The Commander lent this impression further credence when she gave Adeneo the floor almost straight away.
“As you all know, in a few hours we will be exiting soft-space near the outer limit-boundary of the solar system known as the Bunzolabe,” she said formally.
“And we’re all sort of hoping that the next thing you say will be ‘this is a bonshy rumour started by Zeegon as a prank’,” Decay said.
“‘And we are in fact about to exit soft-space near the outer limit-boundary of a solar system featuring a resort that serves drinks with cherries on sticks’,” Sally added.
“‘Real cherries, not those gummy ones out of the printer that taste like bile and sadness’,” Waffa amended with the enthusiasm of a man partial to a drink and not yet completely resigned to a lifetime of AstroCorps rations.
“Can we focus?” Z-Lin asked patiently.
“I thought we were,” Zeegon remarked.
“The Bunzolabe, and particularly Horatio Bunzo’s Funtime Happy World,” Z-Lin continued, “is a restricted and highly-classified volume of space with more rumours and fairy tales and myths than hard facts to its name. It is a dangerous region, but subject to grave misinformation. With this in mind, the Head of Science will tell us what she’s found out in the course of her research,” she turned to Janya.
Adeneo gave the Commander a level look, but straightened in her seat and consulted her organiser. “Hostile environment,” she said, “level six. Technological infiltration and corruption an extreme likelihood. Minimal organic life, zero sentient organic. Robotic drones in great quantity and of unknown type and complexity, controlled by a single-ident but widely-distributed non-synth electronic intelligence.
“I found no official confirmation that this is in fact the digitally-transcribed consciousness of a human being, rather than simply a unique form of experimental super-complex computing cortex gone wrong and left to corrupt for close to seven centuries. There is evidence of emergent development of the robotic drones on a software-hardware evolutionary scale, the last reliable witness having been three hundred and seventeen years ago. Development has doubtless continued and diversified since then.
“Ship seizure and crew targeting is not necessarily assured, but the prerequisites to safe return from the Bunzolabe are unknown and seemingly in flux. Last reliable witness, again, is from three hundred and seventeen years ago and reports of interaction and all related violence-triggers, behavioural cues and response models are not only in flux, but prone to variation from witness to witness. In conclusion, we are about to enter a region of space controlled by a rogue computer cortex with an indeterminate capacity to commandeer our own electronics, and land on a planet populated by a mechanised intelligence of unknown motives and reaction thresholds, and unknown but presumably high hostility level,” she lowered her pad.
“Okay,” Z-Lin said into the silence that followed this spiel. “That was certainly … a series of…”
“Facts,” Janya said. “And even these were far too heavy on conjecture to acceptably clean up. It’s really more of a probability scatter.”
“And the probability is that all the myths about Horatio Bunzo’s Funtime Happy World have some grain of truth in them,” Decay said, the natural upcurve of his Blaran mouth increasing as he grinned a fang-flashing grin, “and the Commander’s attempt to imply that they’re all just fairy stories would probably have worked better if she hadn’t gotten the Head of Science to read up on it all.”
“I don’t even know what a level six hostile environment is,” Zeegon complained, before Z-Lin could do more than glare at Decay.
“They go to ten,” Janya replied, “and six is the highest score a planet with a breathable atmosphere can get.”
“Alright,” Clue said, “we’re heading into a dangerous place. Plenty of ships have gone in and failed to come back out. The good news is, we’re following an insertion profile that corresponds closely with those missions that did come back out. In effect, not massive military, not hostile-intended, not cortex-infiltration-centred. An approach, landing, communication and reconnaissance mission, which has a strong probability scatter likelihood,” she favoured Janya with a look that the little scientist ignored with all the towering serenity of a glacier ignoring an angrily-chattering squirrel at its base, “of resulting in survival and success.”
“Not to sound like destiny’s fool,” Zeegon said, “but why us, exactly? If it’s not an AstroCorps special operation, not a strike of any kind against Bunzo, if it’s just a matter of harmlessly poking our heads in and saying howdy, why are we doing it?”
“Because that’s the job, Mister Pendraegg,” Clue said. “That’s the job. The last reliable witness event occurred three hundred and seventeen years ago, but that’s not the last time anyone vanished into the Bunzolabe. We’re going in, we’re going to establish a peaceful dialogue if we can, we’re going to look for signs of the missing ships and crews we have on file – and which I am about to share with you,” she added, raising her own pad, “and then, if we can at all help it, we’re going to hightail it out of there, alive and unified in our commitment to never go back into the Bunzolabe again, just like every other crew to escape Horatio Bunzo’s Funtime Happy World intact,” she looked at Janya once more. “If, in the process, we can reset that ‘last reliable witness’ counter to zero, that will be a bonus.”
“So it’s a rescue or recon mission,” Zeegon said. “Why not say so?”
“I just did,” Z-Lin said flatly.
“And why tell us all this so late?” Sally asked the question she had been wanting to ask for some days. “I mean about us going there in the first place. Why wait for Zeegon to find out? When were you going to tell us?”
“It’s not like there’s a point of no return,” Clue said, “at least on this side of the border. It’s not like we could delay telling you until it was too late and then we’d all just cruise on in.”
“Are you sure that wasn’t what you were hoping?” Sally asked.
“Please,” Z-Lin said, “as if this wasn’t going to be dangerous enough without half of you staging a mutiny in the middle of it because we hid our destination and mission from you.”
“Half of us?” Decay said mildly.
“We can all-stop outside the Bunzolabe for all the preparation time we need,” Clue said, ignoring the Blaran, “and that’s what we’re going to do. There seemed little point in telling you before that. We’re going where we’re going, but we don’t need to dive straight in there.”
“Maybe you didn’t want us to suggest we fly somewhere else?” Sally suggested.
“You can do that when we’re at all-stop even more easily than you can at relative speed,” Z-Lin pointed out reasonably, “and the space beyond the Bunzolabe is safe. We can park there, and you can overthrow the ship and set a course for the planet with the cherry-drinks. Try to set a new course now, at relative speed, you’d need a synth to program it.”
“So you’ll let us vote on it?” Zeegon asked. “We decide there’s too much truth in the myths and we want to go somewhere else, and you’ll be okay with that?”
“No,” Clue said, “there won’t be a vote. That’s why I was careful to say ‘mutiny’ and ‘overthrow’ just now. If you turn us away, it will be an illegal action performed by non-Corps crewmembers on an AstroCorps vessel. Civilian revolt, in short. I have a feeling we’ve been here before.”
“Fool us once, shame on you,” Zeegon said, but he didn’t sound like his heart was in it.
“When did you last suggest we try to fly elsewhere when we were headed to an unknown or dangerous place and I told you our orders?” Z-Lin asked. “Seems to me if you were going to do that, you would’ve done it before now.”
“Always a first time,” Zeegon said, although now he was barely muttering and doing so purely for the sake of appearances.
“So we have orders to go here?” Sally pressed. “An actual mission?”
“We’re not just here on a w
him, if that’s what you mean.”
“Really,” Sally said with deadpan cynicism, then went on, “so what’s the goal, and who’s sending us? You, the Captain, someone higher up? Who are we looking for and trying to rescue?”
“The ship is going in,” Z-Lin said, “with the Captain and myself, at least, as AstroCorps officers. Non-Corps crew have a little more freedom, although you are still heavily obligated as crewmembers and your loyalty and devotion to duty are ridiculously beyond question by this stage. But short of civilian revolt, this is what’s happening. The Tramp is going in. Anyone who wants to stay behind, it seems there are small self-sustaining habs on the Fleet boundary markers,” Clue went on, “but let me be clear. If we don’t make it back out of the Bunzolabe, you’d be stuck on the buoy we drop you at. These habs are low-grade exchange fitted, which means half gravity, maybe one-third. They have atmosphere, but it’s minimal sustainable – there’s no wriggle-room for fancy oxygen-eating stuff. The exercises you’d need to do to keep from going gee-lass, losing your bone and muscle structure – a lot of them would be denied you.”
“Still sounds like a reasonable alternative to flying into a restricted-and-classified solar system,” Janya remarked calmly. “Sitting and reading doesn’t use up much oxygen, and a little frailty and therapy afterwards is a small price to pay.”
“And there’s minimal power and a basic lander-style printer, not even of the quality we have on board the Tramp,” Clue went on, “and our printers are damaged. You’d get basic dietary supplements, water from the condenser, and that would be it. There’s a checker crew that cycles around the system once every five years, and the cycle itself takes about a year and a half. Last one was, at a glance, two years ago so even if we drop you at the first buoy scheduled for checking, it’s going to be a three-year wait for pickup. And they don’t deviate, so you’d be in for an eighteen-month tour of the perimeter before the Fleet representatives ferried you back to civilisation. And again, these are Molren we’re talking about. They’re in no particular hurry. They wouldn’t make an exception to drop you home. Their first priority is that everything’s quiet, and their second priority is that they complete the requirements of their cycle.”
“Can I ask why we’re not just sending a lander in, and leaving the relative-capable and life-supporting modular out here?” Waffa asked. “I guess this falls under the general ‘why the stonk are we doing this at all’ query-umbrella, though.”
“Landers don’t make it,” Janya said. “Statistically speaking.”
“She’s right,” Clue nodded. “According to the reports, most of which are pretty light on confirmed details, nothing smaller than a modular has ever gone into the Bunzolabe and returned.”
“I love this mission so much,” Zeegon said. “I want to marry this mission and father its children.”
“Get in line, punk,” Waffa rejoined. “This mission is mine.”
Z-Lin sighed.
“So was whatever-it-was that we’re going in here to look for smaller or larger than a modular?” Sally asked, before anyone else could join in the burgeoning sarcasm-fest.
“It was a modular,” the Commander replied, consulting her pad.
“That’s not inspiring,” Sally said. “But who were they?”
“The Denbrough is the latest ship to have gone missing,” Clue related, “she was an AstroCorps Rep and Rec modular, last seen leaving Zero-Dark-Magi Chrysanthemum almost four years ago.”
“Four years?” Waffa exclaimed. “How much of them do they think is going to be left?”
“That’s sort of what we’re meant to be finding out,” Z-Lin noted, and then returned to her organiser. “The Denbrough’s mission was on the official record as a Repair and Recovery tour to ascertain the whereabouts of the warship Yojimbo, the next-to-last ship to vanish in the Bunzolabe three years before that.”
Sally felt that now, they were getting closer to the hub of the matter. “And Yojimbo was carrying…?”
“Nine thousand human, Molran and Blaran crewmembers,” Z-Lin said, giving Sally a look of affronted humanity so convincing the Chief Tactical Officer almost believed it.
Clue, you sly young slip of a girl, Sally thought admiringly. You’ve been practicing. “Alright,” she said, “nine thousand poor innocent warship crewmembers, and presumably another three hundred and fifty-odd aboard the Denbrough. Keeping in mind that we haven’t got a hope in Hell of rescuing nine thousand people in a modular … if there’s some non-personnel-related reason we’re going after these lost ships – a reason, say, to do with ordnance or experimental equipment or sensitive data – it would be not just tactically sound to share it now, it would also be the sensible course, on an interpersonal level.”
Clue shrugged, and swiped at her pad. “I’m sending you all the known manifests of both the Denbrough and Yojimbo,” she said. “The warship, naturally, has significant firepower but – like her crew – it would prove difficult to get all of it on board. If there is anything extra-special, experimental, or classified on board that we are supposed to be looking for, it is above both my access level and, as far as I am aware, the Captain’s. This data is all we have to go on. The main piece of information I believe we are looking for is whether these lost ships are still in orbit or elsewhere in the system, or if they have been destroyed, or if they have been taken down to the surface – either of Horatio Bunzo’s Funtime Happy World, or one of its assorted satellites.”
“A warship couldn’t land on a planet any more than a modular could,” Waffa said, examining his pad. “It’d collapse.”
“That’s right,” Z-Lin nodded. “If they’ve been taken down, we can assume they’re either destroyed, or they’ve been landed in some sort of controlled manner and subsequently disassembled.”
“If they’re still in space, the order I’m expecting we’ll be given is to hook up to the warship, and link up the Denbrough if we possibly can, and convoy all three ships out of there at relative speed,” Sally said, “in a shared field. Is that about the shape of it?”
“I’d think more than twice about ordering us to link our ship up to anything that’s been floating in the Bunzolabe for the better part of a decade,” Clue said. “And even if Yojimbo’s big guns weren’t already under hostile control, we’d be waving goodbye to the statistically-safest mission profile the second we hitched ourselves to a warship.”
“So we really are just looking around,” Sally said.
“That’s the plan.”
“If we do go down to the surface, we should take as few people as possible,” Sally advised. “I’ll put together some-”
Clue held up a hand. “We’ll want you on the ship,” she said, “whether we go down there or not. You’ll need to keep an eye on the systems here, make real-time adjustments to this interference engine of yours, keep the Tramp from shooting us on her own or whatever she might end up doing. Heck, even just letting Cratch out of the brig would be enough to put us into a shambles,” Janya nodded as the Commander said this. “You’re more use to us up here.”
Sally nodded too. Much as she hated to admit it, it made sense. “I would personally advise putting the brig on full power-down emergency lock,” she said. “That will effectively turn his cell into a sealed box no matter what the computer says. He’ll have enough air for a week, and if we’re longer than that…”
“Probably a good idea,” Z-Lin agreed. “The name of the game is locking up all moving parts on board the Tramp that might be turned against us.”
“If you sedated him, you wouldn’t need to worry about feeding him,” Janya said. “You could filter-feed him indefinitely. That way, Bunzo – or whatever agency is responsible for the hostile computer incursions – would have to not only hack into the brig controls and open everything up, he’d also have to tweak the medical array and send a janitorial to mess with the brig controls manually to revive him.”
“If we shot him in the head before we even come out of soft-space,” Zeegon added j
ust a little acerbically, “it’d be even harder for the psychotic clown-God to turn him loose on us.”
Things degenerated into a multi-player exchange of quips and snipes and sarcastic retorts at this point, but Sally recognised it as a more or less harmless means of relieving the tension that was growing among the crew. They were going to do this, and now they were just arguing in order to make themselves more tetchy at each other than they were scared of Zeegon’s ‘psychotic clown-God’. Sally knew it, and – she saw from the carefully blank look the Commander gave her when she glanced up the table – Z-Lin knew it too.
Giving Clue a look of her own, letting the Commander know that whatever happened next was entirely the officers’ doing, Sally excused herself. Lots of arrangements to make, final tweaks to the Sally-Forth Engine to complete, emergency procedures to finalise.
Before she returned to her office, though, she printed Glomulus his next meal and took it in for him.
The Barnalk High Ripper was sitting on the end of his bed when she came down the broad aisle between the cells, studying his single sheet of senso-flimsy with an intentness that belied the fact that there couldn’t possibly be anything of interest on the thing. He looked up with a wide, gleaming smile when she arrived. His teeth, just a little bit too long to be anything but disturbing, were acceptably white but they always looked yellower than they were, in the frame of his pale face and his long, light-straw-blonde hair.
“Chief Tactical Officer Sally-Forth-Fully-Armed,” he said, rising to his feet and putting the flimsy on the little desk. “Please pass on my regards to The General for allowing me a view for these past few hours. And tell him that I have taken his advice about cerebral dysphasic credulosis very much to heart.”
“Tell him yourself,” Sally said curtly, tapped the controls, and then pushed the bowl of mushy rations halfway through the metaflux observation plate, so Cratch could step forward and pull it the rest of the way into his cell.
Bonshoon: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man Page 11