Tethered Worlds: Unwelcome Star

by Gregory Faccone

  Capt. Luck would have to retire soon and almost assuredly sell the ship. Using their stakes as down payment, both Chaetan and the siblings had a good chance of coming out shipowners. Jordahk doubted they would ever go in on it together. Somebody was going to sell his or her stake.

  "Now, instead of mentally plumbing the depths of the TransVex," Cranium said, "let me show you the stone gym. Probably the only place aboard you haven't seen other than the inside of my sister's cabin."

  "Stone gym? I've used the vigor room on this..." Jordahk was about to say tub. "Ship." It held a few muscle stim and other machines. It also sported an old interactive VAD system useful for group exercise and martial arts forms, but it had no physical feedback. "It's adequate, but I'd hardly call it a 'gym.'"

  No crew space on the entire ship, including the bridge, was big enough for a planetside style gym. Cranium turned down another corridor, and Jordahk followed.

  "I know you're not used to shipboard life," Cranium said, "at least a ship like this. I've done a little digging on you."

  Jordahk protested, but the data rider cut him off.

  "You're not just running," Cranium said. "Look, adam, we're getting paid a lot of coin to bring whatever crazy crusade you two have in mind to a successful conclusion. We're burning the Asterfraeo getting to the first stop. I want you on top of your game when we arrive." His expression lost its cocksure quality for a moment. "We need that coin, grime. We're doing our part. I want to make sure you're up to yours."

  A large chunk of the Monte Crest's bow section and lower decks were dedicated to cargo. Cranium led Jordahk amidships where most of the habitable cabins were located. The two clambered down standard stairs to the lowest deck. The area was sparse and unfinished. It had the feel of ship space rarely used. They moved toward the outer hull.

  Before Jordahk was a purplish gray bulkhead flecked with white, pink, and dark bits. It felt like smooth rock to the touch. Of course, he knew what it was. They say it resembled the purple variety of puddingstone. He'd never seen natural puddingstone. Adams Rush had none.

  "Granix?" he said. "The hull already?"

  "No, grime, all the major cargo hold bulkheads are granix." Granix was one of the more commonly used longchain materials. It was hard and heat resistant. Initially processed to a polymerized slurry of plutonic rock, it could be set in molds of any shape. That made it the economical and versatile choice for spaceship construction.

  Cranium moved down to a heavy-duty hatch and manipulated physical locking mechanisms. The hatch opened to reveal a large granix walled chamber.

  The stone gym, Jordahk mused.

  The stark cargo compartment was fitted with a locker room and sported a muscle stim machine, a resistance trainer, and a terrain mill for cardio training. Some still preferred the old method for such things, eschewing forced stim machines. Jordahk was trained too hard in the real world by his parents to have formed much of an opinion either way.

  The far wall was actually the first layer of outer hull. A VAD was set up creating a large window-like view across it. The feed from an outboard eye showed the striking colors of manifold space. It added subtle, shifting shades to the chamber's sterile light. The deck was covered with easy to install cushion tiles of a type used on low-budget space stations.

  At the center of the high ceilinged chamber stood Glick. Suddenly, Jordahk felt like an intruder.

  He'd spoken few words to Glick since the thresh. She was professional but cold. Jordahk thought she blamed him for the whole mix-up with Chaetan, but that situation was already raw when he stepped into it.

  Glick breathed heavily, covered with a fine sheen of perspiration. Her treaders were configured for hand-to-hand. Black skin pants went as high as her rib cage. The top was a tight garment resembling spiderweb. It was gauzy, white, and probably had additional functions. Jordahk began sub-whispering a query about it to Max, but stopped when he remembered Max was with Aristahl and Barrister getting checked again.

  "Hold," Glick said as her eyes met Jordahk's.

  Across from her a rather battered humanoid maintenance bot replied. "Holding."

  Jordahk was no expert on robots, and he knew that people often projected human traits onto machines. Even so, he came to the conclusion that this maintenance bot would like to be anywhere but here, even polishing outboard communication spars in manifold space. Perhaps one reason, or two in this case, were the metal sticks Glick held. Each was as long as her arm.

  Longchain metals were expensive and only incorporated into selected parts of average maintenance bots. The exterior of this maintenance bot wasn't longchain. It could still fend off metal sticks though, suffering minimal damage even when wielded by enhanced human strength. But if such a thing as a maintenance bot's dignity existed, it was bruised as much as its supranamel coating was marred.

  Glick's eyes remained locked on Jordahk. "What're you doing here, Clutch?"

  Cranium probably retreated to what they considered their private gym regularly, if not for vigorous workout. So, the obvious meaning was: What are you doing here with him?

  "Give an adam a break," Cranium said. "Don't banish someone to the anti-vigor room. The guy needs to keep his edge." Glick was unmoved. "And we need the coin," the data rider added for punctuation.

  The truth of his last statement wasn't lost on Glick. She stood still and glistening, maintaining her staring match with Jordahk a few seconds more, then turned her eyes back to the bot, in concession but not defeat.

  Jordahk let out a sigh of relief and breathed. How long since he'd done that?

  Relieved, Cranium took off his ship jacket. "You two really need to get over it," he said. "I don't need this intensity on top of everything else." He went over to a machine. Jordahk noticed it wasn't the traditional cardio trainer.

  Jordahk changed the subject. "This place is nice. I feel like I can finally stretch out."

  "This hold and the matching one port side were designed for live cargo," Cranium said. "In this bucket's past life it probably brought replacement crews to outlying stations. That's why these two holds have full environmental controls and plumbing."

  The sound of rapid-fire metal striking metal drew Jordahk's attention back to Glick. The maintenance bot's arm extensions did their best to counter Glick's fast stick dance. Her hands were almost a blur, and the sticks were a blur. The bot did reasonably well parrying the blows. That kind of programming wasn't maintenance standard.

  "Your handiwork on the bot?" Jordahk asked Cranium.

  Cranium answered from his machine, where he was investing minimal energy. "Of course. Otherwise any infra-capable maintenance bot would give my sister about two seconds of challenge. The trick is matching the stick routines to their maintenance algorithms. You've got to work with what you've got."

  Jordahk was slightly impressed. He took off his long coat and set his treaders for running. A thought came to him as he stepped into the terrain mill. Connections could be drawn between the data rider's actions.

  "During the thresh, that mirage trick," Jordahk said, "where your core seemed impervious. How'd you work that?"

  The mill started up after he input a few settings. Jordahk felt textured hard air form underneath his treaders to simulate various terrains. Unfolded metal spars whirred around him, generating colored hard air shapes. Lo-res woods formed in the air before him and moved past as he ran. He felt the push of soft air fields keeping him centered as he jumped, the ground passing below as if his leaps covered real distance. Ducking, hurdling, and pushing obstacles out of the way, Jordahk never left the mill's two-meter square base. The visuals weren't convincing, but the exertion was real.

  "I captured how your AI perceived my defenses," Cranium said, his smugness returning.

  Jordahk breathed deeply from exertion, and the time between conversational responses lengthened. "There's no way Razor could've cracked Max's search patterns... Not in that short time. They're designed to thwart AI analysis."

  Cranium savored the
little victory. But eventually, his insufferable grin became too much for even his sister to bear. The constant thwacking of the sticks stopped. She stared at her brother for a moment, shaking her head before shifting her gaze to the terrain mill.

  Jordahk spoke commands to the mill's pea brain, upping both speed and difficulty. It dawned on him how much he missed exertion in an organic environment, even simulated. Additionally, the openness of the stone gym eased his mind. He moved with skill built by long years of practice. Considering how hard his family trained, some of those years were long indeed.

  The pace increased again. He jumped over swaths of simple blue representing streams, pushed aside branches of hard air, and vaulted fake boulders. Jordahk thought old-style cardio training wasn't so bad, or maybe he'd just been too cooped up.

  "He sees patterns," Glick said.

  Cranium tilted his head back, sighing loudly enough to be heard on the bridge. Jordahk felt a little shocked. This might be the first time Glick had voluntarily addressed him. He commanded the mill to a stop and stood, breathing heavily. His eyes met Glick's for just a second. Hers contained no warmth, but neither was there the disdain to which he'd become accustomed.

  Jordahk looked at Cranium. "You see patterns?"

  "I see patterns."

  "Yeah, I got that part. What's it mean?"

  The data rider thought for a second and glanced once at his sister before answering. "I don't know, it's an intuition thing. I've always had it." He smirked again. "It's part of what makes me such a good data rider. And despite recent events, what gives me a winning edge in threshes."

  Despite his knowledge of Sojourners, and even his strange personal experiences of late, Jordahk was still skeptical. "What, you can see something where AIs don't?"

  "Sometimes they see it. Sometimes, to them, it's just uninformative data."

  Jordahk was still unconvinced.

  "Just believe him already," Glick said. "I don't feel like listening to his ego again." She whispered a command to the maintenance bot, and they began a complicated form of dodges and weaves with no strikes connecting.

  Jordahk couldn't pin down her style. It was a mix.

  "Something about the way your Max analyzed with probes triggered it," Cranium said. "I don't know when I'm going to see something, but I have a bunch of routines standing by for when I do."

  "Handy." Jordahk's dry tone encapsulated his effort toward keeping Cranium from inflating. Credit was due, though, even when the receiver was insufferably overconfident. "Preparation time well spent, adam," he added sincerely. He moved to an open area to stretch. "It explains a lot. Not all, but a lot." The lackadaisical way Cranium exercised also explained a lot—a lot about why he was out of shape.

  Blood flowing, Jordahk felt exhilarated. He started moving through pankido routines. He noticed Glick out of the corner of his eye. She moved with purpose, and if it wasn't graceful, it was fluid, with no wasted motion. Her lifetime therapy, be it retta or ravelen, definitely included above-average physical enhancements.

  While that was the case with almost everyone's lifetime therapy these days, Glick had honed hers to the next level. She knew how to take advantage of every asset. To Jordahk's surprise, he found himself mentally adding to that list of assets. He had always seen her dressed in baggy pseudo-military wear. In this skin-conforming exercise outfit with the gauzy spiderweb top, he all at once realized she was quite... feminine.

  Jordahk turned away. He put hands on hips and shook his head, admonishing himself. His disciplined thinking had flitted away. This was definitely not the time for distraction, especially in a most pointless situation. His mission, whatever it was, depended on this ship and crew. For all he knew his life might be in her hands tomorrow. As for today, she was more likely to kick him in the—

  "Pankido," Glick said, interrupting his thoughts.

  It was still startling being addressed by her. Certainly she wasn't addressing her brother. The closest he veered to a martial art was a cineVAD. Jordahk turned to face her and found that doing so was harder than just a moment before. He blamed her outfit for only a moment before getting a hold of himself. He centered his mind in his forehead. The little mental exercise rebuilt his stimuli buffer, helping him not be unduly swayed by words—or sights.

  "It is," Jordahk said.

  Being elusive and hiding it was pointless before her trained eye, the same eye that was now examining him with an intensity not seen since the thresh.

  "You a dan?"

  "My parents and I don't do rankings." Jordahk thought that came out a little haughty. So he added, "We travel a lot."

  With his mind centered, he let pass a pang of guilt and sadness at the mention of his parents. It was a quiet victory of which Glick was completely unaware.

  Unimpressed, she said, "I know a little pankido."

  Jordahk didn't doubt she knew many styles. He knew others as well, learned from scores of masters. Okay, so most of those student/teacher relationships lasted only a couple of months before he and his parents moved on to the next world to host another seminar. But pankido was the style in which he had the greatest depth and most confidence.

  Glick inclined her head toward the center of the hold. "Perhaps you could run through some forms with me."

  Her innocent tone was subtly predatory.

  Glick did not break eye contact. Intimidation pressed for a foothold in Jordahk's centered mind. It was clear whom she thought prey. He opened his mouth.

  Suddenly, Cranium was there between them using more energy than any expended in exercise.

  "Glick!"

  "You're crowding my orbit, Clutch," she said.

  The woman's eyes never left Jordahk. Her brother took an uncommon stand against her obvious wishes.

  "This is our orbit. We're nearing hill bottom, and I'm trying to tune him up. What're you trying to do, rupture his spleen?"

  Jordahk didn't fully understand the shipboard dynamics, and this was no exception. "What are you talking about?"

  "Why do you think she's in here battering a bot?"

  "Oh shut it," Glick said.

  The data rider glared back at her, and amazingly, it gave the woman pause. Even this slight blunting of her momentum was new and atypical. Cranium kept his eyes on her, but spoke to Jordahk.

  "Adam, I love my sister." His tone softened. "But she has a little problem holding back. Everything is war to her."

  Glick broke eye contact with Jordahk, glanced at her brother, and turned away.

  "I would've been dead a dozen times if not for her," Cranium continued to Jordahk in quieter tones. "Raetia wasn't a good place."

  "Raetia?" Jordahk said. "The system that fought off the egress? My father respects that."

  He made quick calculations regarding the siblings' age. Glick was about 10 years older than her brother. Their ages were right to have been kids during the climatic final years when the Perigeum disassembled the Raetia egress. Ironically, it was that very egress now being reassembled above Adams Rush.

  "Well, don't believe the cineVADs," Cranium said. "It was a mess then, and it's still a mess now. The Egov knows how to be spiteful." Sadness tinged his voice before cynical dispassion returned. "That's the past, adam. Our present, on the other hand, requires you being in one piece."

  "You done, Clutch?"

  Glick pushed her brother, who staggered back a couple of steps. Jordahk was never this close to her. Her toned shoulders complemented the athletic build. Her tan-modded skin contrasted quite pleasingly with the white top.

  "Just thought you might like a little human sparring to get up to speed," Glick said. "I'm tired of banging around radiated repair-jerks." Her tone was even, neither aggressive nor passive. "My brother finds his human challenge facing off inside a computer. I prefer flesh and blood, face-to-face."

  Glick slackened her posture, making it more relaxed and less threatening. A faint beep was followed by both metal sticks collapsing down to pinkie-sized rods. She placed them in her trans
lucent sleeves above each wrist.

  "Do you ever wonder why you never get the same sparring partner twice?" Cranium interjected.

  Jordahk thought big picture. From what he could tell, the captain was growing weaker, and the crew had to decide whether to support Chaetan or the siblings. Events and destiny cast his lot with these two. Now would be a good time to strengthen those bonds, even if it was a little painful. Plus, Jordahk wanted to interact with her.

  "Just some light sparring," he said.

  "Just some light sparring," Glick echoed.

  Cranium turned away, shaking his head. "For Khromas' sake."

  Jordahk observed her subtly, past the sculpted exterior and beyond her hunter green eyes. He couldn't be sure what was there but suspected he would find out soon.

  "Do you know the first or second pankido rings?" he asked.

  Glick's posture straightened, returning her to full height. He was only slightly taller.

  "Also the third ring."

  "Third ring?" Jordahk was impressed.

  It would be good to do a ring. Outside of his parents, the third ring was an experience usually relegated to advanced classes at traditional dojos. Even if the programming could be found, trying it with bots was definitely not the same.

  The two walked onto the center area's double-layered cushion tiles. Cranium grumbled under his breath and sat back down on his machine. He didn't use it.

  Jordahk gave Glick a slight bow in the formal tradition. She returned it with equal formality. Then the two began the choreographed third ring spiral. It contained dodges, strikes, and locks. Jordahk couldn't help but notice how warm Glick's body was when he first grasped her arm.

  Pankido rings weren't just about knowing moves. Performing them was challenging, the second requiring more skill than the first, and the third quite difficult. Jordahk's eyebrows rose. She performed her half of the third without flaw. It was especially impressive since his third ring was out of practice, and he stumbled twice. He also hesitated once, allowing the ring's next strike to catch him squarely in the ribs. He staggered to one knee for a second, took a deep breath, and stood to continue.