by Ginger Booth
The physicist ignored her advice, and swapped his helmet for faceplate as she had. “Oh, that smells good! I’ve never smelled anything like that before. Feels great, too!”
Not to be outdone, Sass slipped off the top half of her pressure suit, down to a short-sleeved T-shirt, upper suit dangling from her waist. Teke quickly acquired that boiled-lobster look around his face-plate, but he still followed her lead.
Then they took their marks and raced, sprinting for the bio-lock door, fresh clean air on their bare arms. The taller Teke would have won the race, except he was staggering by the time they reached the door. Eli and Cope supported him the last couple steps.
Sass focused on getting the physicist inside, and safely on the mend, instead of exulting further in the great outdoors.
The Yang-Yangs were equal to the challenge of restoring him to perfect health. Of course Sass looked fine by the time they made it through the decontamination showers. But Teke took only a few seconds of mild skin exposure before Sylvan’s air began to disable him.
Another question answered. Exposure to this atmosphere was lethal, except for Sass. Even Denali air was safer. Yet Sagamore and the space platforms were worse. Outside the domes they had no air at all, and temperatures low enough to stun and kill.
Too bad the Denali weren’t willing to terraform. Earth could be reborn here.
Maybe. Though having seen the mama smurf with her cub, and these majestic forests, Sass sympathized with the Denali viewpoint. To adjust this atmosphere to Earth-normal would cause extinction for every species on the planet. They’d keep pitiful samples in a climate-controlled zoo. That would be tragic. Especially if the terraforming failed. The end result could be Sylvan’s Garden of Eden rendered into a lifeless ice-bound rock ball.
7
“Ah!” Cope moaned, and settled to his favorite stair, legs out, three up from the mid-landing overlook to the ship’s hold. Darren Markley, his fellow engineer, collapsed into his seat at the engineering podium by the cargo lock. Nico’s feet dragged as he plugged in his suit to recharge, about to settle into cleaning the inside. “Leave it, Nico. Recharge air and water, and hit the showers. Great job out there today.”
“Hear, hear!” Darren confirmed.
“Thanks, Dad,” the youth murmured. Rather than climb, he flicked his gravity and hopped up to the catwalk.
“Cope,” the engineer corrected. “I mean, you can call me Dad. But Dad Ben was third officer at your age. You’ve got the chops, too, Nico. So don’t go pretending you’re my flunky. You’re not our equal. But you’re getting there.”
“Exceptional with the hunters,” Darren agreed.
Sass wandered out of officer country. She leaned on her arms to claim a section of railing at catwalk forward, diagonally across from Nico. “Some reason we’re all calling across the hold?”
“Yes!” Darren affirmed in triumph. “Because we can! The greatest thing about house guests is when they’re gone.”
Sass laughed aloud. Eli stepped out of his cabin behind and above Cope. “Can anyone join?”
“Of course,” they chorused.
At this, Tikki peeked out, too, from the cabin beside Eli’s. He and Kaol shared a small bath with Eli next door. “Even me?”
“Why not you?” Cope asked. “Though you two could move that way instead of standing behind me. Cuz I ain’t moving. Mind if I sleep on the staircase tonight, cap?”
“Yes. But you’ll get up to find a bathroom eventually. So are the hunters satisfied with the accommodations?”
Nico vanished into his cabin, Eli affably shifted to the middle-aft catwalk, and Cope caught a glimpse of Tikki traipsing into the galley.
“After last night in the hold, and two days of hard labor? They’re sleepwalking. They’re delighted.” Cope frowned at the spotless hold. “Hey, Tikki Cook! Did you clean up after those swine?” It wasn’t his job.
The housekeeper replied, “Who wants beer? Iced tea? Tall glass of water?”
Sass headed into the galley to tell him what everyone liked best and help carry.
“What joy for tomorrow for you guys?” Eli inquired.
“Hunters plan to scout the local woods,” Cope replied. “Maybe cut some trails. Darren, Sass suggested platforms. Easier to level than the ground. I thought I’d make a sawmill.”
“Excellent idea,” Darren agreed. “Clearly wood is the building material of choice. I built the Schuyler saw-works. If you want me to take that project.”
“You dog! Hell yeah! Can I help? You can show me how it’s done.”
Darren chuckled. “You’ve aspired to this long? Building a board saw is a bit far afield of spaceship mechanics.”
“I enjoy new things.” Cope happily chose a beer from Tikki’s tray. His good cheer fled as he took in the bruise ripening on the pretty younger man’s cheek and eye. “Who hit you? Cap, did you see this?”
Tikki stepped over him and continued downstairs to offer drinks to Darren. The elder engineer met Tikki’s eye and smiled at him gently. “Thank you, Tikki. You don’t need to wait on us hand and foot. If we’re too lazy to grab a beer, we don’t need it that badly.”
The geisha shrugged. “You’re tired. Would you like a neck massage?”
Darren laughed. “Very much so. But not from the housekeeper. No, thank you, I’m fine.”
“Did you get an answer?” Cope asked Sass, now dangling her legs from the mid-hold catwalk beside Eli, nursing her beer.
Sass countered, “Do I grill you on personal problems, Cope? If Tikki doesn’t want help, we respect the grown man’s choice. Though I would add that if Tikki wished for our assistance, we would happily resolve the matter for him.”
“Happily and thoroughly,” Cope growled. “Count on it.” Tikki hesitantly claimed a seat on the park bench under the scrubber trees, only visible to the engineer through the steps by craning his neck.
Then the crew door opened which Nico had lately fled into. Floki emerged, and hesitated at the catwalk railing. “Am I allowed to join?”
“Wow!” Sass replied. “Why is it that my crew thinks they need permission to join a round of beer? Cope?”
“Cuz it’s obviously my fault!” Cope retorted. “Bird! Come! Sit!”
“Oh, that was friendly,” Sass critiqued. “No, I lead this ship. Any social discomfort is a failure of leadership.” She took a swig of beer. “Though team-building was a whole lot easier when we spent weeks together in space between points A and B. And were too broke to live ashore.”
“That,” Cope agreed. He peered through the steps. “Tikki, I think you’re an outstanding housekeeper. Floki, I’m impressed by how you’re shaping up as novice crew. Ask me anything. Sit by me with a beer. Or don’t. But I’d appreciate if you stop avoiding me. I’m crusty, not a monster.”
Eyes wide and fearful, Floki stepped down the stairs and tiptoed over Cope, giving him an intimate view of the robot emu undercarriage along the way. Which was interesting. Cope would never have dared ask. But no, the robot didn’t appear to have any bonus…orifices…merely access panels to its innards. The engineer blew out softly in relief and nodded to the AI warily.
Floki turned his overlong neck toward the captain. “Shall I address this question?” His beak dipped. “Social interaction is very difficult to master.”
“You’re doing fine,” Sass assured him. “It’s up to you whether to argue with a grouch. I don’t recommend it. But I do it, because Cope knows I love him.”
“And now she’s talking about me in third person,” he growled. “Up yours, cap.”
“Screw you, too, Cope!” Sass blew him a kiss. “See? Cope and I understand each other.”
Cope reached out a hand and patted the emu’s shoulder. “Floki, Sass has over a hundred years’ practice dealing with people. I prefer machines. Model yourself after her, not me.”
“I should blow you a kiss?”
“No. Never mind.” Cope sighed and thunked his head back on a railing support. “Tikki? You too. I
hereby apologize abjectly for making anyone feel uncomfortable. You are both valued members of the crew and Thrive Spaceways. And I’m an ass. Does that cover it, cap?”
“I liked it,” Sass encouraged.
“I didn’t,” Eli differed. “Cope, you’re not a grouch. Tikki, Floki, don’t be hypersensitive. Floki, when I’m unsure of the social tableau, I sit and listen. I recommend the approach.”
Cope stole a look at Tikki through the stair again. The young geisha smiled appreciation. That was a relief. He turned back to find the emu’s giant liquid eyes upon him. “Eli’s a smart guy.”
Floki nodded solemnly.
Sass started laughing. “OK, all hands! Stop harassing Cope after a hard day! Before he bites someone. So how do we think it’s going?”
“My team could happily stay and study this planet for a lifetime,” Eli offered.
Darren raised his beer in salute. “Good fun!”
Cope nodded slowly. “It is that.”
“Anyone tempted to stay?” Sass asked.
Everyone nodded except Cope, who sighed. “Got things to do. Ben and I leave on schedule. You’re really thinking of staying, aren’t you, Sass.”
“It’s the chance of a lifetime,” she agreed. “I’m not sure they can make it without skyship support. And this landscape. Cope, have you ever seen such beauty?”
He contemplated the question. “The rainbows threaded through the waterfalls on Denali. That underground river grotto on Denali, too, and a full-blown thunderstorm. Lot of stuff on Denali, really. The botanical garden in Mahina Actual. Eli’s orchard by Schuyler. The face of Pono on Glow. Pono’s rings glittering below me. The fractal flower of our warp gateway. A baby’s fingers. Beauty isn’t in such short supply.”
Sass nodded, beaming. “You left out a properly tuned star drive.”
Cope grinned. “You know what I like!”
“I think you recognize AIs as people better than most, too,” Sass observed.
Floki’s neck recoiled in surprise. “He does?”
Cope considered that. “I guess I identify with the problem.” He studied the young machine before him. “You’re clearly a person, struggling to reach out and connect. But you don’t know how. Way I was raised, nobody around me was the person I wanted to be. I was this smart engineer trying to emerge. But nobody talked right, or studied, or cared how things worked like me. I didn’t have a model for how to act. Made a lot of dumb choices trying to fit in. Like I’m stuck at 210 centimeters for life.” He laughed at himself. “Because I wanted to look tough.”
Tikki offered, “Floki? I think Cope is a better social model than Sass. Geishas like me study how to act, how to speak. You can’t learn from the polished examples, because they make it look effortless. Someone with a good heart, who still struggles to express himself, that’s a good model. You can see him trying.”
Floki half-rose and turned around, and extended his long neck over the edge of the stair landing to face Tikki better. “I don’t have a heart.”
“You care for Nico, don’t you?” Tikki countered. “That’s heart enough.”
Cope’s own heart twinged. The AI’s relationship with his son was the part that made him so very hard to accept. And that part Cope wasn’t willing to admit aloud, except to his husband.
Floki scampered down the stairs to trade a hug with Tikki. He remained on the park bench, happily snuggled under the housekeeper’s arm. And Cope had to admit, he felt relieved with more space between him and them.
“The heart and soul of an AI,” Sass mused. “I had a hard time getting Teke to settle down and sleep. He had some kind of insight during our oxygen run, Cope. How the warp gate, and my ‘soul’ caught inside Loki, and the Cantons orb of nullity, they were all the same thing.”
Cope’s eyebrows rose. “I hope you didn’t stop him. We need that insight.”
Sass waved away that concern. “I gave him an hour, plenty of time to take notes. I’m sure he’s dreaming about it right now. He’ll be fine by morning.”
“Excellent,” Cope breathed. “Well, there’s my answer on Sylvan. If Teke’s really onto something, I’m with him. I want our gateway big enough to evacuate all of Denali before the death rate gets any higher. Dumping them on Mahina is fine by me. I just don’t want them to die.”
“Hear, hear,” Tikki encouraged from below.
“Is that why whoever hit you?” Cope asked. “Because you think it matters more that the Denali reach Mahina? With some starter capital?”
“I agree with that.” Tikki’s head lay on Floki’s now. “But I’m a grown man and fight my own battles. Thank you for your concern.”
Cope nodded respect. “If that equation changes, let me know. I love a good fight.”
The geisha smiled acknowledgment. “Thank you for your efforts to save my people.” His head rocked as Floki nodded beneath his chin.
“What?!” Darren sang out. His fingers abruptly flew across his engineering console. Then he slammed the damage control announcement button with the heel of his hand. “All hands! Pressure breach in the settler tents! Caught them asleep. Mass casualty! All hands to pressure suits! Tikka Gena to med bay! This is not a drill!”
Cope vaulted into the hold. He snatched his own pressure suit and one for Darren. He pulled on his own, then swapped off at the console to give Darren a turn to suit up.
The engineer studied the cameras and tell-tales and couldn’t believe his eyes. He expected one failed tent, a failed seam or puncture. But no. All the tents were deflating.
8
Sass reached the hold beside Cope and Darren, and finished donning her pressure suit before they did, from long experience. She handed the right suit to each crew member as they arrived, and issued orders.
“Tikka Gena, Kassidy, drum of saline?” The women agreed, the ship’s closest approximation to medics. “Tikki Cook, fill a water keg, tap it, and get it down here. Pure table salt on the side. Let the medics mix the solution.” Tikki hastened away.
Nico finished suiting up quick, firstborn son of space-faring dads. “Nico, draw Saggy emergency bubble kits and air. And set the trap lock liner. Soon as you can, go! Eli, time to prove that your triage tour at Denali Prime wasn’t a fluke! You co-lead with Nico. I’ll exit the ship with you. Go!”
“Dammit!” Cope swore from the podium. “Cap, pressure failure in the outermost bio-lock compartment. Capacity down to eight people.”
“No problem,” Sass countered. “Only ten hunters per tent. Kassidy and Tikka Gena can stay on bottled air.” Those two were still collecting drugs and waiting on the drum to make saline. They’d walk out through the bio-lock itself to receive casualties.
“No, captain,” Cope clarified bitterly. “All four tents are compromised. And the bio-lock.”
Rego hell! She glanced over to see Cope frozen, now gazing upside-down at the podium engineering display, Darren’s station. Compassion dislodged her momentary shock. “Mr. Copeland, no self-flagellation. Only action. That’s an order.”
“Aye, cap.” His voice quavered, and he swallowed, still frozen by indecision. She’d never met a better engineer, but damn he took failures personally. So did she. Yet she needed to get these people going.
“Captain?” Floki stepped up to her. “I have video feeds from inside the tents. And the bio-lock second compartment.”
“Thank you, bless you, Floki,” she encouraged. “The engineers need eyes. Stream those feeds to them. Then head outside with Nico if you want. You want?”
His eyes flew open, like he’d received the best birthday present ever. “Yes, ma’am!”
“That’s ‘aye, sar,’ Mr. Floki.” She returned her attention to getting every one of her dozen people moving to do something, anything, to save the beleaguered hunters outside.
When at last she reached a lull, she asked, “Who has an active contact out there?”
“Me,” Darren replied. “Hadron is down. Damage control channel two, highest ranking seems to be Pedo.”
“Huh?”
“How many people are capable of carrying wounded to the bio-lock?”
“Uh, one doing that. The rest of us stuff people into suits.”
Sass stepped over to the engineering console, where Darren helpfully widened a camera feed from Floki’s camera dot on Pedo’s suit. She needed to apply an AI assist to stabilize the picture enough to make sense of it. He knelt trying to get a woman into a pressure suit. A woman Sass suspected was already dead.
She checked the timer on the damage control event, automatically started when Darren hit the alarm. Four and a half minutes. She switched to a private line. “Tikka Gena, maximum time for exposure? Before they’re dead.”
“Without Yang-Yangs? Seconds.”
No. That wouldn’t be true inside the tents. They’d still hold most of their proper air, only slowly yielding to the rabidly reactive Sylvan atmosphere through the leaks, or punctures, or whatever was killing them out there. Not dead.
“Mr. Pedo, check for a pulse before suiting anyone.”
“Huh?”
“Sass out. Nico! Ready?”
“One minute!” Eli and Floki were already helping him rig the liner, so she couldn’t speed things up there. Cope man-handled something large out of the engine room, with help from a groggy Teke. She heard the shuttle unhook. Zan could carry suited victims in directly – the shuttle’s airlock functioned as its own small bio-lock.
Which gave her a few seconds. “What caused this?”
“Don’t know. Get a sample.” Darren zoomed in on one of the stable camera feeds, from a helmet lying on a tent floor. Something like a sharpened stake stuck up through the heavy-grade pressure fabric. Their tents had been impaled. Darren selected another view, now from the far chamber of the bio-lock series. That was stabbed, too.
“That’s the only bio-lock segment lying on the ground,” Darren explained.