by B. V. Larson
I rammed the throttles forward, pouring power into the three huge engines. As a racing yacht, Greyhound was overpowered. I loved that surging feeling of acceleration. The floor seemed to tilt as the Gs leaked through the inertial field—which I’d deliberately set slightly low—so we could feel the kick in the ass. We blasted out of orbit and into interplanetary space.
“Don’t you love those Gs?” I yelled over the roaring engines.
“You’re welcome,” Olivia replied.
“Oh yeah, thanks for letting me drive.”
“Just don’t tell Father,” she said, referring to Lord Grantham Turnbull, known simply as Lord Grantham to friends and family.
Eventually I came off the throttles to give Olivia a break. I let the gravity stabilize and decreased our acceleration rate. This gave us a steady flight path toward Tyche, which would take a couple of days to reach. Back in my dad’s day it had taken much longer, but with the new technology, ships could sustain constant acceleration while those inside hardly felt it.
The ship’s brainbox reported a couple of sensors on the hull needing repair. I frowned, thinking an expensive yacht like this should be maintained better. Maybe I’d accelerated too hard and torn them off.
Letting the brainbox fly the ship, Olivia and I sat staring at the naked stars. She cuddled in my arms. All in all, this was a wonderful start to the voyage.
“Look,” I said, pointing at a constellation. “The Pleiades.”
“The Seven Sisters…funny. I always wanted more sisters, but…I guess one is enough.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.” I’d heard the story of Olivia’s mother dying in childbirth with her, an event even more shocking than usual in these days of nano-medical miracles. “Maybe we’ll have seven daughters, how’s that?”
“Brilliant.” She snuggled closer. “Hmm. This is nice.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“You sure you don’t want more?” She kissed me deeply.
I knew then that this was going to be the night. We’d hinted around and I’d tried every trick I knew, but so far Olivia and I hadn’t done more than make out. Curiously, this had made me more determined to get together with her. The fact that I hadn’t become bored and wandered off to find a new girl I’d taken as a sign of commitment on my part. Funny how these things sneak up on a guy.
“Of course I want more,” I said. “Let’s check out the bunks.”
She headed for the staterooms, and I followed. At the door to mine, she went inside first and then closed the smart metal in my face.
“Let me get ready,” she said.
I grumbled, but walked away to a nearby observation port. I stared out at space through the triple-thick nano-glass. It showed the heavens ablaze with more stars than could be seen from an Earthly mountaintop.
Disaster struck just as I was beginning to wonder what she was doing in there. It started with some odd clunking noises and then the sound of tearing metal. I noticed it first, as my nanotized hearing was sharp.
“What’s that?” I said, looking around.
“What’s what?” Olivia called through the smart metal hatch.
Suddenly, an explosion rocked the ship, and the smart hatchway melted away to become metallic grit. A hole had been blown in the hull directly in front of Olivia. The shockwave threw us down onto the deck. Almost immediately, the storm of debris reversed itself and all the air was sucked out of the chamber. Whatever had just happened had cut through the tough multiple layers of the outer hull that were supposed to keep us safe from space-borne hazards.
Half blind, I struggled to my feet. My hands had been torn up by the blast, but, gritting my teeth, I found I could move them. I already felt my nanites and Microbes rushing through my bloodstream to the injured areas.
The vacuum hadn’t sucked us out into space at least, but Olivia had been pulled to the breach in the hull and for a second I thought the suction might have ripped her guts out. I tugged and she came free in a shower of frozen blood that looked like floating rubies. We’d lost gravity and pressure. Only my unusual physique was keeping me moving—but I knew it wouldn’t last.
My first thought was to restore pressure for Olivia’s sake. I could survive hard vacuum for a minute or more, but I knew she couldn’t. I leaped across the room to the tear in the wall and grabbed the pieces that had been folded back like aluminum foil. The smart metal in them was trying to close the hole but it needed some help, so I bent and pushed the flanges back into place until the various edges found each other and started their self-healing process.
As soon as the metal had formed a rudimentary seal, I pressed my head against the wall speaker and yelled with the remaining air in my lungs, “Greyhound, initiate emergency repressurization!” Even without atmosphere, the vibrations should travel through my skull and be picked up by the ship’s brainbox. A moment later I was rewarded with a blast of warm oxygen from the vents.
I stayed with Olivia as a warm breath of oxygen hissed back into the chamber. Gravity returned too, and her blood droplets showered onto my back and pattered on the deck.
Now that we were getting air and heat, I returned to my girl. I realized she wasn’t moving. She was lying face down on the deck. Blood was flowing out of her still—it was everywhere.
Rolling her over, I was horrified to find the whole front of her face and torso covered with blood. Clearly she was in shock. I managed to get her breathing again, but it was ragged. Her eyes roved the room as if seeing everything except me.
“Olivia! Olivia, can you hear me?” I said urgently.
“Cody?” She focused briefly on my face, and then the light in her eyes went out and her head sagged. I realized her skull must have impacted something, and part of her hair had been torn away and now hung by a flap of skin.
I had to get her to the autodoc on board—a rich man’s medical toy combining a brainbox and all the surgical tools, diagnostic software and drugs that could be packed into a machine the size of a coffin. It was as advanced as a Star Force military critical care unit. I knew it would be able to fix her up.
It had to.
I scooped Olivia up with a pounding heart, spewing curses. I shoved my shoulder against the pressure door and roared at the brainbox, “Open the wardroom door!”
“Unable to comply. Air pressure not restored in outer passageway.”
I growled in frustration and carried her across to the other door, went through the galley and then out the other side. All the while, I could feel her blood running down my arms and spattering onto the floor, making me more and more frantic. I charged down several corridors, taking the long way around to the autodoc until once more a locked pressure door stopped me.
“Greyhound, open this damn door!” I yelled.
“Unable to comply. Air pressure not restored in outer passageway.”
“Is the autodoc on the other side of this bulkhead?” I asked.
“Affirmative.”
“Open an emergency portal through the wall.”
“Command not accepted. Only authorized personnel can issue emergency orders.”
I roared and kicked the wall, denting it. If I didn’t get Olivia into the autodoc, she was going to die. “The only authorized person is incapacitated! You must have some kind of override protocol!”
A pinhead camera on a stalk focused on me and then on Olivia. “Temporary authorization granted.”
I watched the smart metal of the wall thin until a circular hole opened in the center. As soon as it was wide enough, I stepped through, hitting the autodoc’s Open button with one bloody hand as I juggled Olivia’s body. The nano-glass canopy rose and I placed her into the coffin-like enclosure. Slamming the cover closed activated the autodoc, and it went to work on her with four arms. The machine jammed needles and probes into her, fired up laser scalpels, and deftly began slicing away her clothing before starting on her body.
I turned away, not able to watch the machine cut up the love of my life. I felt sick.
I
wondered what the hell had happened. Had we hit a meteor at a speed high enough to burst through the triple-walled hull? That was the only thing I could think of.
I’d been stupid, and Olivia was going to pay for my complacency. I should have insisted she get nanotized before we went on this trip. Though the treatments were scheduled for two months from now, I knew that with our families’ influence we could have gotten them early. Pretending to receive the nanite injections as an adult would have been a perfect cover for the fact that I had had the nanites my whole life. And the early injections would have given Olivia a much better chance of surviving what had just happened.
“Process failure,” the autodoc suddenly announced. “Patient vitals are diminishing. Extreme lifesaving measures will be initiated unless override is input.”
“Extreme lifesaving measures? What kind of extreme lifesaving measures?” I looked at the screen and displays, trying to decipher the medical readouts. These things were supposed to be cutting edge. I racked my brain trying to remember what I had heard about their capabilities.
The autodoc didn’t answer me.
“Nanites. You’re going to nanotize her,” I said.
My parents had filled me with nanites at an early age. But Olivia wasn’t due to get her nanite injections until she received her first assignment.
In Star Force, being injected with nanites was a requirement for active duty. They rebuilt the human body from the inside out and became symbiotic with the host organism. As a result, personnel in Earth’s spacegoing military healed faster, were stronger and had better reflexes than normal civilians. At this point, Olivia was still a natural woman.
“Nanite injections proceeding. Extreme lifesaving procedure in progress. Please back away from the canopy.”
Not knowing why, I did what it told me to do. I backed away from the curving nano-glass. The warning came just in time, for suddenly the material starred from an impact, as if a bullet had struck it from the inside. My head swung wildly, looking for the source of the damage before I realized what it must be.
Even sedated, Olivia’s body was reacting to the nanites pouring through her body, rebuilding her flesh for the very first time. Hugely strong with pain and adrenaline surges, her convulsions were cracking the glass on the autodoc's cover, although I could see the glass uncracking, repairing itself. I hoped it would hold.
After a few minutes she seemed to settle down, so I eased over to look through the glass again. Her skin writhed and she grimaced in pain, her head jerking back and forth as if having the most horrible nightmare imaginable. It made me want to break something, especially because I had no idea how she would come out of the treatment. Nanites were determinedly stupid little creatures, fulfilling their program to rebuild shattered flesh and bone even if the patient died in the process. I’d heard my dad tell of marines under his command who had been buried with perfect corpses as the nanites repaired body structure, but couldn’t preserve life.
I sat down on the floor and uttered a stream of low, vile profanity directed at myself that would have shocked my mother and surprised my father. I’d never been subject to recriminations, but now I got to experience them in spades. With no idea what else to do, I tried to think of a Hindu prayer for healing Mom had taught me when I was little, but I just couldn’t bring it to mind.
“Extreme lifesaving measures have failed,” the autodoc announced after an indeterminable time. I bolted to my feet and pressed hands against the glass. She seemed to be resting, at peace, but I couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
Frantically, I pulled up the patient vitals. Everything showed flat and red.
Olivia was dead.
I smashed my hand against the nano-glass, starring it yet again, and then crumpled to the floor. I began to take deep breaths, but it felt like I wasn’t getting any air into my lungs.
I wanted to yell at the stupid machine, but I knew that wouldn’t help. Even something as automatic as an autodoc worked better if the humans involved had at least read the instruction manual, and I hadn’t. In fact, I’d totally screwed up by just jumping aboard Greyhound when they’d picked me up at the farm and flown off without a safety briefing or even rudimentary familiarization on this specific ship’s systems. Four years of Academy training and I’d thrown it out the window the first chance I got.
I’d never believed the people who called me an arrogant jackass—until now. That’s just what I was, and now Olivia lay dead in front of me because I thought we were both immortal.
When I could breathe again, I began to wonder just how this “accident” had occurred—and who might be responsible.
-3-
What else could I do but go back to Earth? Where before I’d loved the idea of taking the controls, now I just wanted to take it all back. I wanted to drink and sleep. Maybe when I woke up it would all turn out to have been a bad dream. I forced myself to instruct the brainbox to land back on Olivia’s family estate. It took more arguing, but once I convinced it the only command personnel aboard was dead, some kind of backup protocol kicked in and it complied.
Then I drank and slept.
We landed in the English countryside on a gray and drizzling day, perfect for the way I was feeling. I’d given minimum information to Olivia’s father on the way in, but he knew something terrible had happened. The whole household of servants, groundskeepers, stable hands and security guards, maybe seventy people, had turned out to watch the big yacht land in its cradle near a small lake in back of the mansion.
Medical personnel rushed up the ramp, and I pointed them wordlessly toward the autodoc. I hadn’t moved her from it. If there was any remote chance that I was wrong, and she was able to be revived, the machine and the nanites were her only hope.
Olivia’s father, Lord Grantham Turnbull, greeted me with a frozen face and a rigorously proper handshake, his back ramrod-straight. “I’m terribly sorry, sir,” I told him. I’d rehearsed this moment in my mind, but found everything I’d thought of saying sounded pointless now. “Your—” That was as far as I got before my mind shut down, not willing to face the pain. “I’m sorry,” I repeated.
“Thank you,” the older man said stiffly. He glanced up at the ship, his eyes taking in the damage and then narrowing. “What exactly happened?”
“Not much more than I reported before, sir. Something struck us, or maybe something exploded, ripping a hole in my stateroom. Olivia took the brunt of it. I got her into the autodoc as soon as I could, but it was too late.”
“Your stateroom?” His eyes bored holes in me.
“Yes, sir.” There was no point in dodging the facts, and I’d decided to just stick to the unvarnished truth. It’s not like we weren’t old enough to sleep together.
“Then this was aimed at you.”
Part of me was relieved that he wasn’t upset at me for defiling his daughter. The other part of me clutched at the straws of his implication. “You don’t think this was an accident?”
Lord Grantham shook his head. “I did some blasting in my younger days. Mining and so on. That,” he pointed at the damage, “was an explosion. Not a big one, mind you, not big enough to destroy the ship, just big enough to kill you. I think that’s what they wanted—Olivia was supposed to be alive, bringing you home in a box.”
I looked at him in surprise and grief. Another wave of guilt passed through me.
With sad eyes, Grantham touched my shoulder. “As God is my witness, I’ll find out who did this.”
“Thank you, sir. If there’s anything I can do…”
“I’ll let you know.” The way he said it made me think he wasn’t going to let the loose cannon Cody Riggs anywhere near the investigation.
About then, the medics walked down the ramp with the autodoc on a repeller lift, Olivia’s body still inside. Everyone watched sadly, but made no move to interfere as they loaded her into an ambulance. I supposed the authorities had to go through their procedures no matter what.
“Mister Riggs, I have arra
ngements to attend to. You’ve met Adrienne, I believe?” Lord Grantham turned to a striking young woman standing nearby. She was cast in the same mold as her sister Olivia, but dark blonde where Olivia had been a brunette. She was also more fit-looking. From what I recalled Olivia saying about her sister, she worked out a lot and had been a yoga instructor in the past. She had the well-sculpted body to prove it. She was a year older than Olivia, if I remembered correctly, and was working on her doctorate in Industrial Engineering at Oxford. She was something of a prodigy, as I understood it. Olivia often bragged about her.
Used to brag.
“Yes, we’ve met,” I said in a flat, bleak voice.
Adrienne stared for a moment at the hand I’d extended, then shook it firmly, searching my face as if answers waited there. Unfortunately I had none to give.
“Adrienne can look after you for the moment. I bid you good day.” With that, Lord Grantham dismissed me. He turned to supervise his staff as they began to swarm over the ship.
Adrienne drew me away toward the main house, and we walked the quarter mile in silence instead of taking one of the electric carts. It seemed to make sense just to plod down the path hoping Earth’s gravity would suck away all my hurting. Olivia’s sister didn’t ask me any questions, and in my numbed state I didn’t volunteer to talk. I wasn’t ready yet.
When we got there, Adrienne showed me to the sitting room and left me there. She didn’t offer to put me up for the night. I got the impression that she was angry and blamed me. No surprise. I blamed myself.
Eventually, an automated servant dropped off my bag. I’d left everything on the ship because I knew it would all have to be searched for the investigation. I might as well just let them do it up front and clear my name of all but stupidity as quickly as possible.
With no idea what else to do and no instructions, I called for a cab to take me to the Academy located only about a hundred miles away in these English midlands. I wasn’t a student there anymore, but at least the area was familiar. It was better for me to remove myself from the family’s grieving. No matter what, they would tend to see me as the source of the tragedy.