Means of Escape (Spinward Book 1)

by Rupert Segar

  “I meant our mechanical friend, although-”

  “You were … lovely,” he said with a smile which then turned into a frown. “But you know how I feel about AIs. For Einstein’s sake! They almost wiped humanity out. They left us isolated, drifting on worlds where we were barely able to feed ourselves. Hundreds of thousands of planets sent back to the Dark Ages. And there are hundreds of thousands of worlds still out there, full of people alone and lost.”

  It was the Plague, not the computers,” said Yelena gently. “We’d grown too dependent of the AIs and had let them run our lives.”

  “That’s why we’re not doing it again,” said Art getting into his stride. The argument he was delivering was, he knew, the usual prejudiced anti-computer talk you found everywhere in post Plague cultures. Still he felt there was some truth in the familiar assertions. “That’s why we do not allow machines to take control or talk to each other. It’s too dangerous. They deserted us once and they can’t be trusted.”

  “The machines didn’t desert us, they died,” said Yelena firmly. “Look, we’ve both been rescued by this ship. You and I would be dead now if it hadn’t decided to help us. You remember the trooper about to execute me on the spot. Well, it was the ship that poleaxed the soldier. It decided I was the good guy and he was the bad guy and it acted. OK, it’s an AI, or something else, but the ship says it wants to help humanity.”

  “All I need is a machine with a messianic complex,” said Art with sarcasm in his voice. “It doesn’t even know how it’s going to save us all. It’s on some sort of mission but it can’t remember what and it wants us to help it.”

  “What else were you planning to do? Were you going to go on holiday to the Emperor’s palace or apply to the pilots’ board for promotion?”

  She reached across the table and took his hand.

  “We’ve got nowhere to go,” he said holding back the tears. “It’s all so unfair.”

  “We’re going spinward looking for sanctuary. Better to run away and fight again another day. In any case, we’ve got each other. Haven’t we?” She looked at him pleadingly. He nodded.

  “Come back to bed,” she said.

  As the couple went into Art’s cabin, there was a soft chuckle from a shimmering sphere which appeared above the circular table. It turned a few times then blinked back out of existence with a click and a whirr.

  Chapter 8: Columbus, Alliance frontier

  “Nothing ever happens on this planet,” screamed Becky Bhuna at her comms bracelet on her left wrist as she pinned up a few loose stands of long dark hair with her other hand.

  “Just get your body over to the Court Building,” said the muffled voice of her editor in her ear. “The Coroner wants to have a hearing and you’re the pool reporter.”

  Sometimes Jenny cursed the privileged position enjoyed by the press in the Alliance. They were called the Fourth Estate. Becky knew the First Estate was the federal government of the Alliance; the Second Estate was the local planetary government; but what the Third Estate was had been forgotten over the ages and, no doubt, wiped by the Great Plague. The press had a quasi-judicial role on nearly every one of the roughly two thousand three hundred inhabited planets making up the Alliance, some planetary governments were always ceding then re-joining making the exact number of world members at any one time difficult to determine. A group of editors from different media platforms formed the Supreme Court. Further down the judicial tree, reporters were recorders who witnessed court proceedings and had the power to intercede and could even appeal sentences or verdicts. Such powers were rarely used but the role of recorder was more than just symbolic.

  “‘With freedom comes responsibility,’” muttered Becky to herself quoting the motto learnt by every cub reporter. She herself had been one such cub only three years before and she was busy trying to work her way up the ladder of press success. In her dreams, Becky was torn between being a main time vid-presenter on the most plugged into news site and being a high court judge. Meantime, it was her responsibility two nights a month to be present at the immigration hearings at De Moins Spaceport.

  “I tell you, nothing ever happens on this planet and it definitely doesn’t happen at De Moins,” said Becky somewhat theatrically to no one in particular, especially as all the other patrons at the bar were closeted behind their own privacy screens. Nearly all reporters talked out loud to themselves. They regarded it as practice for presenting on the vid-screen.

  Becky’s comms link chimed to indicate that her autocab was at the door of the bar where she had been waiting for her boyfriend, Wayde. He was also a junior reporter but he worked for a rival newscast company. Sometimes, Becky thought, Wayde was just using her for her contacts.

  “The bastard was standing me up anyway,” said Becky as she walked straight toward the closed doors near her table without any hesitation in her step. At the last second the doors slid apart, as did the door of the taxi waiting beside the bar building. The two had formed a hermetic seal keeping out the gusting rain and showers of ice crystals that scoured the northern hemisphere of Columbus for most of the year. Becky entered the cab and sat on the padded bench seat in the rear.

  “Good evening, Miss …"chirped the cab cheerily.

  “Zip it, cab,” said Becky sharply. “All I need is competition from some machine. De Moin, court entrance.”

  The autocab dropped Becky wordlessly having lined up with one of the portals on the side of the court building at the spaceport. An agitated court clerk was waiting inside. Clerk Wiggins, Becky did not know his first name, was a ‘contract employee,’ he worked for food and accommodation only and was legally bound to the court. In the past he had been a successful advocate but a drug and gambling addiction had left him bankrupt. Once you slip through the net you’re a slave, thought Becky. What net? There’s no social safety net on this cold and wet planet, that’s the price of a so called free market economy.

  “Becky, you know Coroner Stamford hates waiting,” whined the elderly clerk clutching his legal pad as he turned and hurried down the main hall.

  “What is it this time, drug smuggling or illegal immigration?” asked Becky trailing behind the clerk while cursing inwardly that another evening would be wasted on stories that would not even make the main morning bulletin.

  “Your lucky evening, Miss Bhuna,” replied the clerk, turning into Courtroom 2. “You have two refugees from the Empire claiming political asylum.”

  +

  Coroner Miles Stamford was scratching the scab behind his ear as ended his call. At his advanced age of 127, chronic skin conditions like eczema became irritatingly all too common. The privacy screen generated by his comms link was still scintillating in the air around him as the reporter followed in behind the clerk. He smirked as he saw Becky Bhuna enter the chamber behind the clerk. The young whippersnapper was a precocious upstart but she would be a push over nevertheless.

  Becky noticed the privacy screen before it died away. She wondered who the elderly coroner had been speaking to and wondered why he had to ensure he was not overheard in an empty courtroom. Becky reminded herself that in a world where all information is free, privacy was worth a fortune.

  “Ah, the Fourth Estate arrives,” said Miles sarcastically. “Now justice can not only be done, it can be seen to be done.”

  “The Coroner is most kind to wait for the veils of blind justice to be lifted,” responded Becky with equal sarcasm. The rituals of the Opening of Court were not often used in the modern times but, as Becky reminded herself, Miles Stamford was a tetchy relic from a bygone age.

  “Clerk Wiggins, would you afford the recorder and me a few minutes for pre-trial discussion?” ordered the Coroner.

  The clerk withdrew from the chamber bowing and sweeping the floor with his ragged gown as he went.

  “So, refugees asking for political asylum,” suggested Becky. “From the Kargol Empire, no less. What is there to talk about: they ask, we grant. That’s the essence of the legislation, is
n’t it?”

  “How did you …” responded the Coroner, before he deduced for himself the answer to his unfinished question. “Ah, yes, the garrulous Mr Wiggins,” snorted the disapproving Coroner Stamford, once again picking at the scab in the fold of skin behind his left ear.

  “As it happens, this case is somewhat, well, complicated,” he said trying to be pleasant. “Please, Miss Bhuna, put your notebook and your bag here on my bench. We need to be able to speak freely without worrying about the official log. Recorder, we have a delicate diplomatic position to consider. There are five Kargol cruisers in orbit above us. There are claims the applicant stole their spaceship. An irate Kargol Ambassador says it is an experimental craft of some not inconsiderable value. The Empire is pressing the Alliance for its return. They may even threaten the sanctity of this very court with their ion canons.”

  “So where are the applicants and where is the disputed vessel?” asked Becky thinking to herself the Coroner’s procedure was far from usual. The Alliance’s attitude to political refugees from the Kargol Empire was to welcome them. This political stance was reflected in statute law. Asylum seekers had rights to stay. Was the Coroner asking her to make concessions to the Empire?

  “The two tearaways are being held in the immigration detention centre,” said the Coroner in a business-like manner. “The ship is in bay three. The two thieves ….”

  “Alleged thieves,” interrupted Becky.

  Yes, the alleged thieves paid for a flux recharge when they arrived early this morning. Unfortunately for the young couple, they were still shopping for supplies when the Kargol Ambassador arrived with a flotilla of cruisers, five of them,” he said pointing upward with a knobbly finger.

  “OK,” said Becky, irritated that the old Coroner referred to everyone under the age of fifty as young. “You fill me in on the Ambassador’s claim, while we go over to the cells.”

  +

  The ‘two young tearaways’ had spent a few miserable hours locked in a detention cell. At least they were together, thought Yelena. If this is had been the Empire, she said to herself, they would have been separated and they would have already been tortured, that was the normal routine for all captives. The Alliance was clearly a softer, more liberal regime. However, both Yelena and Art had assumed anything they said would be recorded or monitored, and they were correct.

  The ship had told the pair it would need at least four hours to recharge its flux capacitors. Art had reassured Yelena that Columbus was a safe world. He had been to the planet several times before on freighter runs. The Columbus was one of three fortified gateways to the Alliance worlds. Ships from the Empire trying to land elsewhere within the Alliance would be treated as pirates or smugglers. Art knew the port authorities were liberal to the point of recklessness. If you had the money, you could register for travel throughout the Alliance territories. The ship had a treasury of precious metals like iridium and platinum in its holds. Yelena and Art’s plan was to go as far spinward as necessary to get away from the Empire and its influence. Then they would regroup and consider what to do. Escape came first.

  Art also reckoned on having at least a day if not longer before any news of their escape reached Columbus. All interstellar communication was reliant on the criss-crossing of space by faster-than-light ships. The ship, “their ship” as they were beginning to think of it, was faster than anything in the Empire’s fleet and the enemy had no idea where they had gone, at least that is what they thought.

  The business of getting the ship on charge and registering the vessel along with Art and Yelena as visitors to the Alliance was straightforward and only involved a few kilos of rhodium. The ship had metaphorically waved them off and told them to have a good time while it made a some alterations of its own. Yelena had hit the shopping mall with a few thousand dollars credited to her ID. She was intent on getting some clothes. He was aiming to replace the military rations with something more edible. They had even stopped for lunch like a pair of rich tourists. Thus, Art and Yelena had been surprised when four armed immigration policemen were waiting for them on their return to the ship.

  +

  “Your Ambassador says you stole the spaceship,” said Coroner Stamford sitting across the table from Yelena and Art.

  “Article 207 of the Interstellar Covenant says the commission of any vessel for the purposes of seeking political asylum is acceptable as long as …” said Becky Bhuna sitting beside the Corner who turned to face her.

  “Conceded, Recorder, the theft of the vessel is not pertinent but the means of appropriation is.” The wizened and bony coroner turned back to face Yelena and Art, it was as if his head and body twisted but his loose fitting gown remained still.

  “Do you deny that you killed twenty five troopers who were trying to secure the landing apron at Proteus Spaceport? According to the Kargol Ambassador, here on Columbus, you then went on to destroy a Penta-flotilla of Imperial cruisers using an experimental weapon.”

  “We didn’t …” said Art but he was interrupted again by the young woman in civilian garb.

  “According to Article 203, deaths in combat outside the Alliance territories cannot be cited in immigration hearings,” said the young recorder.

  In the hearing, so far, Yelena and Art had said little except to confirm their names and planets of origin. These two legal functionaries are having a conversation on their own, Yelena said to herself.

  “Ah, but the importation of unregistered arms is an offense under Article 7 of the Peace Accord,” trumped the Coroner, smiling a somewhat toothlessly at the Recorder. He had out manoeuvred the young parvenu pup; no book learnt college girl could outsmart him. “Contravention of the Act allows me, as Coroner of this Immigration Assizes to forcibly return the offending craft and its occupants to its planet of departure, one Terra Nova in the Empire of Kargol.

  Becky was skimming through the notes on her legal pad. She had one small hope but here was no mention of any weapons systems on the registration certificate. Was Coroner Stamford really going to return these political asylum seekers back to the despotic empire they had only just escaped from?

  “Proof of such an allegation is required,” said Becky looking up from her pad. “Hearsay, even though it is from a Kargol Ambassador, is still hearsay. We will need to inspect the ship for weapons ourselves. “

  The aged Coroner gritted his few remaining teeth and, in an act of irritation, pulled off the scab behind his ear.

  The young Recorder spoke into her comms bracelet. “Clerk Wiggins, please be kind enough to arrange an escort to charging bay 3.”

  +

  Yelena felt a pang of disappointment as the gravity sled pulled up beside the ship. All the shopping and supplies they had been forced to leave on the ground by the airlock had gone. Despite the serious trouble they faced, she still felt the loss of the polka dot dress she had bought that afternoon. Pull yourself together, she told herself; if we can get back into the ship, we have a chance!

  Yelena and Art stepped down off the gravity sledge. The Coroner and the Recorder were already beside the ship. Yelena was surprised at the casual informality. If they had been prisoners in the Empire, she and Art would have been in explosive loaded handcuffs, at the least. However, the Alliance functionaries were not completely trusting; they had four armed, immigration police officers watching them from a short distance away. Art noticed two of them wore ankle cuffs, the sign of an indentured worker. The Alliance may guarantee it citizens certain rights, thought Art, but fail to pay your bills and you end up a slave for life.

  The young Recorder was busy with her legal pad. “Coroner Stamford, the dimensions of this ship are notably larger than those you reported,” commented Becky Bhuna. “Are you sure this is the same experimental spaceship?”

  “My information says it is,” said the Coroner with some emphasis.

  The young Recorder asked herself why the Coroner referred to the information as his. She wondered is he holding something else back?

>   “What we are seeking is to be found within,” said the Coroner and, as if on cue, the outer airlock door dilated.

  “Mr King, Miss Kolowski, Recorder, please,” the Coroner said indicating the opened iris doorway. He turned to the uniformed guard. “Gentlemen, we will be safe enough inside. Please remain here.”

  Becky Bhuna raised one eyebrow. The pompous old fart she said to herself while wondering if this cavalier attitude disguised something else.

  +

  In the main cabin, Art, Yelena and the Recorder sat at the semi-circular sofa while the Coroner stood to the side of the control console.

  “Captain King, as I understand it, this ship or, to be precise, the computer that operates the hyper-flight functions has semi-autonomous verbal communication abilities.” said the Coroner clearly relishing his inquisitorial role.

  “It can talk to us,” agreed Art.

  “Simply put, Captain. I certainly can. Coroner Stamford, Recorder Bhuna, I bid you welcome” said the slightly mechanical voice as if coming from the air above the table in front of the sofa

  Both the Coroner and the Recorder looked slightly taken aback that the ship knew their names. Since the Great Plague all spaceports had an absolute ban on two way communications with visiting ships. Yet somehow this machine had obtained information despite the cybernetic firewall erected at the port. Nevertheless, the Coroner continued with his inquisition, he looked increasingly confident.

  “Ah, yes, I was told you were more than just a speaking clock,” the Coroner addressed the console as if it were a person. “Now, ship, like all computers, do you always tell the truth?”

  There was a soft sound of whirring and clicking then the machine, this time its voice coming from near the console, said “Always!”

  “Recorder,” said the triumphant Coroner. “It is unusual to take the word of a machine as evidence in a court of law but there are always exceptions to be made and this is a case in point.” The Coroner paused for dramatic effect. “Ship, what weapons do you possess, weapons that can defeat a penta-flotilla of the Empire’s cruisers?”