Tethered Worlds: Unwelcome Star

by Gregory Faccone

  Jordahk shrugged. "You're just saying that because you're programmed to encourage."

  "You know me better than that, kid. I'm not some trendy urban world companion."

  "Okay, Mr. Tough-as-granix." Jordahk examined the aged food-jerk. "Menu." Max displayed a VAD showing dishes the dispenser could make from its raw nutriment stores. "Any chance of getting an amaranth scone and maybe a Haelen trusteak to sate my non-hunger?"

  Max knew what his admin liked. On the VAD he was scrambling a number of nutriment preparation combinations for best tasting possibilities.

  Jordahk's observations were interrupted by a condescending voice. "You won't find Haelen anything in this infra-capable food-jerk."

  The data rider stood flanked by cronies who wore scoffs mixed with "better-than-you." He was clad in the trendy fad called the monochrome. Dynamic color clothes from treaders to neckline showed a smooth gradation from black to gray.

  He continued, "Look, grime, if you want fancy food maybe you should head for the Hex. Or easier still just stay on Adams Rush and let the Hex come to you." He smirked, apparently pleased with his wit.

  Jaw clenched and ears growing hot, Jordahk bristled. The "Hex" was how many referred to Perigeum-controlled space, at least in the Asterfraeo. "Grime" was a pejorative used typically by those who considered themselves cosmopolitan and enlightened. Most cutting, though, was the comment about Adams Rush, maybe because it was close to the truth. The Asterfraeo was a huge expanse of space, bordered on its oldest side by the Hex. Only a thin, irregular string of planets called the Palisades separated humanity's two largest political entities. This Perigeum gambit was bypassing those planets and their Vallum Corps muscle. Without intervention, Adams Rush would soon change into just another Perigeum member world.

  Jordahk faced the trio and sized up their leader with new determination. The data rider was a little shorter and thicker in a nonathletic way. He probably wasn't that far out of long adolescence, although once in vigere it was hard to tell. His pale hair was long for ship duty and streaked with strands of yellow blond. It looked like it got in his eyes a lot.

  Jordahk kept his eye contact steady. "Thanks for the tip, faux. But I'm no grime."

  The data rider didn't intimidate him, but there were three of them. Jordahk's mouth tightened. Despite all of his training, he lacked hand-to-hand confidence. He reckoned he was pretty good, but someone better was always out there. He felt a pang of fear, and it irked him.

  "Faux? I'm the ship's data rider, grime. The best you've ever met." He said it with obvious intent to impress his cronies, and they exchanged affirming glances.

  Jordahk's training kicked in, and he observed everything happening in the room. The two bruisers at the far table watched with expressions eager for entertainment.

  The data rider went on, "The name's Cranium Archimedes."

  The tactical thoughts came to an abrupt stop. Jordahk snorted in laughter. He couldn't help it. "Cranium Archimedes? Are you serious?" It had to be one of the most ludicrous fashion names ever encountered.

  The trio moved a step closer, and Jordahk put weight on the balls of his feet. Max read the situation and reconfigured the treaders for hand-to-hand. The heels flattened, the tops stretched up to his knees, and the shins pointed. Jordahk shifted as the ankles became flexible and the soles changed for maximum purchase on deck plates.

  Cranium looked over Jordahk's shoulder to the menu VAD, which was still up, then glanced down at Max's tarnished ring. "Why don't you take your ass, and your," Cranium couldn't stifle a derisive laugh, "cutting edge AI out of here until we're finished."

  Jordahk thought it all juvenile. They were pushing him on purpose. It was like being back in first school. Did he have to get into a pointless gymnasium fight to establish pecking order? Though the insult to Max irked him, it wasn't worth it. Besides, he didn't like the odds.

  He stepped around the trio toward the hatch. "Shut it down, Max."

  "Max? As in the Maximilian series?" Cranium said. "God of my mystic mother! You're like a walking museum. What did they make, three versions of that failed personality?"

  Jordahk paused. He could take personal insults, but for some reason those directed at his old, obstinate AI by this faux bothered him. Suddenly, he didn't feel like squelching the growing urge to punch Cranium right in his namesake.

  Emotional investment had to be done with care, and Jordahk did so along with most people in regards to AIs. Human society had long since passed the infatuation phase of getting too close to androids. The results back then weren't pretty. Nowadays those who trod too far down that path, either through laziness or foolishness, were usually nudged back into place by societal pressures or forced interventions. But his feelings were acceptable. Maximilian was a prized possession. Kord had gone to great lengths to secure the old personality AI from the estate of Vallum Corps General Curasam "Otto" Binkel.

  Jordahk turned back to face them. His feet felt light with redistributed weight. He lifted his right arm and made a fist, showing the tarnished compy clearly.

  "I've got real experience right here. Not simulated drak."

  The cronies exchanged dismayed glances, but by far the most aghast was Cranium's. "What? What are you even saying, grime?" he scoffed. "You think that relic, which couldn't plot an entry vector into a laver, would stand a chance against a Ralston v41?"

  Jordahk never cared for the popular Ralstons, but he respected their capability. He'd no doubt that every one of them out there had more raw processing power than Max. Had he sidestepped a pointless physical confrontation only to take it to an equally unwise place?

  "Max," he sub-whispered, "are you up for a thresh?"

  Computer hacking battles sprang from the seedy urban underbelly of the Hex's cosmopolitan worlds. A gang subculture known as the "octals" typified the practice. The unwise, in the wrong part of the city, might find a thresh with an octal unavoidable. They threshed for keeps. The loser lost his compy, and if lucky, little more.

  A personality AI could be backed up, but it was never the same installed in a new compy. An AI refashioned quadnapse structures over time. It was how they grew. Mystic AIs like Barrister were unique objects. They could never be separated from the compies in which they were created.

  Threshing long ago went mainstream. Competitions between friends usually simulated damage, but on the streets against rivals and enemies, it was still "anything goes." The winner sometimes found his prize a burnt out compy and lobotomized AI.

  "Running scenarios now versus a late model Ralston," Max link-said. "Hmm. Not the best odds. Are these dolts worth it?"

  "You've got a high opinion of yourself," Jordahk said to the data rider. "What did you say your name was? Inflated Cranium?"

  He wasn't the insult type, at least when it came to giving them. He thought himself past such things by Midday Celebration, some 10 years ago. Apparently maturity was a life-long endeavor.

  His mother would chide him, and rightly so. Where was she right now? Was she even alive? He forced his thoughts away from that line. His parents inculcated current mission focus. Not the next one, and certainly not the last one.

  "So jerkwater planet boy thinks he can thresh with men," Cranium said.

  "It's your reputation," Jordahk retorted.

  Cranium nodded with satisfaction and then calculation. "Alright, grime, it's thresh on!"

  The room erupted in excitement. Financial VADs popped up. The bruisers stood. The larger of the two produced platinum group coins that he slapped down on the table. The ship must not have seen a lot of action or entertainment lately. A thresh apparently counted as both.

  The cronies talked to each other excitedly, and one ran out of the room. He returned a moment later dragging two more people—a man with dirty hands and a tired looking woman.

  "The cronies and newcomers are all hands," Max link-said. "The big guy over there with the platinum coins is the engineer. The slightly less big guy with him is the hands foreman."

>   Vocational boundaries were crossed as everyone came together in a wagering circle festooned with financial VADs. Talking became haggling. Real metal clinked. People were betting tangible assets along with coin lines.

  Jordahk gawked on, a little amazed. "Max, where's this ship been?"

  "The logs tell of a long string of boring missions. The captain's risk-averse nature tends toward small profit milk runs that are below even what this bucket's capable of. It's 'patrol' in name only."

  "No wonder they're clamoring for any kind of action."

  A new, larger VAD appeared showing the odds. A fresh round of banter rolled through the group. Someone stuck at his station somewhere on board wagered remotely. Even Cranium placed a bet, although Jordahk noticed he and the engineer remained on opposite sides of the circle.

  "How many are betting I can win this?" Jordahk asked.

  "None. All wagers currently fix Cranium's victory time."

  "Great." The incredulity of the entire situation leaped to the fore of his mind. The Perigeum was making its biggest move in years. His parents were back on Adams Rush probably—hopefully—fighting for their lives. And these dolts wanted to hassle a kid with an old compy? He tried to lighten his outlook. "Doesn't anybody here watch cineVADs? Am I not the good guy, Max? The spunky underdog?"

  "Well, you haven't been very spunky lately. Although, considering what I'm finding, you definitely qualify as the underdog."

  "This guy's thresh record?"

  "Fragments only. Apparently Cranium wipes any recording of his threshes. I correlated that wipe pattern with ancillary log entries and a poorly secured coin line file. One of the hands is quite sloppy with their finances."

  "'Poorly secured?'" Jordahk chided.

  "It was a Gortys substitution algorithm on a seventeen-sided sphere. I could've cracked that the day Otto Gen slipped me on his finger."

  Jordahk shook his head. "Max."

  "It practically decrypted itself. Barrister gets away with worse all the time. Don't worry, I didn't disturb a thing and covered my tracks."

  "So what did you find?"

  "It seems Cranium threshes at every port. Many of the crew tag along and bet as a means of supplementing their income. According to the coin line, betting on Cranium pays off. Financial losses usually occurred on too aggressive opponent capitulation wagers."

  "This just keeps getting better," Jordahk said. "Can you confirm any losses?"

  "I estimate around two dozen port threshes; three draws and only two confirmed losses."

  Jordahk refused to give in to defeatist thinking. He doubted this guy was more skilled or more teched up than his father. He and Kord had threshed for over a decade since he'd received Max. Every year Jordahk's winning percentage improved, and this year he almost broke even. That was pretty good against a strategy expert and military AI.

  "One loss was versus an octal," Max went on. "That timestamp corresponds with a run to the Hex. The other is on the opposite end of human space, deep in the Asterfraeo. Checking the nav logs. Looks like he took a beating on Demeter."

  "Demeter? He probably pushed somebody with a mystic AI."

  "Quite possibly."

  Demeter was one of the last planets colonized as a Sojourner society, as Adams Rush once was. Far removed from Perigeum media pressure, the younger Demeter never voted away their Sojourner heritage.

  It was said that some Sojourners did not retreat through the TransVex after the Sojourners' Crusade, that some, and their descendants, chose to live as imprimaturs on distant Asterfraeo worlds like Demeter. Legends said some Sojourners refused both paths and instead founded enclaves in distant space. Who knew?

  Max put a wall of anti-sound between Jordahk and the excited gamblers. "I've run fourteen simulations versus a Ralston v41 using our tactics. You and I are used to being processing power deficient. I believe most of our stratagems to compensate will be effective."

  "So it won't be a hardware blowout. Let's open up defensive and see what he does before we commit to a strategy."

  A pit developed in Jordahk's stomach. He doubted it was hunger, but it reminded him of the rarely felt sensation.

  "I just wanted a bite to eat." He noted the animated circle and shook his head. "Let me hear them, Max." The AI dropped the anti-sound, and he was treated to boasts, bets, and if he was reading it right, implied threats. The engineer was pushing his weight around, almost literally. "What's the engineer's bet?"

  "The bulk of his coin, a rather large sum for a person of his means, requires our capitulation in under three minutes. It's the most aggressive wager. He has small covering bets going out to seven minutes. If we last longer than that he'll be out the entire hefty sum."

  The engineer grabbed Cranium by his jacket, impressing the importance of an early victory upon the smaller man.

  Jordahk didn't like bullies. Must they be a universal constant? "Is there any way to welch?"

  "No. All funds except the hard coin are held in escrow by the ship AI."

  "Yeah, but who's going to pry that hard coin out of the engineer if he loses?" The scent of food was fast being overcome by an odor that reminded Jordahk of his first school gymnasium.

  "The hands foreman looks almost as big. His bets are more or less opposite to the engineer's. He's still wagering we'll lose, but his bets skew later."

  "That's what passes for neutrality on this friendly bucket? I feel like the lone marshal in a frontiern."

  "Maybe," Max offered, "but who's the black hat?"

  The hatch slid open, and all eyes turned to a maintenance bot as it ambled in carrying something. "I have it," it droned, its voice a stark contrast to the energy in the crewroom.

  "A thresh ball," Max said.

  A thresh required only physical contact and two compies, but a thresh ball made it more entertaining. It generated large, vivid VADs from independent halves. It linked with active walls displaying the most exciting developments. Using a thresh ball turned any match into a media event.

  Jordahk rolled his eyes. "This crew is starving for entertainment."

  The bot placed the thresh ball on the deck in the center of the room. VADs winked out above the gamblers. The master odds board moved to the active wall opposite the food-jerk. People could modify their wagers right up to the last second based on whatever they could glean from observing Jordahk. To that end, all eyes turned his way.

  The circle widened as Cranium swaggered up to the ball. "Come on, grime." He glanced over at the odds. "We're not going to have much time to play."

  Jordahk stared out the crystal panes to the cool, undulating colors. Space could be lonely. When the Sojourners first came out here they had no one upon whom to rely. They forged their own destiny from nothing. "Space is big," He said to no one in particular. He turned away from the panes and approached the circle.

  "Hull-down, Max. Make us small. Harden the perimeter. I don't want him seeing anything but impenetrable granix."

  Some of his words were picked up by the crowd, and the odds changed fractionally. Jordahk saw no one had bet on him to last more than eight minutes. "Max, put me down for a hundred at nine minutes plus."

  The odds board pinged the update, and a round of murmurs went through the crowd. Cranium regained the attention by flinging off his jacket with a flourish, revealing a sleeveless shirt. The murmurs stopped, and a chant started building. It was muddled at first, then unified and clear. "Ra-zor! Ra-zor! Ra-zor!"

  The engineer wasn't participating, choosing instead to eye the data rider as if he were an animal capable of laying platinum group ingots.

  "This can't be good," Jordahk mused.

  From his belt stor-all, Cranium raised a pattern etched ring compy for all to see. If anything, the chants grew more intense. Jordahk's brow crimped. After all this guy's bluster about the latest Ralston, he was going to thresh with something else?

  The data rider did not take the Ralston off. Rather, he put the new compy on the finger next to it. Jordahk was dumbfounded. Unders
tanding of what he was seeing had not dawned.

  "I know of no commercial AI named 'Razor,'" Max link-said.

  The chanting stopped with a cheer as Cranium said, "Razor online."

  An intimidating amalgamated roar of a dozen wild animals sounded. Then a deep, sinister voice obviously designed to strike fear said, "Systems integrated. Razor is ready." Jordahk's eyes grew wide. Seeing this, the data rider gave a satisfied snigger.

  This was an octal practice many found vile. A compy won when an octal threshed for keeps could be subjected to subservience chaining. The individuality of its AI lobotomized, and a new super persona created from the elements. These "violator AIs" weren't just used for threshes. Their reputation for hacking was notorious.

  It required specialized skill to create a violator, and Jordahk wondered how this data rider had come to possess one.

  "Tats on Razor," Cranium said.

  Tattoos emerged first on the backs of his hands, and then spread all the way up his arms, covering his shoulders. The overlapping patterns formed hard edges and lines. The polychromatic color scheme effervesced, igniting the lines with energy. They grew up the side of his neck and head culminating at the center of his forehead.

  Cranium stood proudly. Shimmering pulses of colored light cascaded outward from his forehead through the complex angular patterns. He looked like a cyborg turned inside out.

  "He's..." Jordahk paused. "An octal."

  "Ohrias must not reveal that until there is need," Aristahl said.

  Circumscribed by VADs, he watched Barrister update streaming code. He paid close attention to logic trees and possible occurrences. Ohrias needed to be a very smart data-construct. Like the peeling of an onion, new revelations and occurrences would open up access to more information.

  "Repair options. One day he will end up at Demeter," Aristahl thought aloud. "Perhaps begin his own search for Adranus. Let us cover the obvious first." Barrister updated the logic and swapped in new information. "Did you obtain an updated Atalantia yards roster? Some of our old connections may aid Jordahk."