6: pure blood seed

Shek, come in. Shek, come in, over. Yeah, I'm here. What have you got for me? Well you won't believe this, but there is someone else out there giving the Pfhor just as large a headache as you. Believe it or not, it's your old "friend" Dr. Zhang. WHAT? Kahn Zhang is here? Now? Unbelievable. I was certain he'd croaked years ago. What is he doing? He and this AI he has with him are in an area not far from here. It looks like your restoring of the geothermal power has reactivated the remains of an old Pfhor experiment. He seems to be trapped at the moment, in an old training facility for Pfhor officers. A training facility? Yes. It looks like recent earthquakes in this region of the planet have caused breakdowns in systems over the whole continent. He is being bounced around from facility to facility every time he tries to transport out of here. What comedy. The self-proclaimed creator of the eleventh generation is stuck on an abandoned Pfhor outpost. Speaking of which, tell me more about this AI with him. Eleventh? I'm afraid I don't follow ... Nevermind that now. Tell me about his AI Well, most of the computer systems aboard Diablo are inoperative. However it seems to be acting like a child. The way in which it interacts with other computer systems is very naive. There could be a way to exploit this situation. Get the Diablo computer active and run the program called "Builders". It'll do all the work. Right, running ... What should I do now? Patch me into the terminal nearest to him. Okay ... done. You're lucky: he seems to be accessing a terminal at this very moment. ************* "Hello, Zhang. It's been a while." "Who are you? Why am I here?" "I'm surprised you don't remember me. Then again, you were never one to remember the little people. You once knew me as George Nohe." "Nohe? Egrham's assistant?" "Very good. So you DO remember me." "I remember your mentor tried to kill me and take the credit for my work." "Egrham was a brilliant scientist who spent his his life working towards the goal you got lucky and reached. You didn't deserve what you had discovered. You were a mistake." "Egrham was a fool, Nohe. His attempts were all failures, his theory was horribly flawed. Why can't you accept that?" "Oh, make no mistake, I have. You're the fool, Zhang. Egrham's theory wasn't as flawed as you think. Years after you disappeared it was corrected and put to use by his daughter, Elise. We have had advanced APCI in the AIs for nearly sixty years." "The AIs the government has are of no consequence. Whatever they are doing, I'm a generation ahead." "You're a fool, Zhang. What makes you think the government has the advanced AIs? I'm a company man now. Centodyne Corp is the one writing Elise's paychecks, and mine." "You would keep such technology from the government?" "My, aren't we quite the hypocrite? You are doing exactly the same thing." "I'm hiding my research because of people like you and Egrham. The government was acting on his advice. They wouldn't have interfered if Egrham hadn't submitted that report." "Still living in the past, I see ... I contacted you because I thought you might be of some use. I was wrong. All you are is dead." "Wait a second, Nohe. After the fire in the lab, when Egrham was killed--I thought you were killed, too. How is it you're here more than seventy years later?" "I, too, have had my own operation, Zhang. After the fire you set nearly killed me, the government troops found my nearly dead body lying in a heap of burnt metal. They reconstructed my body using the biological life extensis treatment system. Elise's too." "Everything dies, Nohe." "Perhaps. You should know that after I was brought on board the Diablo weapons division by Centodyne they enhanced my body even more. They gave me a new code name, Zhang. They call me Shek these days. If you manage to get off this doomed planet I'll be waiting for you." "When I get off this planet I will finish what I started so many years ago." "We shall see, Zhang." *********** Wow. You two really have a history. I don't know if I 'd call it that. It's more of a mutual hatred. Well, anyway, the builder program is finished. His AI is toast. Good. Tell me, what is the AI's name? He was calling it "Sister". Sister, eh? I wonder if that means Brother is still ... Enough. Where are the colonists? The few that have survived are held up in a mine complex located on an island in the middle of a huge lake. How can I get there from here? The ore in the mines makes transport tricky. I wouldn't want to try it with the ship in the order it's in. There might be another way. There was, at one time, a kind of monorail system running to and from the mine entrance. If you can reach the loading pad, I can use the monorail line to transport you into the entrance to the mine. Okay. I'm on my way. Be ready.

Shek, come in. Shek, come in, over. Yeah, I'm here. What have you got for me? Well you won't believe this, but there is someone else out there giving the Pfhor just as large a headache as you. Believe it or not, it's your old "friend" Dr. Zhang. WHAT? Kahn Zhang is here? Now? Unbelievable. I was certain he'd croaked years ago. What is he doing? He and this AI he has with him are in an area not far from here. It looks like your restoring of the geothermal power has reactivated the remains of an old Pfhor experiment. He seems to be trapped at the moment, in an old training facility for Pfhor officers. A training facility? Yes. It looks like recent earthquakes in this region of the planet have caused breakdowns in systems over the whole continent. He is being bounced around from facility to facility every time he tries to transport out of here. What comedy. The self-proclaimed creator of the eleventh generation is stuck on an abandoned Pfhor outpost. Speaking of which, tell me more about this AI with him. Eleventh? I'm afraid I don't follow ... Nevermind that now. Tell me about his AI Well, most of the computer systems aboard Diablo are inoperative. However it seems to be acting like a child. The way in which it interacts with other computer systems is very naive. There could be a way to exploit this situation. Get the Diablo computer active and run the program called "Builders". It'll do all the work. Right, running ... What should I do now? Patch me into the terminal nearest to him. Okay ... done. You're lucky: he seems to be accessing a terminal at this very moment. ************* "Hello, Zhang. It's been a while." "Who are you? Why am I here?" "I'm surprised you don't remember me. Then again, you were never one to remember the little people. You once knew me as George Nohe." "Nohe? Egrham's assistant?" "Very good. So you DO remember me." "I remember your mentor tried to kill me and take the credit for my work." "Egrham was a brilliant scientist who spent his his life working towards the goal you got lucky and reached. You didn't deserve what you had discovered. You were a mistake." "Egrham was a fool, Nohe. His attempts were all failures, his theory was horribly flawed. Why can't you accept that?" "Oh, make no mistake, I have. You're the fool, Zhang. Egrham's theory wasn't as flawed as you think. Years after you disappeared it was corrected and put to use by his daughter, Elise. We have had advanced APCI in the AIs for nearly sixty years." "The AIs the government has are of no consequence. Whatever they are doing, I'm a generation ahead." "You're a fool, Zhang. What makes you think the government has the advanced AIs? I'm a company man now. Centodyne Corp is the one writing Elise's paychecks, and mine." "You would keep such technology from the government?" "My, aren't we quite the hypocrite? You are doing exactly the same thing." "I'm hiding my research because of people like you and Egrham. The government was acting on his advice. They wouldn't have interfered if Egrham hadn't submitted that report." "Still living in the past, I see ... I contacted you because I thought you might be of some use. I was wrong. All you are is dead." "Wait a second, Nohe. After the fire in the lab, when Egrham was killed--I thought you were killed, too. How is it you're here more than seventy years later?" "I, too, have had my own operation, Zhang. After the fire you set nearly killed me, the government troops found my nearly dead body lying in a heap of burnt metal. They reconstructed my body using the biological life extensis treatment system. Elise's too." "Everything dies, Nohe." "Perhaps. You should know that after I was brought on board the Diablo weapons division by Centodyne they enhanced my body even more. They gave me a new code name, Zhang. They call me Shek these days. If you manage to get off this doomed planet I'll be waiting for you." "When I get off this planet I will finish what I started so many years ago." "We shall see, Zhang." *********** Wow. You two really have a history. I don't know if I 'd call it that. It's more of a mutual hatred. Well, anyway, the builder program is finished. His AI is toast. Good. Tell me, what is the AI's name? He was calling it "Sister". Sister, eh? I wonder if that means Brother is still ... Enough. Where are the colonists? The few that have survived are held up in a mine complex located on an island in the middle of a huge lake. How can I get there from here? The ore in the mines makes transport tricky. I wouldn't want to try it with the ship in the order it's in. There might be another way. There was, at one time, a kind of monorail system running to and from the mine entrance. If you can reach the loading pad, I can use the monorail line to transport you into the entrance to the mine. Okay. I'm on my way. Be ready.

Shek, come in. Shek, come in, over. Yeah, I'm here. What have you got for me? Well you won't believe this, but there is someone else out there giving the Pfhor just as large a headache as you. Believe it or not, it's your old "friend" Dr. Zhang. WHAT? Kahn Zhang is here? Now? Unbelievable. I was certain he'd croaked years ago. What is he doing? He and this AI he has with him are in an area not far from here. It looks like your restoring of the geothermal power has reactivated the remains of an old Pfhor experiment. He seems to be trapped at the moment, in an old training facility for Pfhor officers. A training facility? Yes. It looks like recent earthquakes in this region of the planet have caused breakdowns in systems over the whole continent. He is being bounced around from facility to facility every time he tries to transport out of here. What comedy. The self-proclaimed creator of the eleventh generation is stuck on an abandoned Pfhor outpost. Speaking of which, tell me more about this AI with him. Eleventh? I'm afraid I don't follow ... Nevermind that now. Tell me about his AI Well, most of the computer systems aboard Diablo are inoperative. However it seems to be acting like a child. The way in which it interacts with other computer systems is very naive. There could be a way to exploit this situation. Get the Diablo computer active and run the program called "Builders". It'll do all the work. Right, running ... What should I do now? Patch me into the terminal nearest to him. Okay ... done. You're lucky: he seems to be accessing a terminal at this very moment. ************* "Hello, Zhang. It's been a while." "Who are you? Why am I here?" "I'm surprised you don't remember me. Then again, you were never one to remember the little people. You once knew me as George Nohe." "Nohe? Egrham's assistant?" "Very good. So you DO remember me." "I remember your mentor tried to kill me and take the credit for my work." "Egrham was a brilliant scientist who spent his his life working towards the goal you got lucky and reached. You didn't deserve what you had discovered. You were a mistake." "Egrham was a fool, Nohe. His attempts were all failures, his theory was horribly flawed. Why can't you accept that?" "Oh, make no mistake, I have. You're the fool, Zhang. Egrham's theory wasn't as flawed as you think. Years after you disappeared it was corrected and put to use by his daughter, Elise. We have had advanced APCI in the AIs for nearly sixty years." "The AIs the government has are of no consequence. Whatever they are doing, I'm a generation ahead." "You're a fool, Zhang. What makes you think the government has the advanced AIs? I'm a company man now. Centodyne Corp is the one writing Elise's paychecks, and mine." "You would keep such technology from the government?" "My, aren't we quite the hypocrite? You are doing exactly the same thing." "I'm hiding my research because of people like you and Egrham. The government was acting on his advice. They wouldn't have interfered if Egrham hadn't submitted that report." "Still living in the past, I see ... I contacted you because I thought you might be of some use. I was wrong. All you are is dead." "Wait a second, Nohe. After the fire in the lab, when Egrham was killed--I thought you were killed, too. How is it you're here more than seventy years later?" "I, too, have had my own operation, Zhang. After the fire you set nearly killed me, the government troops found my nearly dead body lying in a heap of burnt metal. They reconstructed my body using the biological life extensis treatment system. Elise's too." "Everything dies, Nohe." "Perhaps. You should know that after I was brought on board the Diablo weapons division by Centodyne they enhanced my body even more. They gave me a new code name, Zhang. They call me Shek these days. If you manage to get off this doomed planet I'll be waiting for you." "When I get off this planet I will finish what I started so many years ago." "We shall see, Zhang." *********** Wow. You two really have a history. I don't know if I 'd call it that. It's more of a mutual hatred. Well, anyway, the builder program is finished. His AI is toast. Good. Tell me, what is the AI's name? He was calling it "Sister". Sister, eh? I wonder if that means Brother is still ... Enough. Where are the colonists? The few that have survived are held up in a mine complex located on an island in the middle of a huge lake. How can I get there from here? The ore in the mines makes transport tricky. I wouldn't want to try it with the ship in the order it's in. There might be another way. There was, at one time, a kind of monorail system running to and from the mine entrance. If you can reach the loading pad, I can use the monorail line to transport you into the entrance to the mine. Okay. I'm on my way. Be ready.