Space Rodeo

by Jenny Schwartz

  “Your human-limited perception of reality suffers fear causelessly. Existence is transformative. Traversing it differently is not in itself dangerous. Danger is a false construct created from what you fear.”

  Thelma slowed to a walk. “Reynard, I’m not hearing a ‘no’.”

  The AI swayed on four tentacles. There was no back or front to his mech body. He could look at Thelma and at a hundred different things.

  Nonetheless, she had the impression of him avoiding her accusing gaze. She ceased exercising. “How much of what you’re doing does Lon know about?”

  “We have discussed the principles of comet helices. He was not happy that I set two up in Max’s sheriff territory.”

  Despite recognizing the AI’s latter observation as a calculated diversion, Thelma couldn’t resist. “Why did you?”

  “I want to be here when Nefertiti returns. To use the emotive language of your kind, the Revered Ones of the Kampia are our organic cousins.” He meant cousins to the AIs. “The specters left almost no trace of themselves beyond the raphus geodes. To find them—”

  Thelma reacted instinctively. She reached out and tapped one of his tentacles. “Stop.”

  Reynard froze. “Why?”

  “If there’s one thing the last few days have taught me, it’s that I’m vulnerable to abduction. You can’t tell me secrets of AIs or raphus geodes or anything else that people might learn from me that would make you, you all, vulnerable.”

  “You think organics could hurt us?” Reynard emitted the sound of crystal clashers, the spaceship equivalent of wind chimes on a planet.

  After a few seconds, Thelma interpreted it as laughter. The AI who’d kidnapped her thought the idea of organic sentients harming AIs to be ludicrous.

  According to official records, there were over a thousand AIs in the Federation. Judging by Reynard’s reaction, that small number would be sufficient to counter a trillion organic sentient citizens.

  Goosebumps erupted on her arms.

  Reynard reassured her. “We wouldn’t let them kidnap you. Harry has been communicating with me. I know what I am permitted to discuss with you. Harry says that you are a person I can trust. I have eight tentacles extended and six in potentia.”

  Tentacles? Thelma rubbed her arms, further unnerved by Reynard’s crazy subject change.

  “Harry said that the logic of the body I constructed to house me can be used as a framework for my psychological health. So just as I have eight tentacles to affect the physical world, I require connections to eight people. I have to trust eight people and contemplate extending my social interaction to fourteen individuals.” By his tone, the idea of socializing with fourteen people was more incredible than his theories around translocation.

  “Um.” Thelma pressed her lips together, but in the end she couldn’t resist asking. “How many people do you interact with now?”

  “Three. Lon, Harry and you.” Reynard’s tentacles raised him higher. He literally stood taller, proud of himself.

  “Huh. I’m uh…honored.”

  Reynard took that for granted. He added a comment that, in a distorted way could be mistaken for a compliment. “Communicating with you is teaching me how to allow for the irrationality and dullness of lesser intellects.”

  Nope. Not a compliment. Thelma grinned. His obliviousness to the offense he gave made Reynard amusing. And he was also giving her a lot to think about. Whether he intended to or not.

  At the top of Thelma’s list to consider was the nature of Harry’s authority. She’d trained and danced with the AI in his humanoid mech body; laughed and argued about nonsense with him and Lon. She’d also witnessed Harry obliterate spaceships in their fight near Levanter against Elliot Keele’s people and the bandits. She’d known that Harry was dangerous. She’d learned that he guarded a cache of raphus geodes. But she hadn’t realized the degree of authority he was accorded among the AIs, as witnessed by stubborn, difficult Reynard’s compliance with Harry’s orders and advice.

  It made sense, though. The guardian of future AIs would have to be someone extraordinary and extraordinarily respected.

  And I treat him like a kindly uncle. The wry thought amused Thelma, but she didn’t let it hide the fact that Harry encouraged her attitude. He needed to be loved as well as respected. Every person did. Harry recognized that fact: he gave and received love.

  Reynard needed to learn that truth.

  Lots of people did.

  Chapter 6

  The majority of Federation citizens never left the planet of their birth. They never ventured into space; were never viscerally confronted with the impact of its vastness. For those who did, they prudently traveled along the starlanes: routes mapped to avoid hazards, and patrolled by the Navy and Customs. Starliners, couriers, trampships and all other lawful traffic stuck with the starlanes both out of commonsense and because their insurance required it. Only extreme thrill seekers (like those diving in the Space Rodeo) and surveyors deliberately traveled into the darkness. And lawbreakers. Smugglers had dark star routes.

  On the Lonesome Carl Jafarov was finally showing his Galactic Justice academy background. He had a presentation ready to wow Max with. They stood in the lounge of the public deck.

  Max folded his arms and refused to be wowed.

  Not that Carl was dissuaded. In fact, the Covert Ops agent appeared authentically engaged with the problem. He tapped at the map, finger smudging Levanter. “By your own report, Elliot Keele’s ships partnered with bandits to ambush you here. Yet Sheriff Pang’s data shows no sign of those particular ships, the Elegant Dame and the Guinevere, traveling through his territory to yours.”

  “They took a dark star route,” Max said, unimpressed. “This is the Saloon Sector.” The frontier attracted the sort of people who delighted in finding unofficial routes through space, and that was a good thing. There were darned few starlanes out on the frontier. Over decades, centuries really, as the population increased and so did the space traffic, the best of the dark star routes would become starlanes, patrolled by the Navy. The Federation’s hub was thick with a crisscrossing web of starlanes.

  “Pang’s territory is different to yours. It fronts the Reclamation Sector, the old border of the Federation.”

  Max finally leaned forward. “The former frontier line…?”

  “Was never deactivated,” the Covert Ops agent said.

  Max swore under his breath. “Blazing comets.”

  On the map, Carl traced the border between the Reclamation and Saloon Sectors. “When the Elegant Dame and the Guinevere crossed into the Saloon Sector, the old monitoring system should have pinged. Keele and his corporation are on a watch list.”

  Max nodded, frowning at the map, but not really seeing it. His territory was part of the Federation’s border. When the bandits of the Badstars crossed the current frontier line, the Navy, Customs and himself were alerted. Mostly to little effect. The bandits’ small-scale attacks were generally considered too minor to commit resources to unless an official vessel was within two days’ reach of the incursion, and the bandits typically managed to avoid that degree of bad luck in a sector as large and underfunded as Saloon. “Someone manually suppressed—or deleted—the alert for Keele’s ships.”

  “Probably a deputy,” Carl said. “They’re the ones in the territory, following up the alerts and cancelling the majority as false reports.”

  Law enforcement officials could be bought.

  Max shook his head. “I didn’t realize the old frontier line was still active.”

  “Need to know basis. It’s not your territory.”

  But Pang could have, arguably should have, said something to Max. They were colleagues.

  “All right,” Max said evenly. “Your contention is that at least one of Pang’s people is dirty. That deputy is enabling Keele’s people to secretly enter the Saloon Sector and that is how they’re reaching Xlokk without anyone being the wiser.”

  Carl flicked the display to the next st
age of his presentation. “They can’t be entering often or the false reports the deputy is hiding them under would themselves establish a pattern that would be automatically flagged. I haven’t prioritized discovering which deputy is involved. I’ve been studying the data from the probes you deployed around Xlokk. Do you have any additional data?”

  The onscreen graphic showed the uninhabitable planet at the center of its region of space. Xlokk’s atmosphere mightn’t be breathable for any organic sentient, but it matched spaceship emissions to a disconcerting degree, making the planet a perfect base for hiding activity.

  “No,” Max answered absently, his attention on the screen. “Is that the Fader scan?”

  “Cleaned up. I merged it with old geographic surveys and adjusted it in light of climate data.”

  Max glanced at him. “There’s climate data for Xlokk?”

  “A grad student studied it a couple of decades ago. Squeak squalls.” Hydrogen storms.

  “You’ve certainly done your research,” Max noted. He’d absently approved whatever data requests Carl had put forward the last few days. Then Lon had met them. Neither of them had paid much attention. Even with the Navy reservists at peak operation assisting them, Max and Lon were barely keeping a lid on the Saloon Sector. The influx of people for the Space Rodeo had kicked over a dozen hornets’ nests.

  Carl ignored the comment. He zoomed in on a mid-continent location. “I’m sixty percent certain there’s a base there, tunneled in. I want to go in, boots on dirt, to investigate it.”

  Outside of the Lonesome, Carl had a better chance of making contact with Covert Ops. But Max had the odd feeling that Carl was sincere in his request. “Why?”

  The cyborg flicked the presentation to a diagram of power players in the Reclamation Sector.

  Max recognized names. No space had been wasted on faces. But the real impact of the diagram was in the connections between individuals and the groups they represented. “You didn’t put this together in a few days.”

  “Years of work.” Carl stared at it. “You don’t trust me, but I’m trusting you with this. Not even my bosses have seen it.”

  How much data did the agent have stored on his personal comms unit? Or was his data in his physical augments?

  Carl tapped the oval that contained Elliot Keele’s name on the diagram. “Keele is a middleweight. He has connections—”

  “Covert Ops isn’t on the map,” Max said.

  Carl got his point. Maybe it was obvious. “I don’t know why they left Keele’s operations intact when they removed Senator Gua, his political partner, from the game.”

  Max was truly interested now. “I didn’t realize their relationship was as close as a partnership.”

  “For the last fourteen years, their fortunes rose and fell together. Until now. Now Gua was cut loose.” Carl turned away from the screen. “At headquarters, on ship, even at home, people remember to secure their secrets. But somewhere remote like Xlokk, far from the boss and civilization, believing themselves completely hidden, believing in their own cleverness, that’s when people are careless and you get a way into their files.”

  When Carl continued there was no trace of the annoying, smirking individual who’d sauntered onto the Lonesome. This was the professional Galactic Justice agent, uncompromising in his commitment to law and order. “I share your suspicion that someone in Covert Ops protected Keele, insulating him from Gua’s fall from grace. I’d like to learn who and why, and discovering that base on Xlokk is the sort of lucky break that seldom happens in a case.”

  Max rocked on his heels, thinking. He was less convinced of the “luck” involved in locating the Xlokk base. He understood the mind-shattering amount of data Lon was pulling in and analyzing. That was the sort of endeavor that revealed secrets. But even knowing that, he couldn’t quite explain his own intuition that Xlokk was important. It was why he’d set course for Xlokk and hung around even after the attack on Thelma.

  He believed that he and Carl could infiltrate the base. Given that the Lonesome’s stealth shield could evade Covert Ops, it could certainly handle the security measures of a criminal gang’s hideout. And once on the ground…well, as a former Star Marine, infiltrating an enemy base was something he’d trained for. With Carl’s background, he’d probably have even more experience of it.

  “All right. Prepare a mission brief to go in thirty hours from now.” If the base was using standard time, and there was no reason they weren’t, that would mean a “night” mission. “I’ll be going with you.”

  “Leaving who in charge of the Lonesome?” Carl asked.

  Max smiled. “I’m expecting a guest.”

  Thelma bounced on her toes. Reynard had proposed transporting her through the lock tunnel to the Lonesome in the equivalent of a body bag. Apparently, that was how he’d brought her aboard his spaceship. But this time she was awake, and she refused to be zipped into a bag. So he’d adjusted its design to accommodate minimal ambulatory movements and a limited field of vision.

  The hatch to the lock tunnel between the two spaceships opened. Thanks to the weird quirks of Reynard’s ship’s design, the lock tunnel couldn’t hold atmosphere. It was a failing he would correct.

  “All right. You may—”

  She shuffle-dashed into the lock tunnel.

  “Depart,” Reynard concluded. He wasn’t coming aboard the Lonesome yet. That would require Max’s permission.

  Thelma could imagine how challenging that discussion with Reynard must have been for Harry.

  Reynard considered the Lonesome to be Lon’s body. It would have been difficult to get him to comprehend that Lon had chosen not to own the Lonesome but to assign that ownership—and captaincy which was the crucial point as to deciding who came aboard—to Max.

  The lock tunnel opened to the Lonesome’s main deck.

  Thelma shuffled through the hatch and tumbled into Max’s arms.

  He undid the converted body bag sufficiently to reveal her face, and kissed her.

  “Mmmphf.” She tried to hug him back, and was defeated by the armless nature of the makeshift lifesuit. Max helped her strip out of it, then went back to kissing her.

  Harry scooped up the abandoned body bag. “Good to have you home.”

  She stretched out an arm and patted his shoulder. “Hi. Hi, Lon.”

  “Very glad you’re home,” Lon said. “We’ll talk over dinner.” The AI didn’t eat, but he adored food. He and Thelma shared time in the kitchen, preparing food that they’d watched made on cooking shows. Dinner meant company.

  There was an hour before their regular dinnertime. Thelma and Max retired to their cabin for a private welcome home.

  After dinner, Thelma stared at the data map on the viewscreen in the lounge. She was snuggling with Max, and all was right with her world. Lon was chatting. Harry was in “his” recliner, not that his mech body required the chair’s comfort. They were discussing Max’s forthcoming mission to Xlokk, and the reasons for it. “What we need to look for are anomalies, like the bunyaphi. They are here and here. The Biting Teeth, the spaceship of the Ates clan, and the Swooping Hawk, Toprak clan. But where’s the third ship, the Su clan’s ship?”

  She grabbed a chocolate from the box on the coffee table. “And has anyone considered.” She was so happy to be home that ideas were flowing freely. “The bunyaphi had three spaceships capable of traversing a perilous wormhole? I thought that level of ship was only available to the Navy and Galactic Justice.”

  “They’re isolated out in the Boldire Sector,” Lon replied. “Perhaps it was worth the connection to the rest of the sector to invest in ships capable of surviving the wormhole that would link them to the Saloon Sector.” He continued before any of them could object. “Not that a connection to the frontier is a huge help, but the perilous wormhole puts them significantly closer to the Reclamation Sector, and from there to the rest of the Federation.”

  Max had a more succinct explanation for the bunyaphi’s focus on building
the capacity to traverse perilous wormholes. “They have a back door from their sector, now.”

  “New opportunities.” Lon was ever the optimist. “The Saloon Sector might become the first sector to host a bunyaphi colony outside of the Boldire Sector.”

  Thelma narrowed her eyes. “I don’t like distrusting Aubree, but it’s a little suspicious that her request for my assistance in arranging for Ululani’s extraction ensured that Max would learn about the bunyaphi’s presence here.”

  “You think she’s meddling?” Harry asked.

  “Mmmhmm.” Thelma hummed as she considered her response. “Aubree has access to a lot of resources via her position with Galactic Justice. She’s a senior agent. What does she think Max can do that her resources can’t?”

  “The Senate Worlds Development Committee has concluded its mediation of the bunyaphi feud and is heading back to Serene,” Lon contributed. “A ceasefire is in place along with a series of cascading commitments to unlocking stalemates, addressing grievances and rebuilding.”

  Thelma suspected that he was reading a news report. At least it was good news. “There’s a chance of peace in Boldire.”

  A subtle beep from his comms unit distracted Max. The beep meant the arrival of yet another message, one rated urgent enough for an alert. It also served as a reminder that they didn’t have the luxury of time for an unfocused debate.

  Thelma twisted around to give him a chocolate flavored kiss. “Deputize me, honey, and I’ll help with the messages. Lon can guide me as to what needs doing. You look like a courier after a hard run.”

  “Flattering,” Max said, deadpan.

  Harry laughed.

  She stood and hauled Max up. “Bed. Sleep. You have to be able to keep up with the cyborg, tomorrow.”

  “Ha.”

  For an hour, Thelma sat in her office and simply did as Lon instructed, responding to messages in the queue. Then she consciously took a break. “This explains why Max is exhausted. Lon, how are you holding up?”