Void All The Way Down: The Sliding Void Omnibus

by Stephen Hunt

  He’s gone crazy out here, for sure. ‘So, what do you think?’

  ‘I think that I locate serial number on jump drive’s main matrix, and discover the shipyard it was supposedly manufactured in went bankrupt a decade before our engines were supposedly commissioned for the Gravity Rose. False. All false. We are not sliding void on a genuine ship, we are sliding void on something pretending it is a ship.’

  Calder hummed at the unlikely tale. ‘Yet you’re still working here?’

  ‘Paopao has been collected. Where else can I go? This is my haven, right here. It can be yours also.’

  ‘Do the other crew know?’

  ‘Why should they? This is the only ship that Captain Fiveworlds or Zeno have known. Polter has navigated for other ships, but who knows how a kaggen’s mind really works? Besides, our ship has collected both Polter and Skrat too.’

  ‘You haven’t told them? Not even Lana; I mean the skipper?’

  ‘In here, shielding protects against everything. But not out there. I am thinking armour protects our minds too. You can think clearly here, without interference. Our minds are safe. Our minds are clear.’

  Calder warily finished off his rice. Maybe the chief had deserted before they could decommission him through a hospital ship. That would explain a lot. Or maybe he had been collected, just like he claimed. He wondered what Lana Fiveworlds would think of the chief’s odd theory. But then, Calder had been thinking a little too much about what was going through Lana Fiveworlds’ mind, lately. It couldn’t only be because she was the only real woman within a couple of millions miles of their metal vessel, could it? After all, when it came to scratching itches, there were plenty of side-plots in every sim intended to get you closer to your fellow actors than was considered decent in a theatre circle back on Hesperus. And it wasn’t just that when Calder had Lana on his mind, he was able to stop brooding about Sibylla and her callously expedient jettisoning of him. It wasn’t even the liberating freedom that came from this being the first time Calder had come into contact with a member of the fairer sex when he wasn’t a noble, and therefore didn’t have to worry about the woman’s gaze continually flicking back towards the throne behind the man, rather than the man himself. He couldn’t blame it on homesickness, space sickness or the boogie. When it came to such matters, the heart knows what the heart knows, and it had to be admitted, there was something about Lana. Of course, she was also the captain, but then, Calder had recently been the master – more or less – of an entire nation, so what was a little differential in rank between classes compared to that?

  Thus it was that the pattern of Calder Durk’s first honest job – non-noble and definitely unregal – was formed by daily repetition, the labour allowing him to forget what had gone before and ponder with luxury what might come after. As the Gravity Rose built up speed and pushed out of the system, Calder rode the ship’s tubes to the hermit hunkered down in the armoured stern for each fresh day’s labour. When Calder emerged from the drive rooms, it would be with scraps of paper containing lists of manual tapes, halfway between an information virus and a sim – less painful than the former, a hell of a lot less entertaining than the latter – to locate in the ship’s data archive, play and master. Calder was glad that Zeno was still feeding him a selection of sim episodes – all in the name of civilising the prince, naturally. Playing catch-up with the last thousand years of history his abandoned world had missed out on. It made for a disjointed experience. A day of grafting under the exacting tutelage of the drive chief, followed by time-compressed months of high octane excitement, violence, sex and power trips in virtual landscapes. Then back to the real world, where only an hour had passed and the virtual universe would slowly fade to become as insubstantial as a dream. Given a choice, the chief never left the ECHO core; using the necessity of manning his command table to justify his ten-foot commute from makeshift den to the drive room centre and no further. Given that the tube network didn’t extend over the ship’s drive section, it meant that Calder had to spend a lot of time riding small onboard vehicles down seemingly endless drive corridors. Dropping off and collecting maintenance robots, or laying human eyes on oilers’ work to make sure it was up to standard. The only company on his trips were robots. They were more like dogs than droids, albeit hounds that could weld, hammer and diagnose engine faults. Following him around and grumbling in machine language, parroting simple instructions. They weren’t the demonic artificial intelligences of Amish mythology, they might lack the laconic street-jiving charm of Zeno, but the robots had a simple animal intelligence about them. Calder couldn’t read the Chinese characters painted on their bodies by the chief – little black marks of calligraphy whose brevity mocked the long names Paopao had given them… Electricity Bird That Rivets Well, Iron Turtle That Acts As Antihydrogen Reaction Analyst. Once he found a missing robot stranded down a maintenance corridor, narrowly avoiding running it over as the motion-activated lights sprung into life ahead of the rubber-wheeled cart he was driving. The robots on the back dismounted from the flatbed and surrounded the bot, warbling sorrowfully and poking it, before they arranged for a jump-lead to siphon electricity from the cart’s batteries into the robot’s powerpack. When it had been powered back up, they shepherded the lost robot onto the cart’s rear, chirruping ‘Broken positioning system’ at Calder for the rest of the journey. As if they expected Calder to disassemble the cart’s mapping system and swap it for the robot’s. In that one incident they had – at least to Calder’s eyes – demonstrated concern, pity and happiness. They might not be able to pass whatever tests of sentience that had transformed Zeno from property to citizen, but Calder could see why over time the chief had grown fond enough of them to give them names. It wasn’t an attitude Zeno shared. Zeno acted perfunctorily and emotionless towards the robots he was gang boss for across the ship. But then, perhaps the android was close enough to their kind to be more realistic about robo-management in the first place.

  One day, while searching for a rice sack in the chief’s den, Calder found an old fleet dress uniform sealed inside a rug-covered crate. A short blue jacket with three buttons on either side, rank stripes on the sleeves and a chief engineer officer’s striped shoulder boards. The sole clue to the uniform’s origin was the ship’s name on the cap – the TAFC Warrior. Later on, back in Calder’s cabin, he looked up the vessel’s name in the ship’s archive, but the only thing he found was the teasingly vague title of a redacted and recalled news item from fifty years ago. Mutiny on the jump carrier Warrior. Story sealed under NAVCOM authority. Declassification expiry in three hundred years. Well, that put a new light on things. Not so much collected by the ship, as avoiding collection by the fleet’s master-at-arms. It certainly explains why a crewman with Zack Paopao’s experience is holed up in an antique tramp freighter.

  ‘Everyone’s hiding from something,’ Calder told the dog-sized robot cleaning his cabin’s metal floor. ‘And they won’t find any of us out here.’

  ‘Please repeat your instructions…’

  ‘I want to go home,’ said Calder. ‘But I no longer know where that is.’

  ‘Indicate where you wish me to start . . .’

  ‘Everywhere and nowhere, you metal golem. Just like me.’

  ‘I need specific tasking . . .’ said the robot, brushes underneath it rotating as it washed the deck.

  Yes, I know how that feels.

  CHAPTER FOUR – The girl from nowhere

  Lana sat behind her desk in the day cabin, a hologram model of the Gravity Rose floating above the table, colour coded for areas of high hull fatigue, systems maintenance and ship repair requirements. When she had started out as the vessel’s skipper, that model had been painted as emerald green as a field of verdant grazing land. Now she was a blotchy red patchwork that looked almost as sick as the accounts of Fiveworlds Shipping. A little less healthy after every trip. Damn it, I’m not going to sell out. This ship is my life. She’s all I’ve got. But surviving meant Lana was going to h
ave to take on cargoes that would pay better. And out in the Edge, those were just the kind of loads that would be under surveillance by TAP agents. Smuggling was a dirty business, a trade as spotty as the model of her ship, but it was also a lucrative line of work, and the universe wasn’t exactly offering Lana too many alternative choices if she was going to stay afloat.

  ‘Which would be the cheapest repair to carry out and remove from our most urgent register?’ Lana asked the ship’s central computer, Granny.

  ‘Our solar panels,’ said a disembodied, honeyed voice from her desk’s interface. ‘Replacement would also save on the costs of main engine fuel being diverted to power our internal systems.’

  ‘What efficiency are the panels running at?’

  ‘Forty percent while in-flight at optimum range from a sun.’

  Lana waved the ship’s model out of existence as a knock on her door sounded.

  ‘Calder Durk,’ announced the computer.

  ‘Let him in, old girl.’

  Calder entered the cabin. He was looking hale and healthy on a proper diet, putting on weight under his crew overalls. But then, after seal fat and whatever the hell else they hunted back on Hesperus, anything and everything probably tasted good. Pure gravy. At least it is for one of us.

  ‘Mister Durk.’

  ‘Skipper, you said you wanted to see me.’

  She signalled the chair in front of her desk. ‘Just wanting to check that Zeno isn’t burning out too many of your synapses with his education regime. Being able to find your way to my cabin means you’ve passed my first test. Also, I wanted to say that we’re all quietly impressed by how well you’re adapting to life on board the ship. Life in the modern age as well. You’ve probably already realised you won’t get too much praise from Chief Paopao, but the fact he’s not bombarding me with calls demanding I transfer you to bridge duty is as good as it gets at the dirty end of this vessel.’

  Calder shrugged as he sat down. Was it Lana’s imagination, or was the man uncomfortable receiving praise? He stared at her with his young eyes. ‘Where I came from, captain, you didn’t get too many opportunities to learn things twice. Not even when your father is king.’

  ‘My father’s king. That’s a hell of a pick-up line. Well, you’re good to stay on board if you don’t feel your royal bloodline is being squandered kicking about the Gravity Rose. Otherwise, we’ll be heading for the closest thing to civilisation out in the Edge, a world called Transference. Transference Station is the largest port around these parts. Plenty of work to be had there if you want it, on the station or the world below, and a pretty solid state safety net to make sure you’ll never starve or die from lack of medical treatment.’

  Now Calder appeared more worried than embarrassed. ‘And what would I do at such a place?’

  ‘Whatever the heck you like. You’re not in the Middle Ages now. Take an apprenticeship, go for a corporate indenture, sign up for tape learning and accept whatever work comes your way. Damn, live in social housing, eat greasy vat-grown crap and bliss out on sims every hour you’re awake. You can relive the last millennia of human history in a year or so, catch up on everything you and your ancestors missed freezing your sorry asses off on Hesperus.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be living.’

  ‘Smart man. You’d be amazed how many people waste a lifetime coming to that conclusion.’

  ‘I’d prefer to stay on board.’

  ‘Most worlds that get settled by humanity aren’t like Hesperus,’ said Lana. ‘After you’ve felt a real breeze on your cheeks and the sun warming your hair, you might change your mind about staying as crew. When winter arrives on Transference, it won’t seem so different from home. And if you don’t care for the midges and drizzle dirt-side, there are plenty of orbital habitats inside the alliance that are larger than worlds now. Inside those places, you can set your watch by the time they turn on their artificial rain.’

  ‘I’ve only just discovered the rest of the universe exists,’ said Calder. ‘Or at least, I’ve realized the night sky isn’t a heaven full of warring gods…’

  ‘. . . and now you want to see it,’ said Lana. ‘I remember that feeling.’

  ‘But you were born on board this vessel, weren’t you?’ asked Calder. ‘I mean, you’ve inherited a starship. That means you were part of a ship family. The stars in your blood and all that…’

  The stars in my blood. Maybe they are. ‘Hell if I know,’ said Lana. Calder’s chiselled features appeared more puzzled than usual, so she continued. ‘You’ve boarded free trader vessels in those Hell Fleet episodes you’ve been skimming, right? Look around my cabin. What’s missing from the room?’

  ‘Pictures of the previous skippers,’ said Calder. ‘Maybe a few busts of them, too.’

  ‘Full marks. The way previous captains are venerated by a ship family is close to ancestor worship. But the truth is, I’m not sure if I was raised in a settled community or born on board a free trader. About the only thing I really know about myself is my DNA-dated true age and the fact that Lana is probably my real first name.’

  ‘You were adopted, raised in a children’s home?’

  ‘Not even close,’ said Lana. ‘I arrived at Transference Station as an adult, steerage on a refugee fleet escaping the civil war inside the Truespitze League. The League’s an independent confederation of twenty supposedly highly civilised systems that completely went to pieces over whether they should seek membership with the Triple Alliance, stay self-governing, or join a rival superpower called the Skein. You’ve got to give it to humanity, when we turn on ourselves; we surely do know how to do it properly. I was one of half a million fleeing refugees racked and stacked in cold storage. What the evacuation fleet didn’t over-advertise about travelling in cryogenic suspension, though, is the same shizzle they inject into your body to allow you to survive hibernation sleep has a one in hundred chance of giving you brain damage. A hospital put me back together again at Transference Station, but I lost all my memories escaping the civil war; although from what Zeno tells me of the conflict, I didn’t miss much.’

  ‘Zeno was there too?’

  ‘Crewed with the refugee fleet. As an android he was perfect for the duty – Zeno didn’t need oxygen during the voyage, and even in hibernation, so many refugees places a hell of a strain on a ship’s recycling systems. Zeno stayed on Transference Station a while working for the same refugee charity that had paid to pull us out of the war zone. That’s how we met – he’s been with me ever since. So what do I really know about myself? I was wearing a bracelet with Lana etched on it, so that’s either my first name or maybe my favourite cat. I have my true age, dated with a few years’ margin of error, from the hospital’s medical scan. I’ve never been matched to any known bloodlines, but then the closing arguments inside the League were debated with nukes and bioweapons, and there weren’t a whole load of local databases left to query after that. Must have been pretty desperate to be travelling steerage in a hibernation coffin, though.’

  Calder indicated the walls of her cabin. ‘If you were a refugee, how did you come to inherit the Gravity Rose?’

  ‘The ship arrived a year after I’d been discharged from hospital, through a blind trust and a lawyer who’d traced me, insisting I was the rightful heir of the Fiveworlds legacy. The lawyer told me the Gravity Rose’s entire crew complement was down on the League’s capital world when the first of the weaponized plagues struck. Whole planet was placed under quarantine and every shuttle that tried to lift was shot into atoms. The captain was the last to get sick and die, but before he did, he called the Gravity Rose and ordered Granny to push on out on auto-pilot, sub-light speed, and head for the nearest alliance peacekeeping station.’

  ‘But what about the crews’ logs, the ship’s records? Granny must be able to tell you more about your family?’

  ‘Story I heard from the lawyer was that Granny had been ordered to engage a law firm to trace any surviving kin, hand over the Fiveworlds family’s DNA pro
file to make that happen, then Granny was to erase her data banks. Fresh start and a blank slate for any surviving heirs. The ship’s robots had been ordered by the last skipper to clean out every cabin, load up all personal effects and records and jettison them into the sun. They did a thorough job. For all of the centuries on her clock, I got the Gravity Rose more or less factory fresh. My DNA was the only match the lawyer ever found among the refugees or in any alliance database. Maybe I was crew dropped off on another League world to work some side-deal? Maybe I was the skipper’s daughter, my parents suspected things might get hairy and they wanted to keep me safe, so they found an excuse to drop me off early? Whatever happened, it meant I was just lucky enough to get lifted out before those idiots in the League switched off the lights on their civilisation.’

  ‘Damn,’ said Calder. He sounded like he meant it.

  Calder’s worried eyes tracked her as she got up and walked over to the porthole, gazing out on the universe he wanted to see more of. ‘I’ve been following up various leads over the years, trying to piece a little more together about who I might be, but there’s very little to go on. I think the Gravity Rose’s previous crew were using the Fiveworlds Shipping name as an alias, a front company. They were into smuggling or worse, and operated off the grid as far as possible. There are no legitimate records of cargoes shipped by the vessel prior to me inheriting her – not as the Gravity Rose, and there’s no data trail inside the Edge of a ship family called Fiveworlds. So I don’t push too hard anymore. If I ever find out who I really am, I suspect I might not like the answer. But as I said, my first name probably really is Lana. As to the rest…?’ As she finished the story, Lana realised that she wasn’t even beginning to be ready to hand her nearly bankrupt vessel over to one of the big corporates. The Gravity Rose is the only home I’ve got, and all that’s left of my family, too. Damned if that’s worth swapping for a bank account stuffed full of money. What would I do without her? Buy a bar on Transference Station… sell drinks to spacers and bore strangers with stories of all the planets and the places I saw when I still had the stars in my blood? And what the heck would Zeno, Skrat, Polter and the others do without me, without the Rose? But deep down, she knew the answer to that. They’d find another ship to crew on. Maybe Lana could too, although no sane captain wanted an ex-skipper with a second opinion flashing in her eyes every time an order was issued. Lana would have to fake her license and change her name, and as it was, she was barely clinging onto her fragile second identity.