron feedback loop in the plasma injectors," she said, ignoring Vilenkin's gasp of alarm. "But that's really dangerous. It would normally mean a catastrophic overload in the intercooler stage, so the computer would automatically shut the engines down. But..."

"I understand, commander," said Atoz quickly. No one knew what Arachne's intentions were. If her goal was to destroy them anyway, she might not stop the overload. "Do it. I'll be on the bridge if you need me."

***
"There's a program running, Commander," said Weir, peering into the open panel outside Holodeck One. "But I don't recognize the configuration. I can tell you the safety interlocks have been disengaged."

Fawkes was looking at the tiny screen of a tricorder, while two security crewmen stood behind him, tense and expectant. "Admiral Taylor's definitely trapped in there," he said gloomily. "His life signs show physical distress. Heart beat and respiration are racing. What do you think is happening to him?"

Weir closed her eyes, momentarily overwhelmed by the memory of what she herself had gone through the time she had been in Arachne's power. "She's probably torturing him," she said shakily. "Psychologically at first, but with the safety systems off, his life could be in danger."

The First Officer placed his hand on her shoulder. "Diane, I'm sorry. If you can't shut down the program, can you at least get us inside?"

Weir looked up and nodded. Probing with her slender fingers inside the panel, she carefully pulled out an isolinear component. Reaching into the tool kit at her feet, the Science Officer withdrew a bulky testing device. "The door sensors are locked down, but I think I can short out the emergency escape system. Give me fifteen minutes or so."

Fawkes turned to one of the security guards. "I want a detachment down here with assault armor." Then as the man sped off, he tapped his comm badge. "Captain, we've confirmed that the admiral is trapped inside the holodeck. It ignores all shut down commands, but we're working on getting inside now."

"Very good," Atoz replied. "Commander Weir, you know Arachne better than any of us. Is there any way to reason with her?"

The Science Officer paused, shuddering as she remembered. "I would say not, Captain. If her guardian personality has been reactivated, her only priority is the Aegis. She'll assume by default that all of us are a threat. Any denials we make would mean nothing to her in this state."

"Do you have any idea what she intends to do?"

"When it comes right down to it, Arachne is a creature of logic, Captain," Weir said remorselessly. "Logically, the only way to remove the threat would be by killing us all."
.

[Atoz 77]

For the fourth or fifth time, Rosh tried activating the deflector controls, first by using conventional computer command pathways, and then by some not-so-conventional routes. In every case, he could proceed only so far before running into a dead end. "I am afraid this approach is hopeless, Captain," he said.

Atoz didn't answer immediately. After the last communication from Science Officer Weir, the Captain had fallen silent, as if deep in thought. He had already formed a vague plan in his mind, but it inevitably entailed a great deal of risk, both to Weir and to Vespis.

"Captain?" repeated the Security Chief. "I was saying, perhaps we would have more luck accessing the grid manually, through the deflector relays."

"That's a very good idea, Mr. Rosh," Atoz said slowly. Swiftly he turned to the Comm station. "Ensign Penner, I want my comm badge on a separate channel. All communications to and from me are to be routed directly through your console. Is that clear?"

"Um... yes, sir," she said, puzzled. That would mean no matter where the Captain was, it would seem as if he were speaking from the Bridge.

"Good. Mister Caeli, you have the con. Mister Rosh, Ensign T'Pana, come with me."

***
"I'm there, commander," said Vilenkin, bracing his feet against the ladder of the starboard Jeffries tube as he leaned backwards against the power relay casing. Since the tube itself tilted about ten degrees inboard at this point on its way to the deflector dish, this brought him into a nearly upright position. Looking around, he snapped open an access panel and peered inside.

"Be careful up there, pinkskin," Vespis called from the bottom of the tube, seven or eight meters below.

"No problem, sir," the Russian replied, smiling as unhooked the small duralloy container from his tool harness and balanced it on the edge of the panel. "This is nothing like mountain climbing in the Urals."

Vespis scowled at his flippancy, her antennae twitching nervously, but she didn't say anything. From where she was standing, she was watching the injection stage monitor, the little icons representing antimatter flow ticking away slowly and steadily. As it would continue to do, up until the moment Vilenkin attached his bottle of high-energy photonic particles and opened the seal. She could see the Russian handling the small object, placing it carefully inside the open panel, clamping it in place, manipulating the manual valve... "I'm connecting the unit now, commander," he called down to her.

Suddenly an alarm sounded, and a red strobe light high in the access shaft began to rotate. For a second, Vespis was even too astonished to swear. That was the pressurization alarm! Someone was about to open the emergency valves at the top of the Jeffries tube, which of course should be impossible without the direct authorization of the ship's Chief Engineer. Vespis spared one glance the monitor and shouted, "Get down here, Vilenkin! She's flooding the tube!"

Vilenkin knew as well as she did what that meant. He dropped everything he was doing and pulled his feet in, slipping off the rungs so that he'd fall all the way down the shaft. He might break his legs, but it was better than being cooked alive by radioactive reactor coolant. He had only fallen a foot when he stopped short – his equipment harness had caught on the overhang of the fiber optic stabilizer assembly. Frantically he kicked against the sides of the Jeffries tube as he struggled to free himself, while the siren continued to blare out its warning.

At the bottom of the shaft, Vespis could see the emergency hatch begin to slide ponderously across the lower entrance to the tube. Quite illogically, she threw her body into the narrowing gap, somehow hoping to hold it back. "Get DOWN here, Vilenkin!" she screamed.

***
Weir was holding a circuit probe with one hand while she switched isolinear chips around with the other. "Almost ready, sir," she said.

Fawkes turned at the sound of footsteps. Ensign Attenborough and Petty Officer Clausen were marching towards him with phaser rifles cradled at their elbows and wearing flexible composite armor. Attenborough was just about to open his mouth to report when the security force field snapped into place across the corridor, shoving the two backwards. "Computer!" said Fawkes automatically. "This is the First Officer! Override security fields on deck 4!"

To his surprise, the calm female voice of the ship's computer actually replied. "Unable to comply."

"I gave you an order, computer," said Fawkes.

"Yes, I know you did," the computer responded, in a voice dripping with contempt. "But unfortunately a goddess outranks a mere commander." A split second later, Fawkes heard the shimmering sound of the transporter effect, and spun around just in time to see Weir vanish from sight.

She rematerialized inside a long chamber made of dark marble, lit by several oil lamps hanging from the high ceiling. The floor was rough granite, with a row of Doric columns marching down either side. Obviously, Arachne had used the transporter to beam her into the holodeck. The atmosphere was hot and sulfurous, the flickering, uncertain light extremely unnerving, and as Weir took a nervous step forward, her foot stumbled over an unseen irregularity in the floor. She went sprawling face down, gasping for breath.

Almost immediately, Weir felt something extremely fast and extremely big moving about in the dimly lit chamber, heard the clicking of enormous claws on stone, and she knew that what she had most feared had happened. She rested her cheek against the cold floor, shutting her eyes as if she could put off facing the truth for a few more moments. Oh, Arachne, my poor Arachne!

"Well, little one?" came the harsh voice, as cold and inflexible as the stone Weir was lying against. A gigantic spider's leg thrust itself into the floor just to the left of Weir's face, another to the right, and she could feel the enormous body hovering above her. "If you think hiding your eyes is going to save you, think again. Are you going to look at me, or do I have to kill you as you lie there?"

***
Atoz climbed down the access ladder from maintenance tube 5F, emerging on Deck Six, then paused briefly to get his bearings as he waited for T'Pana and Rosh to catch up with him. "Captain," said the young Vulcan Ops officer, "I do not wish to unnecessarily state the obvious, but the nearest deflector relays are on Deck Four."

"That's true, ensign," he replied absently, striding off down the corridor. The other two followed as fast as they could, as the Captain turned into Sickbay. They found several of the crew either sitting or lying on treatment couches.

"Mostly minor injuries," said Dr. Pierce, looking up from a patient. "Sprains, a few broken bones. From that sudden swerve we took a while back." Handing his protoplaser to a nurse, the doctor led the way across the corridor and into the ICU. Atoz, Rosh and T'Pana followed. There they saw Lt. Sagura, lying in bed with a respirator mask on his face and a fluids cuff clasped around his arm.

"What happened to him?" asked Atoz.

Pierce shook his head. "I don't know. Looks like he was mauled by something very big. Some of his internal organs were ripped out. I think we got to him in time, though. He'll need some regenerative therapy, but he'll live."

Atoz was trying to think. Arachne had done this. But at the same time, she had left his body outside the holodeck for them to find. Did that imply that she still had some feeling? Had she wanted them to save him? Or had it just been the easiest way to dispose of the remains?

"Listen, Seven," Pierce continued, "Caeli tells me we're about to enter the Puppis arm radiation belt. That means gamma, delta, N and R rays. Pretty soon we're going to be seeing cases of radiation sickness if something isn't done."

"We're doing everything we can to regain control of the ship, Hawkeye," Atoz replied. "What do you suggest?"

Pierce considered. "Well, I'd like to start by moving everyone towards the rear of the ship if possible. The thickness of the forward hull itself might provide some protection. At least for a while."

Atoz nodded. "Okay, see to it. All nonessential personnel. You need any more help?"

"I just need someplace to put them," said the doctor. "Some of the central ventilation ducts ruptured from the stress, and parts of the ship no longer have reliable life support. The computer won't talk to me, so I need someone from Operations to tell me which parts of the ship are still safe."

The Captain looked around. "Ensign T'Pana, remain with the doctor and help with that. Come along, Mr. Rosh."

***
Weir forced herself to look up. Arachne towered over her in the shape of a monstrously bloated spider with a vaguely human face, barely recognizable as the same face which had addressed her as a friend earlier that morning. "That's much better," Arachne sneered, as her two front legs grabbed the woman under the armpits and roughly hoisted her to her feet. "I like to see people's faces when I execute them."

Weir ignored the implied threat. "What have you done to Admiral Taylor?" she asked, trying not to let her voice tremble, but it was forlorn hope.

"Oh, he's hanging around," said Arachne playfully, as she pointed with one leg. Weir followed the gesture and gasped. Taylor was indeed hanging suspended by his wrists in between two of the columns, his feet at least a meter above the floor. His arms, stretched agonizingly above his head by his own dead weight, were bound in iron manacles. His head was also encased in a metal frame which covered his mouth and prevented him from speaking, but left his eyes obviously unhindered, so that he could see everything. Several bleeding gashes and bruises were visible through the rips in his uniform, and he was sweating freely in the stifling sulfurous heat.

"Admiral, are you all right?" Weir said, running over to stand underneath him. He was able to twitch the muscles in his legs to let her know he was still alive, but the only sound he managed was a painful grunt. "Let him down, Arachne! There's no need to torture him like this!"

"I grew weary of hearing his whiny voice," the spider replied indifferently. "Besides, it amused me to interrogate him when he hadn't the slightest chance of being able to answer. Let him see what it feels like."

"Don't do this!" blurted Weir desperately. Oddly enough, unlike her first encounter with Arachne in this form, she wasn't afraid of her at all. She was afraid for her, for what Captain Atoz might be forced to do into order to regain control of the ship. "There must be a part of you who remembers me. You said you considered me your friend, remember? Please don't do this!"

"Rubbish!" Arachne sneered, waving one of her legs in the air and causing a wall of flames to erupt from the floor, blocking the entrance to the chamber. "You've built up this perverted fantasy in your own mind, thinking to escape judgment. But you are nothing more to me than another lost soul among millions. And I am your Judge!"

***
Fawkes hurried to the nearest manual access panel and keyed in his password. The force field disappeared. Attenborough and Clausen swiftly moved in, cautiously flanked by two other security men without armor. "We brought an extra," said the ensign, handing over a thin fabric jumpsuit. "Good thinking," said the First Officer, as he quickly slipped into the suit and ran up the magnatomic seams. "Looks like we'll have to cut our way through the holodeck doors. Do you think we can manage that?" He touched a control on the left arm, activating the internal reinforcement fields and making the fabric of the suit go rigid. As the hood extended upwards to protect his neck and the rear half of his skull, he took the spare phaser rifle which Clausen offered, checking the settings.

"Shouldn't be a problem, sir," said Attenborough, judiciously checking his own rifle's settings. "They're not really constructed for security. Do you have any idea what we'll be up against once we get inside?"

"Not a clue," said Fawkes grimly, as he lowered the protective visor over his face.

***
The sign on the door said, "Central Computer Core: Authorized Personnel Only". As Atoz turned into the short corridor, his comm badge chirped. "Go ahead."

"Bad news, Captain," said Fawkes' voice. "We couldn't get the holodeck open, and now Arachne has taken Weir inside with her."

Atoz was silent as he digested this. It didn't help to think that he had anticipated this move as a possibility, since Arachne and Weir had always had an unusual relationship. The First Officer continued, "We're about to try cutting through the doors with an assault team. That is unless you think..."

"No, go ahead, Commander," Atoz said. "Get to her as quickly as possible." He tapped off his comm badge and opened the access panel next to the door, revealing a touch key pad. "Once we get inside," he said to Rosh, "we have to move fast to disconnect her module, then dump the working memory. If she gets any idea what we're up to, Arachne will try to stop us."

Rosh nodded. "I understand, sir." The access code for the door itself was separate from the main computer, but Arachne would soon realize that something unusual was going on in the computer core. Of course the best solution would be to shut down the main computer entirely, but there were three separate steps necessary to do so manually, and there was no way Arachne would allow them enough time for that.

Atoz took a deep breath. "One last thing... let me have your phaser." Rosh looked at the Captain oddly for a second, then handed the weapon over. Atoz transferred it to his left hand, and keyed in his access code with his right. The door slid open with a subtle hiss.

***
Inside the holodeck, Arachne paused, her humanoid head tilting slightly as if she were listening to something below the threshold of ordinary hearing. "Your Captain thinks he is a very clever man," she smirked.

Weir was about to ask what she meant, but just then a shrieking energy discharge slammed into the holodeck doors. The holographic flames around the entrance vanished as two dull glowing spots suddenly seemed to appear in midair, the low throbbing of the phaser rifles humming through the thick alloy of the door. "That's Mr. Fawkes!" said Weir. "Please stop this, Arachne! If you don't stop, they'll have to destroy you!"

The giant spider was not impressed. "You cannot destroy a goddess, little one. These pathetic men have no chance at all. I have all the power I need to squash them. After all... I have the Aegis!" She gestured with one of her forelegs, and at the far end of the chamber, the stones rumbled and fell back. Weir was certain she could hear Admiral Taylor moan with agony as the columns trembled. A marble altar glided gracefully out of the shadows. Standing on top of it was a gray granite statue of a Greek warrior, carrying a shield. It was the Aegis!

[Atoz 77]

On the bridge, Lt. Caeli was doing his best to reinforce the shields when the ship suddenly veered sharply to starboard, violently twisting along its axis as it did so. Penner stubbornly held on tight to her comm station. "Sciences reports external radiation levels rising another 20 millirems," she said breathlessly.

Caeli looked over his console, hardly believing his eyes. He tapped his comm badge. "Bridge to Captain. Our velocity is now Warp 10.8. Estimated arrival at the energy barrier is now eleven minutes."

***
"Understood, Mr. Caeli," Atoz replied. "Do what you can." The computer core was a circular room, two levels high. Standing on the metallic mesh catwalk of the upper level and holding on to the railings as the ship seemed to toss and turn around them, Atoz and Rosh could see the cylindrical tower in the center which represented the ship's active memory. Spaced about the room in concentric circles were the smaller units which held the permanent memory crystals.

"Module LCS-22420-C," said Atoz to the security officer, as he himself hurried across to the manual console. Uncovering the input screen, he typed, "Access emergency memory dump."

Indicator lights flickered on the console as the computer processed the unusual command. "Working," the screen responded. Then, "Authorization?"

He typed, "Atoz Iota 6674 Alpha."

It seemed to take forever for the screen to reply. When it did, Atoz gasped as the text abruptly vanished, replaced by the human spider face of Arachne. "Naughty, naughty, Captain," she sneered. "I shall have to devote considerable attention to inventing a suitable punishment for you. But rest assured, it will be excruciatingly painful."

***

With a rending crash, the holodeck door collapsed inwards in a molten pile of wreckage. Attenborough was the first to dive through the open hatchway, with Fawkes and Clausen poised to lay down covering fire with their rifles. Once he was in position, the other two joined him.

Arachne immediately snatched up Weir, hoisting the woman into the air with her two front claws. "This should prove interesting," she sneered, as across the chamber the gray warrior statue began to glow from the inside. "If brief. By the power of the Aegis--"

"Oh, knock it off!" shouted Weir into her face. "If I learned one thing the last time we met, I learned that you're a liar! Mister Fawkes, the Aegis is a holodeck sham! Don't waste your time on it!"

Taking the Science Officer at her word, Fawkes readjusted his aim for Arachne herself. "You have until the count of five to put her down," he said icily, "or there's going to be real trouble on this holodeck. And I must warn you, I count very fast when I'm nervous."

Arachne carefully set Weir down, then lunged at the three men with a contemptuous smile on her barely human face. Three phaser beams lanced out at once, flaring again and again as the energy struck against her enormous holographic body. Caeli, on the bridge, noticed the ship's velocity drop back below Warp Ten as Arachne diverted power from the engines to reinforce her force field image. "You cannot defeat me," she gloated, savagely knocking Attenborough aside with a sweep of her massive spider foreleg. Two of her side legs slammed into Clausen, crushing his body to the deck, as she bore down on Fawkes. "Kneel, Human! Pray to me, and there is a slender chance that I might be merciful!"

***
Atoz turned quickly and dove for the manual interlocks. Wrestling the access panel open, he groped for the hand lever inside. At that same moment, the ship swerved unexpectedly to port, and caught by surprise, he went tumbling across the catwalk. "I had thought to let you all die slowly from radiation sickness," Arachne said musingly. "But it might be more fun to crush your bones first. What do you think?"

The spider face smiled as the calm, feminine voice of the ship's computer announced, "Warning! Power loss to inertial compensators! Complete system-wide failure in 60 seconds. Fifty nine... fifty eight..."

From the lower level, an impatient banging noise alerted Atoz to the fact that Rosh had found the correct module, but with the system in full operation, the access drawer would not open. Atoz steadied himself against the vertical piping and wiring trunk, knowing that Arachne would want to try and dislodge him again. "... Forty eight... forty seven..."

Sure enough, a moment later the ship swung back to starboard, and he used the movement to help fling himself across the room. Losing his balance, he slid across the metal mesh, scraping off skin and desperately reaching for the safety interlock switch. "...Forty... thirty nine... thirty eight...." With a grunt of effort, he pulled the switch. An alarm begin to sound. Two seconds later, he heard a metallic crash and Rosh's voice call from below. "I have it, Captain!"

"Fool!" said Arachne. "Did you think to catch me so easily? So you have unlocked my data storage module! I have already copied myself a hundred times into the volatile memory! You have accomplished nothing!"

Atoz pulled himself upright, holding the phaser steady. "Good-bye, Arachne," he said quietly, and fired directly at the cylindrical tower just as the computer's countdown was reaching thirty. The beam, already set on level 17, completely gutted the computer core. It happened so quickly, Arachne hardly had time to realize what happened.

On the bridge, Caeli was inexpressibly relieved to see the warp field around the ship suddenly collapse. The terrific momentum of the ship instantaneously translated backwards through hyperspace as an expanding gravity wave, and the ship came to a dead stop. "The main computer is completely down!" blurted Penner, flabbergasted with happiness.

On the holodeck, the walls reverted to their standard matte gray as everything, including the bogus Aegis, vanished. Weir and Fawkes rushed over to the fallen Admiral Taylor. "Medical emergency in Holodeck One!" Weir shouted into her comm badge, feeling for his pulse.

***
"Captain's log, Stardate 52023.3: The ship's central computer core has been patched together, at least well enough to get us to a starbase. Because of the phaser discharge, many programs in the permanent memory were damaged and are unrecoverable. In the meantime we've encountered no problem running the Odysseus on manual controls. Doctor Pierce has certified Lt. Sagura stable enough for transport, and he and Admiral Taylor will soon be beaming back to the Valley Forge."


"I'm sorry it had to end this way, Atoz," said Taylor, offering his hand as Fawkes supervised the maneuvering of his aide's antigrav stretcher onto the transporter pad. "Please believe me that I had nothing but the security of the Federation in mind."

Atoz dredged up a friendly smile. "I know that, Admiral," he said, extending his hand for a firm, lingering handshake. "I never once doubted it."

"It's a shame that your AI was permanently damaged, though," said Taylor, glancing apprehensively at Weir as though expecting a rebuke. But the Science Officer remained silent.

"Her basic heuristic structure is intact," said Atoz. "But I'm afraid everything else – her personality patterns, all the information Athena programmed into her – all that is lost for good."

The admiral sighed. "Well, it was good to see you again, Atoz. Take care." He stepped onto the transporter pad, Vespis operated the controls, and a moment later, he and Sagura shimmered away into nothing.

"Well I certainly didn't appreciate being used as a stalking horse, Captain," Vespis complained once the visitors were gone. "Vilenkin and I came within a whisker of meeting the Universal Oneness, as Lt. N'maste would put it."

"It wish I could have thought of another way," said Atoz apologetically. "The only advantage we had over Arachne is that she was incapable of creative thought. All she could do was respond to our moves. Although she could respond a hundred times faster."

Fawkes nodded somewhat uneasily. "So the rest of us had to keep her attention focused on us while you got to the computer core. You were gambling that actually destroying the core was something that would never occur to her."

"Okay, okay," said the Andorian, as they all moved out into the corridor. "Only next time, Papa here gets to climb up the Jeffries tube while the deranged AI plots the easiest way to kill him."

"I'm hoping there won't be a next time, Mr. Vespis," said Atoz, as the First Officer and Chief Engineer returned to their respective duty stations. He looked over at Weir, who was still very quiet and thoughtful. Without a word spoken, the two of them spontaneously began walking down the curving corridor.

"Do you know Richard Daystrom, sir?" she said suddenly.

"The famous twenty-third century cyberneticist?," said Atoz. "Sure. He designed the duotronic computer, and established the theory for our current generation of multitronic computers."

"He once said the measure of a machine is that it does what Man designs it to do."

"Or in this case, what Athena designed her to do," said Atoz. "I'll say it again, Diane. I wish I could have thought of another way."

Weir sighed. "As you told the admiral, her basic learning structure survived. Given time, there's no reason to think she won't evolve a new personality."

"And this time, she starts with a clean slate." As they got into the turbolift, Weir nodded, even managed a very thin smile. Atoz couldn't help thinking that human minds were remarkably resilient. He could hope that the same applied to artificial minds.

>>> THE END >>>