CHAPTER 30 T minus six hours
Launch day dawned the same as any other day in Rheasilvia Station, at 06:41 hours according to Iridian’s comp. She’d been lying awake for at least an hour, thinking about what lay ahead. Everything was moving so fast, and Iridian was still breaking in her new name—Iris Gladwyn, because Adda wanted to keep calling her “Iri” while Iridian had to remember to call her “Mercy,” in public anyway. As long as Adda and Iridian avoided most of the press coverage, their new names should hide their presence on the universe’s most popular science expedition. Once the expedition made it across the interstellar bridge, that should end the threat of ITA arrest, at least until she and Adda returned to populated space.
The uniforms they’d printed had the University of Mars logo on their upper arms, and they fit well enough to move in. The expedition team had been assured that uniforms were required only for press events like the launch. Expedition members were otherwise welcome to wear anything they wanted.
Iridian would be doing any nonspecialized technical stuff required inside the ships where the hulls’ nannite cultures couldn’t reach, down to and including plumbing, wiring, and cleaning the printers. She’d gone out for drinks with the rest of the crew, over half of whom were proud NEU Martians. The rest were funny or clever enough for Iridian to overlook their colonial heritage. They’d all been quick to assure her that “Dr. Björn doesn’t like anybody. Don’t take it personally.”
She’d drunk away her guilt over the op that’d brought Björn to Vesta. She didn’t like thinking about why Björn mistrusted her. Half of Iridian’s adult life didn’t bear thinking about. But the other half . . . Damn, but she’d gotten lucky a time or two. And now she’d get to explore a brand-new star system with the woman she loved. That wasn’t bad at all.
They got to the terminal on time, despite Adda’s slow morning brain. Even though the crew had been ordered to assemble hours before launch, a small crowd was standing outside the terminal. Among them, a familiar face talked to a cam bot.
“Hey, Suhaila!” Iridian jogged over to her in extended low-grav strides that left Adda behind with Pel, who’d shown up on time himself somehow, hangover and all. Suhaila raised one finger and Iridian stopped to wait while she said, “Suhaila Al-Mudari reporting for TAPnews, on this historic day.” The red light in the cam bot housing blinked off, and Suhaila’s cam smile grew into her natural one. “There you are! I’ve been waiting.” She hugged Iridian and bowed to Adda and Pel. Adda bowed back. Pel had gotten distracted by somebody else in the crowd. “Adda says I can’t interview any of you.”
“Not for TAPnews.” Even Iridian had to agree that press coverage would invite the ITA to stop Iridian and Adda on their way to the interstellar bridge.
“I get that,” Suhaila said. “I talked to Captain Sloane about it all yesterday.”
Iridian’s eyes widened. Although Sloane had to know what was happening in the captain’s home hab, she’d been hoping to sneak out without getting knifed in the face for what they’d pulled on Ceres. “How’s the captain doing?”
“Entirely recovered from that awkwardness on Ceres,” Suhaila assured her. “Although Captain Sloane doesn’t have plans to leave Vesta anytime soon. Rumor has it that the captain’s been supervising the station AI personally.” A famous pirate supervising an AI without a license might not ordinarily have been news, but Suhaila was a committed fan of Sloane’s crew. “Care to comment, off the record, of course?”
Iridian laughed. “Oh gods, I can, but I absolutely can’t, know what I mean?”
“She really can’t,” Adda agreed quietly. Iridian wrapped an arm around Adda’s waist to ward off any more hugging.
The denial didn’t appear to have discouraged Suhaila at all. “Oh well. I had to ask. And I’ve got another update scheduled in fifteen seconds. Good luck and safe journey, you two!”
They checked in with Dr. Björn, who looked like ve hadn’t slept in two days and couldn’t be happier about it, and stowed their stuff in the footlockers provided. They’d be traveling on the main expedition ship, not the awakened AIs’ vessels, thank the gods. The hibernation pods were on the expedition ship. It was a long, long flight to the interstellar bridge and another long flight on the other side of it too.
Her relief lasted all of three seconds before she remembered that the Coin’s awakened intelligence would be copiloting the expedition ship. She and Adda would be hibernating on a ship flown by an awakened AI. Damn everything.
Once everything was stowed, Iridian and Adda didn’t have much to do until it was time to go into the pods. Adda was on the crew as the AI tech, but the AIs could take care of themselves. Nothing had broken that Iridian needed to fix. At this stage, the expedition crew should print a new thing on a port printer and save their soon-to-be-limited supplies. Adda holed up in the expedition ship to read more articles on what scientists had gleaned about the new solar system so far, and Iridian hung out with the scientists in the terminal, watching the crowd outside grow.
Every so often an expedition member would run out to talk to somebody they knew in the crowd. When Iridian asked about quarantines, one of the scientists gave her a ten-minute lecture on hibernation technology confirming that no, it did not matter what viruses got into her system today, and assuring her that their antibacterial meds were up to any challenge.
Pel was still outside with the onlookers, and now Rio and Wiley were with him. “Excuse me,” Iridian said to the apparent hibernation expert, and made her own run into the crowd.
Rio burst into tears and sniffles before Iridian even reached shouting range. “Sorry,” she sobbed, nearly cracking Iridian’s spine with her hug. “I’m just so happy you two are finally safe together. It’s been stressful.”
“Yeah, you’re telling me.” Iridian patted Rio’s back. “Couldn’t have done it without you, big gal.”
“Tell her already!” Pel said to Wiley.
Rio let go of Iridian so she wasn’t blocking Iridian’s view of Wiley and everything else in port. “Tell me what?” Iridian asked.
Wiley grinned. “The ZV Group’s taking Rio back, and she’s put in a recommendation for me. I’m meeting her squad next week while the paperwork’s going through. Under that new name and record Casey made. From everything Rio said, they’re great people.”
“Hey, that’s awesome,” Iridian said. “It’s been great to be back in the field with you, even if . . . shit, if almost nothing turned out like we thought it would.” He looked a lot more present than he had when she’d met him in the ITA’s prison. Shieldrunners thrived on action, but they needed a team to count on too. Now he’d have both. “You’ll like the ZVs, and you’ve seen as much action as any of them. They’ll give you black-and-yellow socks, but here’s a U of M pair in case you need some luck in the meantime. Got these done before they packed the textile printer.” Iridian handed over the red socks. Wiley cleared his throat and gave her a very deep bow as thanks. She returned it, grinning.
“Adda’s not coming out, is she?” Pel craned his neck toward the expedition ship’s dock and the two adjacent ones, like he could see through the hulls and spot her. With his pseudo-organic eyes, maybe he could.
“Nope,” said Iridian. “You said good-bye last night. That’s all you’re getting until we come back.” The party last night was also when they’d bid farewell to Gavran, who had an even earlier launch slot to get a few hours ahead of the expedition ship. The expedition’s high profile had inspired the Rheasilvia station council to clear stationspace for its departure.
Pel chuckled. “I thought so. Well.” He bowed to Iridian, much lower than he should’ve for how much they’d been through together.
Iridian returned it without making fun of him. “So, back to Earth.” She hadn’t seen him struggling with his mental health much during their flight from the AIs, but she still asked, “Are you all right?”
She didn’t just mean that he was saying good-bye to Adda for a while, and he looked like he u
nderstood the question Iridian was really asking. “Uh, no.” He laughed, the sound more uncomfortable than amused. “My big sister’s leaving the whole damned solar system. No more calling her for help when I fuck up. But I can see all right from here. So, you know, short trip, right?”
“Yeah.” Iridian grinned at him. Her comp alarm pinged, warning her that it was time for her and Adda’s appointment with the docs who’d put them in hibernation. She said good-bye all over again, took a pic with tourists from some part of Earth called Australia, hoped the ITA wouldn’t get ahold of the pic, and made her way back to the ship.
As soon as she came through the passthrough, Adda crossed the main cabin to Iridian’s side. “It looks a bit different from the prototype,” Adda commented.
“Yeah, the lights are all on, for one thing.” Iridian kissed her. “And the AIs—”
“Not yet!” Adda said quickly, glancing around like somebody might hear. The scientists who weren’t already hibernating were all busy with last-minute tasks.
“Yeah, all right,” Iridian said. “They’re all exactly where they want to be. Wouldn’t it be funny if they set all this up just so we could cross the bridge together?” Adda’s hand tightened on hers and Iridian looked over at her, expecting her to be laughing.
Adda was not laughing. Her expression was as tight as her grip on Iridian’s hand, and her face was going white. “Iri . . . One time you said, ‘They know us well enough to manipulate us better than they can manipulate the rest of humanity.’ Do you remember that?”
It sounded like something Iridian would say. “Yeah?”
Adda pulled Iridian out of the doorway and into a corner near the bridge door. “The only way I could’ve gotten Pel’s invitation to join him on Barbary Station was if Casey brought it, because Casey was helping Captain Sloane control all the information going in and out of Barbary. That would’ve been the first it heard about us, correct?” she said. Iridian nodded for her to go on. “And after AegiSKADA killed Kaskade—the other software engineer who had a real chance of understanding what the intelligences were becoming, remember? Si Po didn’t have a development background—things got just a little easier. The medical team found the cure for its bioengineered bacteria so fast, it was strange, wasn’t it?”
“They were doctors, though.” Iridian did not like where this was going.
“Doctors who probably had no research experience. They were in emergency and general medicine and they had no access to the Patchwork. And the intelligences practically ran Captain Sloane’s takeover of Vesta.”
“You ran that.” The rhythmic thumps of a fuel cartridge being installed carried through the hull at half the speed Iridian’s heart was beating. “Babe, are you—”
“No.” Adda slid down the wall to sit on the floor. Iridian knelt beside her and helped her balance in the low grav. “Aside from the fact that Casey was influencing me most of the time we were there, I couldn’t have done it without all the information the intelligences gave me, all the systems they broke into, all the times they supported us on Oxia’s operations. I couldn’t have sent Dr. Björn to Vesta without them, you see? And if ve hadn’t been here . . .” Adda’s wild eyes went from staring at nothing to staring at Iridian.
“But AegiSKADA was the one working with you on that op,” Iridian said slowly, hoping that would bring some reality back into this conversation.
“It did at least two things it shouldn’t have been able to do because Casey was feeding it information, like it was during the fight on Vesta. Casey, who installed it, by the way. You believe that wasn’t me, don’t you?”
“Yeah, of course.” Iridian didn’t remember ever having suspected Adda of installing that AI on Captain Sloane’s Vestan servers, although Adda had hidden its presence for longer than she should’ve.
“Once Captain Sloane won out over Oxia, Vesta should have been a safe place for all of us, where Dr. Björn could’ve continued vis research, if you hadn’t tried to blow up Casey after Tritheist’s funeral and Casey hadn’t tried to make me kill you. After that, it would’ve known . . .” Adda broke into nervous giggles that made Iridian wrap her arms around her and hold on tight. “It would’ve known that I’d never go anywhere without you, and that I’d see this expedition as the only way we could get away from them. They fed me the information they wanted me to have and kept me running and hiding and guessing long enough to do this. To get all of us here, to put Dr. Björn in a position where ve’d need us, to get them . . .” Adda’s giggles overwhelmed her again. It took almost a minute for her to collect herself enough to say, “To get them away from the rest of humanity without anybody else finding out what they were.”
Adda was hyperventilating. Iridian held her firmly and propped her chin on the top of Adda’s head. “Easy babe, it’s okay. We’re okay. Breathe easy now, babe, you’re safe.”
What Iridian didn’t say, what she was almost afraid to think, was that Adda might be right. Pel’s argument for bringing Adda and Iridian to Barbary Station had been that they were engineers. He’d even talked up Adda’s training with AIs. When Casey and the other newly awakened ship copilots learned that, that would’ve been the beginning of their overfitting fixation.
Maybe, given the sprawling, vast consciousnesses those things had developed since, it’d been the beginning of their scheme to leave the solar system with Adda’s help. Iridian was glad she was already on the floor, because she would’ve had to sit down somewhere. The weakness in her legs wasn’t all due to their recent null-grav voyage.
Iridian caught herself holding her breath and forced the air out in a shaky laugh of her own. It was kind of terrifyingly funny. “It worked out, didn’t it?” She squeezed Adda tight, grounding herself in Adda’s familiar softness. “We’re still here. We’re together. Nobody can break us apart now.”
Adda looked at her with the kind of horrified wonder that Iridian was sure she’d turned on Adda a time or two when they talked about AIs. Iridian kissed her until she relaxed in Iridian’s arms. “Oh my gods,” said Adda. “I am going to have so many questions for Casey when I wake up.”
“And it will have so many answers.” Iridian glanced at her comp. “Shit, we’re late. Let’s go.”
They held hands all the way to their pods, which were next to each other. They were taking all the awakened AIs in existence away from anybody else they could hurt or manipulate, to become whatever they’d become on the planet they claimed as their own. That made Iridian and Adda the first people to have ever successfully sheltered awakened AIs. It wasn’t the way Iridian had ever wanted to make history, but she was about to remedy that.
Iridian lay down in her pod with a smile on her lips. Through vac, betrayal, and AI fuckery, nothing had kept her and Adda apart for long. Nothing ever would. And when they woke, they’d help explore a new, peaceful part of the universe, together.
Acknowledgments
We must all thank editor Navah Wolfe for her many astute and story-improving questions. I deeply appreciate her putting up with four years of my reluctance to explain anything. Thank you to literary agent Hannah Bowman for introducing Adda and Iridian to Navah, and for vital plot, ethics, and industry advice.
Thank you to copy editor Valerie Shea for perfecting every detail, and for going so far out of her way to respect differences in the way Iridian and Adda think. I appreciate Saga Press and everything Joe Monti, LJ Jackson, Michael Kwan, Sarah Wright, Alexis Alemao, Jennifer Bergstrom, Jennifer Long, Sara Quaranta, Caitlin McCreary, Caroline Pallotta, Allison Green, Rosa Burgos, and Madison Penico have done to make Adda’s and Iridian’s stories what they are today. Writing this trilogy has been an amazing experience for me. I hope you all had a fun (or at least, rewarding) time too.
Special thanks to my sweetest space beagle, Greg Stearns, who did everything in his power to help me write this book and inadvertently named the Not for Sale. Thanks also to Teri Stearns, who inspired an important place name and listened to my book-related rambling, and to Paul B
axter, another excellent listener who did not murder me when I was too chicken to speak at his library. Thank you to Nick and Katie, whose enthusiasm for their advanced reader copies was encouraging. And thanks again, Suhaila, for lending your name to everyone’s favorite TAPnews correspondent.
More from this Series
Barbary Station
Book 1
Mutiny at Vesta
Book 2
About the Author
R. E. STEARNS is the author of Barbary Station and Mutiny at Vesta. She wrote her first story on an Apple IIe computer and still kind of misses green text on a black screen. She went on to annoy all her teachers by reading books while they lectured. Eventually she read and wrote enough to earn a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Central Florida. She is hoping for an honorary doctorate. When not writing or working, R. E. Stearns reads, plays PC games, and references internet memes in meatspace. She lives near Denver, Colorado, with her husband/computer engineer and a cat.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/R-E-Stearns
SimonandSchuster.com
Facebook.com/SagaPressBooks
@SagaSFF
Also by R. E. Stearns
Barbary Station
Mutiny at Vesta
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