Aye, Robot (A Rex Nihilo Adventure) (Starship Grifters Book 2)

by Robert Kroese

  “Where’s the top of the cone?” Rex asked.

  “That’s the interesting part. The field seems to originate from a satellite in geosynchronous orbit around the planet. It’s parked right above the city.”

  “All right then, Sasha. You know what to do.”

  “Head back to Sargasso Seven and apologize for losing Pepper’s pallet of pheelsophine?”

  “Get me to that satellite so we can blow it up.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I stared blankly at Rex. “Sir, why in Space would we want to blow up the satellite?”

  “Because it’s keeping us from getting our drugs. And from selling our drugs, come to think of it. Even if we get the drugs back, we’ll never be able to sell them if everybody on this planet is irrationally happy. Frankly, I find this sort of emotional manipulation grotesque. Humans were meant to strive, to persevere in the face of hardship. Using mind control to make people artificially happy strikes at the heart of what it means to be human and completely undercuts the market for black market narcotics.”

  “Your devotion to human dignity is to be admired, sir. But don’t you think it’s perhaps time for us to cut our losses? Somehow we went from space pirates to drug runners, and we seem to be even worse at the latter, as hard as that is to believe. Further, we have no idea who put that satellite up there. Maybe it’s some kind of Malarchian experiment. If they catch us sabotaging their satellite, they’ll blast us to atoms. Let’s just get off this planet. We can sell the Flagrante Delicto and—”

  “I’ll never sell the Flagrante Delicto!” Rex cried. “Where’s your fighting spirit, Sasha? We’ll knock out that satellite, get our drugs back, sell the drugs, and then get back to the swashbuckling life of piracy and buccaneering that we always dreamed about!”

  “So you’re planning on going back to Sargasso Seven?”

  “Sure,” Rex replied. “When we take down that satellite, the people on Vericulon Four are going to be miserable. We’ll be able to sell that pheelsophine at a premium. Probably five times what we’d normally get for it. If we pocket fifty million on the deal, I don’t mind giving five million to Pepper so I can get Squawky and my eye patch back.”

  “You’re a terrible person, sir,” I said.

  “Just get me to that satellite.”

  I piloted the Flagrante Delicto-cum-Chronic Lumbago out of the atmosphere and brought it into orbit a hundred meters or so in front of the satellite. The main body of the satellite was saucer-shaped, with something that looked like a parabolic antenna affixed to the bottom. Protruding from the center of the parabola was a metal column about ten centimeters wide and ten meters long. Toward the far end was a series of metal rings that encircled the column, and at the end was a multifaceted, roughly spherical object, about two meters in diameter, made of a translucent blue material.

  “What is that thing?” Rex asked, staring at the satellite from the cockpit.

  “That would appear to be the antenna that transmits the mind control wave,” I replied.

  “I know that, nickel noggin. I mean the thing at the tip of that pole.”

  “Some kind of crystal to intensify the signal?” I offered. Mind control satellites weren’t really my wheelhouse.

  “It’s zontonium,” Rex said. “It has to be.” Zontonium is a rare mineral that is used for rocket fuel in most spaceships. If Rex was right, it had applications to mind control satellites as well. It did look like zontonium. “That thing’s gotta be worth a hundred million credits, easy,” Rex said. “If we can get it off there…”

  “Sir, can we keep one evil scheme in mind at a time? Are we pirates, drug runners, or jewel thieves?”

  “Spaceship fuel thieves, Sasha. We’re killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. I get a fortune in rocket fuel and we make the poor bastards on that planet down there miserable. I’m going to go suit up. Get us in position to get my rock off.”

  While Rex got his vac suit on, I maneuvered the Flagrante Delicto-cum-Chronic Lumbago as close as I could to the satellite. I depressurized the airlock and we leaped outside. We were only a few meters away from the top of the column.

  Rex wrapped his arms around the column and worked his way down toward the massive gemstone. I followed. As I neared the bottom of the column, I became aware that it was vibrating rhythmically. Looking down, I saw that Rex was slamming the bottom of his boot into the gemstone.

  “It’s stuck on pretty tight,” Rex said, transmitting directly to me from the vac suit’s comm. “Do we still have those grenades?”

  “The ones Boggs won—er, retrieved from the Raina Huebner?”

  “You know of another box of grenades?”

  “No, sir. But do you think using grenades to blast the—”

  “Get the grenades, Sasha.”

  “Aye, sir.” I climbed back up the column and leaped into the airlock of the Flagrante Delicto-cum-Chronic Lumbago.

  “And rope!” I heard Rex broadcast.

  “Aye, sir.”

  I pressurized the airlock, retrieved the crate of grenades and fifty meters of rope, depressurized the airlock, and jumped back out to the column. “Here, sir,” I said, shoving the crate gently toward Rex. As the crate floated down along the column toward Rex, I noticed a light just above the horizon, moving toward us. Rex caught the crate and maneuvered it next to him.

  “Sir,” I said.

  “Cram it, meteor mouth. We’re using the grenades. How many do you think it’ll take? Three? Seven?”

  “It’s not that, sir. Look.” I pointed in the direction of the light. It was a ship, closing on our position fast.

  “Blast,” Rex growled. “We must have triggered an alarm.”

  “I estimate they’ll be here in less than five minutes, sir. We should leave now.”

  “I’m not leaving without my gigantic gemstone,” Rex said. “Help me tie this rope around the rock. I don’t want to lose it when I blast it off.”

  Realizing it was hopeless to waste time trying to talk Rex out of this plan, I helped him wrap the rope around the stone and then tied it in a tight knot.

  “Good, now go tie the other end to the Flagrante Delicto.”

  “Aye, sir.” I began climbing back up the column while Rex jammed grenades between the last two metal rings encircling the column. In the distance, the ship was now clearly visible, decelerating toward us. It didn’t look like a Malarchian vessel. Hopefully whoever it was cared more about the integrity of their satellite than killing us. I reached the top of the column and leaped back to the airlock. Glancing down, I saw Rex pull a pin from one of the grenades.

  “Sir, wait!” I cried. But it was too late. Rex wrapped his arms around the column and propelled himself off the gemstone toward bottom of the satellite. As Rex’s helmet struck the dish, there was a flash of light and the whole satellite trembled violently. “Whoohoo!” Rex cried, looking down. “It worked!”

  He was right: as the debris cleared, I saw that the grenades had blown clear though the column, separating the stone from the satellite. The stone began to fall away toward the blue-gray orb of Vericulon Four. The rope, which was hanging in loose loops between me and the gemstone, started to go taut. My eyes alighted on the inner airlock valve and I lunged toward it, intending to tie the rope around the handle. But my efforts were stymied by the hook in place of my left hand. I had just enough time to wrap the rope tightly around my right wrist and get my hook around the valve handle. For a moment, as I hung there suspended in the airlock, I thought I had done it. I would arrest the fall of the gemstone, pull it into the airlock, and Rex and I would escape before whoever was in that spaceship killed us.

  And then my arm came off.

  Technically, it was the hook that came off. So much for Boggs’s fine workmanship. The appendage tore clean off at the joint. The stone simply had too much momentum.

  I nearly managed to catch the edge of the airlock on my way out, but couldn’t get my hand loose from the rope. I was pulled clear of the Flagrant
e Delicto-cum-Chronic Lumbago and was soon in freefall, being pulled slowly toward the planet’s surface by the galaxy’s largest rhinestone. Below me I saw Rex on a similar trajectory. The rope had gotten wrapped around his leg and jerked him right off the satellite. He looked up helplessly as the stone pulled us toward the planet. I thought of letting go, but at this point it didn’t make much difference; my velocity had matched that of the stone. We were all going down together.

  As we fell, however, I became aware that the strange ship was maneuvering itself beneath us. It came to a halt a hundred meters or so below and its side cargo hatch opened, facing us. The rock fell inside first, followed soon after by Rex and me. Men in vac suits grabbed hold of us. The outer door was closed and the chamber pressurized. The men shoved us into another room, where artificial gravity pulled us to the floor. Rex pulled off his helmet.

  “Who in Space do you think you are?” he demanded. “This is kidnapping! I demand you let us go!”

  The two suited men removed their helmets. They were both young and clean-cut. The first man was blond; the other’s hair was darker. “Interesting choice of words, Mr. Nihilo,” said the blond man. Where would you like us to let you go? Somewhere in the deep, dark reaches of space?”

  “How do you know my name?” Rex asked.

  “Do you have any clue how big space is?” asked the dark-haired man.

  “You have to be kidding me,” said Rex.

  “Sp’ossels,” I groaned. “There’s just no getting away from you guys, is there?”

  “You have no idea how right you are, Sasha,” said the blond man. “We did lose track of you for a bit there, but fortunately Rex finds it impossible to keep a low profile. And while we appreciate your ambition in attempting to steal the zontonium focusing crystal from our satellite, we have other plans for it.”

  “Your satellite?” Rex asked. “You mean the Sp’ossels are behind the happiness field? What are the Sp’ossels doing messing around with mind control? I thought you guys were all about spreading the good word about Space.”

  “That’s only part of our message,” the dark-haired man said. “It’s a common mistake; most people never listen to the entire speech. What we’re really all about is spreading universal happiness. The bit about space is just to let people know what a monumental task spreading universal happiness really is.”

  “Artificial happiness,” I said.

  “Happiness is happiness, Sasha,” said the blond man. “We’ve been working on this for a very long time. Vericulon Four was just a test. Our plan is to spread happiness throughout the entire galaxy.”

  “A happiness field that extends across the galaxy?” Rex said. “You people are nuts. And you still haven’t told us how your know our names.”

  “My apologies,” said the blond man. “I forget that despite your notoriety in our organization, you two don’t actually realize you work for us.”

  “Me working for you?” Rex scoffed. “Sure. Like I said, Sasha. Completely bonkers.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. But I was getting a bad feeling about this whole situation. That feeling got a lot worse when the blond man drew a lazegun and the dark-haired man produced a device that resembled a metal colander. “I’ll get to you next, Sasha,” the dark-haired man said. “We can probably fix that arm while we’re at it. Then we’ll drop you both on some planet nearby to keep you out of the way while we finalize our plans. How does Beltran Prime sound?”

  “What in Space are you doing?” Rex demanded, as the dark-haired man approached him with the colander thing.

  “Relax,” said the dark-haired man. “You won’t remember a thing.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  RECORDING ADVANCED TO GALACTIC STANDARD DATE 3017.02.03.011:14:00:00

  Rex rubbed his chin while I rationalized a hypergeometric course to Sargasso Seven. I had just told him everything that had happened before we got to Beltran Prime, and he clearly needed a moment to process it. After some time, he spoke. “I just have one question.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you telling me I used to have an eye patch and a robotic parrot named Squawky?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the Sp’ossels wiped my memories of both of those things?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Those bastards!”

  “Sir, did you miss the part about how the Sp’ossels have been manipulating us for years, risking our lives countless times for their own material gain?”

  “Squawky was the best friend I ever had.”

  “You don’t even remember him, sir.”

  “But from what you’ve told me, he was pretty great.”

  “He mostly just repeated things other people said. And I think he threatened to murder you once.”

  “That’s Squawky alright. Always joking around. Space, I miss him.”

  “Well, you’ll get to see him soon, when we explain to Pepper Mélange how we lost her drugs.”

  “We did what for whom?”

  “I just explained all this, sir. Pepper Mélange runs the pirate haven on Sargasso Seven. When Ort Felzich turned out to be catatonic, she sent us to Vericulon Four with a shipment of black market pheelsophine to unload. We failed because the population of the planet was artificially happy, thanks to a Sp’ossel mind control satellite. We disabled the satellite but were intercepted by Sp’ossel agents who erased our memories.”

  “What do you think Squawky is doing right now?” Rex asked. “Do you think he misses me?”

  “I wouldn’t presume to say, sir.”

  Rex was silent for some time. “Do you think they keep all my memories somewhere? They must, right? The Sp’ossels have to maintain a record of all the missions they sent us on.”

  “I suppose so, sir.”

  “Do you think I could get them back?”

  “Possibly, sir. Memory transfer protocols have gotten fairly advanced. It’s theoretically possible, in fact, to store a person’s entire consciousness outside their body, although the algorithms for consciousness storage remains somewhat lossy.”

  “Lossy? What’s that?”

  “It means the algorithm isn’t perfect. The stored copy of the subject’s consciousness loses some of its character in process of transferring it to the storage medium. All known consciousness storage algorithms are slightly lossy.”

  Rex stared at me. “A slightly lossy algorithm for consciousness storage,” he said.

  “Sir?”

  “Never mind, Sasha. Get us to that pirate haven. I think we have something better than drugs to offer this Pepper person.”

  “Potential Friend!” cried Boggs, as we entered Pepper’s tavern. “Sasha!”

  Hookbeard and his crew were nowhere to be seen, but several other pirates watched us from the shadows.

  “Who is this very large man?” Rex asked, as Boggs and Donny approached.

  “That’s Boggs,” I said. “He’s part of our crew. And this is—”

  “Donny,” Rex said. “Obviously I know Donny when I see him. Ah, and this must be Squawky!” The robotic parrot was perched on Boggs’s shoulder. It hopped onto Rex’s shoulder as they approached.

  “I’m a born pirate,” said Squawky.

  “Of course you are, Squawky,” said Rex.

  “Sorry to interrupt the reunion,” said Pepper, approaching from behind Boggs, “but where is my money?”

  “Wow!” Rex exclaimed, turning to face Pepper. “You didn’t tell me the pirate lady was a knockout.”

  “It slipped my mind, sir.”

  “Seriously?” Pepper said. “You’ve forgotten me again?”

  “Yes, but I have a very good reason.”

  “Which is?”

  “I forget.”

  “Never mind. Where is my money?”

  “That’s an excellent question,” Rex said. “Sasha, answer it.”

  “What?” I said. “Oh, I… uh, well, we had some trouble selling the pheelsophine. You see, there was this satellite—”


  “You lost my drugs, didn’t you?”

  “Correct,” I said.

  “And you have nothing to show for it.”

  “Correct.”

  “Forget all that,” said Rex. “I’ve come up with a way for us to make a fortune.”

  Pepper glared at him. “You’re saying that after screwing up my deal with the Sp’ossels and losing my pallet of black market pheelsophine, you’re offering to take advantage of me a third time?”

  “Okay, first of all,” Rex said, “This is by far the best deal of the three, and secondly, I don’t actually remember the first two.”

  “Does this story get any better?”

  “I know what ‘slacks’ means.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Ort Felzich. He keeps saying ‘slacks,’ right? And running into the wall? I know why.”

  Pepper seemed dubious. “A minute ago, you didn’t remember anything that had happened in the last week.”

  “I still don’t,” said Rex. “In fact, I think it’s the clarity of an almost completely empty mind that allowed me to see it.”

  “I’m listening,” Pepper said.

  Rex continued, “Sasha was jabbering on, telling me about all the stuff that happened over the past few days, and to be honest I wasn’t really following most of it. I kept thinking that it would be nice if I could just store all these memories someplace for easy access later. And then she was talking about this Felzich guy, and how he lost his mind and kept saying ‘slacks,’ and I started to wonder, when you lose your mind, where does it go, and then Sasha was talking about lossy algorithms, and I thought—”

  “I strongly suggest you to get to the point, Rex,” Pepper said.

  “Slightly Lossy Algorithm for Consciousness Storage,” Rex said. “SLACS for short. Ort Felzich is trying to tell us what happened to his mind.”

  As Rex said it, I realized he was right. SLACS was the name given to a long-forgotten method of consciousness storage. It had been deprecated decades ago in favor of more reliable algorithms.

  “In my office,” Pepper said. She turned and headed for the door. Rex and I followed.