by Berg,Alex P.
InterSTELLA
Titans in Transport since 2312
I pushed off the ceiling and managed to get close enough to one of the seats to grab hold of the straps. From there it was a simple matter of flailing about wildly and almost ralphing over the seat cushions before I managed to hook both of my shoulders under the harness.
Carl floated over gently as I fastened the buckles on my restraints, sliding into the seat beside me with a practiced ease.
“Don’t gloat,” I told him.
“I wasn’t about to,” he said. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed. There’s a perfectly good reason why I’m so adept in microgravity and you’re not.”
“Does it have to do with gastrointestinal juices and that little thingy in my inner ear?”
“Muscle memory,” said Carl. “Or lack thereof. If you don’t practice a physical task on a regular basis, you lose your proficiency. I don’t.”
Basically, Carl’s saying he could kick your ass in zero g kung-fu, said Paige.
I snorted. “Not mine. He’s subliminally programmed to adore me, whether he likes it or not. I doubt he could lift a finger against me if he tried.”
Carl’s face fell ever so slightly, an action made possible only by the state of the art expressions upgrade he’d undergone back before my time. It was a blessing and a curse—a blessing in the sense that his reactions were indistinguishable from those of a real human, but a curse in that said expressions were hardwired into him so that he couldn’t avoid them even if he wanted to. That, in turn, was another blessing—for me. I cared for Carl, and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I simply tended to forget the things that triggered him—like any mention of his incomplete free will.
I nodded to the logo on the wall to change the subject. “Any idea what InterSTELLA stands for? I’ve always been curious.”
Nothing, actually, said Paige before Carl could chime in.
“Really?” I said. “I always assumed it was a complicated acronym.”
It was, said Paige. Originally it stood for Science-, Technology-, and Engineering-based Lightspeed reLocation Associates, but about two hundred years after their founding, they perfected their Alcubierre drive technology, and the Lightspeed part became obsolete. They couldn’t come up with another name that fit the acronym, and their brand was pretty well established at that point, so they scrapped the underlying meaning altogether and went with InterSTELLA.
I nodded to my partner. “Did you know that?”
“I don’t know everything, Rich,” he said. “You’ll have to remember that as we travel. I’ll be as limited as Paige in my understanding of the universe while in deep space.”
“But you knew that bit about InterSTELLA, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Of course.”
An unfamiliar voice crackled in the back of my mind, at least unfamiliar in the sense that I hadn’t received a Brain call from him yet.
Rich? Vijay. Your bags made it aboard. You set for liftoff?
Paige must’ve patched him through without my knowledge. It made sense to have a direct line of contact with him for the time being, though. Ready when you are. Let’s get some weight on this baby.
Alright. Here we go then, he said.
I heard a pair of thumps and felt a jostle as the spaceport’s clamps released us. A feather-light touch pushed me against the back of my chair. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw the smooth walls of the spaceport slowly recede.
Another feather light touch pushed me sideways, but I might not have even noticed it if not for the shift of Cetie’s profile in relation to the window across from me.
I floated, pushed ever so slightly back and to the sides for about a minute before another communication came from Vijay.
Ready for thrust.
Soundlessly, the shuttle’s resonant cavity thrusters kicked in, pushing me against the bottom of my seat cushion and restoring my weight. Like most planetary transport vessels, the shuttle had been designed to fly along a trajectory at a constant linear acceleration, in this case at a level somewhere between Earth and Cetie’s gravitational pulls, until the halfway mark of the journey, at which point the shuttle would rotate a hundred and eighty degrees and decelerate at the same rate. Barring use of the Alcubierre drive, which was frowned upon within solar systems, it was the fastest way to get around, and it allowed for interior constructions of spaceships that more or less resembled planetside dwellings.
How long until our rendezvous with the Snowbell? I asked Vijay via Brain.
Three standard galactic hours, give or take five minutes, he responded.
I unbuckled my restraints and stood. Three hours would be more than enough time to enjoy a holovid or two, which I’d be happy to do if I could only find something to munch on first. Hopefully that wouldn’t prove to be a problem. Vijay hadn’t warned me to pack my own snacks.
4
I stood in an airlock on the Snowbell, listening to the rhythm of the pumps and feeling the light breeze of whistling air on my face when the ship’s pseudogravity kicked in.
“Oh yeah. That’s the ticket,” I said as my feet settled against the floor.
Carl gave me a dubious glance. “You know, I’m well aware I can never fully understand your negative reaction to microgravity given I don’t suffer the same physiological response as you, but is it really that bad? We were under the equivalent of one point six g’s the entire trip over, barring the turn. You act as if you haven’t felt solid ground underfoot for a month.”
“As I’ve already mentioned, it’s the transition that’s problematic,” I said. “And I agree with you one hundred percent. You can’t ever know what it feels like to almost lose your lunch and have your heart jump into your throat. It’s a horrible feeling, one nobody can fully acclimate to no matter how many times they go through it.”
“Mr. Chatterjee doesn’t seem to be suffering any ill effects.”
Carl pointed him out. He stood with us in the airlock, his caramel-colored complexion looking no paler than normal, but his face betrayed something else. Impatience or uneasiness perhaps, but not from gastrointestinal distress. Rather, I got the impression he was claustrophobic. Either that or he didn’t care for my company. He certainly hadn’t engaged me in conversation during our trip over.
Could be he’s an Intro, said Paige.
In his line of work? I said. Doubtful. Unless he’s a desk jockey who’s been plucked from his castle to take part in a recruiting expedition he has no interest in.
Actually, that sounds plausible, said Paige.
And you doubted my deductive reasoning, I chided her.
Carl continued to look at me, expecting an answer, but I gave him none. Hey, if the truth portrayed me in a less than glamorous light, I knew when to keep my mouth shut.
The interior airlock door opened, and Chatterjee waved us forward. “Follow me.”
I stepped into a sterile, white-paneled hallway. According to the signage, we’d arrived at dock P7. Apparently the Snowbell was a big girl. Big enough for pseudogravity, anyway.
My footfalls made satisfying thumps as we walked after our uniformed commander-in-chief. “You know, Carl, I know you might think I complain too much, but it’s visionaries like me who effect change.”
He gave me a superbly lifted eyebrow. “Where are you going with this?”
“Pseudogravity,” I said. “I don’t like how it’s limited to ships with larger masses and with fusion reactors that can produce ridiculous amounts of power. I want it on every ship, from the largest freighter to the smallest fighter. I make my thoughts known, as do other like minded individuals, and though the power of the free market, we effect change.”
“You can’t be serious,” said Carl. “For one thing, the volume of your complaining has nothing to do with the purchasing power of your bank account. For another, moaning won’t change the physical limitations of pseudogravity. It can’t be implemented on s
maller crafts. It’s not possible.”
“Please,” I said. “You and I both know that’s a load of Tak dung. All kinds of things are physically possible that we don’t believe to be. If humanity had appeased itself with the physically likely, we’d still be scooting around at sub-light speed on rotating centrifuges powered by radioactive sludge and firing propellant out our—AHH!”
I screeched to a halt as we turned a corner, my face almost slamming into the slight, purple Spandette-clad bosom of Tarja Olli.
“What the…? What are you doing here?” I asked.
She glanced at Vijay, who’d barely slowed. “Is he serious?”
I’d tried a gentlemanly approach upon first introduction, but that hadn’t worked, and my patience grew thinner with each of Tarja’s nose-upturned remarks. “I’m right here you know. And what I meant was, how’d you beat us to the Snowbell?”
She dropped into step alongside Vijay and talked to me over her shoulder. “How fast were you going?”
“We pulled about one point six—”
“It was a rhetorical question,” said Tarja. “I went faster than that and met you here, obviously.”
I snorted. “Really? You?”
She regarded me with cool eyes. “Let me guess. You think a tall, skinny Spacer like me can’t handle multiple g’s. I’m a frail flower that’ll break under the slightest breeze.”
“Flowers aren’t usually as tall as you are,” I said. “Plus they’re pleasing to the senses. You’re more like a twig embrittled by dry rot.”
Tarja sniffed and turned her gaze back down the hall. “Well, at least he’s got spine.”
“Yes,” I said. “A stout one that won’t break under pressure.”
“The metaphor’s spent, hoss,” said Tarja. “Give it up.”
I clenched my teeth and glanced at Carl. He shrugged in response. He wasn’t good at conflict. It wasn’t in his subroutines.
Far be it from me to meddle in a blossoming relationship, said Paige, but you do remember what you signed up for, right? You’re going to have to work with this woman whether you like it or not. Might not hurt to put your best foot forward.
I sputtered a little. My best foot? I didn’t start this fire.
You haven’t lifted a finger to put it out either, said Paige. You seem intent on adding oxidizers to the flames.
Tarja proceeded, oblivious to my internal monologue. “So, Vijay, are you going to explain the situation with these pirates or what?”
“Once we reach my office and you meet Ducic, yes,” he said. “I pinged him. He’ll meet us there.”
Honestly, I’d started to wonder about Chatterjee’s steel trap-like jaw myself. He’d claimed he didn’t want to explain himself more than once. I supposed that was possible, but we’d spent several hours together aboard the shuttle and the man hadn’t uttered more than a couple words to me. Even for an Intro, he seemed particularly intent on avoiding conversation.
We followed Vijay through sterile corridors and a largely empty mess hall, passing the occasional InterSTELLA employee, some dressed in white police garb and others dressed in the traditional company navy blue. Engineers and scientists and maintenance crew, most likely. Some gave Chatterjee an approving head nod while others passed us by with nary a glance.
A door winked open in front of Vijay, and I followed him and Tarja through the gap.
The office within was cozy to say the least. Vijay skirted around a thin, molded plastic desk and pointed to a pair of stools on the other side. A holoprojector poked out from between the lights on the ceiling, and a large interactive display covered the right hand wall. The opposite wall featured built in shelving and cabinets, the free space of which was occupied by Vijay’s personal effects: a photo projection of him with a dark haired woman and a scruffy-haired boy, a pair of framed golden service medals with InterSTELLA’s logo wrapped around the edges, and a worn cricket bat with a wide signature scrawled across the front in indelible ink.
In front of all that, filling almost half the office and blocking my access to the stools, stood a droopy-eyed Tak.
The Taks were an interesting race—quadrupedal and beefy, with long torsos and undersized, rudimentary hands at the front of their bodies, almost as if they were the product of a horribly conceived gene splicing experiment between humans, rhinos, and giraffes. Their heads, however, were one hundred percent cow. Exobiologists would disagree, I’m sure, citing the flatness of their brows or the width of their nostrils, but to any independent observer like me, the only thing separating them from complete and total bovineness was their lack of ink spots.
As often as not they walked around naked, but this particular Tak wore a navy lab coat with a bright InterSTELLA insignia over the right breast pocket. He—She? It? Their gender was less obvious than our own—eyed me with disinterest. Or perhaps contempt. Or maybe he was drowsy. I couldn’t read Tak body language very well.
Vijay waved to the two stools. “Go on. Have a seat.”
Tarja helped herself to the stool by the display, leaving me the seat by the Tak. Carl didn’t have muscles to rest, so it was mine for the taking, but it would be a tight fit. I’d have to press half my body against the beast’s flank, never mind how I’d have to contort myself to get there in the first place.
The Tak noticed my hesitation. “Does my presence impede you, human? I am capable of rearrangement if necessity exits.”
Even with universal Brain translation, Tak speech had a way of coming across as less than transparent. Something about the way our minds processed language and grammar didn’t quite jive.
“No, don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ll be fine right here. Spare elbow room and all that.” The door blinked shut behind me, clipping me on the rear.
“Suit yourself,” said Vijay. “Tarja. Rich. Meet the final member of your team, Ducic. He’s with our interplanetary physics division. Ducic—Tarja Olli and Rich Weed.”
“Really?” I said with a lift of my brow. “Him?”
Ducic shifted his snout. “I must inform you I am familiar with human expressive systems. Your passive expression of doubt has not gone unnoticed. If the underlying incertitude of your emotion stems from my race, I would point you in the direction of InterSTELLA workplace equality manual, chapter forty-four, section C. If said derision stems from my species’ ability to conduct physics, that is perhaps a more egregious slight.”
Tarja turned her head toward me, her cool eyes holding a twinkle of mirth. “You really need to pull that foot out of your mouth, tank.”
“The name’s Rich,” I said. “Not tank or hoss or beefcake or whatever else you think is appropriate. My muscle tone is a gravitational side-effect. You got a problem with it?”
She smiled at me. “You’d rather I call you shorty?”
“Excellent,” said Vijay. “Introductions are flying all around…alongside other things. Now if you don’t mind, please SHUT UP and listen so I can brief you on the mission parameters!”
Vijay’s cheeks had darkened, and his face showed signs of strain. I’d already caught a glimpse of the mountain on his shoulders, slowly crushing him under its pressure. I’d also guessed at his introversion. If I was right about it, having a quartet of humans, aliens, and droids in his office wasn’t helping his hormone levels. Add to that my and everyone else’s inability to conduct ourselves in a professional manner, and I’d argue his outburst was warranted.
“Sorry. I—we—shouldn’t have acted that way.” I eyed Tarja and Ducic to see if they agreed, but the bounty hunter had her back to me and I couldn’t get a bead on the Tak because, well…cow face. “Let’s talk pirates.”
5
“Before I start,” said Vijay, “let me preface this discussion by saying none of the following information is to travel outside InterSTELLA hulls. That isn’t to say you can’t talk about it with anyone, but you need to make sure discussion takes place with individuals who’ve been granted proper clearanc
e. Ducic’s level has been elevated for this precise purpose. He’ll be able to guide you on who you can and can’t talk to, among other things.
“Now. Tarja. Rich.” He gave each of us a bob of his head. “You’ve been brought on to help track down a group of interstellar thieves who’ve made several attacks upon our transports.”
The display at the side of the room sprang to life, showing a rendition of the Tau Ceti system on the bottom right, complete with the inhabited planets Cetie and Cetif, the lifeless b-d husks, and the asteroid belt. The top left of the display showed the Sol system, which I deduced from my knowledge of planetary geography as well as the informative lettering present on the screen.
“All the attacks thus far have occurred along the Sol-Tau Ceti corridor,” said Vijay. “Five ships in total have been targeted. The Jimsonweed, the Libertia, the Kalanchoe, the Butterwort, and the Agapetes.”
The ships, along with their names and classifications, appeared on the display, each with a trajectory showing their path from Sol to Tau Ceti or vice versa.
“For your knowledge,” said Ducic, “said display is not to correct scale.”
How did Taks express sarcasm? Hopefully it was with the dopey, lowered-chin expression the alien now gave me. “Yeah, I got that. Thanks.”
Vijay continued. “So far, the heists have followed a fairly predictable pattern. Two attacks, in relatively quick succession, followed by a longer, if not necessarily long, period of inactivity. Because of this, you can imagine we’re on high alert for the sixth attack.”
“What have the pirates stolen?” asked Tarja.
The holoprojector whirred into action, displaying each of the vessels in three dimensions in the air in front of us.
“All of the ships are freighters,” said Vijay. “Limited crew quarters, with large unpressurized hulls for raw materials. In all cases, those materials have been heavy metals. Silver, palladium, tungsten, and iridium.”
“That’s all the pirates have stolen?” Tarja asked. “They didn’t take any weapons or tech or luxury goods?”