by Jerry
He had a soft voice with steel behind it. “For God’s sake, Chair, I don’t care what’s going on out there, but I’m busier than hell. This is the second time I’ve been interrupted in the last ten minutes, and I won’t stand for it. Now, all of you, get the hell out!”
Herb started to turn, and I grabbed Pam’s arm to keep her from talking. Farmers on NEOs are a funny crew, and you never want to piss them off. Like I said before, there’s been many tales of farmers going on strike or poisoning their whole farm tubes and suiciding if they think they’re being mistreated.
“Herb, we need your help,” I said.
“Hah,” he said, sliding his way through the growth, back to whatever he had been doing.
“We’ve been hijacked,” I said. “There are bad guys out there.”
Pam shook off my grasp. “Herb, they want to kill us!”
Just a whisper as Herb disappeared into the greenery. I called out, “Herb! They’re going to destroy all your gardens! All of them!”
I waited. Little pumps hummed, lights flickered, and Pam and I just bobbed up and down, waiting.
Herb reemerged from the plants. “Why the hell didn’t you say so in the first place?”
After explaining to him what had happened, I said, “We’re in a bind, not much time to spare. We need to get them off and their craft undocked, but they’re blocking the main port.”
“The corporation should have built a second port,” Herb said.
I bit my tongue and managed to say, “You’re absolutely right. But that doesn’t help us now. We need to be able to send somebody outside.”
Herb was rubbing his hands together. “My export tube.”
“You got it,” I said. Our farming system had an export tube to trade or sell surplus fertilizer sludge to other NEO’s out there, and it was the only solution I could come up with.
Herb said, “It’s damn narrow.”
“I know it is. And our suits . . . they’re all stationed in lockers by the shelter. And even if we could grab one, it’ll be pretty damn conspicuous, hauling it back here.”
“I got that covered,” Herb said, smiling.
“How?” Pam asked.
He said, “You know how much paperwork, procedures, and training drills I have to go through if I want to go into the export tube for work or for an inspection? I can’t waste that amount of time.”
“You’ve got your own suit.”
“Yeah. Salvaged here and there. Broken pieces that weren’t exactly broken.”
Pam said, “Do you know how—”
Pam said, “Do you know how—” “Pam, not now.”
Herb said, “All right. I take my suit, slop through the export tube, expel whatever’s stored in there so I can get out. A damn shame and a damn waste, but then what?”
“We need to do something to their craft so they get the hell off Geographos.”
Herb’s smile grew wider. “I got that covered, too.”
“How?” Pam asked.
“Just you see,” he said. “We farmers . . . we’re always full of surprises.”
Eventually, Pam and I hooked up again with Jakub, who was all smiles as we went back up to Dock. He said, “That smoke smell . . . a false alarm, I’m so glad to report.”
Art shrugged. “Always good to be careful, eh?”
Jakub said, “I’m so happy with your cooperation. Thank you again.” He took out the paperwork from before and said, “See? This treaty and others? The hope of mankind, don’t you think? Both on Earth and out here?”
I said, “Treaties are important. Especially when they’re honored. And followed.”
There was a flash from his eyes as he once again noted my hated T-shirt, and he didn’t say anything. In Russian, I said, “Morgaly vikalyu, padla!” and boy did he get angry, face turning red, propelling himself right at me. . . .
Until he caught himself, smiled, and offered a slight bow.
“Very good,” the man called Jakub said.
“Thanks,” I said. “Why the pretense? Why the fakery?”
“Based on . . . past events, our pariah status, would anyone allow a Russian spacecraft to dock? Anywhere?”
“But you said you were U.N.”
“Certainly,” he said. “With certain funds being passed along to the right bureaucrats in Geneva and Vienna, that’s all it took. But why . . . muddle the waters, eh?”
“You wanted to make it as legal as possible.”
“To the letter.”
“Such a fan of treaties and agreements . . . I remember an agreement, back during my last tour in Sakhalin. There was going to be a Christmas truce, starting at noon. But my unit and others received some nasty drone barrages. Later it seemed your side agreed on the truce . . . to begin on Moscow time, not Sakhalin time.”
“These things happen. It’s best to examine documents closely, correct?”
He tossed me the sheaf of papers he had been holding. “Here. Your copy of the U.N. treaty. With your nation’s most recent signature.”
I snapped it out of the air. “We can go back to the Dinfac if you want something to eat.”
“No, that’s all right,” he said. “I’ve changed my mind. We’ve made progress much quicker than expected.”
Pam said, “You know, sir, you’ve had a grand tour of Geographos. How about a tour of your ship in return?”
Still smiling, but with a firm shake of his head. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
I tried to get Pam’s attention, but she was doing her best to ignore me. “Really? We’re not asking for all of us to go through your craft. Just the Chair and a few others.”
“Please,” he said. “Let’s not disturb . . . the current situation, all right? When the time is right, we will depart, and then we will leave you be.”
Then it happened.
A distant, muffled thump.
A draft of air through the docking lock.
And all hell broke loose.
A panicked Russian voice came out of the docked craft, screaming. Jakub whirled, screamed back, and then he started shouting into his communications device. Sirens and alarms broke out from the docked Soyuz, and Jakub pulled himself forward, into his craft.
We waited.
Waited.
A scent of smoke. I said to Pam, “Will our alarms start sounding?”
“Not yet,” she said.
One Russian crewmen raced by, followed by his mate, their faces pale, eyes wide, as they hauled themselves back into their craft.
“Now?” Pam asked.
“Now?” Pam asked. “Now.”
She bounced up to the control panel, start ed punching in buttons, then tapping on the keyboard.
“There.”
Our hatch cover swiveled into place.
“And . . .”
Blam blam blam. “There,” Pam said, satis faction in her voice. “System overrides aren’t necessarily a one-way street. They’re gone . . . though we’ve probably dinged up the dock some.”
Art joined us, out of breath. “Gone? For real?”
“For real,” I said. “Back up to Control, c’mon.”
And we were in such a hurry, we got tangled up in a mess of arms and legs, until we started moving again.
At Control Pam started back on her keyboard and said, “It’s gonna take a while before everything’s back on line, but at least we’re free of that son-of-a-bitch.”
Art said, “Can’t he come back?”
Pam said, “He can come back as much as he wants, but he won’t be able to dock.”
“He can still grind up against us, push us.”
I said to Art, “I think they’re too busy right now.”
A chime came in on the communications side of the board. Pam toggled a switch, and Herb’s voice, faint but clear, came through. “How did we do?”
“We did great,” I said. “Was it hard?”
“Nah,” he said. “Fertilizer . . . always good for making explosive devices. I just need
ed to put a self-contained fused shaped charge on their hull to hurt, not to kill.”
“Good job.”
“Chair . . .”
“Yes, Herb?”
“You’ll remember this, next budget cycle, won’t you? I want to expand the growing troughs in Section Four.”
“Herb, I won’t forget.”
Pam grimaced at me as Herb signed off, and she said, “That bastard always has us dancing to his tune.”
“His tunes keep us fed and just saved us from being weaponized.”
“Well, I—”
A louder chime signaled. She went back to the board and said, “Incoming message, Chair . . . looks like it’s from the Russians.”
“Put it on speaker.”
A burst of static, then some curses I recalled from my service days, and a few more crackles. “. . . you there?”
“Hey Jakub,” I said, speaking louder than I probably had to. “How’s your day going?”
“You . . .” Static burst through again, and “. . . did this . . . you crippled us. . . .”
“Gee. Sorry about that.”
“. . . repairs . . . can we re-dock?”
Pam and Art stared at me, seconds lying heavy on us, and I said, “No can do, Jakub We don’t have any available repair facilities You’ll have to go someplace else.”
The static continued and I thought maybe his comm system had crapped out on him, and with desperation in his voice, I heard, “. . . do that. Have to do reentry . . . not . . . not sure where we’ll land . . . you bastards . . .”
For some reason, I pulled out the paper copy of the treaty and flipped through, until I found what I was looking for.
“Jakub?”
No reply.
“Jakub?”
A hissing sound. “Yes?” The voice sounded fainter.
“Go to your copy of the treaty you were flapping around,” I said. “Article Five. It says, ‘States Parties to the Treaty shall regard astronauts as envoys of mankind in outer space and shall render to them all possible assistance in the event of accident, distress, or emergency landing on the territory of another State Party or on the high seas. When astronauts make such a landing, they shall be safely and promptly returned to the State of registry of their space vehicle.’”
“Based on your record, you’ll have nothing to worry about,” I said. “This is Geographos, signing off.”
BINARIES
S.B. Divya
Year 1: I come into the world wet and squalling and ordinary, born of heterosexual bio-parents.
Year 2: A flat photo shows me on my first birthday with a shock of red hair, wide green eyes, and an expression of distaste at the sticky white frosting on my fingers. My mother stands on one side looking not at all Jewish; my Goan, lapsed-Catholic father stands on the other.
Year 4: Shaya is born. I am a match to my mother’s complexion, but my baby sister takes after our father. No one thinks we’re siblings unless they see the fierce, protective scowl on my face when I’m allowed to hold her.
Year 8: I learn to ride a bicycle and write my first program. My intrepid little sister does as well, which makes me jealous, and yet I keep helping her. We fight over everything and drive our parents crazy. At night she sleeps curled up against my back.
Year 16: I graduate from high school and date my first girlfriend who turns out to be a summer fling. On a hot August day, I leave the Midwest for the Northeast. Shaya sobs for ten minutes at my departure, sniffles, and then asks, “Can I have your room?” I tell her yes. We message each other constantly while I’m away.
Year 32: I become a lawyer and get married to the perfect woman: a no-nonsense architect who dives off cliffs for fun. Shaya joins the U.S. Air Force and then NASA. She bumps Sally Ride to become the youngest female astronaut in space. After years of praising my choices, our mother is finally proud of my sister. Dad always liked her better than me. So do I.
Year 64: My third wife divorces me. She complains that I hold too much of myself back, and she’s right, about all of my relationships. I decide it’s better for everyone if I remain single. Shaya disappears. I should have written that first—I don’t know why I didn’t—but let it be. She commands the first mission to Neptune, but a few wrong bits send them awry. The craft keeps up its ghostly pings long after the words stop coming.
Year 128: I replace my hands and eyes and give up law to be an artist. I create immersives from NASA’s archives, starting with the images from Neptune, and I wonder what pieces of herself Shaya would have kept. Dad died two years after she went missing. Mom lived long enough to be in the front lines for rejuv, and now she’s a successful investment banker. She kept her silver hair and wrinkles. I didn’t. We stop receiving pings from the ship. The void has cut off our last tie to Shaya, and I feel like I, too, am unmoored.
Year 256: I have almost no money left, and my pride won’t let me accept any from Mom. She’s one of the wealthiest people still on Earth. I sign a long-term contract with a mining corporation. They rebuild me piece by piece until I look like a trash container with too many arms. My new body is hideously ugly. It’s also impervious to radiation and efficient at extracting ore from space rocks. In the back of my mind is a stray thought: Perhaps I will find some clue to the whereabouts of my sister and her ship. The trail of crumbs is stale, though. If only my memories would fade like they used to.
Year 512: My contract ends. For years, I didn’t eat, sleep, or piss. I mated to a docking berth, plugged in, lubricated my seals, and swapped memories of being human with my fellow miners. My mother has nebulized in the meantime. “I’ll pay you to join me,” she offers, but I decline. I spend a few months reacquainting myself with the sensations of smell, taste, and skin. When the novelty wears off, then I accept her offer. I discover the intoxicating world of aphysical existence, dancing through nebulas and dining on virtual champagne and caviar. It’s better than the real thing. I commission a simulacrum of Shaya; she’s nothing like the real thing.
Year 1024: I leave the solar system. A snapshot of myself is archived on Earth, and Mom beamed out a couple of centuries ago like others who tired of consciousness. They ride electromagnetic waves and gravitational beams, hoping another life form will find them and recreate them. She left me her fortune. I used the money to build a near light-speed ship, the first of its kind, and encode myself into its every aspect. I travel far beyond the populated edges of our system, searching every possible trajectory until I find it. Then I carefully attach the ship to my hull, download a piece of myself into a droid, and go aboard. An undisturbed layer of dust coats each crewmember’s final resting place. The captain’s pin marks Shaya’s. I’m not sure what to do or where to go next. For now, though, I am content to drift onward as we are, her back curled up against mine.
GREEN GIRL BLUES
Martin L. Shoemaker
“ARE YOU NIKO? They say you do mods.”
The man she’d called Niko leaned back in his booth and stared at the girl, assessing the threat. He also looked around the bar to see who else might be watching. It was a small, dingy place, like he’d found near spaceports on a hundred worlds. He liked to lay low in quiet places like this while he drummed up business.
The man subtly moved his hand, shifting his sleeve so that the ’plaster hidden within would have a clear shot. He had never shot a girl that young, but it might come to that: either she was naïve, or he was getting set up by the Lund City police. She knew his current name, and not many on Pedersen did, but her approach was pretty awkward for the police. She could be just a kid, and somebody had blabbed. In that case, the man called Niko needed to decide: was it time to leave this world before trouble found him? Still, she might be a plant.
Niko snickered softly. She was homo sapiens pedersens, so of course she was a “plant”. Pedersen’s human settlers had found it ill-suited to crop growing—but well-suited to mining, energy, and trade—so they had engineered a gene mod: chloroplasts in the epidermis to synthesize nutrients from s
imple molecules plus light. So, like all the natives, the girl was a lovely shade of green.
Scan, he thought, and he tensed as his sensor web sent out a brief pulse. Somebody could be watching for a scan pulse, so he was ready to move. He saw the bartender, a waitress, and five patrons (three from off-world). He could fight his way out if he had surprise on his side, but it could get sticky.
No one showed any reaction. The pulse echoed back, and the results showed no weapons. Genotype read as unmodded pedersens female, approximate age of fifteen years—a minor on Pedersen.
The police in Lund City were no saints, but they didn’t enlist juveniles. Niko kept his voice casual. “People say lots of things.” He narrowed his gaze. “Some they shouldn’t. And some don’t know what they’re talking about. Who’re you?”
“I’m Sarah Sm—Sarah. That’s all you need to know.”
He started a search on the partial name. “Well, Sarah,” he said, “you’re drawing attention. You’d better sit down.” She moved to sit across from him, but Niko raised his hand. “Nah. Over here by me.”
“What?” Her face flushed, a murky brown shade as blood rushed to the surface.
“Sit.” Niko smiled. Sarah swung to slap him, but he grabbed her wrist, pulled her closer and lowered his voice. “I won’t hurt you, but I won’t get hurt for you, either. Pretty young thing like you comes into a dump like this, and people notice. They’ll assume you’re either buying or selling, and I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m selling. So smile and sit like we’re arguing over price. I won’t touch you, you don’t try to slap me, but we have to play this game. Act like they expect, they’ll forget you were ever here. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Sarah bit her lip, but she nodded. Niko let go of her wrist, and she sat on his side of the booth. Not too close, but that suited him. He wanted room to use his ’plaster if he had to.