Wormhole by Richard Phillips Read Free Book Online Page A

across his body, working its way into every synapse of his brain, the pain even more intense than the first time he had tried on the headset. And behind those thought tendrils Mark felt the alien consciousness, felt its need to know his deepest thoughts and purposes.
    Reacting automatically, Mark blocked the attacks using the same techniques Jack had forced him to practice against Jennifer and Heather. And although his defenses held, the pain intensified, easing momentarily whenever he became distracted and let a barrier drop.
    Shit. The damned thing was trying to train him with such rapid punishment-and-reward variations it would soon have him salivating on demand like Pavlov’s dog. The bad news was that the broad spectrum of the attack seemed to be working. Mark felt sure that somewhere out there a voodoo priest was leaning over a rustic wooden table, rapidly pushing pins into a little cloth Mark doll.
    Mark was certain of one thing. If he succumbed, this bastard of an alien computer would turn its full attention to Jennifer and Heather next. But if he could just hold on long enough to let those two find a security hole, they’d have a chance to override the ship’s defenses. At least he hoped so.
    Mark steeled himself, cycling through remembered meditative states in an attempt to wall off the pain. Although he failed to accomplish this objective, he came close enough that the Other’s progress at breaking him slowed from a run to a crawl.

    Jennifer felt the alien presence ease its attack on her mind as Mark withdrew from their three-way mental link, somehow taking with him the vast majority of the alien AI’s attention. Apparently the opportunity to crush the isolated opponent was the bait that caused the AI to withdraw.
    Feeling a shudder pass through Heather’s mind, Jen focused on her.
    Stay with me. Mark’s doing what he has to.
    The flood of visions that came back at her almost knocked Jennifer out of the link. Jesus. Was this what Heather had to deal with every day?
    Hurry , Heather’s thoughts whispered. Mark can’t hold out long. Not against that .
    Jen directed her attention to the ship’s command protocol, returning to the deepest link she’d been able to access. Scanning quickly, she raced through the data partitions, letting her mind brush each one without delving into the data layers beneath. Whereas human data storage was commonly organized into a binary tree enabling log(n) lookup, these alien layers formed intricate fractal patterns, each using a different prime as its computational numeric base, numeric calculations replaced by manipulation of the color spectrum formed by the fractal frequencies.
    The more important or classified the data, the deeper into the prime sequence its corresponding fractal layer. The protection was provided, not by encryption, but by the sheer quantityand complexity of the interleaved data nodes. On past attempts, Jennifer had always gotten lost in the endless combinations of color and pattern as she searched for related data links.
    But now she had Heather’s mind guiding her from node to node, somehow sniffing out the logical links. The fractal patterns of interest acquired an iridescent glow: the more distinct the glow, the greater the search correlation. Like fairies suspended on gossamer wings, they moved through a magical garden, twisting trails of glowing vines pulling them ever deeper into the endless maze.

    Mark felt his concentration fading with his strength. The pain tore at his mind from the inside, an agony that spread through his virtual torso and limbs. If it had been his real body, he would have already bled out, impaled on a thousand rusty spikes. Letting go offered the promise of solace; he felt it nibbling at his resolve. The machine’s endless punishment and reward responses to his successes and failures were rapidly approaching the point at which they would overwhelm both his augmentations and Jack’s training. Then Jennifer and Heather would