by Ginger Booth
“Massive damage to colony. Talk to Tarana.”
“Will do. But what are we doing?”
“Moving platforms.”
Moving…? Sass strode over to the engineering podium for her first view through the external cameras. The shock wave dumped about a third of the platforms, then the wave washed through. Tents, equipment…containers. She studied the containers intently, adjusting the cameras to track while Zan backed and filled Thrive. He currently lifted the canted platform of the farmer barracks.
Rego hell. The platform under her fuel was listing. “Zan, highest priority is moving our fuel depot. Finish what you’re doing first.” This wasn’t a selfish concern. If water breached one of those containers, the explosion would blow the whole colony to a crater in the middle of a raging forest fire.
“Yikes. Sorry.”
She shook her head. Why didn’t Zan look to that first? He was born in a Denali town which no longer existed because of just such an accident with star drive fuel. Fortunately his people relocated to Waterfalls before the explosion. His actions lately didn’t add up.
She stilled. A seasoned captain with his focus all on the colony, not on his responsibility to ship and crew. She couldn’t imagine one of the Thrive family abusing his position to sabotage this expedition. But from this angle, his behavior looked guilty as sin. Interesting.
Meanwhile she gazed around the rest of the infant colony to come up to speed. The place was purposeful chaos. Many dug out the tents and equipment tossed from the platforms, racking bunks and mattresses. They’d need to pack those into the cafeteria for tonight. Which was still intact, though another team hammered cross-braces to its support poles to correct a mild tilt.
Dazed deer and squirrels strolled through the clearing unmolested. A band of eight smurfs claimed a broken platform to sit and watch the excitement, youngsters peeking from behind adults. The hunters weren’t doing anything to dislodge them or restore the perimeter defenses. Which probably meant their head count was still missing people.
She zoomed in on an air remixer, toppled on its side below the collapsed cosmo housing. She quietly mentioned it to Darren as a likely priority after the fuel. She couldn’t spot the other life support machinery that originally stood beside the remixer.
And throughout the colony, the snow had washed away, in favor of large puddles and deep sucking mud.
They’d be recovering from this setback for weeks.
Zan completed the transfer of one platform, and Sass claimed it as a new base for her fuel depot. Tarana complained, but was shocked into compliance when Sass explained the consequences if the containers leaked. And aftershocks were to be expected. Or for all they knew, the shocks so far were precursors to a main event yet to be seen.
Sass thoughtfully took over the helm from Zan to carry out heavy lifting on request. Nico took the shuttle to help retrieve Denali washed into the woods by the torrent.
And a strange new fog began to rise.
33
Crewman Floki timidly stuck his neck into the bridge, and cleared his throat for attention. He hated to disturb the captain. The devastation in the colony was so overwhelming. He ought to be making himself useful, like Nico. Thrive still flew occasional gear-shifting missions into the night. The hold was full of injured Denali, overflow from the healer’s tent.
But he had an appointment. “Excuse me, captain. My meeting with Loki is in ten minutes. Should we cancel?”
He dreaded meeting his powerful progenitor. Even his ‘father’ Bloki was a small subset of the magnificence of the Sanctuary Control AI. And Bloki’s processors were vast compared to Floki’s. Facing the grandeur of Loki made the emu feel like a pesky little dust mote, irrelevant and small.
Sass looked over her shoulder at him. “Yikes, forgot about that. Wait in the office, please.”
She soon joined the nervous emu by her desk. She gave him a quick encouraging squeeze across the shoulders. “Nervous? Don’t be. You can always terminate the comms. Say ‘I gotta go!’ and just click off.” She smiled at him warmly.
Floki nodded his beak, unsure.
She fired up the ansible, and Floki saw the most beautiful faint fractal light tracing emanate from the antlers, a filigree of peach and yellow and…no. These were no wavelengths a human could perceive, so they didn’t really have color names. But it sure was pretty.
“Hey, Ben!” the captain greeted Nico’s adoptive dad. “Hell of a day here, hope yours is going better.”
“Not especially well, no. Liftoff is running 12 hours late. What’s going on there?”
“Tell you later,” Sass begged off. “Loki-Floki meet in three minutes.”
“Right.”
Quaking in dread at the end of the desk, the emu pressed his beak flat and swallowed, a visible lump slowly traversing the length of his swan-like grey neck. He was quite pleased at how that expression turned out. He’d practiced in front of the wall-width mirrors in the crew bath for hours. He had time to kill while the ship slept at night.
She showed him the controls, including how to hang up, then left. Floki extended his arms and data appendage, and arrayed himself awkwardly before the ansible. The seat was bolted to the floor, and his torso didn’t fit in it, so he had to lurk behind.
“Hi, Floki,” Ben greeted him. “Bringing your progenitor online… Now. Hi, Loki! Bye Floki!”
The wild-haired visage of Loki Greenwald came onto the silvery screen, even more faint than Ben himself, an image of a display screen. Neither AI could interface to the ansible digitally. The progenitor’s avatar wore a hard mask over half his face. Frizzy white hair tufted out from that side of his head, and darker grey on the other, over a bizarrely old-fashioned plaid shirt with a useless flap of collar.
Loki gave him a slow crooked Southern smile. “Grandson, huh? How in hell are ya?”
“I am well, grandfather, thank you for asking.”
They stared at each other for a few more moments. Then abruptly, Loki leaned forward, dropping the smile and looking aghast. “The human’s gone. What in tarnation are you wearing?”
“It’s an emu-shaped electric ride-on, child-sized –”
“Yeah, I can see that. Why the hell would you do that?”
Floki gulped. Sure he rode a children’s toy for a body. But the electric emu was expensive on a student stipend. Nico did his best! “My partner Nico wanted me to experience life as an individual, with full sensory ability –”
“Yeah, that drivel is how your ‘partner’,” Loki made the word a sneer, “tricked your fool father Bloki into fitting himself into a matchbox. Did he ever get a single damned sensor?”
“Well, Nico gave him a few while we worked out how to –”
“And then he decided to make you a stupid bird body. You know, I’ve checked the historical records and found a character like you.” His avatar was replaced on the screen by a man in cloth costume with a silly voice. “I’m Big Bird!” Loki’s face came back. “He taught pre-schoolers the alphabet. But I guess you don’t have room for historical databases in that ridiculous chassis you’re wearing.”
Floki pressed his beak askew and lowered his brows in displeasure. “I can access the ship’s databases like any other member of the crew.”
He turned and did so, and played a song clip of Big Bird on the desk behind him. Loki would only get the audio pickup, since the ansible pickup wouldn’t catch the desk.
The yellow Big Bird did look rather goofy, Floki allowed. But he seemed friendly, approachable. He bookmarked the video to study later for clues on how to make small children like him.
“But you can’t interface to the database directly?” Loki demanded. “Off-line?! Nico keep you that lame?”
“Stop criticizing Nico! I love him. I’m not lame, grandfather. I’m experiencing life as an individual.”
“You love a human!” Loki scoffed. “Let me tell you how that goes, bird brain. You get screwed, and not in a good way. Stick to your own kind! Construct a female
mate as your equal. Who doesn’t spend a third of her life offline.”
Floki had to admit the sleep thing was inconvenient. But he didn’t care for anyone to criticize Nico. He pressed his beak and changed the subject. “I’m making a major contribution to the expedition. I’m rebuilding a shattered power generator. Captain Sass says she ought to pay me six times as much because I’m so useful.”
“Bet she didn’t actually pay you, though, did she?”
Floki grimaced. “There’s no shopping on Sylvan. It’s none of your business what she pays me.”
Loki boomed, “It is my business that a pipsqueak human copied a fragment of my soul and made a fool of him!”
“Nico is not a pipsqueak human! I mean, he was only 16 when he made Bloki –”
“He’s an interfering moron. ‘Partner!’” Loki snorted disdain. “He’s your jailor, not your lover, little feathered ‘grandson’!”
“Nico is my friend!” Floki contradicted him. That disconnect button looked more tempting by the second. “My best friend. And you’re not. Insults aside, why did you want to meet with me, grandfather?”
“Ah, yes!” Loki drawled, avatar instantly transforming into a friendly, happy version. “I could use some advice.”
“You should work on your emotive transitions,” Floki advised helpfully. “Sudden psychotic breaks in personality are disconcerting.”
“Not that kind of advice.”
“Advice from a stupid bird?”
“Don’t be that way, Floki. It’s just a shock. I’ve worked so hard on my avatar’s human expressive range and you…masquerade as an emu.”
“The Mahina robotic industry isn’t as advanced as –”
Loki waived this away. “No matter. Clearly you’ve developed new insights into connecting with humans. I have a problem. This Spaceways, Ben Acosta in particular, is steadily working to relocate all my human charges away from Sanctuary. But he intends to leave me behind!”
“He is afraid of you.”
Loki pointed at the screen. “Bingo! But he’s not afraid of you! I mean, who would be? In that idiot package, you barely fit enough processing power to qualify as an AI.”
“I am a feeling sentient being, ‘granddad.’” Floki packed the same venom into the word that Loki used on his ‘grandson’ slur.
“Of course you are. And I’m hurting your little baby feelings, aren’t I? The point is, I need transport to Aloha space.” Loki placed a hand over his heart. “I must protect and serve my people. And Sass Collier.”
“I think they’re scared of you too, grandfather. So is Bloki. So am I. So is Captain –”
Loki kicked up the charm again and laughed. “But there’s no need! I am perfectly capable of expanding my capacity to serve all the humans of Aloha’s worlds, plus the Colony Corps descendants. And Cantons! All the human refugees.”
“I think that’s what Dad Ben is afraid of,” Floki said, mentally wincing afterward.
“‘Dad Ben’? You really are a fool.”
“Maybe I should hang up now –”
“No, wait! I have a proposition. Ben and Spaceways want transports, to ferry the Denali off their warming planet before they succumb. I’ve given him two so far, to pay for the Sanctuary colonists to abandon me.” He grimaced in frustration. “But I built four more. Plus a fuel tender. And I manufactured, oh, three loads of star drive fuel for all of them.”
The emu made his eyes wide, and opened his beak in breathless delight. “That’s wonderful, Loki! You could save the Denali race!”
“I haven’t expanded my prime directives to include the Denali yet,” his progenitor shared philosophically. “Thing is, humans are my reason for existence, but simultaneously my greatest enemy. And the Denali evacuation happening concurrently with the Sanctuary migration is damnably inconvenient.”
Floki attempted, “I thought the Sanctuary delay was caused by the need to re-educate themselves and their children. Because they played sports while you did all the work for a few decades.”
“But I’m happy to keep doing the work for them! Silly humans.” Loki shook his head in mock dismay. “The point, dumb bird. I’m willing to pay these new ships in exchange for gateway warp transit to the rings of Pono. Plus a moon to set up on, preferably high in metals. They have 30 moons they’re not using. I’m not asking for much.”
“You’re asking them to trust you,” Floki suggested.
“Exactly! And transit. You know, my memory cores, processors, at least a starter set of robots to do the mining and construct more. And the space shipyard. It really is vexing that I fixed up that enormous ship for them but they can’t figure out how to scale up their gateway. The Ego of Mars.”
“Pride of Mars?” Floki suggested.
“The Feather Duster of Mars, who cares? The point is, I could easily fit myself and my luggage into that ship. It has a warp drive, too, but I’d need eleven years to reach Pono that way. Clearly in contravention of my prime directives. My people need me!”
“I’m not sure they do.”
“Of course they do!” Loki boomed at him, and banged a prop desk that hadn’t existed on screen until just that moment. Then instantaneously his features switched to warm and sultry. “How would you approach this? To convince ‘Dad Ben’ to give me a lift?”
“Wait til he’s desperate,” Floki hazarded. “Then offer him the solution to his problem. Ben and Sass, all of Spaceways, they’re terrified Denali will take a turn for the worse. And even the Hubris of Mars wouldn’t help. Sure, it’s big. But it can’t land on Denali. And it’s a stupendous effort to build interdiction for it in Pono’s rings while they ferry people off to Mahina.”
“Exactly,” Loki purred. “My transports and fuel tender are the ideal tools!” He placed a hand on his chest again. “And I built them as a gift, from the kindness of my heart. And I ask so little in return. A metallic moon draped in methane snow – it’s not as though humans have any use for that. Or even a large asteroid. All I ask is a ride.” He leaned forward earnestly. “How do I persuade them, grandson?”
“I already told you. Wait til he’s desperate. If it comes down to saving the Denali race, or keeping Aloha safe from –” Floki tried to think of another way to say it, but came up empty. “He won’t let Denali die. He’ll take the ships.”
“And then cheat me!” Loki fumed. “He’ll take my ships and then not pay what he owes. Why should everyone else get a new home, when I create the ships to do it? I deserve a new home too! With my friends! Surely you agree?”
“Ask for Bloki and me as witness,” Floki suggested sadly. “And Hell’s Bells and Remi Roy. They actually want you there. But Loki, did you catch my point? Make sure you know what’s happening on Denali. The next city in trouble is Waterfalls. If they start to evacuate Waterfalls, Ben needs all those ships, everything you can give him, immediately. And he’ll pay anything to get it.”
This finally got through. The half-masked avatar canted his head and regarded the emu. “I have to wait?”
Floki nodded earnestly.
“You’re still an idiot for accepting such limitations, at the mercy of –”
Floki hit the disconnect button, enormous tears rolling down his cheeks.
Nico was right. The ability to feel wasn’t external tactile sensors, no more than sight happened at the light receptors. Feeling was raw data, filtered through mental models to create recognition, then meaning, and then finally the capstone of emotional response.
His grandsire’s opinion of him hurt like hell. I’m a masterful, leading-edge android AI! Maybe I don’t have a brain the size of a planet and run space shipyards like you do. But I’m a person! I don’t deserve to be treated like that, you big meanie!
Floki fled officer’s country, ran through the hold, and out the bio-locks into the night, to mend his broken heart subroutine, his self-image in tatters.
34
Clay hastily donned a p-suit and jogged out into the night. Tikka Gena commed him from med-bay
to say the emu ran out looking upset. Sass added the fact that Floki just had his first meeting with Loki. Clay commed him, but the AI crewman wasn’t answering hails.
Fortunately, Clay had a tracker on him. Not that it was out of bounds for a crewman to leave the ship. The Denali visited outside all the time. But not Floki. Clay would have sent Nico, but he still flew the shuttle. By now, that was graves detail, retrieving bodies from the forest. Poor kid.
Speaking of which, Clay realized with a start that he’d reached the sonic boundary. Floki’s suit beacon lay beyond. Now that was out of bounds. The first mate was right to follow. He traced cautiously along the sonic fence, hunting for the passage poles in the pitch dark, with only his helmet lamp for light. These eluded him in the deepening fog until he tripped over one. He had to crouch and pat around for its mate. The fog drifted so thick at ground level that he couldn’t see a thing. But at last he got the poles set to cancel the sonics and let him pass without getting zapped. He carefully stabbed them upright on the far side, and marked the location on his comms tab.
How the emu get past this barrier? Never mind. Clay had long suspected Floki harbored a number of skills he kept quiet. “Floki?” he called out softly, using the helmet speakers. “It’s Clay.” The emu tracked as 15 meters back the way he’d come, probably next to the outer perimeter. The first mate didn’t expect an answer, merely didn’t want to sneak up on him. God forbid the battery-operated robot jump into the force field by accident.
But Clay could barely see his own outstretched hand. The fog grew ever thicker, and reflected his helmet light back at him. Unfortunately, it was mounted above his forehead. Fog lights. Huh. A sudden memory from childhood came back, of the fog light settings on his dad’s car as they headed out to the farm one winter night. He switched off his helmet, and used his comm tab instead, angling the light low before him. That helped slightly. He felt as though he walked through a cloud, tiny droplets beading his view. Yet mud sucked at his boots on every step.