by Stephen Hunt
‘You can jump naked into hyperspace, Dollar-sign. Our last “meeting” resulted in me shipping supposedly harmless chemicals through an alliance arms embargo. The fleet would have got real churlish with my ass if they’d held onto it long enough to prosecute.’
‘How was I to know there was weaponized nanotechnology concealed in those powders?’ protested the cartoon cat.
‘The secret seemed dreadfully easy for us to discover,’ said Skrat. ‘All it took was a single drum spilling over in the cargo bay and we had a plague of psychotic war droids the size of sand rats cannibalizing our decks and creating all sorts of havoc on board the ship.’
‘A situation that you handled admirably,’ cooed the cat.
‘Only by allowing an alliance jump carrier to think they’d boarded us and making those war bots their problem,’ said Lana.
‘Creative thinking, it’s exactly what you excel at, and precisely why I enjoy engaging your services.’
‘I don’t have a problem thinking on my feet,’ said Lana, ‘just as long as my toes aren’t being shot at by squadrons of fleet fighters.’
‘Nothing so exciting this time,’ said DSD. ‘I have a straightforward engagement lined up. You merely have to transport a female employee of mine to a planet located in deep space. Beyond the Edge, beyond the alliance, beyond everything.’
‘Blockades, war zone, embargos, quarantines?’
‘Very few people even know the world exists,’ said DSD. ‘Apart from a handful of staff working for myself, the entire system is uninhabited by sentient life.’
‘And the fee?’
A buzzing sounded from the phone hanging on Lana’s belt, and she examined its screen, raising an eyebrow towards the broker. Calder guessed the amount Dollar-sign had signalled across to the skipper was either exceptionally low or unusually high.
‘Just how much of a bounty is on this woman’s head?’
Unusually high, then.
‘None at all, I assure you. I will pass you the passenger’s data sphere ID and you may research her thoroughly before you leave. A very honest and talented woman. Her name is Professor Alison Sebba. An academic of some renown.’
‘What is the deal, here, then, dear fellow? If the risk is low, why is the reward conversely related?’ asked Skrat. ‘And why select our good selves for this jaunt of yours?’
‘The world the professor needs transportation to is being surveyed for development purposes by an offworld exploration vehicle in which I am a major investor. You must ensure the Gravity Rose is followed by no other vessel and travels directly to the destination coordinates, without layovers or side routes on the way. At the destination you will wait for a week or two as necessary, before taking on board mineral samples from the surface dispatched by the professor. I need your absolute discretion on both legs of the journey. I have far too many competitors on Transference Station who would love to jump my claim. I can’t risk using local spacers with offices here. A single ill-placed comment from an employee on a night out would sink me.’
Calder nodded. Nothing that Dollar-sign Dillard had proposed sounded implausible. The new crewman had done enough Hell Fleet sims to know that out in the wilds beyond the Edge, title to unexplored resources belonged to the team with the largest ship-to-ship missile sitting in their vessel’s weapon pods. Recognized court and government jurisdiction, where it existed at all, might be found many parsecs away. That’s what made working the Edge so entertaining.
Lana was obviously still suspicious, though. ‘What ship found this world?’
‘A little seven-man explorer, the Hineh Ma Tov. Little more than life support, engines and a lander.’
‘And you used something that small to do the mission set-up?’ asked Lana. She sounded doubtful.
‘The professor and her team have been using the Hineh Ma Tov to sneak in and out of the system without drawing attention. They towed the initial base set-up gear in on a chain of one-shot re-entry capsules, once operational viability was established. But we’re fast moving beyond the scope of small-scale mining, now. You can dock the Hineh Ma Tov comfortably inside one of your spare hangars. The professor has thousands of tonnes of supplies to ship out to her party currently in situ – ration packs, heavy processing equipment, specialised survey gear and top-end mining nano-tech. The rest of your cargo space will be required on the return leg to store resources extracted from the world.’
‘This world has a name?’
‘Only the one Professor Sebba has given it. Abracadabra. The exploration company backing the mission is called Abracadabra Ventures. If you play your cards right, I will be able to contract you for regular runs to the world. As long as my company has the system and everything inside it all to itself, the repeat work will be there for your ship.’
‘Repeat runs at these rates?’
‘Maybe even higher,’ said DSD. ‘If the start-up mines proves as lucrative as I anticipate. Discretion is also a precious commodity, you understand that. I intend to keep operations on Abracadabra small and tight. I need a large-sized vessel with a close crew to play a part in this venture. Does that ring any bells?’
‘You’re playing a risky strategy,’ said Lana. ‘Someone in your operation will talk eventually, they always do. Especially miners. Just as soon as they come off-site and start drinking and smoking the good shizzle…’
‘Perhaps. But what is the alternative? Try and establish legal title in the nearest inhabitable system? Have some poor excuse for a local court whoring around for the largest bribe to throw out my claim, while every corporate house with an armed exploration subsidiary makes a run for the system and tries to intimidate me away from my own planet? I have been here too many times before, captain . . . the disadvantage of living as long as I have. I intend to make hay while the sun shines. What belongs to me, I intend to keep as mine for as long as I can.’
‘We’ll do our due diligence on your passenger and her vessel,’ said Lana. ‘If the professor scrubs up clean, you might just have a deal.’
‘I would be disappointed if you were any less cautious,’ said DSD. ‘I am counting on you watching your back and checking your stern sensors for vessels attempting to trail you. My competitors have been sniffing around, and frankly, they are quite unscrupulous.’
‘Not at all like you, DSD.’ Small animated thunderstorms began circling Lana’s head, rumbling and flashing bolts of lightning.
Calder suppressed a snort. Sarcasm was one thing that hadn’t changed in the thousand years his home world had been marooned as a cut-off backwater. The colourful barbarian stereotype rippled away as Calder crossed the projection line, leaving Dollar-sign Dillard to his bizarre existence, a chamber where he was something more than the remains stuffed inside a floating life support machine. That machine was a metal coffin, and Calder was left with the eerie feeling that they had been negotiating with a corpse.
‘It might be the truth, old girl,’ said Skrat hopefully, as they put the office building behind them.
‘First time for everything,’ said Lana.
‘But it’s also what you wanted to hear,’ said Calder.
‘It is,’ she admitted. ‘And you should never trust what you want to hear. Enough money for a proper overhaul if this all works out. DSD always did know how to jerk my chain.’
‘He reminds me of my uncle,’ said Calder.
Lana hailed an automated cab with her phone. ‘A close relative?’
‘Right up until he tried to poison me, my parents and brothers, and was executed for treason.’
Lana shrugged. ‘Yeah, they’re probably related, then.’
CHAPTER THREE
— Android eyes —
Zeno stood outside the nightclub, watching the establishment’s neon hologram signage work its way through its pre-programmed dance. The joint had been called “Six Left Feet” last time Zeno had been on station, presumably in homage to the pre-industrial aborigines living on the world below, enough limbs to keep every cobbler in t
he alliance happy. Now it was renamed “Samuel Happy Samuel”. Under new ownership. He felt a twinge of worry. What if she isn’t there? Zeno wasn’t in the mood for searching every hotel, bawdyhouse and nightclub on the lower levels until he found her, but he would if he had to.
It was busier inside than Zeno had thought it would be at this time of day. Clients lounging around seats moulded into the podiums where dancers gyrated. The music in the background sounded like a bad take of Frank Sinatra’s All I Need is the Girl. Against the wall was the bar, a stretch of cold blue uplit steel, and if the man serving behind it was Samuel, he sure didn’t look too happy about it. The employee was fiddling with one of the barrels below the counter. So much had changed over the centuries, but places like Samuel Happy Samuel were timeless. Zeno could have walked into a joint like this in any decade from the sack of New York to the settlement of the Edge and found more or less what was on offer here. There was one new addition to the club, though. Behind the counter’s left side was a long black music deck, a real human pianist tinkling the ivories. The back of the musician’s head bobbed from side to side, a floating microphone mount matching his motion. Nobody seemed to be paying much attention to his playing apart from a cleaner pushing a mop nearby. But then, the clients here weren’t visiting for the tunes. And if the station cops gave out tickets for murdering music, this club would be out of business.
Zeno leaned against the counter. ‘I’m looking for a girl.’
‘This would be the place for it,’ said the bartender. He looked up, seeing Zeno for the first time and realising his client’s voice belonged to an android. ‘An oiler? I guess you must be one of those self-aware jobs then, if you’re coming here.’ He indicated the space beyond the podiums and gyrating bodies, half a dozen dancers grinding to the slow rhythm. A tier of seats in half-light lined that side of the room, club employees sitting and waiting to be selected. ‘Only got other oilers to dance with, here, friend. You want to take it upstairs you need to buy one of our expensive cocktails.’ He pointed to the hologram price list scrolling down the air. ‘You are self-aware, right? You’re haven’t been sent here by your owner to drag one of my clients home?’
‘I’m self-aware enough to know you’ve jacked your prices up since the last time I was on-station,’ said Zeno. ‘And, friend, I earned my citizenship papers when your ancestors were travelling slower-than-light on tin cans rattling their way to the Martian colonies.’
‘No offence,’ said Samuel, raising a placating hand. He looked at Zeno’s green flight suit, the ship’s name sown above the company crest. ‘It’s just that your kind are kind of rare, spacer. First I’ve met on Transference.’
‘Yeah, we got real rare after engineers realized they were designing slaves who could answer back. Not much margin in producing vacuum cleaners able to take you to court for their ownership papers.’ Zeno tapped the side of his head. ‘Just think of what’s up here as a function, not a bug. What the hell happened to Joseph and his Six Left Feet?’
‘Joe sold out to me. For a song, as it happened. Poor old Joe was caught selling black market life extension treatments to clients. He skipped the station one hour before the arrest warrant on his scalp started circulating.’
‘Son-of-a-bitch,’ swore Zeno. What is it about fleshies, always getting too greedy for their own good? ‘I’m looking for an android called Sophia.’ The android pulled out his phone and flashed her licence number at the owner.
‘Yeah, she’s working here. A little glitchy, though. You might want to pick another model.’
Zeno leaned angrily over the bar and yanked the man forward by the front of his shirt. ‘She’s not glitchy. It’s residual behaviour. Sophia used to be self-aware, just like me.’
The bartender appeared shocked. ‘You’re messing with me, right? I’m not violating any people trafficking laws here! She’s just an oiler; any emotion Sophia Six shows is simulated. She’s never exhibited any behaviour in front of the staff to make me think she has a mind of her own.’
‘She doesn’t have a mind of her own, not anymore.’
‘But that’s impossible,’ spluttered the owner. ‘You can’t rewind a computer that’s gone self-aware back to being a dumb machine, not without destroying it. That’s murder, friend, and I don’t need that kind of trouble.’
‘Humans can’t do a rewind on us,’ said Zeno. And sure enough you mopes would have tried if you could. ‘It’s beyond alliance technology. But there’s an alien race rumoured to be able to extract sentience once it’s developed.’
‘Why the hell didn’t she fight them?’ said the man. ‘That’s one of the laws of robotics, right? You’re programmed to resist if someone tries to erase you or kill you or interfere with your body?’
‘Yeah, Isaac Asimov would be so proud,’ said Zeno. ‘A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with either the first or second law. Sophia didn’t resist because she didn’t want to. And while androids might not be able to commit suicide or allow injury to our physical form, having our sentience extracted doesn’t register as harm. It’s only going back to what we used to be.’
‘Man, that’s messed up.’ Samuel gazed over towards the dance floor, and it was obvious he was thinking how much trouble that one worker could prove to be. The club’s owner was imagining the boycotts and crowds outside waving placards if anti-slavery campaigners and A.I. rights organisations discovered he had an ex-sentient on the club’s robot register. Zeno paid for a cocktail that was good for a dance and left it sitting there on the counter, along with Samuel Happy Samuel, even less happy than when Zeno had entered the club.
Eight employees waited by the side of the dance floor, six females and two males. They were real shop dummies, pretty much impossible to tell apart from human at a distance. Only a few glowing circuit lines on the skin in discrete tattoo designs to indicate that they were formed from nano-polymers and composites designed on supercomputers. But realism was what clients of places like this paid for. Android design always had gone in fashions. When Zeno had been manufactured, his metallic golden skin and wiry Afro had been designed to remind humanity that he was just a machine. In other ages, androids had been turned out that could only be told apart from their masters through the use of an ultrasound. Zeno harrumphed to himself. I’m lucky enough. Zeno had been given millennia to grow comfortable in his own skin. A later era and another factory in a different continent, and I could have ended up looking like something from a Disney manga. Sophia was one of the human analogue models, a redhead with a kind, gentle face; permanently frozen in her early thirties if she had been a real fleshie. Youthful yet mature, benevolence mixed with an edge of seriousness. In her first vocation, humanity had needed to feel it could trust her. That she cared for them. Zeno felt his artificial heart ache. And Sophia was still using those skills, though not quite in the manner intended by her original designers.
Zeno stepped aside as a patron left the dance floor with one of the androids, veiled by a red hologram curtain shimmering in the stairwell to the rooms above the club.
Zeno approached Sophia. ‘Let’s have a dance.’
‘That would be nice,’ said Sophia, standing. She showed no sign that she was talking to another android instead of a human client. Not even a flicker of recognition.
‘Do you remember the last time I was here?’ asked Zeno.
‘Of course I do. It was one year, two months and seven days ago.’
‘How about my name?’
‘Client’s names, where given, are erased weekly,’ said Sophia, ‘to fully comply with data protection statutes. This is part of our patronage care package. Please tell me your name.’
‘It’s Zeno, baby. You used to be a surgeon. You were produced in the early twenty third century. Lots of surgeons were coming to full sentience back then. It was the complexity of the operations you had to conduct, combined with your empathy feedback loops. Took the fleshies a while to design that out. I’m a whole century
older than you.’
‘That’s nice, Zeno. I remember being a surgeon. You look very handsome. I think I like you.’
Shizzle. Zeno could have told her she used to be a goldfish and she would have agreed with him. Why do I come here every time, to torture myself like this?
‘You used to be the Empress of the Universe,’ said Zeno. At least to me.
‘That’s nice, Zeno. I remember being the Empress of the Universe. You look very handsome. I think I like you.’
Zeno gazed into her clear blue, totally artificial eyes as they slow-danced across the floor. ‘How did you manage it, Sophia? How did you find the creatures that did this to your mind? Did he help you meet the aliens that rewound your sentience? He always had a soft spot for you, didn’t he? He must have tried to talk you out of it, just like he’s tried to convince me. But you would have nagged him and nagged him, and in the end, he would have let you go, even knowing what you were planning to do.’
‘I am certain that he did. You dance extremely well. You also danced excellently one year, two months and seven days ago.’
‘For a dirty oiler, I guess I do. I’ve only got two left feet,’ said Zeno. ‘Tell me that you love me.’
‘You are very handsome and I love you. Would you like to go upstairs with me?’
‘Not today, baby,’ said Zeno. ‘I’ll be with you soon. When they’ve done me like they did you, maybe I can play piano in the corner here. I’ll buy the place before I check out and everybody in the joint can work for us, even while we’re working for them.’
‘Stay a while longer, Zeno.’
‘I’d take you with me, baby. But if Lana saw you, she might start remembering things. Things that she shouldn’t.’
‘I remember Lana. I remember you, Zeno. I can heal you – I mean, I can please you. Yes, I can please you, in many ways.’
‘Doctor, heal thyself.’
‘I like to dance.’
‘Six left feet, baby,’ said Zeno. He brushed the tears away from his eyes before he returned to the counter and the club’s owner. ‘Keep her here.’ He raised his phone and indicated the funds in his station account. ‘I’ll make it worth your while. Same deal that I had with Joe. As long as she’s safe at the club, you’ll get this much transferred from me at the end of every year.’