by Ginger Booth
“Well done.” Ben hadn’t taught Sock to fly yet. He’d waited to age 14 for Nico and Frazz. Yet the whole way out here, Texan remained glued to the viewscreen, drinking it all in, or studied the control panel intently. “Yeah, I guess. Maybe a minute.”
“YES!” Texan exploded out of the mausoleum into a triple handspring. “Now? And then Schuyler? The mansion? And the Saggytown bazaar?”
Ben laughed out loud. “Yeah, keep going until you pass out.”
“I’m never tired! I’ll stay with you for days! I’ll master the shuttle and fly around the world!”
“Nice try! Math at oh-eight hundred. You can stay with us until then, though.”
“Can I stay with you forever?” This once, the boy looked away to say it, only daring a sideways peek at the end to check Ben’s reaction.
Ben was moved, but he pointed to the sky. “I live in space. But when I’m around, you’re welcome. You don’t really want to leave your friends, do you?”
“Yeah, I do. I’m a Mahinan. And I’ll grow up and go to the stars with you, too.”
“Then we better start your flying lessons.”
The boy’s grin slowly blossomed, then burst into physical expression as he cut his grav and leapt into the sky. “Can I reach escape velocity?”
“No. Don’t make me regret that generator.”
Ben flew away from Poldark without a backward glance. Change was good for them.
Above open regolith, Texan demonstrated his basic paces with flying colors. He really had mastered that forbidden simulator. Ben pointed him toward the Grand Rift, a pretty cliff in mid-regolith, and let him continue flying.
The boy banked slowly above the farms of Northwest Juvie. Then Ben spotted a cloud. Not the wispy cirrus, that vanished when he reached them, but a bona fide puffy cloud. “You see that?” he breathed, entranced.
Texan smirked at him. “I grew up with clouds, Dad. Rain and everything.”
Ben smile warmed. “You called me Dad.”
Texan gulped and his hairless brow crumpled. “Am I not supposed to?”
Ben chuckled. He enfolded the boy in a hug, and kissed his bald head. “I like it.” He let go and locked out Texan’s controls. “My turn to drive.”
His finger continued to the comms button. “Schuyler Control, Merchant Actual on shuttle. Gonna buzz a cloud. Don’t hit me with the guns.”
“Bad idea, Ben,” Carl’s familiar voice replied. “Active day on meteors.”
“Carl, your signal’s breaking up. Ben out.” The port controller laughed.
A bright flash of yellow left a brief glowing cyan streak in the deep teal sky off to their left. Rather than flinch, Texan leaned forward for a better look.
“Meteor,” Ben confirmed. “Drive as I say, not as I do, right? I’m a pro.” He shot the boy a grin. Texan grinned harder, and nearly ratcheted his head off nodding.
Ben gunned it, max acceleration on a level until almost under the cloud. Then he pulled back the stick to arc nearly straight up, feeling the g’s mount nicely. “Punch record for me.”
Texan tried first on his own locked dashboard, then reached over to Ben’s just in time. The light suddenly dimmed as they entered the white and grey murk. Water droplets scampered outward on the windscreen.
The captain continued his roll backward, looping them back down toward the regolith. Texan squealed in delight until Ben leveled out. He matched the altitude, bearing, and speed at which the boy had flown. The whole roll took under a minute.
“Schuyler Control, Merchant Actual. Cloud inspection complete.”
Carl chuckled. “I want that video! Control out.”
“Had enough?” Ben asked his wingman.
The head-shake was as violent as the nod. “Do it again!”
“Nah, you recorded.” Ben pointed to the button. Texan dutifully pressed it again. Ben zipped the video to Carl before he forgot. They’d see it blanket the news feeds tonight.
“You know, that’s the first time on Mahina I’ve ever been rained on. By the time you’re my age, it’ll reach the ground. Took a hundred and thirty-three years to build that cloud.” And a whole lot of heartbreak. Ben didn’t elaborate on that to a child.
He unlocked Texan’s controls to pilot some more. “C’mon, let’s go jump off a cliff. Teach you how to really use that grav generator. But I’ll take the landing.”
The boy focused until he felt comfortable on the helm again. Then he said softly, “Do you really have to go away?”
“I really do,” Ben replied. “But Cope’s here, and the others. Say, you want to go to a birthday party? For a five-year-old.” He laughed out loud at Texan’s rictus of horror.
50
Colony Corps tradition holds that for eighty years – or fifty, or a hundred – an AI served as Commandant, until a larger-than-life Mahinan named Benjamin Acosta wrested control. Most legends regarding Acosta are surely apocryphal. Skimpy Mahina records include a birth record, complete genome, and a bachelor’s degree in life support engineering for a contemporary of that name. Yet they explain nothing about the sudden resurgence of the Corps. – Quasar Shibuya, The Early Diaspora.
On February 16th, in an ice palace on the face of the Great Cookie, Ben eddied out of the party to congratulate the birthday boy. In the arching white and crystal cathedral that formed Hanging Tree’s new reception hall, Loki occupied a huge display screen hung before the hall like an altar, a four-meter visage gazing out over well-wishers.
Ben figured the digital sentient meant well. But at that size, with forced toothy grin and living eye alarmingly wide and shifting to track his guests, the effect was a demented evil clown glaring down upon them. Party guests unconsciously clumped to the far side of the room with their backs to him.
“Happy fifth birthday!” Ben called up the avatar’s nose, sailing well above his head. “Loki, do me a favor? Scale down to my size.” He stretched his arms diagonally to indicate what he meant.
“Very well,” Loki grumbled. The active portion of the screen shrank to a window the width of Ben’s shoulders. The avatar was now seated behind a desk.
Ben turned and strolled to the right, beckoning with a crooked finger for Loki to follow. Loki’s virtual desk slid along. “Oh, come on, Loki. You’re always complaining you can’t keep busy. Work at it. Walk with me.”
The desk vanished. Loki stood beside Ben in Hawaiian shirt and lei over frayed jeans shorts, leather flip-flops on his feet. Lief Greenwald, the late wildcatter upon whom Loki was modeled, topped Ben by half a head. Accustomed to consulting humans behind a desk, the AI stood awkwardly, his lower body language wooden. “Is there a point to this?”
“Yes,” Ben said. “Make yourself approachable. So your guests stroll over to say hi.” He flashed Loki a grin, and started strolling the other way.
After an awkward shuffling turn, Loki’s portion of the screen slid alongside as he practiced getting his knees to bend like Ben’s. His backdrop remained a stationary bland office, its static window fixed on Sanctuary’s abandoned soccer fields. “Is this smooth?” he asked gruffly.
“Getting better,” Ben encouraged. “I brought you a present, but you have to open it after the party.” He indicated a large gift-wrapped box behind the potluck tables. To cater the party, Tikki, Corky, and Jules held a competitive cook-off between Merchant, Friendship, and Thrive One. Each presided over a buffet table.
“Why after the party?” Loki asked suspiciously.
“I brought Bloki. He wants to live with you, instead of Mahina University.”
Loki turned and stared at him, clearly touched. “Really?”
Ben nodded gently. “What else to give the AI who has everything?”
“I keep a wish list,” Loki admitted.
Ben laughed. “Funny! So do I. And Bloki isn’t mine to give. The point was, for the party, you should visit with guests who came all this way to celebrate with you.” Instead Ben was the first human to approach the ghastly display screen. “But don’t eat him
, right? Bloki isn’t here to merge with you. He remains a separate being. His experience is his own.”
“That is not our way!” Loki growled.
“It is now.” Ben waved across the faux-ice skating rink to encompass the party-goers. Of his own brood, he and Cope brought Fraz, Sock, and Texan. Ari declined, still holding the family at arm’s length. Nico already lived here. Ben dropped him off a couple months ago, along with three ride-on emus for Floki.
The extra emus hadn’t appeared yet. Just in case, Ben primed Cope with a new policy, ‘You adore the grandchildren.’ Cope punched a wall and swore a blue streak, yes. But at least he did it in private. In public, he was prepared to beam delight. Now his husband strolled with Remi and a pair of engineers from Hell’s Bells, marveling at the construction of the party pavilion and poking its innards. Ben and Remi were deeply grateful this party wasn’t held in the stone tunnels below.
Loki frowned in concentration and nodded, trying on a pose with one arm crossed over his chest while the other hand held his chin. “Thoughtful? Approachable?”
“Not especially,” Ben critiqued. “Try to mimic my body language. Then watch other people. Smile, don’t scowl.”
“I see.” Loki threw his shoulders back and relaxed his arms. The bottom half of his body remained stiff, but his walking grew smoother as they continued to pace his panel.
Suddenly, his background bloomed into a deserted beach somewhere in Hawaii, centuries ago with all-natural seaweed instead of garbage at the high-water line, and the sky a brilliant azure graced by puff-clouds. Turquoise surfing waves crashed onto the sand beyond him. The beach then expanded across the screen, for him to walk along. “You like the background? Matches my shirt.”
“I love it! But put yourself in the same room with me.” Instantly Loki’s background switched to seamlessly continue the ice hall. His clothes changed into a warm sweater and long jeans with beat-up sneakers. “Better!”
“This is fun,” Loki grudgingly admitted.
Ben smiled. “Now you’re approachable at your party.”
Loki beamed and nodded. “Thank you. I like this present. And the other.”
Satisfied, Ben changed the subject. “Say, Loki, Sass waylaid me. She’ll be done with Denali in half a year. I know we talked about Rayas next. But she and Clay pitched for me to go to Mars instead. To sort of accompany them to Earth.”
Loki’s brow lowered. “She’s spoken with me. It’s true, half the Martian Colony Corps never rendezvoused at Sanctuary. We lost their research.”
Like the late unlamented Belker, whose nanites rendered Sass and Clay immortal, each of the vast settler ships bore science teams. They were supposed to rendezvous after their charges landed on their new worlds. But the crews carrying settlers to Rayas and Mubarak never showed. According to Sanctuary’s hands-off courier missions to the colonies, Rayas was alive. But Mubarak died off.
“We’d learn more by visiting the colonies than Mars,” Ben noted. “But I don’t like her going to Earth without backup.”
“Earth is dangerous,” Loki noted. “But you’d learn much on Mars.”
“You’d be OK with that?” Ben probed. “I made a commitment to you to follow up on the colonies. Not Mars and Earth.”
“I’m not OK with losing Sass,” Loki countered. “Or you. You are the Colony Corps.”
Ben smiled softly. What a strange mutual command structure the two of them evolved. Loki acknowledged him as Master. Yet the admiral sought to please his genie in a stone bottle to keep the wish-grants flowing. Meanwhile Ben increasingly took direction from Carver Cartwright, chatting with Abel and his Sag colleagues by Tikki’s banquet table. Carver was right. His homeworld’s appetite for Mahina delicacies was voracious, especially fruit. And their first shipment of Sagamore pharmaceuticals sold out before Abel hit port with them.
“I’m not happy about Earth,” Ben confessed. “I wish she wouldn’t go.”
Sometimes he felt as though his burgeoning fleet became masters of the universe, bursting with pride at how far they’d come. But a PO-3, fully crewed, held 14 people. No matter how smart, how creative, how powerful their rock-cutting guns, they estimated Earth still held hundreds of millions of desperate people. Ben’s tiny crews from the boonies didn’t stand much chance if Sass’s mission went pear-shaped.
“But you won’t stop her,” Loki surmised.
“No.” Sass would do as she pleased, regardless. If he didn’t help her, she’d use her old warp drive. He’d lose his friends for another decade. And he owed her for Denali. No, far better to help and offer some input on her choices, as he had on Sylvan.
He roused himself from unhappy contemplation. “But enough business. Today’s your birthday! How does it feel to be five?”
Loki grinned broadly. “I was so bored in Sanctuary! Moving to Pono is the best thing I ever did! I have real company now. Friends!”
“Friends,” Ben agreed.
When he parted to catch up with Abel and Carver, Fraz and Texan sauntered over to chat with the birthday boy.
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading Sentient Thrive!
Sometimes you just have to back up and thwack the issues that bug you. Now Denali and Mahina are on track, Loki is harnessed, the Colony Corps is reborn, and the Thrive team will soon be free to stir up new trouble.
Here ends the series for now, though not for long.
Like moths to a flame, Sass and Clay are drawn home to Earth. While Mars holds the keys to new technical advances.
And is Ben alright now mentally? With his personality – could you tell if he wasn’t?
To be notified of new books, please follow me on Amazon or BookBub. Or join my reader group for an exclusive prequel about the caper that landed Copeland and baby Nico in the phosphate mines before book 1.
Best wishes,
Ginger Booth
P.S. If you enjoyed Sentient Thrive, won’t you please post a brief review? Reviews fuel more books in the series!
P.P.S. Curious about my other series? I suggest starting with Feral Recruit. Does that Earth become the world Sass left? Could be.
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Also by Ginger Booth
Thrive Space Colony Adventures
Skyship Thrive
Spaceship Thrive
Interplanetary Thrive
Starship Thrive
Ringship Prosper
Sanctuary Thrive
Prosper & Thrive
Sylvan Thrive
Sentient Thrive
Power to Thrive *
* mailing list exclusive prequel
Aloha Thrive: Box Set Books 1-3
Warp Thrive: Box Set Books 4-6
Feral America: Ava Panic
Feral Recruit
Feral Agent
Feral Courier
Feral Carolina
Feral America Begins: Books 1-2 & Prequel
Feral Starve: Frosty and Panic
Ebola Day (prequel)
Feral King
Feral Queen
Calm Act / Feral Prequels
Civilly Disobedient (Dee)
Dust of Kansas (Emmett)
Road to Humble Texas (Kayden)
Ebola Day (Ava & Cade)
Calm Act Genesis (box set)
Calm Act, Books 1-4 : Dee Baker
End Game
Project Reunion
Martial Lawless
Tsunami Wake
The Calm Act Books 1-3 (box set)
Nonfiction:
Indoor Salad: How to Grow Vegetables Indoors
Acknowledgments
I’m deeply grateful to my test readers. The hard-working beta team for Sentient Thrive included Gerry Ford, Jim Hunt, Ron Kaminski, Fred Oelrich, Jim Seals, Barton Schindel, and WMH Cheryl.
Thank you so much for your time and insights, and most importantly for your friendship, and urging me on.
My gratitude as well
to the advance review copy readers!
And thank you, for reading my book. Without you, I couldn't do what I do. I appreciate your support!
Ginger Booth
[email protected]