Spaced

by Greg Curtis

  Carm sighed, resisting the urge to plant his head in his hands. “Ship, just do it. We need to know what she was doing.”

  “Then again,” the ship mused, obviously upset but apparently resigned to its fate. “You might just like that! It might even be an improvement!”

  Chapter Twenty

  Carm was apprehensive, but in a strange way that was good. For the first time in ages he felt alive. He was pacing the floor and wondering constantly whether this was a clever idea. Had he thought of everything? Naturally the ship wasn't helping.

  “Are you certain you want to do this Carmichael? It still seems a large risk for very little reward…” the ship voiced its doubts as it had many times before.

  “I'm positive.”

  He wasn't actually sure at all. Opening a high tech steel coffin was never a good idea, least of all on a starship lost in the depths of space. It was even less clever when scans told him that what was inside was an android that he assumed would be programmed to kill him. But he still intended to do it. He needed answers.

  Carm had picked the coffin nearest the door for convenience, and also because x-rays had revealed something not present in any other coffin – a collection of holochips. This he assumed was the leader's casket, assuming that androids could have leaders. Or it was the technician's coffin. Either way though, even if the android proved as utterly useless as he expected it would, the holochips might reveal something interesting or useful.

  The stars only knew what information might be on them. Maybe how the androids had been reprogrammed, or how to reverse the programming. Perhaps the android could get Kendra back – though he hadn't mentioned that to the ship as it wouldn’t have approved. There might also be some new schematics for the ship. And if by some remote chance the androids weren't murderous, then they could be useful in keeping it running. At the very least they were raw materials and parts.

  But mostly he just wanted to know how he’d got into whatever sort of mess he’d found himself in.

  He had an advantage if it came to a battle: he had the medbot's surgical laser. One touch of the trigger and the android would be dead. He had taken other precautions too. The coffin was lying in an empty cabin which he'd converted into a makeshift brig. All he needed to do was step backwards and the door would slam shut, locking the android in. There were no systems in the room an android could access. No power. The only light streamed in from the doorway. When it woke up all it would see were bare steel walls and steel bars blocking its way.

  He did have to wonder why it was in a sealed steel coffin. That bothered him. It made it harder for the scanners to get a clear picture. All they showed was a solid human shape. That troubled him, mostly because he wasn't certain what else could be concealed within the box. He'd hate to find out it was armed.

  Opening it was the easy part. The container was a seamless one-piece can, with a big red button at the top. He assumed that was the latch? Other than that the receptacle was completely featureless, made from a single piece of polished, stainless steel.

  Trembling, Carm pressed the button and immediately jumped backwards, laser in hand and pointed at the coffin. In under a second he was all the way out of the room, the steel bars sliding shut between them. When they noisily shut into the far wall with a solid bang he knew a moment of intense relief. They wouldn't open again without his command. He was safe.

  Breathing heavily though, he soon began to wonder if he'd been a little paranoid. The coffin wasn't doing a lot. A red light had appeared, a tiny spot of ruby shining out of the seamless steel from inside, tracing a strange geometric design along its length. But that was all it did.

  Carm figured that the light was a molecular debonder, designed specifically to undo the lid. It was no different to a self-opening can. What he couldn’t understand was why it was so slow. This one was taking its time, the light moving at a snail's pace. Perhaps the coffin was made of thicker steel.

  Then he discovered a new worry when the coffin started leaking. Oily-looking fluids flowed down its sides as soon as the seal had been broken. Why was it full of oil?

  “Ship, any idea what that stuff is?”

  “Something else you shouldn't have released!”

  The ship didn't answer his question, but Carm figured that to be a good thing. It would have told him if it had detected anything toxic or harmful.

  Carm remained standing, laser in hand, torn between impatience and uncertainty. He didn't know what model of android was in there or if it would climb out and try to kill him. And the slow, methodical pace was annoying him

  It took a full ten minutes before the red light had completely separated the coffin into two pieces, and by then a lake of grey oil covered the deck. It looked a little like hydraulic fluid but it surely wasn't that. Then even when the coffin was finally open he still had to wait. Nothing was happening.

  “Ship?”

  “Don't even think about it! Whatever that thing is you're not going in there with it,” the ship ordered him.

  Carm knew it would be advisable to listen to the ship this time. He didn't want to be anywhere near the android when it stirred. Plus he wasn't that keen on standing in the oily puddle to get to it. Yet he still felt the urge to go in and look. Maybe he should get a long stick and poke it from the safety of the bars?

  He didn't have to in the end. Three or four minutes later the top half of the box abruptly lifted up a few centimetres and then slid off to hit the deck with a clatter. It hadn't done that by itself – the android had pushed it off with its arm.

  That arm wasn't quite what he'd expected. It belonged to a woman, sheathed in a skin-tight body stocking drenched through with the grey fluid. Why? He wouldn't have expected the android to have been dressed for transport. Carm quickly stopped wondering though when the other arm found the side of the coffin and began hoisting itself up.

  The head appeared first, sending waves of the fluid sloshing around. It was clothed in the same body stocking as the arms. Then the rest of it emerged and he realised that something was very strange. It was completely dressed. Why was it covered in a full body stocking? Why were there tubes and wires sticking out of it? And why were some of those tubes filled with what appeared to be blood?

  “What the shard?!” Carm wasn't quite sure what he was seeing. This really was from the dark side of the sun.

  It didn't look much like a typical android. At the very least it wasn't acting like one. Instead, rising from the tank, it was pulling wires and fluid-filled tubes out. Why would an android have tubes inserted? Especially ones filled with bloody fluids?

  Then it did something that was even less android-like. It fell to its knees, pulled off the face part of its body stocking and vomited. The grey oil was inside it, and it was expelling it, hurling it up with great wretches that surely had to be coming from its lungs. Androids didn't have lungs.

  Ship… are you seeing this?”

  “Of course I'm seeing it. In infra-red and ultraviolet as well as your limited visual spectrum, and from sixteen different angles.”

  “Then that's not ...” Carm couldn't quite finish the sentence. He couldn't bring himself to believe that he was looking at another human being.

  “No. It's not a defective android with an ancient processor and malware coding. It's a defective organic like you and probably with an even more ancient processor and worse malware! Congratulations. You've started an infestation!”

  The ship was right. That was the only logical explanation – and yet it didn’t make much sense. Not when it – make that she – was obviously in distress, retching up the grey oil inside her.

  “Why didn't the scans show up what she was?”

  “The outfit she's wearing – it’s impervious to x-rays. Makes her look solid all the way through, just like an android.”

  That was logical too. The stocking was some kind of stretched, skintight body suit, covered with what appeared to be ancient printed circuits. But why wo
uld she be buried in liquid in a metal box? Why hadn’t she drowned? And if she had, why was she alive?

  “And the coffin is?”

  “A long-term life suspension system, designed to keep her alive and healthy while being unconscious for extended periods of time. The fluid is a hyper-oxygenated liquid which is breathable and which can be artificially regenerated to remove CO2 and add oxygen. The tubes she's pulled out would have contained drugs to slow her metabolism to near baseline levels. Those devices haven't been used for centuries.”

  Suspended animation systems? Carm had heard of them – mainly from holo dramas – but he wasn't convinced they’d ever been used. Travel across the universe was now instantaneous, obviating their need. He did recall having read that long ago some ships had had them as back-ups, in case of getting lost so the crew could go into the tanks and wait for rescue. If rescue ever came, that was. But since it never would what would be the point?

  On the other hand he realised the life support system the woman was slowly extricating herself from would be good for concealing her from anyone doing a routine inspection of the ship. Locked away in her coffin, with a separate air supply, and her metabolism at baseline levels, most scans wouldn't have spotted her unless someone suspected the hold was full of smuggled goods. Even then they would have taken one look at the scans and concluded it was an android. Such machines weren't contraband.

  “Have you two finished talking about me yet?” the woman unexpectedly snapped at them, obviously annoyed with them. Or with the process of waking up. The oily substance wasn't good for her voice, as it made her sound croaky.

  “Ahh yes.” Carm didn't quite know what to say, but eventually he thought he should probably get some basic information. “I'm Carmichael Simons and you're on board my ship the Nightingale. And you are?”

  “Del Fontaine. Shouldn't you know that?” She coughed and spat out another load of gloop and then glared at it. The bots were going to be busy cleaning the room after she was done.

  “And how would I know that?”

  “Because you're transporting me?”

  “Not intentionally. I just found you in the hold.” Carm realised he had to maintain one fiction– he could never let on that there were others, especially when they outnumbered him thirty-two-to-one. “You were packed in with some ingots and ore samples and when we removed them to do some repairs we found you. I thought you were an android.”

  “An android? Please! Do I look like one of those second-rate defects?” She seemed upset by the idea. “I'm flesh and blood like anyone else.” Suddenly she looked straight at him. “You are flesh and blood?”

  “In the flesh.” The words slipped out before Carm had had a chance to think and he immediately felt stupid. For her part the woman just glared at him as if he'd said something completely droll. Then she removed her hood, letting her hair fall loose around her shoulders. Even with it slicked down in oil, it made her look much more attractive. Plus the form-fitting outfit didn't hide a lot as it showed all the bumps and curves of her body. She was definitely a woman.

  “So you want to explain the bars on the door?” She coughed out another puddle.

  “I told you. I thought you were an android, smuggled onto my ship. I've been attacked by androids.” It sounded stupid even to him and yet it was the truth. “One tried to kill me.”

  “That would explain the prison bars I suppose. And the weapon. That is a weapon you're holding?”

  Carm looked down, rediscovering the laser scalpel in his hand. He'd forgotten about it. Somewhat belatedly, he lowered it. “Medbot's surgical laser. It's all I had.”

  Should he have told her that? Practically admitting that he was the next thing to being completely unarmed? She didn't appear that dangerous. She wasn't that big. And she was a woman. Surely he could defend himself against a woman if he had to. But first he needed answers.

  “So you're on my ship in this … coffin, and in some kind of suspended animation device? Hiding from the Navy perhaps? Want to explain?”

  “Your ship? No idea. I don't know who you are. I didn't know what ship they'd put me on. It didn't matter, only that it could get me home. And the Navy? Yes, Naval Command has been hunting us for a very long time.” She coughed and retched again, leaving more sickly grey fluid on the deck.

  “We can't use our own ships because they'd quickly identify us as soon as we claimed them. We can't even book passage because ships don't go to our home. In any case the movement control checks would soon identify us. We have no papers. We can't get them. Even the outliers aren't much help. They can't be trusted. This was the best alternative.”

  That Carm understood, even if her best alternative seemed like a truly horrible one to him. But he didn't understand who in the Commonwealth couldn't live peacefully or freely. He didn't know who the “we” were.

  “Dissidents I suppose you'd call us. We don't fit completely within the Commonwealth's idea of what good citizens should be. We have radical views, and we don’t like the status quo. And Naval Command doesn't like us.”

  “Because you're out-worlders?” That was all that he could think of. She was from some breakaway colony not part of the Commonwealth. The outliers said there were some. They maintained links with a few, or so it was claimed. But Carm had never been sure how much to believe those stories. He didn't have a lot to do with the outliers anyway. The spacers rule of thumb was to always count your fingers and toes after you dealt with them – just in case.

  “Because we're free.” She took time out of her busy schedule of coughing and choking to stare straight at him. “We don't do what Naval Command says. And we have information they don't want revealed.”

  Free? That could mean any number of things, some of which weren’t good. There were always those who fled the Commonwealth for far less idealistic reasons.

  “You're criminals? Terrorists?” Carm asked, knowing that in her he might finally have the beginnings of an answer to who had bombed the reserve and set him up. She didn't look like a mad bomber, though.

  “Don't be stupid!” the woman bristled and snapped at Carm. “We're not violent. We simply don't fit in the Commonwealth. We're not part of it. But we do sometimes have to deal with criminals to gain passage in and out of it.”

  “Any criminals in particular? Because this isn't a smuggler's vessel and I'm certainly not one.”

  “Maximilian White-Jones. He and his partners have been running a people-smuggling operation for years. Getting people like me in and out of the Commonwealth. For a fee of course.”

  “People like you? In and out of the Commonwealth?” It was beginning to make a kind of sense except for some large gaps. Who were people like her? She still hadn’t explained that. And why did they need to be smuggled in and out of the Commonwealth? It was a free place. People could leave if they wanted to. But it was the “in” that got him. If she wanted to leave, then surely she could just do it. But why did she want to return? On the other hand he wasn't surprised by the name she'd given him. In fact things were finally making some sense.

  “It's not that easy, believe me,” she continued. “Naval Command is always hunting for us.”

  She'd misunderstood Carm. What he didn't know was whether she'd done it on purpose or not. Was she trying to dodge the question? Did she not want him to know who her people were? Or was it a genuine misunderstanding?

  Why would the Navy be hunting for her? Carm still didn't understand that. The Navy had no reason to hunt anyone apart from pirates, a few fugitives and smugglers – and he was now one of the latter. Yet he believed her if only because he couldn't imagine anyone subjecting themselves to the discomfort of the system of travel she’d used if they didn't absolutely have to.

  He let her continue rather than interrupting her with questions, especially ones that she might not want to answer.

  “Anyway, White and his partners have built an underground railway out of the Commonwealth based on Aquaria. One that seems
to have gone awry given that I'm here on a ship that isn't part of it, piloted by a man who has no clue what I'm talking about. Do you?” She fixed him with a stare which, in spite of her being locked away in a makeshift brig, was still intimidating.

  “Not really, no,” he answered her as calmly as he could. A part of him was working furiously trying to put everything together. Max White was running a people-smuggling operation – which was why he'd wanted the ship's services. And the industrialist's android had attempted to murder him. The pieces didn't fit together perfectly yet, but they were getting close to forming a picture.

  “Damn! The operation has always been laser-guided until now. So want to explain how I ended up in the middle of an ore hold?” Now there was suspicion in her voice.

  “Not a clue,” Carm lied instinctively, knowing that he never wanted her to know the truth. “I can only think it's something to do with my android –.”

  “An android companion?” Her tone became colder.

  “Yes. She tried to kill me.”

  “Ahh, let me guess. A type 23?”

  Carm let out a shocked gasp. He guessed she woman knew a lot more about his life than he did. “As it happens.”

  “You were lucky.”

  “Lucky? It didn't feel that lucky.”

  “If it had been a type 24 you'd be dead. They're much better programmed and a lot more powerful.” She appeared unconcerned by Carm's near-death experience. In fact she abruptly seemed to have become very businesslike, taking charge of the conversation. “Now why did White want you dead?”

  “I don't really know. “Kendra said I was of no further use to her master.”

  “Kendra?” She stared at Carm, then suddenly looked away in sorrow as she guessed who he’d meant. “You named it? Oh shards that's sad! Pathetic really. Anything else? No further use isn't reason enough to kill someone even for that rogue.”

  Who was running this interrogation – Carm or his prisoner? But he had a fair idea that he didn't want to find out the answer to that question. “He once tried to hire my ship. Seven years ago.”