Sanctuary Thrive

by Ginger Booth

  “Doesn’t sound crazy to me,” Porter muttered. “Woman’s a dragon.” Remi back-fisted him lightly, and Porter laughed. Happily for Porter, Husna didn’t believe his specialty, agronomy, mostly soil science, bore any meaningful relation to geology. Sass disagreed, but Porter enjoyed the verdict.

  “Maybe a teeny bit manic,” Sass allowed, sharing a smile with Dot. “But I’m so pleased for you, Zelda! You don’t miss your nanites?”

  “Never want a nanite to touch me again as long as I live! So Corky, I’m sorry, but I quit as scullery maid. I’m raring to go with science and tech challenges today!” Zelda pumped a fist. “Captain, lay it on me! What can I tackle?”

  “Actually, maybe you could collect water from the colony,” Sass mused. “Remi, I don’t want you or Husna touching the municipal water until Zelda checks it out. But we should be able to collect a first batch today, Clay?”

  “I’ll confirm after breakfast. But that was the plan.”

  “Good! A third of our water stores shouldn’t be too much for the shuttle to carry, right? A pallet or two. And I’ll drive. And Porter!”

  “Why me?” Porter inquired. He understood the town water might carry the same contaminant, but. “I’ll be wearing a pressure suit.”

  “The nanite-killing agent seeped through Remi and Husna’s pressure suits.”

  Porter recoiled. “That’s…”

  “Worrying,” Zelda confirmed, looking delighted. “I’m so eager to explore this chemistry! Who knew there was such a risk to Mahina’s medical tech? Fascinating!”

  “Clearly we need a rheostat to power her down a notch,” Clay suggested. “But Sass, why are you going to the colony?”

  She squinted a smile at him. “Because I’m captain.”

  “Captain stays with ship. Not shuttle.”

  “Captain goes where she says. Because I’m the boss.”

  Clay glowered. “Zelda – No. Porter. Make sure the captain doesn’t stray into Sanctuary. Or Cupid.”

  Porter raised a finger. “How would I –?”

  “You wouldn’t,” Sass assured him. “Listen up, everybody! Circle round. Remi, get Husna down here. We’re changing agenda.”

  “Sass, we agreed to wait,” Clay growled.

  “No, Clay, you thought we should wait. I disagreed. I win. Because I’m the captain. The new agenda is, we prepare to blow this town and return to Mahina.” Sass raised a hand to forestall objections. “We’ve been here over a month, with little to show for it. I still want to develop a relationship, accomplish some technology transfer. Hell, maybe even bag a new ship or two from the gift shop on the way out.”

  Joey and Porter, in cryo during Sass’s first battles against Rosie the AI, looked baffled. Corky promised to explain later. Zelda was too blissed out to care.

  Sass pressed on. “But to get anything from these people, we need to bargain from a position of strength. A position that says we don’t need nuthin’ from them and their rego robots. Paradoxical, but true. Beggars get nothing but scraps, and they begrudge us that much.

  “So instead, we get ready to leave. Hasta la vista, baby! For that, we need water, fuel, warp drive.”

  Corky ventured, “We could use fresh soy protein.”

  “True,” Sass agreed. “But we’d survive without it. Especially because we hope to use Cope and Teke’s newfangled, instantaneous warp back to Mahina! Someday.”

  Darren said, “I wouldn’t volunteer on the first ship to –”

  “Of course not,” Sass agreed. “We couldn’t if we tried. The Prosper crew needs to send us the warp drive. That means they go first.”

  “Or they send a care package,” Clay quibbled. “If they can get a probe to work, they could send this stuff without a crewed ship.”

  Sass paused. “Fair,” she conceded. “We don’t really have enough fuel to go fetch cargo.”

  Remi scowled, arms crossed. “No margin for error. I veto this idea. Chief Markley, you veto. Clay veto.”

  “Provisionally,” Clay agreed.

  Sass raised a hand to stop their objections. “You’re missing the point. It could be years before Cope’s warp drive can even send their first probe. But to negotiate from strength, we must appear ready to walk away. Clay, I’ll call Hugo out to the spaceport to visit with me. He and I might take a stroll onto Cupid. But of course I wouldn’t violate their courier ship. Like, steal anything. Just reconnoiter.”

  Clay sighed loudly. “You stay here. I reconnoiter.”

  “No. Thanks, everybody! There you have it, our new agenda.”

  They looked underwhelmed. Her engineers, Remi and Darren, looked particularly disgruntled, and conferred behind their hands. She suspected Clay’s stone face meant he maintained decorum for morale’s sake. Later he’d drag her into their cabin and blast her an earful.

  “Well, I’m ready for breakfast!” Sass asserted cheerily, and set off clanking up the stairs to the catwalk. “It’s going to be a great day!”

  By 15:30 that afternoon, the sun rose on Sanctuary spaceport as Sass arrived with her team. She deposited a couple pallets of empty water drums, clutched below the shuttle by grav tractor, next to the pumping facilities. Then she settled her craft between the pump-house and the parked courier ship Cupid, eyeing it appraisingly.

  As Clay had negotiated with the Martian mayor Tharsis, no robots stood on the port’s hard-top. One extra vehicle gave her pause. A balloon-tired three-wheeler approached with grey-clad rider. She zoomed in her windshield to see his face. Good, that was Hugo Silva.

  She brought along one of their comms tablets for him, but hadn’t delivered it yet. The downside of turning off Shiva’s nanites was that he was no longer hooked into Sanctuary’s sole communications and information network, except when seated at his computer. The three mayors suffered the same handicap.

  “Ready, Zelda? Go fetch your sample,” the captain invited. “Ah, Porter. Why don’t you go along, in case the valves need extra muscle. Don’t get wet.”

  Porter nodded and affixed his helmet. Zelda bounded to the airlock and did the same.

  “Zelda?” Sass prompted. “Could you perform your tests at the pump?”

  “Certainly!”

  Porter took the hint and picked up her equipment and the toolbox. He set down her heavy case in the airlock. Zelda could carry her own. The shuttle airlock door hissed closed behind them.

  Sass shook her head. “Comms check.” In a couple minutes, Porter got Zelda responding on the right suit channel. They’d both been out of stasis and working for over a month now, but Zelda spent most of that time as a weepy scullery maid. “So very green.”

  Once they cycled out, Hugo cycled in, happy to set aside his breathing mask.

  “I like your wheels!” Sass greeted him. “That looks much more fun than the trucks. Where are those parked?”

  “Loonie vehicle garage. They’ve got all sorts. Two-legged, three-wheeled, paddy wagons. It’s a shared facility with the Martians. We Gannies don’t go outside much.”

  They settled in to socialize while Sass babysat Zelda by comms. The captain wasn’t going anywhere until her two junior crew proved they knew what they were doing. No, appeared to be the answer. After an epic struggle figuring out how to open a water valve, Zelda took fifteen minutes to arrive at the happy conclusion that the water was pure and phosphor-free. Sass bit her tongue rather than explain to doctoral candidates how to connect a water hose to a water barrel and fill it. They’d figure it out.

  “I’m being subversive,” Hugo shared in a rush. “I wasn’t going to tell you. But I started by breaking Shiva’s emitters in the age 15-19 creche.” He regaled her with tales of the revolution.

  Sass’s eyebrows rose, delighted. “Teenagers on the loose! And did it work? Do they think clearly?”

  “Well, they’re teenagers,” Hugo qualified. “But they’re working outward from the creche, destroying emitters to free people from Shiva’s control. My son is leading the way. I’m very proud of him. Bron, my eldest
.”

  “You should be! You never mentioned your wife?”

  “I never married. Oh, you mean the other parent? Their eggs came from Aloha settlers. Since we had all those pilfered genetic samples, we Gannies chose to outbreed until they ran out. For the widest possible genetic variation.”

  Sass smiled sadly. “But weak on family.”

  “I have a lady colleague with similar-aged offspring, three each. We get together for a family holiday once a year.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Six kids. Really exhausting.”

  “I bet. Now I want to go into town and see the ruckus!”

  “No, captain. You must not cross the threshold. This must be our own revolt.”

  You’re a smart man, Hugo Silva. Sass’s respect for him grew by leaps and bounds. “Your call. I’ve got your back. But won’t Shiva just send robots to fix the comms emitters?”

  “I believe she’s run out of spares. She could ramp up production. But the first few a robot replaced. The kids destroyed the new emitters and the robots. Now they stay broken.”

  “Outstanding, Hugo. I’m so impressed!”

  Sass debated telling him about the lake water’s effect on nanites, why she was lurking in the shuttle instead of out supervising her newbies. In the end, she decided to tell him, along with her reservations. What kind of psychological effect would it have on people to suddenly think for themselves after years as a puppet? And the effect on youth, with more pliable brains, might be very different from adults.

  Hugo nodded through this explanation with a hungry gleam in his eye. The man wanted his kids free of Shiva. Sass was glad someone on Sanctuary gave a damn about his progeny.

  “Well, my crew has mastered filling a barrel,” Sass said. “We should get a move on. Ready to visit Cupid?”

  38

  Sass loaned Hugo an air bottle, since his air supply was built into his wheeler, like the horses. He had no comm channel, but her space helmet featured external speakers and microphone.

  Once through the airlock, he automatically started for the door lock on the courier. Sass caught his elbow and instead drew him underneath the craft. They had to duck, since its support struts lifted its belly less than two meters above the hard-top.

  Sass easily found the trapdoor, much like the one on Thrive. This was how they entered Nanomage the first time. Except in that case, the door was open for a swim-up entrance into the ship’s air pressure. No such luck here. With gauntleted finger, she tried the open button. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.

  She stepped back to let Hugo try. To her astonishment, he easily tapped in the release code. The trapdoor lights blinked red in their familiar pattern, wait for cycling, the same as on Thrive.

  “I did that to impress you,” Hugo confided impishly.

  “You succeeded!”

  “Five years subjective I lived on one of these,” he reminded her. “Shiva didn’t change the codes. We’re in.” The doors dropped, and they ducked in.

  “Let me do the talking to the ship,” he cautioned as the lock cycled. “Cupid’s AI has no reason to object to me.”

  Sass nodded. “Be sure to ask atmo composition. Then fuel levels.”

  “Oh, you can ask me any question you want. Just don’t ask Computer. They’re not very bright.”

  Just as Sass suggested, once in, Hugo asked the computer for human-breathable air right after he asked for lights.

  “Air mix is human-compatible but stale,” the computer replied. “Estimated time to refresh ten minutes.”

  Sass had a vivid memory of Nanomage on first meeting. “Hey! It doesn’t use hectours!” She didn’t bother to wait, and took off her helmet immediately. The computer was right. The air was stale, but light years better than Nanomage’s noxious brew of argon and sulfuric fumes on first meeting.

  “No, Cupid had a Martian crew. My ship didn’t use hectours, either. Mixed crew. Old Gannies still thought that way. But Martians and Loonies are in the majority here, so Sanctuary uses that 24 hours of 60 minutes of 60 seconds crap. So inconvenient for calculations.”

  “It is,” Sass agreed, and chose not to bring up the inches and feet and miles, and ounces and pounds of her childhood. “Fuel?”

  He looked askance at her, but obliged. His game of twenty questions corroborated his claim to know these ships intimately. Cupid didn’t have the fuel to return to the asteroid belt, though it could reach orbit and stay there for years.

  Sass wandered through the hold while her companion extracted meaning from the AI, whom he assured her was independent of Shiva by primary directive. Shiva could order it to crash itself, and it might begin to obey. But if so, he could override it.

  She studied the crowded hold full of mining equipment, samplers and corers and metallurgical testing machines. Unlike the devices she was slightly familiar with, many of these were designed to be self-propelling. Remi would love to get his hands on them.

  The hold was far more compact than Thrive’s empty core, the overhead only 4 meters up, lower even than Sass’s catwalk.

  “Computer, stop accepting directions from Sanctuary Control,” Hugo attempted on a whim.

  “Unable to comply in Sanctuary air space,” the ship replied.

  “Computer, emergency override. Do not accept instructions from Sanctuary Control.”

  Sass grinned back at him amused. She didn’t think he’d win the argument, but she could be wrong.

  She clambered over the orderly ranks of solid lug-tread wheels to reach the engine compartment. Its door opened with nary a creak of objection. Hugo followed along, still deep in his negotiations.

  The star drive was shielded, not emitting its noon-day glare. It stood only waist-high instead of the familiar 3-meter column, and narrower than her newer drive, filched from Nanomage. She had to wait for Hugo to tell the computer to bring up the lights for her. Unlike the familiar courier, this engine room had a U-shaped deep closed bench running around the periphery, with a straight spur to the backside of the short column of the star drive. Sass felt like she was in a buggy’s spare tire well.

  “Fuel storage?” she asked Hugo, pointing at the bench and its rounded corners.

  He frowned. “Our star drive looked like yours. The whole bench is new. But probably.”

  “Schematics?”

  He shook his head, and sighed. “Shiva doesn’t keep notes in human-readable form. Not when she does the engineering. Or the science.”

  “She does science?”

  Hugo rocked his head so-so. “She invented this generation of star drive, by continuing a systematic exploration begun by the original developers. I’m not sure where to draw the line between science and engineering.”

  “Can my drive burn this drive’s fuel?”

  He stepped over and rapped his knuckles on the bench protruding from the bulkheads. “I’m sure it’s pressurized in its gaseous form. Without the specs for this tank, I’m not sure I’d risk opening it.”

  He didn’t bother to follow up with the computer. Neither he nor Sass was competent to ask the right questions for that. Sass couldn’t ask Thrive’s engineers from here, because Shiva might listen in and get nervous.

  He asked the computer Sass’s question of how this drive compared to her Nanomage-vintage third generation drive. The details flew over her head, but it was about twice as powerful and its fuel twice as efficient. Not as revolutionary an advancement as Nanomage’s drive over its second-gen predecessor, but an impressive technological advance to bring home to Aloha, nonetheless.

  Hugo returned to coaxing the ship into accepting him as captain. The patient AI wasn’t buying it, on the grounds that he wasn’t qualified.

  Sass checked the closet where they’d found the warp drive on Nanomage. Cupid had one, though she couldn’t spare the time to feed it power and try its self-test. The temptation to filch it was overwhelming. Not yet, she decided.

  “Ansible this way.” She led Hugo into the snug captain’s office. There they found the moose-bot device still plugged
in.

  “Try it,” Hugo invited. “Maybe Prosper?”

  Sass turned it on and pointed to the screen. “Limited menu. This moose-bot can call Sanctuary Control. And ‘cache.’ I guess that’s in…Nozomu orbit?” Clay mentioned that Cupid scouted that one. The Prosper gang mentioned they found their ansible in a cache left by Belker’s Nanomage in Pono’s rings.

  “You have a phenomenal memory, captain. I’d forgotten Cupid visited Nozomu, and I crewed one of these ships.”

  One of the upsides to being a biological AI. Good memory. Sass wasn’t tempted to explain that.

  Hugo reached past her and clicked a hamburger icon, three parallel lines. This brought up a navigation menu, including ‘All Nodes.’ Selecting that item brought up a much larger collection of moose-bots to choose from.

  “Hello!” Sass studied the ordering and narrowed down the most likely candidate for the Pono cache ansible, now housed on Prosper. “Can I rename this label?”

  “I wouldn’t if I could,” Hugo reasoned. “Although Shiva can’t monitor ansible comms directly.”

  “You never mentioned that. I assumed Shiva monitored all comms.”

  Hugo clarified, “All digital comms. The ansibles are quantum analog, not her bag. Ansible research died with the physicist who discovered the possibility. No one else understood his math. Shiva never made these, never interfaced with him. Your friends’ hail through the ansible came direct to me.”

  “Interesting. Let’s try it!” Sass clicked her suspected link to Pono.

  Almost immediately, Teke’s face came on screen, though he was looking to his right, and held up a wait finger. “Ten more minutes, Sora.”

  “Hey, Teke!” Sass grinned broadly. “Say hi to Sora for me.”

  Teke recoiled and stared. “Sass! Wait. You’re calling from…Nozomu?”

  “It’s a colony system, and I’m not there. Just checking out another courier ship, the Cupid. Never call me here. But check out the hamburger menu – three parallel lines at top right of the screen.”

  His visage was replaced by a grasping hand. “Oh, wow. I thought that was a logo.”