Wormhole by Richard Phillips Read Free Book Online

photomultipliers are indicating a big event, possibly another supernova detection. We were just about to check with Kamiokande. How did you know?”
    “Wish I could say, Joe. Sometimes the damned research classification here at Los Alamos makes me wish I were up there with you guys.”
    Dr. Kravitz laughed. “You know you’re welcome, Hanz. Anytime you want to stop poking around on alien starships and get back to real science, let me know.”
    “If I weren’t so addicted to it, I would, in a heartbeat.”
    “Right. Anything else you want to know? I really need to place that call to Japan.”
    “No. That’s it. Thanks, Joe.”
    “Anytime.”
    Dr. Jorgen pushed the OFF button, breaking the connection. Motioning for Joann to follow him, Hanz turned toward the Bandolier Ship. Joann knew he probably didn’t understand his desire to get inside the ship any more than she understood hers. All she knew was that, for whatever reason, something now called to her as irresistibly as an Anthemoessan siren.

At the edge of her awareness, Heather knew they’d managed to attract the starship’s attention in a completely new and dangerous way. The AI was reacting in a manner that indicated a friend-or-foe reassessment of all three of them.
    Almost immediately she felt a presence try to push its way into her thoughts, scanning, seeking to determine her intentions. Thousands of independent probes scampered through her brain, trying to bypass the barriers she’d erected.
    Heather felt a shudder pass through Mark’s mind, felt his focus shift away from her and Jen, toward the Other. And although a series of horrifying visions clotted her thoughts, she released him. Marcus Aurelius Smythe had been made for this moment, his protective nature the likely reason he had chosen his particular headset, or perhaps the reason it had chosen him.
    Heather coupled her mind more intimately with Jennifer’s. Jen was the key. As Heather let herself become one with that key, she felt Jen’s desire consume her.
    The alien presence filled the void, a computing consciousness devoid of emotion, yet filled with need. That need probed her, probed Jennifer, seeking to violate the most private parts of their minds.

    The Other paused, quintillions of simultaneous calculations weighed and measured across its artificial mind. The three young humans had altered their previous protocols in a way that placed the ship’s protective systems at yellow alert. Whereas these crew surrogates had previously shown high degrees of individual curiosity, they now probed as a team, seeking to assert control, bypassing computational shields in a concerted attempt to access restricted data. Only one human had previously been granted such access, one who had opened his mind completely, one whose commitment to the mission had been absolute.
    While these three showed great promise, they had not yet demonstrated the required level of commitment to the cause. As badly as the Other needed a crew to complete its mission, its security protocols stood paramount. This coordinated probe of its defenses required a counter-probe, and if that probe proved more than the human minds could tolerate, there should still be time to find suitable replacements.
    Analytical feelers played out across the millions of synaptic connections into the human brains, seeking sufficient data to make a decision. As the probe intensified, the humans countered, severing connections almost as fast as the Other could instantiate them. One of the humans detached itself from the group, turningits focus in direct opposition to the probe, the one that thought of itself as Mark.
    The Other was not surprised.

    Mark felt the presence so strongly that his view of the command deck shifted, the walls fading away until he appeared to be in a transparent bubble that reminded him of the inside of one of those novelty plasma balls. Only here, the lightning launched itself from the outer sphere toward the center. It crawled