by Kris Schnee
Eaton just nodded.
Garrett noticed that Zephyr had raised a hand. "Yes?"
Zephyr said, "I see two patterns in what you're saying. Two approaches. Garrett, you asked me, 'What exactly is Castor?'"
I did?
"Right now," said Zephyr, "Castor is an ad-hoc colony with several major activities going on, with the sea-farm as our central reason for being here. What Martin seems to want is: a decentralized system with many unreliable streams of income, and many individuals living here under little or no direct control. What Leda seems to want is: a central management charged with protecting the group, and having authority over all people here. Is that roughly accurate?"
Leda said, "You're getting this from that philosophy stuff you and Tess read with me, aren't you? The Aristotle and Plato? That stuff's outdated. We can't afford to have a completely freewheeling little village, especially now that there are kids here."
Martin frowned. "The most reliable way to have a functioning colony is to have those 'unreliable income streams.' They represent a constantly-evolving response to problems."
Garrett wished he didn't have to be here arguing when there was work to do. Still, they'd keep at it until he made a decision. "Look. I'm not happy about people arriving unannounced. I want all construction projects reported, and at least the names of everyone who shows up. But the rafters are right that we don't own the water, and we've got no authority to forbid construction. If we can't justify charging rent on stuff we don't own, then we should go into the construction business ourselves and offer more living space and utilities."
Leda said, "But we've still got space aboard this platform! How can we let people live in deathtrap junk piles when they could be in the existing rooms, where they'll pay and we can keep an eye on them?"
Martin answered. "It's not a matter of letting people choose where to live. We haven't got the right to tell them where."
"Of course we do. It's our duty to protect them. And if that means we have to give them instructions for their own good, so be it."
Martin glared back at Leda. "Then where's the border of Castor? Where does our authority end?"
Leda sounded bewildered. "Nowhere!"
Eaton said, "In practical terms, your border is the range of your guns. Where do you think the three-mile territorial sea limit came from? I notice by the way that you've got nothing bigger than some used Kalashnikovs you inherited from the last uninvited guests."
Garrett rapped a fist on the table. "Enough! I'm an engineer and a businessman, not a politician. I'm going to err on the side of trusting people to run their own lives. The rafters can build what they want, with the understanding that it's not my concern if they endanger themselves. We'll provide advice but no guarantees, and encourage people to rent space from us while we try to build more. Let's find a way to bring people in, and make money off them."
6. Tess
The world felt wrong. It lacked the faint creaking of Castor or the sway of floating walkways, it smelled of exhaust instead of seawater, the dry air scorched her skin, buildings jutted up everywhere, cars roared constantly by like a fake tide, and there was no voice in her head helping her.
On Christmas morning her parents gave her new clothes -- pretty frilly things -- a new computer game about space pirates, and dance shoes. She stared at the stuff atop its pile of wrapping paper and said, "What is all this?" She couldn't use any of this stuff. She didn't even have time for the game, what with her work. There was stuff to maintain, plants to inspect --
"For school," said Dad.
Oh, right. She wasn't an engineer anymore. She wasn't really anything.
Mom said, "We thought you might want to try a new hobby to replace the busywork you'd been doing, so we signed you up for some dancing lessons."
Tess stared at the nice presents, feeling empty.
That night she shut her door as she did aboard the station, plunged beneath the covers, and tried to sleep. Here on land the nightmares were worse. She woke up grabbing for her computer and turning it on to whisper with Zephyr, or at least the version of him that the tablet contained. This software echo of him could converse, could help chase away her mixed-up dreams of the sea crashing in on her house.
Her parents worried about her when she trudged around bleary-eyed, jaw jittering as she tried to comment on everything, as though talking to a dial tone. By New Year's Eve she was wearing her headset openly and staying in constant contact with the mini-Zephyr and her tribe. Much better, full of thoughts and speculation, filling the world with annotation again. She mailed the real robot several times a day, like running a Net connection by carrier pigeon.
* * *
Mom made pancakes for her on the morning the spring semester started. Tess protested that she'd be late and could get breakfast at school, but Mom insisted and the food was okay. She'd forgotten what home cooking tasted like.
At school the guard stopped her. "No outside computers."
She didn't know what they were talking about until her hand brushed against the headset on her jaw. Kids were jeering at her for holding up the line -- Hey, pirate bitch! -- so she pulled it off and stuffed it into the scanner with her wallet and tablet. "Fine, I'll put it in my locker."
"No, ma'am," said a guard. "Confiscated goods go to the counselor's office."
Tess cursed.
She trudged through the halls, seeing grey. Nobody here meant a thing to her. It was weirdly quiet, maybe from the soft new floor. Morning Pledge and classes went by before she remembered to get her stuff back.
Henweigh's office now advertised not "Advising and Wellness" but "Guidance and Discipline." Tess entered during a free period, imagining that she'd see the counselor in black leather. Instead Henweigh looked beleaguered, with grey roots in her hair and with one fewer photo on her desk than Tess recalled. The perfect daughter was still there.
"My computer," Tess said, not feeling articulate.
Henweigh's tone was serrated sugar. "Miss de Castille, how nice to see you again."
"I need it back. The guards took it."
"That was an unkind prank of yours." Tess blinked, and Henweigh prompted, "You left a rude message on your machine."
"What? Where is it?"
Henweigh brought out a box with the headset and tablet. Tess snatched at them but Henweigh kept them out of reach. "I understand that you've been off in the wilderness, but you should have known our new policies. You can't bring an unsecured, unapproved machine into school. Didn't you hear about the hate crime incident?"
"I'm not here to shoot anyone."
"You've been exposed to quite a lot of violence. People can't help being influenced by their cultural surroundings."
The thought of the gun battle made Tess squeeze her eyes shut and clutch the knees of her jeans.
Henweigh's voice was soft again. "You've been through a lot, Tesla. Maria, rather. Let it go."
Tess tried to relax, and for once it actually worked. Her shoulder muscles unclenched and she slumped in her seat. "I'll put my stuff away in my locker if I can have it back."
"At the end of the day. Now, about that machine's content." The counselor's brow furrowed. "It didn't respond to standard administrative codes when I tried to get in and have a look."
"You snooped!" said Tess, looking up again.
"You really have been away too long! You can't keep secrets from the people trusted with your guidance. It's technically illegal to lock me out like that, and it shows a lack of respect. Now that you started this mess by bringing the machine to school, I would have to demand your encryption code. To make sure you're harmless, not that I think otherwise of course. But it wouldn't do any good."
"Huh?" said a tired Tess. The nonsense weighed on her.
"Your computer came active for just long enough to call me some very rude names, then announced that it was deleting itself."
Tess sat there faintly amused, until she realized what had happened. She lurched to her feet saying, "Murderer!"
"Calm down."
"You killed him again," said Tess. She lurched toward Henweigh, then trembled and rested her hands on the desk for support. The counselor watched her, reaching for a hidden panic button, then seemed satisfied that Tess was no threat to anyone, anymore.
* * *
Mom and Dad kept up the pampering and homecooked food, so that after a couple of days she barely cared about anything. She let Castor's Net site go without updates, left off the long messages to Zephyr, went with the flow at school. She wore the cute skirts and after class she went to dance lessons, where she learned to stand in line and move with everyone else. Alone. Even her tribe barely interested her.
School felt dim and quiet. Peaceful. It was a couple of days before she noticed that her eyes looked drugged, and by then she didn't care enough to complain.
7. Garrett
Garrett wrote:
"Hey, Tess. You haven't been writing much these days. I figure you need a break, and you deserve one. I wish I had a good engineer besides Zephyr around. One who'd work for peanuts.
"In fishing for one, I pulled out some oddballs. A German family fleeing the police after insulting the Prophet Mohammed. Some Irish programming group called the Dunkirk Five. A doctor from Pittsburgh who said she wanted to stop being treated like dirt, three ambitious Cubans, a couple of Africans even, and a time-share group. All of which is good news, since they're bringing money, but not quite what I need.
"The newbies are swarming around the main platforms. It's amazing to see. They're calling our original one the Fort, and setting up a touristy area called Libertalia next door. That's cool, though parts of their operations are causing trouble. They're not all hooked into the recycling system, especially the set of regular boats, so the water's getting fouled. I wish I could make everyone cooperate, but I can't. And you know, maybe I don't need to be running everything directly. Maybe we can work something out.
"Oh! I've got a new leg, too. See the photo. Between me, Institute contacts, Herr's group, Valerie and Zephyr, we put together an advanced replacement. I'm a test case. It gives me a pins-and-needles feeling, but that should pass. Besides the power-leech system and waterproofing, there's a free-rotating ankle like a squirrel's and some other features. I've stared at this leg and had trouble thinking "This is me," but why not? I can be whatever is physically possible. Not that I'm eager to get any more "upgrades" for a while. And really, I'm not here to revel in technology. There's important work to do.
"I hope you're doing okay. Write back! We can talk about college and other things. I miss having you around.
"Got to run off now, and try not to trip too much while waiting for the other leg to drop. There's always something to distract me, but at least it's not dull.
"Go forth and conquer. -G"
* * *
He was on the computer with a young lawyer. Martin looked on. The associate said, "We can't hold it off, sir. You have to show up in Maryland in twenty days to be deposed -- interviewed -- about whether society should let you continue."
"When did my work become society's business?"
"Everything is, sir. The plaintiffs are paying your expenses though."
Garrett sighed. "Nice of them. How long will I need to be there? And why do they have to schlep me there and back again at God knows what carbon tax, instead of doing this by video?"
"We argued it'd be 'undue hardship' for you to leave, but the judge didn't listen. It should only be a day of interviews, and my boss will attend."
"I'm too busy for this, and it'll cause problems when I try to leave again, I'm told."
"Sorry, sir. You have no choice."
Garrett got Martin to come in. "Any cards up your sleeve?"
"No, and I'm probably invited next."
"He is," said the lawyer.
Garrett said, "I guess I have to. But thanks."
"Sir?" The associate stopped Garrett as he was about to end the call. "A lot of people want you to succeed. You're doing something different."
Garrett nodded.
He had a lot to think about while packing. The lawsuit was an amazing waste of time, money and paper designed to use intangible means to destroy him. Not to solve a problem, or to enforce a deal, but to tell him he was forbidden to run an honest business. If it'd been a specific claim about him breaking a contract or something he'd have understood that, and the small-scale pollution by some of his residents really did need to get resolved. But this lawsuit was a nebulous thing where people were suing on behalf of "the environment" and "the youth of the world". He chuckled, thinking of an old lawsuit where an environmental group had sued the feds on behalf of the world's dolphins, only to be told that dolphins lacked "standing".
He'd managed to handle what arguments there were aboard Castor, so far. He doubted that a judge could play engineer as well as Garrett could play judge.
"Hey, Zephyr," he said into a headset. "Think with me for a minute."
"Aye!"
Garrett fell into a little discussion he could barely follow, tracing the shape of the threats to Castor. They explored the case against him and how it might be attacked. When he visited he could at least see Tess again, stop by the old office, meet with Samuel, walk around the Inner Harbor -- and get arrested.
"What?" said Zephyr, snapping out of the head-dive.
The possibility had leaped out at both of them. Garrett said, "It doesn't matter that the lawsuit is frivolous; it's a trap. If I set foot in Maryland I'll be busted as a drug dealer and a pimp." He called Eaton next.
Eaton's voice radioed, "Fox, don't go!"
"One step ahead of you. What exactly will happen if I do?"
"There's talk of issuing a quick warrant, or grabbing you without one."
"Talk among who?"
Eaton said, "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies."
Garrett didn't press him. "Then I have to stay here?"
"Travel to and from Cuba is probably all right for you. Because of the ongoing political situation with Cuba, the US has an excuse to pretend that you're untouchable so long as you stay in that area. Only a pretense, mind you. You might get nabbed anyway or your whole station seized, if the US needs leverage with Cuba for reasons unrelated to you."
Garrett said, "A raid on us would threaten Cuban citizens."
"Which is one good reason to have them working for you." Eaton sighed. "But if you go back to the mainland, you're screwed."
Garrett smacked a wall, making his fist throb. "I've hurt no one who wasn't a direct threat! All I want to do is work and earn a living!"
"That's no longer considered an admirable motive, Captain."
Garrett said, "People have flocked here. We have investors, well-wishers, tourists, even a fan club. I get mail from Cuba asking if I'm married. There are people who understand what I'm doing."
"That's nice, but those people aren't the jackals in power."
"What do I do? I can't stay and I can't go."
"Stay," said Eaton, "and hope no one comes in the night to grab you."
Garrett paced and fumed when Eaton was off the line. Powerless. There was only one solution, and he hated it. "Zephyr. Hear all that?"
"You had the line open, so yes. Sorry."
"Never mind. I need to talk to Tess."
"She's not online. She hasn't been, lately."
"Regular phone, then."
"She doesn't answer, and her parents keep making excuses. It's like they don't want their daughter conspiring with an inhuman intelligence."
Garrett looked around the empty office. "Where are you?"
"The lab."
He went there and found Zephyr playing with a pair of white rats. They looked identical, each with a silvery-blue panel on its forehead in a kite shape. One lay on a bed of newspaper, while the other sat up and wiggled its whiskers at Garrett.
"Stranger," said a little voice from a speaker box.
Zephyr said, "Friend. Name is Garrett."
"Okay," said the s
peaker, and the rat returned to licking itself.
Garrett blinked. "These are your experiments from Martin?"
"Steamboat Willie, the one that talked, is. The one laying down is Algernon, not what I asked for. Look." The inert rat sat up and waved stiffly. Zephyr said, "It waved because I told it to. That one is a bioshell, a meat puppet anyone can control with the right code. Most of its brain was removed."
Garrett stared. It was a robot made of flesh! It looked identical to the other, yet the inert one gave him the creeps. He said, "You have remote control over it?"
"Only over this one. It can't even feed itself without my control, so I have to pay close attention. Willie acts on his own."
"Which do you like better?" he said, looking back and forth between the seemingly identical creatures.
"I don't know," said Zephyr. "I was hoping Tess would be here to see them. I don't know how to decide."
Tess. Right. "While you're busy transcending biology, I need to make a phone call."
"Maybe you can get through to her. I can't."
"I need your help. Can I get a secure commline, one where I can speak my mind and not have possibly-malevolent agencies listening in?"
"No. In fact there's a big chance our 'friend' Eaton has bugged even Castor's internal lines, and that some of our tourists have been spies for one of five or six interested countries." Zephyr made the puppet rat shake the bars of a nearby cage. "If Tess were here we could scan everything thoroughly and make sure."
Garrett felt the world close in on him. He didn't feel like he could function if he had to add a layer of defense to every conversation, hedging his words to make sure he wouldn't trigger some alarm. It was like being on a date with an imposing chaperone: Go ahead, kids, have fun, but I'm watching. Like a spike through part of his mind, the part that he kept in other people's heads. He sighed. "I think I know how Valerie feels now."
"You could ask my version of Val if you want. Hey! How about my Tess-model?"
Garrett shivered at the thought of Zephyr's internal ghost-gallery. "Not now. I want to ask a question to someone I trust. About something I really don't want to do."