by M. D. Cooper
“You’ll see,” Andy said. He turned to lead the way down the corridor.
Fran held her hand out for Cara to walk through the door before her. Cara gave Fran a quizzical look, then followed her dad. Wagging his tail excitedly, Em followed. He nipped at Cara’s heels as if they were playing some game.
“Stop,” Cara chided. She sped up her step to keep up with her dad and Em barked, tongue lolling, as he galloped along beside her with his short legs.
Cara followed her dad halfway around the habitat ring, past Fugia Wong’s room with its closed door and then Senator Walton’s room, which also had its door shut. She didn’t spot Harl Nines in his usual guard position.
Andy turned into the galley. Several shushing noises came from the doorway. Cara paused in the corridor but Fran gave her a small shove from behind and she kept walking, nearly tripping over Em. When she reached the door, she found her mom leaning against the counter, with Fugia Wong and May Walton seated at the table. Harl Nines and her dad were leaning over something at the sink, their bodies blocking her view.
“Come on in,” her mom said.
Cara frowned again and walked through the door. She stopped by the table and stood awkwardly, looking around. Everyone seemed to be hiding a smile and glancing at her dad and Harl.
“What are you all doing?” Cara asked. “This is weird.”
“There it is,” her dad said.
“Damn it,” Harl cursed. He pulled his hand away, shaking a finger before sticking it in his mouth. As Harl turned, he revealed a platter with a chocolate-frosted cake sitting on the counter.
A ring of lit candles ran along the upper edge of the birthday cake.
Andy smiled and spread his hands. “Happy birthday, Cara,” he said.
“Happy birthday!” Fugia Wong shouted, surprisingly loud.
Fran laughed from behind her, also shouting happy birthday.
“We have to sing,” Brit said.
“Lead the way then,” Andy said.
Brit gave him an annoyed look, then took a deep breath and launched into Happy Birthday. Their strident voices confused Em, whose high-pitched barks joined in.
Cara sniffled, overwhelmed by an emotion between happiness and pain, because Tim wasn’t there, and her mom kept glancing at Fran like she was going to shoot her, and her dad hadn’t started the song like he always did. And because Lyssa wasn’t singing with them and she wished someone had made sure she was there.
“Blow out the candles,” her dad said.
“Wait,” Cara said. She looked at one of the speakers in the ceiling. “Lyssa, are you here?”
“I’m here,” the AI answered over the room’s comm system. “Happy Birthday, Cara.”
Cara wiped a tear away. “Thank you.”
“We did the math,” her dad said. “I thought you weren’t going to hit thirteen until we reached the Cho but today’s the day.” He shrugged. “Give or take. Come on now, these candles aren’t going to last long. I’m not entirely sure they aren’t poisonous.”
Cara nodded, smiling, and stepped toward the cake.
Lyssa surprised her by asking, “What are you going to wish for, Cara?”
“She can’t say, or it won’t come true,” Andy said. “Come on.”
Cara held her hair back and took a deep breath. She blew out each of the candles in turn and straightened, feeling a little light-headed.
“Candles on the cake,” Brit said, giving Andy a flustered smile. “You never learn.”
Cara wanted to tell her the lighter had saved their lives just a week ago but didn’t want to ruin the moment. She helped her dad slice the cake and licked frosting off her fingers.
“How did you manage to bake the cake without anyone smelling it?” Cara asked.
Andy smiled. “I didn’t have to keep it from everyone. Just you.”
“I guess so. Should we save a piece for Tim?”
Andy gave her a questioning look, then nodded. “Sure. We’ll save it in the refrigerator. We’ll never hear the end of it if he doesn’t get a piece.”
When Cara sat at the table with her cake, a small pile of wrapped presents had appeared.
“Take the first bite so the rest of us can eat,” he mom said, “then you can open some presents.”
Cara did as she was told. She still hadn’t really talked to her mom since Tim went out the airlock. Every time Brit did something motherly, it was like being pricked with a pin. The pain was small enough she could decide to bypass it, but she couldn’t ignore that it existed. She sank her fork into the cake and took a bite, letting the frosting smear on her lips a little so she could lick if off. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had chocolate and it tasted heavenly.
“This is really good,” she mumbled through the bite.
Fugia brayed laughter again, seemingly overjoyed to be taking part in a birthday party. She stabbed her cake and tore off a large piece of frosting.
When it was time to open presents, Cara found herself with a new pocket knife from Fran, a new collection of vids from Fugia and a flowered robe from Senator Walton.
“I had Harl help me sew it from one of my suits,” May explained. “In the Collective, when a child turns thirteen they have crossed the boundary into adulthood, and to recognize the time has come to put aside childish things, they receive a ceremonial robe worn during festival days and during political gatherings. I realize you are not Andersonian, but you could always choose to emigrate, yes?”
Cara smiled and said thank you, unsure of the best way to respond.
Her mom gave her a card that she opened briefly to see it was filled inside with handwritten lines, then closed and slid back into its envelope.
When she opened the gift from her dad, she was surprised to see the butt of her TSF pistol. “Hey,” she said. “This is mine. You can’t give me something that’s already mine.”
“Open it up the rest of the way, goofball,” Andy said.
Cara tore open the wrapping to find the rest of the pistol covered by a holster with a battery pouch, as well as a webbed belt. She didn’t take the pistol from the holster but it looked cleaner than she remembered, with a new sheen of light oil.
“Now you can stop hiding it under your bed,” her dad said. “We’ll do some training here soon and you can practice with it so you can actually carry it safely. How does that sound?”
“Thank you,” Cara said.
“So,” her dad said, rubbing hands together. “Do you feel like a teenager yet? Have anything irritating you want to say?”
“That’s rude,” Cara said, irritation in her voice.
“Excellent. That’s a good start.”
“I stole my first shuttle when I was thirteen,” Fran said. She cracked her knuckles. “We need to start you a list. You’ve got a lot to live up to.”
“I’m not stealing a shuttle,” Cara said.
“Wait,” her dad said. “You kind of already did that.”
“Petral did that, not me.”
“Then you were an accessory. That’s almost as good.”
Cara threw her napkin at him and he ducked out of the way, laughing. Em caught the napkin before it hit the floor and ran to the other side of the galley, growling and whipping his head back and forth like he’d caught a squirrel.
“Are you feeding that dog?” Fran asked.
“Yes,” Cara said. “I’m the only one feeding him.”
“Touche. See, she’s a teenager.”
Cara laughed. “I don’t know about all this expectation you’re putting on me.”
“Now you sound like your dad.”
Cara inadvertently glanced at her mom and saw the poisonous look she was giving Fran. She stopped laughing. She wanted to ask her dad to take her to shoot the pistol— it seemed like a good way to get them all out of the room— but she wasn’t sure what would happen if her mom wanted to come along, too. She looked down at her plate and smeared a glob of frosting with her fork.
Fran clapped her han
ds together. “Well, I’m getting out of here before I have to clean anything up. I’ll see you back on the command deck.” Fran squeezed Cara’s shoulder and was gone before Cara could respond. Cara looked after her gratefully, then shifted her gaze to her dad.
“Do you want to shoot the pistol?” she asked.
Andy was stacking plates in the sink. He dried his hands and nodded thoughtfully. “That sounds like fun. You done with your cake?”
“I’m done.”
“All right. Why don’t you take your gifts back to your room and I’ll meet you in the garden room. We’ll need to find something to shoot at.”
“That dog runs too fast,” Harl said.
“That’s not funny,” Cara snapped.
The soldier held his hands up. “Pardon me. They run wild on Ceres and get in the way of the terraforming project. Old habits die hard.”
“I guess,” Cara said.
“Now cats,” Harl said. “You don’t mess with the cats on Ceres. Even on the ring. They’re everywhere. You know people pierce the cat’s ears? It’s good luck if a one of those crosses your path.”
“I think I’m a dog person,” Cara said.
“An excellent decision for a teen,” Fugia announced. “You can make all sorts of decisions in life based on that one alone.”
“What kind of person are you?” Cara asked.
“I’m more of a digital pet person. Animals and me always seem to want different things. I had a pet parrot once and he was always making fun of me.”
“A parrot that made fun of you?” May asked. “Where was that?”
Fugia shrugged. “On Cruithne. The station is overrun with gray parrots. And they don’t mimic people, they come up with their insults all on their own. They can be quite cruel.”
“What happened to your parrot?” Cara asked.
“He died of old age. I was depressed for a year. It’s how I ended up on this current path, actually. I’ll have to tell you the story someday. But you’re wasting time with all these questions. Let’s get all this cleaned up and then I want to see you fire that pistol.”
“It’s not hard,” Cara said.
Fugia shook her head. “Says the young woman with military people for parents. Now, I can tell you how to disable the firmware on that pistol and remotely set it to backfire in your face, but I hardly ever touch the things.”
“You can?” Andy said, looking aghast. “They’re supposed to be hack proof the same way you can’t hack a hammer.”
Fugia looked smug. “I can hack anything with a battery. Try me.”
“Andy,” Lyssa announced over the speaker, apparently so everyone could hear. “We’ve entered Jovian local space. We just received a status request from the Cho Port Authority.”
Andy sighed. “Of course we did.” He pointed at Cara. “You put those things away and then we’ll go shoot holes in something. I’ll talk to the Callistans.”
“Yes, sir,” Cara said, saluting.
“There’s that teenage sass again,” her dad said, grinning at her.
Cara couldn’t help smiling back as he left the galley. She was thirteen and they were docking at the Cho, the biggest habitat in OuterSol. She was excited until she looked at her mom again and the feeling faded.
Cara gathered up her gifts, thanking people again, then went down the corridor to her new room, Em following along behind.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
STELLAR DATE: 10.01.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sunny Skies, Callisto Orbital Habitat (Cho)
REGION: Callisto, Jupiter, Jovian Combine, OuterSol
Despite Fugia Wong’s ongoing assurances that they wouldn’t have any problems with the Callistan security forces, Andy still found himself sweating during each interaction, from the initial registration verification to the onboard inspection he had to be willing to accept. Fugia had told him the ship wouldn’t actually get searched, and ultimately she was right.
“Don’t get in the way of their appearances, Captain Sykes,” she’d chided him.
As far as the Cho’s security services were concerned, the Worry’s End had been thoroughly searched prior to gaining inbound clearance to Cho Ring 3, colloquially called Chorin Tree as if it were its own nation, with thousands of suburbs making up the interior surface of the ring.
Every agent Andy talked to complained that traffic had tripled since the accident on Ceres. Most outbound cargo that had been scheduled through Ceres had been rerouted to Callisto, creating potentially millions of downstream delays as most of the OuterSol shipping maneuvers had to be resubmitted and rescheduled. Celestial bodies never stopped moving, so that meant everything changed.
The populations of the Cho, Europa, Ganymede and Io would see an increase in visitor trade, while the moons of Saturn and everything beyond would experience shipment delays that might affect economies for years. What all that meant for the Worry’s End, as an outbound ship, was Andy would have no trouble finding a cover job to get them all the way to Proteus. Most of the tradeboards were crashing under the rescheduling load.
As they entered a docking orbit aligned with one of the Cho’s thousands of shipping facilities, Fugia appeared on the command deck for the first time since the falsified customs check. Fran was in her quarters catching sleep in case Andy had to leave the ship while at the Cho, and Lyssa hadn’t spoken to him in more than an hour, apparently lost in her own pursuits. This left Andy and Fugia alone on the command deck.
“Captain Sykes,” Fugia said from the doorway.
Andy looked up from his control stats and nodded. “Yes?”
Fugia walked forward with her hands clasped in front of her. She was wearing a formal business suit in muted charcoal, her jet-black hair pulled back from her face. She looked much more severe than she had since coming aboard.
“You look serious,” Andy said.
“We’re preparing for the delegation that will meet Senator Walton. I wanted to talk to you about what’s going to happen when we finally arrive.”
“I’m just parking now,” Andy said. “Our short-term orbit has been approved until we get the shuttle off the ship and down to the terminal.”
“You received the arrival information I forwarded?”
Andy showed her the terminal number on his display and she nodded absently. He realized she was making small talk.
“Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?” Andy asked.
Fugia raised her eyebrows and pressed her lips together, an expression he supposed meant yes but she hadn’t decided if she was ready yet.
Andy needed to update the crew anyway, so he said, “I’ve already scheduled resupply and found a non-Heartbridge medical facility where we can take Tim. That was a more difficult task than I expected.”
“That’s good to hear,” she said.
“I can go ahead and plan a course for Proteus,” Andy said, “by way of Titan although I’ve always preferred Enceladus. Enceladus will be behind Saturn when we arrive. It would cost more. Mind you, if we leave in the next four days, we can get an approved route around Jupiter for a slingshot to Saturn that will save us a week.”
Normally the Jovians would approve a slingshot route without a time constraint, but they were trying to get ships to pick up their loads and move on to make more room in the traffic patterns.
He glanced at Fugia, expecting her to insert her opinion on the rest of their trip. Instead, she was staring at the holodisplay where Jupiter hung like a striped alien eye.
“Are you all right?” Andy asked.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Fugia said.
Andy sat up straighter. “Yes?”
“You brought us here, and I appreciate that. Yes, we had an agreement and you’ve mostly upheld your end of the bargain. I’m not sure we would have reached the Cho any faster if we hadn’t gone back for Tim but I understand that now. Needing medical treatment for a crewmember is actually an interesting cover that hadn’t occurred to me.”
&nbs
p; Andy gave her a sideways glance, wondering if she was incapable of caring about other people or if she was just so focused on her mission that she wasn’t aware that she sounded like a psychopath—or at least a raging asshole.
Fugia sighed. “These are my problems,” she said. “I’m not certain the group I plan to meet on the Cho will help us. Things have changed. I’ve become aware of two more AI that I didn’t plan on bringing, as well as the Weapon Born seeds your wife stole from Heartbridge. When I first organized this contact, I had three Weapon Born. Now I feel responsible for more than a hundred fifty, including my friend Petral. I have tried to communicate with the AI in the Heartbridge shuttle and she seems—disturbed. I also have no idea what the group we’re meeting is going to do when they learn about you and Petral. The idea of a hybrid human-AI lifeform is distasteful to parties on both sides.”
“Okay,” Andy said. “It’s nice of you to want to help Petral and the Weapon Born Brit stole, but those aren’t your problems.”
Fugia tilted her head as if he had said something dense. “It’s all one problem, Captain Sykes. You brought me here, that was our deal, but you’re as caught up in all this as I am. The group I plan to meet—if they don’t know about our situation already—will know when I tell them.”
“Then don’t tell them.”
“That’s not an option.”
Andy met her gaze. “I thought I could trust you,” he said. “Was that a mistake?”
Fugia didn’t look away. “It’s not about trust. The only way to get through any of this is by being honest. They are just as conflicted as we are. Some of them want nothing to do with humanity. Others believe it’s inevitable that our two species either learn to live together or destroy each other. Some of them want to leave Sol altogether. Maybe that would be best. But it doesn’t solve the problem that more and more AI are being made and placed into slavery every day. Something must change.”
Andy sighed. “I don’t know why I should have expected different. We’re going into Cruithne again. It’s always going to be that way. So what do we need to do? What do these people want? Money? Weapons?”