“Why is this happening to me?”
“You know nothing about AI’s, do you?”
“Ah, no sir.”
“And yet you voice opinions denigrating them.”
“They’re machines. Why should they care what’s said about them?”
“Commander, you wouldn’t know it if an AI stood in front of you, would you?”
“Stood? That’s impossible. AI’s are computers. They don’t stand.”
“Show him,” I said to Jane.
She took him by the throat with her right hand, moved him so he could see her fully, and her suit shifted to a belt. In the blink of an eye, a security droid stood there holding him by the throat with a skeletal, and obviously metal, hand.
His eyes went wide and he fainted. Jane continued to hold him up, but shifted back into her avatar form. She moved him to the helm seat and let him flop into it, letting him go and moving away. Jeeves came in and waved his magic potion under his nose, and he recovered. He looked around, seeing Jane well away from him.
His eyes sought mine, wide with horror.
“AI 101 Commander. The butler droids have a medium level AI, and are quite capable of taking offense. Jane here is a top of the line AI, with the full range of human emotions. Your access shaft experience yesterday was because you insulted Jane. Your trip out the airlock just now was because you insulted the butler droids. On a ship controlled by an AI, insulting it is a very stupid thing to do.”
“Ah, yes sir. But they nearly killed me.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“Your complaint was, AI’s couldn’t be trusted to look after the interests of people first. Was it not?”
“Yes sir.”
“And yet, Jane didn’t hurt you in that shaft at all, when it was completely possible to just let you fall to your death. Jeeves could have burnt your face badly, but the water was just hot enough to be unpleasant, not hot enough to burn. And before they threw you out the airlock, the butlers not only made sure you had a suit on, but it was functioning fully as a space suit before they opened the airlock to space.”
He looked at me blankly.
“Commander, if they wanted you dead, or if they didn’t care about keeping you alive, you would be dead now.”
He didn’t get it. I suspected he never would. Some people are so lost in their own little world, nothing you say gets through to them. Pyne was one of them. I’d have to talk to Price about how to re-educate him.
“Commander, go back to bed. Think before you open your mouth in future. Better yet, keep it closed. Dismissed.”
He saluted me, and ran out.
Jane and I both chuckled for a few minutes, she updated me with Zippy’s activities gathering more cargo for Australian planets, and I followed him out.
I went back to bed.
Aline was still asleep.
Forty Four
We missed breakfast. Partly because I slept through it, but even when I did wake, I found Aline had started without me. It’s very distracting to wake and find a gorgeous naked woman on top of you. It was just as well I hadn’t needed breakfast. At best, by the time we were out of the shower and presentable, it would have been brunch.
Alison gave me the sort of look which needs no interpretation. She knew exactly where I’d been and what I’d been up to, and obviously wished it had been with her. I wondered if we had a problem developing.
We ignored the time as if it was nine, instead of eleven.
By twelve, I wished I’d stayed in bed. Treaties were written in the language of gobbledygook, and gobbledygook required an interpreter. I sent the lot off to David Tollin in an encrypted email, asking him to find someone who could brief me in words with less than six letters in them, with all the ifs, buts, and hitherto aforementioned whereas removed.
Lunch started to turn into a goodbye party for Slice and Eric, until Slice invited us to his home for dinner. As much as I wanted to speed on past, I recognized the need for some diplomacy, since he was in effect, a head of planet. Besides, I was curious.
Everyone was on the Bridge for the jump into the Apricot system. It was uneventful, just like the previous ones. Before 266 could get out of range, I opened a channel, and re-routed them to Apricot, telling them to dock with the Orbital station.
I was about to rise to move into my Ready Room again, when Walter spoke.
“John, why Apricot?”
Slice sighed, and I laughed. Everyone looked at me.
“What?” I said. “I bet he gets asked that question all the time, and is sick of answering it.”
Slice nodded.
“It goes back to my rookie fighter year,” he said. “I was always eating apricot desserts at meals, or asking for them when they weren’t there. It’s been my favourite fruit since I was a kid. Pretty soon the mess staff made sure they were on hand for me. Well I had a mission where things went wrong almost from the moment we launched, and instead of getting drunk afterwards, I binged on apricot slices.” We all laughed. “So next thing I’m in a rookie call sign ceremony and dubbed with the name. When I left the service, I was casting around for a company name, and put what I intended to do, with the fruit I love, and the Apricot Mapping Service was born.”
“How did you end up with your own planet?” I asked.
“It’s classified I’m afraid. Let’s just say, I did the sector a big service, part of which was nearly doubling the number of systems in the sector through my mapping work, and Apricot system, called something pedestrian beforehand, was awarded to me in lieu of a credit payment, much like your systems were awarded to you.” He waved in my direction and I nodded. “The system had a habitable planet, but for some reason I’ve never been able to find out, it was never claimed. Mind you, the habitable area is very small. At most, the planet can only support about fifty thousand people. Not without extensive terraforming of the especially expensive kind. I guess no one wanted to spend the credits. It’s a much better base than an Orbital station ever would be. Anyway, I’ll give you the tour when we arrive.”
On that note, everyone went about their own business. But I buttonholed Slice, and we spent the next few hours talking about how his system was run. I was looking for any tips he could offer. His model wasn’t going to work for me, as it was corporate, but the structure might be useful in general terms. While the system was his, it was leased and fully administered by his corporation, of which he was CEO. His decisions though, were all subject to board oversight. His rationale was it was necessary to avoid being a dictator. Becoming a Duchy or some other entity had never been a possibility, as his system still paid tax to the Sci-Fi sector. I wasn’t really sure what the distinction was, but I didn’t press him on it.
Before leaving, he asked me something I hadn’t expected.
“Can the AMS rent or buy some space on your new station in Nexus?”
“Sure. Why would you want to though?”
“I’ll be sending Eric to represent us in the Australian sector. We make a pass through there every two or three years, which isn’t often enough. The Wolf planetoid for one, needs a lot more monitoring than it gets.”
“Why do you keep remapping the same space all the time?”
“The detectors we use to find jump points are always being refined. It’s my main area of R&D. As the tech advances, we need to re-cover known space in case a jump point has been missed. There are a lot of systems out there along the spine which we can’t reach yet, and it’s fair to assume it’s only because we haven’t found the jump points. We don’t find them very often, but when we do, the sector tends to be very grateful about it.”
“Fair enough. Send me the specs of what you need, and I’ll have a suitable space made up for you. There will be one condition though.”
“Which is?”
“You’ve never received permission from Outback to survey that system, have you?”
“No, it’s the only system we’re denied. Isolati
onist policy I understand. Didn’t you say you’re from there?”
“Yes. And yes, the isolationist policy is the reason. But it’s not only you. Mining companies and prospectors are also denied access to the system. The last thing Outback wants is for someone to find anything at all in the system which attracts people there. It was chosen because there was nothing there anyone else wanted at the time, and because it’s at the end of the spine with no reason for people to pass through. And that’s the way we want it to stay.”
“I don’t have a problem with it. I’ve kept on asking for permission each time I sent someone to the Australian sector, but it’s always been denied, so it’s no shock you’ll be continuing it. Will Outback be joining your mini-sector, do you think?”
“I won’t know before anyone else does I suspect. It has to be approved by the Australian sector first, and who knows how long it’ll take for a decision.”
“Oh, one last thing, you’d all better come with me on Apricot One to the station, and we can take a shuttle down from there. The shuttle can bring you back here after dinner. The station isn’t big enough to dock a ship this big.”
“Fine with me.”
One of those random thoughts popped in, which I often wondered if they were mine, or from someone else, like Kali. It didn’t feel like one of mine. But it also wasn’t Kali’s voice.
“By the way,” I said. “Can your station accommodate everyone on the planet?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“The whole two isolationist cultures coming up with the same dire prediction thing. If the darkness or Ragnarok is really coming, you’re going to want to escape it if it comes here. That either means enough ships, or a station you can move everyone to, and bring with you.”
“You think it’ll come to that?”
“I don’t know. But as well as highlighting the potential problem, we also proved a station can be moved. Seems to me to be a very unsubtle hint from the cosmos.”
I paused and he waited for me.
“Put it this way,” I went on, “if one day you were told to evacuate, as fast as you possibly can, would you want to be forced to leave anyone behind?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“I’m just pointing it out. We have time to prepare, maybe a lot of time, maybe not. But we were given this warning for a reason, and I for one, am going to make sure my assets can move in a hurry if they have to.”
“Move? Where to?”
“It depends on where the threat comes from. Frankly, your people are the most likely to encounter the problem first. You’re the ones out there exploring. Where we move, is to the first choke point we can find. Midnight is one. There are others, but not many. You’d know them better than I would. If the threat comes up the spine, everyone retreats to behind Midnight, and we stand there. If the threat comes down the spine from an Australian system, we do the same the other way, taking refuge in Cobol and trying to hold in Midnight. If it starts somewhere in the middle and heads both ways, then we retreat both directions. The key thing is, if we need to move, we’re able to. And the choke point systems are the logical places to retreat behind, so we can make a stand where they can’t outflank us.”
“I hope it never comes to that. But you make a good case. I’ll upgrade my station so it can accommodate all my people if it has to, and can move as fast as I can make it so. I saw the way yours moves, so I know how to do it.”
“Don’t forget the means to evacuate from the planet to the station in a hurry.”
“I’m not one for doomsday theories, but, we’ve had a wakeup call, haven’t we.”
“I’d say so.”
“In that case, I think we need a party.”
We grinned at each other, and he left my Ready Room.
By five thirty, we were in a shuttle heading down planet. Everyone came along, although Eric was the last aboard, since he’d needed to dock his Camel first, and had further to go to the shuttle dock than we did.
The air tour over the planet’s sites took an hour, and I marveled at how much of the planet actually was coloured an intense apricot. It registered that for all my traveling, I’d not actually spent any real time on planets. If I had the chance, it might be good to try and play tourist the next time I was moving around a lot.
We landed on the roof of an imposing building, which turned out to be Slice’s home.
We met his wife, children, and grandchildren; and Eric’s wife and kids as well. Plus all the members of his board, and other prominent locals.
It did indeed turn into a big party, the sort which bubbles along so nicely, no-one wants to leave.
But leave we had to, and the shuttle took us back to BigMother around one in the morning.
Eric made a point of letting me know he’d be about two weeks behind us, having some much needed leave time, before he began his sweep of the Australian sector. He told me he’d check in when he arrived, and I let him know there would likely be a few things I wanted him to look out for as well. His purpose was ideal cover for completing the aborted mission I’d started out with - finding the pirate base which we still suspected was in the sector. I’d never finished the job, and now, it was unlikely I’d be able to move around freely enough to be able to accomplish anything. The trouble with being news, is it makes you visible. And this job needed invisible.
On the way up, I was thinking about what I was going to need on the new station, which hadn’t been necessary before. Things like a grand ballroom, different sized entertaining venues, and VIP visitor accommodation. Possibly even areas set aside for diplomatic embassies. I made some notes and sent them off to David Tollin.
By one thirty, everyone else was tucked up in bed, while I was on the Bridge getting us moving. The 266 pilots had been dropped off on the station first, and were speeding on ahead as before.
We pilots were going to have an interrupted night, as the jump point was three hours away. But we could sleep in after.
Once away from the Orbital station, I crawled into bed beside Aline and Angel, and went to sleep.
Forty Five
The jump into Argon, a bit after four thirty, was routine. Jane got me up for it, and I went straight back to sleep afterwards. I guess I wasn’t really needed on the Bridge for a jump, but a jump point was the most likely place for something untoward to occur, and as captain of the ship, it was my responsibility if something went wrong.
When I next awoke, I was alone. Aline and Angel had presumably opted for breakfast, rather than waiting for me. I felt okay about it too. While I was enjoying being with Aline, the words ‘Hunter’s Harem’ floated in now and again. It’s funny how things said maliciously, stick in your head and take root. It had been a taunt, but there was something to it, and Aline was an embodiment of the taunt becoming true. I shook off the thought process, and headed for the shower.
The Argon system connected to Avon two ways. The next jump point connected both systems. But another jump point connected to Avon through four other systems. With a fifth system also joined to Argon, the group formed a sort of sub-sector within the Sci-Fi sector, named for the species in the X universe games I’d loved as a kid. Exactly why these names had been chosen had been lost. Some of the system ships which had joined the multi-sector force, had come from this area of space. As the ships showed, they were still serious about their science fiction origins, even if the history was lost.
Zippy was doing cargo runs. According to Jane, we had deliverables for Argon Prime, some of which would go on to the other X systems. The freighter was also collecting cargo. The ship account was looking very healthy, for such a little ship.
I spent the morning in my Ready Room with emails. Angel came in at one point and curled up on my lap. David was asking questions about the new station, and I answered them as best I could.
Among the usual junk, was a notice of an island resort on Gold Coast, for lease or sale. It was large enough for all of us, and I asked them for a six month lease. By the time I moved o
nto the Bridge for the next jump, the lease had been confirmed. I emailed David to arrange for it to be stocked with food and drink, so I wouldn’t need to worry about anything when we arrived. If nothing else, I intended using it as a regular getaway retreat. We all needed a decent holiday, and once the rest of the team arrived on Custer, they would as well.
The jump into Avon was also routine. 266 had it down now, and BigMother hadn’t even needed to slow before jumping.
After lunch, the Generals and I spent the last couple of hours before arriving at Avon discussing inter-sector communications and other issues they’d thought of over the previous few days. I had Jane give Price an encryption key to use for future emails.
He belatedly passed on our invitation to an informal celebration to begin at three. I guess he hadn’t wanted me to think about it too long, knowing how uncomfortable I was with celebrations now.
Almost exactly on two thirty, BigMother docked at Avon Orbital. I’d debated if we should dock in Gunbus, but an email from the station security office had assured me the docking area would be secure for our arrival.
It wasn’t.
We gathered near the main Cargo Bay airlock while Jane docked the ship. Nearby was an organized jumble of pallets ready to offload.
“Fighting just broke out in the docking area,” said Jane. “Looks like a small ambush force is fighting with station security.”
“Let’s give them a hand then, shall we?”
“Confirmed,” said Jane and the girls together. They all giggled, as we drew our guns.
I was on my scooter, and knowing how restricting this made my shooting, I stepped off it, and limped heavily to the airlock.
I was wearing the Long Gun on my right thigh, and a gatling stunner on my left. The second gatling stunner was on my left hip, positioned for a right handed draw. I drew Long Gun and stunner, as we waited for the airlock to open.
We stepped through looking for targets, our suits went straight into protection mode, and were immediately hit with a barrage of heavy pulses.
Hunter Legacy 5 Hail the Hero Page 25