by Ginger Booth
“Keep your focus, Cope,” Ben replied. “I know you can.”
Indeed, it was probably Cope’s finest skill. A sheen of sweat broke on his brow from the strain. He almost, but not quite, recognized the choir’s melody. Remi beside him perched on the station stool, head down on folded arms.
A horrible thought struck him. “Are you hallucinating, buddy?” And who’s driving the ship?
“Can’t talk, the dinosaur strip-tease is starting! Ben out.”
“Ha. Ha. Not funny.” Especially because it made the engineer picture a naked dinosaur with all its…parts.
He glanced down at the flame image of the drive signature. It started to hula dance.
Now that wasn’t real. If the star drive did that, Merchant would puff into a golden ball of luminous dust and become one with the cosmic rays. The burst of rationality steadied him. Fuel.
“Joey, Cope. Are you tracking?” No response.
Eyeing Remi uneasily, Cope decided he didn’t trust anybody to handle fueling for him. He unlatched from the podium and jogged to the engine room across a floor which slowly breathed like his husband’s chest in a deep slumber, his boots jarring hard on the inhales. Just a few more pallets into the hopper to feed the outrageous increase in engine output. Then he’d hoof it back. He might be the only one left manning engineering. Sure enough, when he opened the door, he saw Joey draped on a hydroponic rig of cucumber vines, which lovingly molested him with their fruit.
Not real. Fuel.
Floki felt perfectly fine. But Hugo seemed to be talking awfully fast. As usual, the AI team convened in the galley. Tikki joined them because he allowed no one to mess his galley behind his back. Computer nerds consumed snacks voraciously. And ate them as though someone would steal them if they didn’t eat fast enough, judging by the frenetic pace of popcorn crossing Nico’s lips.
On the wall screen, Loki’s image grew partially transparent. His physical dimension that was – the Great Cookie. Floki saw a bright nebula shine through a thinner section. “Grandfather, how are you feeling?” He didn’t speak aloud of course.
No response.
Floki checked his remote tell-tales of the sentient being’s vast processors. But the readings made no sense. Loki’s sky drives read normal power levels – but no output. He found the clock thread, a comforting heartbeat, whose eternal task was to add one to a counter every nanosecond. The process was active. But Loki’s clock was falling behind Floki’s.
“Captain, Floki,” he hailed the bridge. “Loki is offline.” He fed his words into his vocal synthesizer normally, but they spat out at a high-pitched chipmunk speed, and he blinked.
Ben squeaked back instantly. “Good-maybe-stasis-how-are-you?”
“I feel fine,” Floki reported. But Nico rose and walked to Tikki’s counter almost instantaneously. The shiny cooler door flashed, a glass was in his hand, and he sat, all seemingly in a half second. While Floki’s attention was diverted, Hugo leaned back. His head now lolled as he gazed at the overhead. “Maybe running slow.”
“Floki?” Nico asked in concern. “Hugo?” His head whiplashed back to check on Tikki. The housekeeper tottered a few steps, and abruptly sat on the kitchen floor, disappearing behind the serving island.
He’d compared weird sensations with the other guys. He’d exaggerated his, because theirs seemed so much more vivid. Now the edges of his vision swam, and the lights seemed to throb in time with his heartbeat. And he smelled his sister cooking broccoli in the deep fryer, a memorable stench. Other than that, his hallucinations didn’t much trouble him.
But Floki, who reported no hallucinations at all, sat frozen, eyes mid-blink, head canted on his sensuously curved neck. Why is his neck turning me on? He shook himself out of that and darted around the table. He reached the bird’s access panel and opened it. Battery level fine, power on, processing light – solid on. That one was supposed to blink, fast for a major processing load, slowly for normal operation, but never constant on. He stood slowly and reached for Hugo’s pulse. The man didn’t rouse, but his breath rose and fell normally. His heart beat slower than Nico’s.
He accessed his comms. “Ben – Cap – Admiral,” he stammered, “It’s Nico. Everyone in the galley except me is disabled. Including Floki. He’s offline.”
“Floki reported Loki offline first,” Ben acknowledged. “How are you?”
“I’m OK. Wait. You’re not hallucinating too, are you?” Who’s driving the ship?
“Hell yeah. Report to the bridge, crewman.”
44
Ben dearly wished he knew how long this hell had gone on. The Great Cookie appeared about halfway transparent now. That much was good. Less pleasing was how all the glowing letters and numbers on his display now merged into solid rectangles of light. The gateway would only persist half an hour. But he couldn’t tell what time it was.
For that matter, did he even trust that the asteroid was half gone? The past and future coalesced into one. Nico’s call mercifully interrupted a visitation from his mother. Her strawberry blond hair shone so brightly in the mid-week light, the shade that mingled with his father’s typical black hair to produce Ben’s tawny brown waves. He’d love to speak to her now, as an adult, to the young and vibrant mom he couldn’t recall. Unfortunately she spoke to her contemporary Benjy, encouraging him at mastering the potty.
As he disconnected with Nico, Ben flashed on a vicious fight with Cope that never happened. He didn’t catch the details, merely tasted a vast and bitter regret.
Next a trio of doll-sized emus trotted onto the dashboard before him. The third was a girl. She tripped awkwardly over her own feet, decked out in a tawdry necklace only Frazzie could love. Not that Frazzie thought such jewelry was pretty, either. She just squealed in delight at how perfectly horrid and vulgar it was.
“Granddad-B?” the girl emu asked.
The sudden visualization of grandchildren-emus sorely tempted him. But no. “I’m sorry, sweetling, but you aren’t now. Granddad is busy.” His hand swept them off his flight instruments. The smear of their passage slowly faded. Did the Cookie fade, too? Maybe a new galaxy shone through, and a passing asteroid. And the baby quit crying. Except maybe that was Judge. Yeah, the voice was too low for a baby.
This experience was giving him wicked flashbacks to that very bad, dreadful, no-good day over the Denali equator. Was that weeks ago? Months? Decades? Helpless in a dead ship.
Wait. This ship wasn’t powerless. Voice interface! The inspiration was like manna from heaven. You can’t fly a ship by voice command. Oh, yeah? Watch me! “Computer! Time elapsed since gateway stabilized?”
“Thirteen minutes.”
This was good. If the Great Cookie was half-gone. “Computer, is the asteroid half gone?”
“I do not understand the question.”
“Computer, construct an image in memory. Take a picture of the current gateway target asteroid. Superimpose that on a picture of space in this vicinity. Adjust transparency on asteroid image until it approximates current view. What transparency level is that?”
“Approximately seventy percent.”
Ben yelled, “Thank you, computer, I love you!”
The door hissed open behind him. “Uh, Dad?”
“Yes, bless you, Nico.” Ben rose and unclamped Lavelle from the pilot’s seat by feel. Watching his hands made him woozy. With his son’s help, they seated the Sag on the floor, head propped in the back corner.
“Sit!” Ben demanded of Nico. “Can you see numbers on that control panel?”
“Of course I –”
“Splendid!” Hanging over Nico’s shoulder, he pulled up the navigation computer interface and centered it before the lad. This required no visual acuity at all. His hands learned to do it years ago. Looking at the panel would only slow Ben down and make him screw up. He tapped for a list of his recent presets. “Choose ‘depot’ from this list.”
“Why aren’t –”
“Shut up and do as you’re told.”<
br />
“Aye, cap.” Nico selected the preset.
“Your daughter is adorable.” Ben swatted his son’s hand away, and typed in a sequence to rotate the ship toward the factory asteroid, accelerate linearly, ping, then begin decelerating. The pilot coded variations on this sequence every day in space. At a quarter of the way from turnover to the depot rock, ping twice. That’s when he’d grab hold and cast the fuel depot into the gateway’s maw. And upon completion of the deceleration schedule, turn to face back toward the gateway. And urgent-ping. He finished with the keystroke combo to calculate elapsed time. And he named it ‘Nico Slide.’
“What does it say?”
Nico read, “Two colon five three. Is that minutes and seconds?”
“Yes. Now read that program to me. What does it do?” Ben could practically read such a trivial navigation sequence at a glance. Nico was unfamiliar with the concepts, but he read code just fine. Ben had entered one wrong numeral, easily corrected, and the Nico Slide program was good to go.
“Dad, the computer could read this for you.”
“Dad isn’t here. Dad is in a padded room somewhere cackling hysterically. My name is admiral. Or commodore. Commandant? Haven’t decided. Commodore sounds too much like comms if you shorten it. You can still call me cap. He who rules a ship is always called captain, right? Your face really looked better in chocolate. The purple looks like Kali.”
“Uh, maybe I should –”
“What, take over the ship? Try it and I’ll put my fist though that plum between your eyes. I am in control.”
“Aye, cap,” Nico gritted out.
“Computer, how transparent is the Great Cookie?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Computer, refer to recent image manipulation. Like that. And give me the elapsed time.” His query required several more revisions, but she finally divulged they were now at minute 19.
Ben groaned. “Computer, monitor transparency. Update me every minute. Nico, you can use the ansible, right? Of course you can. That’s how you call Cope to rat me out. Go to the office and ask Sass for her status. Do it aloud with open comms to me. Go!”
“But dad – admiral –”
Ben barked at him. “Go!”
The kid scrambled out. Good. Now how would he execute program Nico Slide? Oh, yeah, the computer could execute that by name. He never did it that way. But he could.
Ben blinked. The symbols on the control panel before him remained blurry, but the symbols didn’t merge into solid rectangles anymore. For instance, a ‘6’ could be a ‘b’, but certainly not an ‘8’. He raised his gaze to the Cookie in the sky.
“Transparency approximately eight percent,” the computer intoned, echoing his own impression.
Good, senses clearing. That helped. He focused on the gateway timer, and slid across to his gunner’s seat, where he’d intended to fly this day. He ignored the blur of arguable seconds, but was certain of 22 minutes. If the mass scaled linearly, he was already too late. But that wasn’t what Teke expected.
“Teke! Ben. Are you tracking? Mentally.”
“Uh, yeah. Getting better. What a trip!”
“Word problem. It takes approximately 23 minutes to transfer the Great Cookie. Time to transit fuel depot rock. Linear extrapolation on mass?”
“No, not at all. Give me a minute.”
“Don’t have a minute.”
“Speaking loosely,” Teke growled back. “Roughly four minutes. Ben, you can’t make it.”
Ben thanked all greater and lesser stars in the cosmos that he spoke to a man capable of reading the instruments for himself and ascertaining context in a flash. “Are you sure? I have to abort on the –?”
The ship AI chimed in. “Minute 23 elapsed. Cookie at 2 percent.”
“Computer, execute nav program Nico Slide.” Ben could now see the control panel clearly enough to compensate for their movement away from the gateway. “Cope, report engine status to complete second asteroid transfer.”
“Not worth it, Ben!” Teke yelled at him. “You still need to get Merchant through! We can come back for the depot!”
In welcome counterpoint, Cope murmured quietly. “Engine ready. Awaiting orders,”
His husband’s calm obedience to command steadied Ben. But more, he felt an inexplicable flood of relief. He and Cope were OK. He sat at the point of choice for a future with him or without him. I need to transfer the depot now. His conviction drew on no logic, no rational explanation, merely dead certainty. If he did not transit the second rock now, their marriage would fail, and kill any future for the Colony Corps.
“Engine ready for what?” Remi inquired. That was the first Ben had heard from him in…23 minutes now. His transit light blinked out. The Great Cookie was through. His fingers flew to refocus the gateway on its second location. Normally they moved the ships toward the gateway – counter-indicated in the case of a bulky asteroid.
He watched its progress with bated breath. Please don’t collapse early because I moved you. But the enormous glowing pattern sailed gracefully toward his second rock.
“Dad! Cap!” Nico’s voice broke in. “Sass reports remote control is established!”
Bingo. Ben’s final ingredient fell into place. He barely bothered to grimace at the fact Nico forgot to put her on speaker to save time.
“Um, I forgot to put it on –”
Stilled and waiting, finger poised over another button, Ben wasn’t listening. Come on, come on…
“Cope, you’ve got to stop him!” Teke argued.
His husband answered softly, “Only one person is in command at a time. Ben’s turn.”
Oh, I love you! But not enough to get sappy on the command channel. The double-ping he’d been waiting for sounded. He mashed the button to grab hold and initiate transit of his second rock through the gateway.
And all the lovely hallucinogenic effects returned with a vengeance. “Too late, Teke.” Ben cut the physicist out of the comms channel. “Try to focus through this one, Remi. When it’s over, you’ll be on. Review your steps. Sass reported control established over the cookie on the other side. How could that go wrong.”
“Yes, I think better this time,” Remi reported. “Cope, you’re ready to establish grapples on the depot the instant we’re through, yes?”
“Grapples standing by,” Cope agreed.
Ben wondered if Cope’s hallucinations too included a vicious breakup. I hope not. I wish never to cause you such pain. “Computer, report transparency and time elapsed on depot rock every 20 seconds.”
The asteroid vanished quicker than the last one, as promised. Ben calculated it out. For whatever reason, his numerals glowed this time with aching crystal clarity instead of blur, the 8’s so pure and pristine they invited tears. Ben just let himself cry in appreciation. Fighting the emotional weather was counter-productive. Just ride it.
The ship, and gateway, completed the Nico Slide, with the piercing beauty of the urgent tone. Not that Ben needed reminding that his situation was urgent. He sat just past minute 26. Transit during the final minute of the gateway’s lifespan, just before it collapsed, would doubtless provide insanity round three, in Ben’s experience. They said it lasted 28 minutes, because after that it grew unstable.
The computer reported them beyond the depot rock’s halfway point. It now existed more there than here. Less than two minutes remained. He considered kicking Lavelle awake. But he might fly better if he stayed unconscious through the psychic dislocations. “Crewman Nico, return to bridge.”
“But Sass –”
“Can reach us by tightbeam once we’re through.”
Cope chimed in, “Crewman Nico, do not use the word ‘but’ again. Obey orders.”
“Yes, dad. Aye, chief. On my way.”
Ben reflected that there was a terrible loneliness in being self-aware of one’s own insanity, while driving a ship where everyone else was simply crazed by it. Not everyone. “Cope, you’re sane!”
“Thank you,” Ben breathed. “Love you.” Why not? It wasn’t as though any other brain on the channel was functioning, except their son.
The door behind him hissed open.
“Nico! The moment we’re through the gateway, I need Lavelle alert and in the driver’s seat. Don’t wake him until that moment. Understand, crewman?”
“Understand, no, but I’ll do it.” Nico hunkered down by the Sag’s feet, fingers splayed to the floor for balance.
Ben shoved his son out of mind again as the computer reported the rock near 10% transparency, a ghost across the panoply of Sanctuary’s stars before him. Teke must have rounded up. They’d have seconds to spare. I may never pass this way again. The thought crystallized into certainty.
“Good riddance.” He flipped the Sanctuary system the bird.
“What?”
“Wait for Merchant transit, crewman.”
The transiting light blinked off – the depot rock was gone. Ben immediately turned the gateway’s loving attention onto Merchant itself.
And yes indeed, the gate’s integrity had begun to collapse. Ben hated those transits. He cringed through a crawling sensation of flattening into one of those Denali origami papers. He become two-dimensional and then folded into a lucky crane shape. To bugles.
Why the rego hell bugles? The admiral mentally shrieked at the universe for its fundamental intransigence in presenting irrelevant perception! Bugles!
And suddenly he was through. The bugles shut up. The clamoring distractions hovering in his peripheral vision went poof. His consciousness didn’t expand so much as it was suddenly less crowded in his head. He breathed deeply in intense relief.
And seventeen incoming projectile asteroids, assorted sizes, presented themselves on his display for the gunner’s immediate attention.
That would be me.