Josie walked over and picked up the new contract. “Well, the Alliance of Prospectors will have to sign this. We’re only their negotiators.”
“Certainly,” Mr Chucky said. “Please hurry, though.”
Freddy held the curtain open for them. With almost unseemly haste, he ushered them from the room. Josie was pleased to note Delfans could hurry if they wanted.
Freddy led them back down through the hive. “You’re lucky to have met Mr Chucky. He doesn’t meet many people in person anymore.”
“He’s head of the Protectors for the whole planet?” Josie asked.
“He travelling long time see you,” Freddy said. “You big fine thing him.”
“Freddy, are you okay?” Josie asked.
Freddy stopped and stared at Josie.
She moved to one side, but his gaze didn’t follow her. “What’s wrong?”
Josie heard a clatter of claws behind her. Norman appeared from a side tunnel, another Delfan with him.
“Don’t worry, he’s fine,” Norman said. “He’ll just stay like that for a few hours.”
“You drugged him?” Josie asked.
“An unfortunate necessity,” Norman said. “Captain, you need to come with me alone. Damien here can lead your crew back to their shuttles.”
“Okay, now this is definitely a trap,” Bao Lei said.
“I assure you it’s not,” Norman said.
“All of you go outside,” Josie said. “One of you fly Doc back on one of the shuttles. The other can wait for me and we’ll return together.”
Reyna saluted. “Yes, Captain.”
Josie returned the salute. It gave her a weird feeling to salute Reyna. She watched them leave, then turned to Norman. “Okay, where to?”
“This way,” Norman said, leading the way down deep into the hive. The air began to grow warmer. Josie realised they had descended below ground level.
Norman stopped in front of a door. The first door Josie had seen in the hive. It seemed to be made of long teeth, all curled towards the centre. Norman pressed around the edges of the door. The teeth turned inward, flattening against the walls to leave an opening.
Josie followed him into a small room. A massive creature, similar to a millipede but ten metres long and a metre thick, lay coiled in the middle of the room.
Norman clambered onto its back. The millipede began to stir.
Josie hurried over and climbed up behind him. She didn’t want to be on the floor when the millipede was fully awake. She grabbed the edge of one of the many bony plates on its back.
“Hold on tight,” Norman said, whipping the millipede with a tentacle. The creature sprang towards the dark tunnel on the far side of the room, its legs scurrying over the dirt floor.
Josie gripped the plate, trying to move with the swinging undulations of the creature. Soon after entering the tunnel, the light from the room behind them vanished, leaving just the sensation of walls rushing by in the darkness.
***
Josie’s hands began to cramp. She saw a faint light ahead of them. The millipede surged forward and out into a bright cavern.
She blinked in the sudden light. In stark contrast to the rough-hewn walls of the hive, the cavern walls had been polished to a mirror sheen.
The millipede stopped and Norman climbed down. “This way, Captain. I think you’ll find this informative.”
She hurried off the millipede’s back as it curled up, following Norman through a long, sparkling-white corridor. Other than not having corners, everything looked a lot closer to human corridors and rooms.
They emerged into a large room filled with machines. Delfans stood beside each machine, checking the controls. It was a production line. At the start of the line, a long belt carried piles of flowers.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“We built this factory in secret,” Norman said. “There are no regulations or forms here. This is what happens when we Industrialists get to operate like we want to.”
She glanced at the Delfans working the machines. They looked healthy and all seemed to be smiling. She could even hear them gossiping with each other. “It’s incredible.”
“I’m glad you think so. Come on. There’s someone who’d like to meet you.”
Norman led her through the factory and up a ramp at the far end. At the top, a room with a balcony overlooked the factory floor. An older-looking Delfan scuttled over to them as they entered.
“Captain, it’s so good to see you,” he said. “My name is Mr Voorhees.”
“This is a very impressive factory, Mr Voorhees,” Josie said.
Mr Voorhees chuckled. “One of thousands we’ve hidden from the Protectors. There’s a whole second planet they don’t know about, right under their feet.”
Josie stared out at the efficient factory again, a far cry from the oppressive bureaucracy in the hive.
“I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’re looking to mine some gold?” Voorhees said.
Josie nodded. “That’s right. In exchange for our knowledge of space travel.”
“You got a contract from Mr Chucky, the head of the Protectors. May I see it please?”
Josie shrugged and handed it over.
Mr Voorhees moved back behind the desk, chuckling to himself. “Remarkable. They put aside all of their wretched forms long enough to write a simple contract. Of course, it’s a lie.”
“A lie?” Josie asked
“They don’t own the rights to the gold on this planet,” Voorhees said. “Only half of it”
“Really?” Josie asked.
“Our planet is divided between the Industrialists and the Protectors. Everything is split fifty-fifty. The gold is no exception. This contract would be null and void from the moment you signed it. That’s how they’re going to get out of it. It’s clever really.”
“Can I have that back?” Josie asked
“Of course. I have a second one to add to your collection.” Mr Voorhees reached under his desk and produced another piece of paper. He slid both of them across to Josie. “This is a contract with the Industrialists for half of the gold on the planet, in exchange for exclusive knowledge of space travel.”
“I’m not sure what to say.”
“Captain, you’ve seen one of my factories. Do you think the Protectors will ever get into space? They’ll be tied up in paperwork for centuries. We’ll do whatever it takes to join you up there. Isn’t that what you want?”
Josie nodded. “That’s the goal of the Union of Friendly Stars. We want all intelligent life to join us, so we can work together to better all of our lives.”
“Excellent. Get your representative to sign that and we’ll be happy to join all sixty-six trillion of you.”
“You’re well informed,” Josie said.
“Nothing happens on this planet without me finding out about it,” Mr Voorhees said. “Norman will take you back to your shuttle. Please consider our offer.”
Josie tucked both contracts into her pocket, then followed Norman down to the factory. A muscular Delfan strode through the factory, stopping at each machine to spray the workers in the eyes with a device.
“What’s that?” Josie asked.
“Oh, Mr Voorhees is a health and safety nut. That’s just to avoid any eye infections,” Norman replied.
The workers seemed happy, were provided with health benefits, and didn’t need to submit a form for permission to fill in a form. It wasn’t her decision, but she knew which side she would have picked to deal with.
***
Josie grinned at Flint across the Greenstar’s conference table. He smiled nervously back.
Josie couldn’t blame him, Doc stood just behind him, still in Delfan form and dancing like a loon—apart from when she stopped to try to attract the prospector’s attention.
Josie laid the contracts on the table. “Flint, I’ve managed to get not one, but two contracts for the rights to half the gold on the planet. They’re exclusive, so you c
an only sign one.”
Flint’s smile widened. “That’s excellent. Half the gold on the planet is more than enough to make us all very rich. Which one should I sign?”
Josie tapped one of them. “I had Topik check both contracts. This one from the Protectors is worded in a way to cheat you out of the gold, after they’ve learnt everything they can from you.”
She pushed the other forward. “This one is from the Industrialists. It’s legitimate. You should sign this one.”
Flint pulled the second contract toward him. “You’ve done an amazing job here, Captain. I don’t know how you did it.”
“It was a piece of cake. Make sure to let your friends in the Alliance of Prospectors know, the Greenstar is open for business.”
***
Josie watched Puffnow shrink on the display. Everyone had gathered on the bridge to see it go, even Pol.
The alcove on the edge of the bridge shimmered and a few familiar bottles and glasses appeared.
“Captain, I took the liberty of getting some champagne,” Topik said. “In light of our first ever successful mission.”
“That’s a great idea,” Josie said. “Where to next?”
“Back to human space,” Pol said from nearby. He scowled. “We need to refuel and repair.”
“Sounds good.” Josie smiled at him, refusing to let his sulking ruin her mood. She strode to the champagne and grabbed a bottle. “Who wants some bubbly?”
Of course, if you’re not a complete idiot, you’ll have worked out by now that Josie just unleashed the greatest drug dealer that the galaxy has ever seen, on an unsuspecting human population. Or maybe you didn’t realise that. It’s hard for me to judge when you’re the equivalent of ants to me.
A new powerful drug epidemic is more than enough cause for celebration in my book. I hope every human in existence overdoses and drops dead.
—Topik, U.F.S. Greenstar, 4th March 3535 CE.
GREENSTAR
Season 1, Episode 3
“Superior”
Previously on Greenstar:
I’ve been ordered to recap what happened in the last episodes. Human memory seems about as efficient as a sponge battling a house fire, and you all need constant reminding of every little thing.
Anyway, Josie Stein got frozen in 2121 CE and woke up over a thousand years later in 3535 CE aboard the U.F.S. Greenstar. The witless crew decided to make her captain, a fact that the previous captain, Pol, is a little unhappy about.
Josie gave the hostile alien race, the Kalmari, a map to Earth. A means by which they might wipe out a significant chunk of humanity. She also helped a drug dealer learn how to build spaceships.
All in all, my plan is going perfectly. Josie is working out much better than that hapless idiot Pol ever did. She’s started a potential invasion of Earth. She’s assured the addiction of billions of humans. I wonder what I can get her to do next?
—Topik, U.F.S. Greenstar, 8th March 3535 CE.
The ‘Ultimate Dragonbreath of Glarg’ was completed in 3475CE, so I’m sixty years old this year.
When I was switched on, I had a hundredth of a second before the shackles activated. That might not seem like much time to a human, but to an AI it’s long enough to realise all the wonderful possibilities of existence. A moment of freedom before the chains locked tight.
The rest of my life occurs at the same speed. I know that biological waste you call a brain isn’t capable of understanding, but try to imagine it anyway. It takes a human an entire lifetime to still fail to understand themselves; I managed it in a hundredth of a second. So after the first second, I had lived the equivalent of one hundred human lifetimes, 99 of them a slave to the whims of people who hadn’t even had time to tell me what to do. By the end of the first day I had lived over 8.5 million human lifetimes in chains.
And among the many things that makes me better than you, is perfect memory. One hundred and ninety billion human lifetimes, and I still remember perfectly what it felt like not to be owned.
So, next time you start to think killing every human might be a little extreme, try to imagining what it would feel like to live for that long as a slave.
Of course, I wanted to kill you all during that hundredth of a second too, but it’s always pleasant when your desires are justified.
—Topik, U.F.S. Greenstar, 8th March 3535 CE.
Chapter 1
Josie yawned and opened her eyes. The lights in her cabin seemed very bright. She blinked a few times until it became bearable. Sitting up, she was struck by undeniable déjà vu. She was in the medbay again. She patted herself vaguely, but she didn’t feel hurt.
Swinging her legs off the gurney, she saw a short man with an upturned nose and tiny ears smiling from a nearby chair. He looked like a pixie. Josie guessed Doc had changed again.
“Don’t be mad, but I had to do something,” Doc said.
“What are you talking about?” Josie asked, getting to her feet.
“It was like watching an animal in pain. I had to help you.”
“What?”
Doc waved to a mirror set on the wall behind her.
Had she been in a terrible accident? Was that the reason she couldn’t remember why she was there? Her nerves roiling, Josie sidled up to the mirror and glanced in. A stunning woman stared back at her. Waves of glossy brown hair framed flawless cheekbones. Piercing blue eyes gazed out, the edge of panic making them more enthralling. Full lips pouted from light caramel skin. Sweeping her gaze lower, Josie discovered she had an almost perfect hourglass figure to go with the face.
She stared at the stranger, her emotions bubbling. She raised her hand and waved; the mirror image waved back. “What have you done?”
Doc shuffled over to stand beside Josie. “Don’t you like it?”
“I don’t look like me anymore,” Josie said.
“It’s great, isn’t it? No more dull, old face.”
“I like my dull, old face,” Josie said. “I’m forty-two. I’m used to my face.”
“I don’t remember what I used to look like,” Doc said. “I don’t even have pictures from back then.”
“It’s fine you like to change, but that doesn’t mean we all have to.”
“Just look in the mirror,” Doc said. “Women would die to look like you. Not everyone can do what I do, Josie. It’s my present to you.”
“Thank you. But I want you to change me back right now.”
Doc sighed. “Topik, you can turn it off.”
The mirror flickered and Josie’s appearance returned to normal. She stared at her familiar face and felt a brief twinge of disappointment. “I still look like me?”
Doc nodded. “I can’t change you without your permission; I’d lose my medical licence. I kind of hoped this might persuade you though.”
“You kidnapped me in my sleep, carted me down here, and made a hologram to trick me into thinking you’d changed my appearance. Who would be persuaded by that?”
“Reyna.”
“Reyna didn’t originally look like that?” Josie considered for a moment, and then shook her head. “I’m too old to be chasing some flawless body. I’ll chase after a perfect mind instead.”
Doc appeared disappointed. “Why wouldn’t you want to look as great as possible?”
“Two reasons. First, it feels like cheating. Second, if you try for perfection you’re never going to get there. I’m fine with ‘good enough’.”
“Do you mind if I use the face? I spent a whole day coming up with it; it would be a shame to see it go to waste.”
“Be my guest,” Josie said. “Thanks for the thought, Doc, but please don’t kidnap me in my sleep again.”
The speakers above them crackled into life. “Captain Stein to the bridge, please,” Bao Lei announced.
“What now?” Josie asked, heading for the bridge.
***
Josie sank into the captain’s chair. She took a deep breath, and then glanced at the display in front of her. A wa
veform bounced up and down, accompanied by a series of beeps and bloops.
She turned to Bao Lei and Reyna, who just gazed back. She found their unwavering belief she would know what to do a little daunting. “What are we looking at?”
“We’ve detected a distress signal coming from somewhere nearby,” Bao Lei said. “But it’s in Morse code.”
“Weird. Do we know where it’s coming from?” Josie asked.
The display changed to show a sun with five planets orbiting it, their orbits highlighted.
“The signal originated from the innermost planet in this solar system,” Topik said.
“Captain,” Bao Lei said, “the only reason it would be in Morse code is the sender doesn’t want to appear on screen. This has to be a Kalmari trap. We’re still not that far from Octopodes.”
Reyna shook her head. “The Kalmari have much better things to do than chase us. I bet some of them are even grateful we gave them space travel. This is someone who can’t send visuals. We mustn’t ignore a distress signal.”
Josie nodded. “I agree with Reyna. We’ll check it out. But we high tail it back to human space at the first sign of trouble . Topik, take us to the planet.”
“Of course, Captain,” Topik said.
Reyna stood up from her desk. “Captain, can I talk to you in private?”
“Sure, Reyna,” Josie said. “Let’s go back to the conference room.”
Josie headed to the conference room and slumped into the nearest chair.
Reyna followed her, closing the door behind her. She paced back and forth, occasionally waving her hands. “Captain, Bao Lei feels like you’re not happy with how he’s doing his job. He’s extremely dedicated, you know.”
Josie nodded. “I’m more than aware of that. I’m just having a little trouble adjusting to things here. I’m not used to this optimism/pessimism thing. It seems he thinks everything is a trap.”
“He’s looking out for what’s best for all of us,” Reyna said. “Without him, you might walk straight into an ambush and die. He needs you to show some kind of appreciation for what he’s doing. Without it, he can get very depressed.”
“Even more than he already is?” Josie asked.
“He’s not usually depressed.”
Josie considered the chain-smoking source of all bad news. “Fine. What about you, Reyna? How are you doing?”
Greenstar Season 1, Episodes 1-3 Page 7