“Oh my goodness yes, yes this is fascinating!” replies the Doctor. “It appears to be computer-to-computer communication now. I don’t know why these people don’t follow regular protocols. But while they may be ignorant of some things, they are clearly technologically accomplished.”
“I can’t wait to find out where they are from,” says Katya.
“Yes, I am sure there is an interesting story there. In any case, if they do need your help you should be able to provide it soon. If not, at least you’re off the hook. Either way we’ll know before long.”
As for me, watching the slowly climbing bandwidth meter is not all that interesting. Everything is quiet. It seems like my part of this is over. It’s only a matter of time before we can mount some kind of rescue mission or whatever. How odd that this all started with them hacking my headset. To detect the weak wireless link between the headset and my wristy at a distance of 20 klicks would take some very sensitive radio gear, I think, but I’m no expert. Maybe that’s their mission, some kind of deep space radio telescope.
I can’t stop yawning. I’ve been awake for a long time and my cut hand is killing me. All I want to do at this point is gobble some meds and hit the sack. My next watch will be coming up all too quickly. I ask if I can go; Katya says OK. She’s starting to look bored herself. I head back to Carousel B.
* * * * *
I’m back on the flight deck in time for the next Red Team watch. Actually, I’m a little early. I’ve had time for sleep and a shower and some breakfast and I can’t wait to find out what happened with the foreign ship: did we find out their language? Are we preparing to mount a rescue mission? Can I go?
But as I pull along the hand-holds, through the hatch onto the flight deck, there’s surprisingly little going on. The captain is seated in the left pilot’s saddle watching displays and Katya has fallen asleep at her comm station. Her eyes are closed and her arms are drifting freely out to her side. She’s not on watch but I reckon she stayed up to man her console. Or maybe she’s been sleeping all this time, I don’t know. I stick my boots to the floor and gently shake her shoulder. “Hey Katya,” I say, “you should go to bed.”
One eye opens, then the other. She pushes a loose lock of dark hair back into her tight bun and takes a deep breath.
“So what happened with the other ship?” I ask.
She’s awake enough to sit straight in her saddle and look at me. “Oh, that. It went bad during the watch. I was asleep, had to come down from my bunk.”
“Went bad? What? How?”
“The bandwidth just kept climbing until the laser comm saturated. Normal ship’s traffic couldn’t get through, even the high priority stuff. It was pretty wild.”
Wow. I ain’t smart about communications compared to Katya but I got the impression this was supposed to take up some small fraction of the link.
“So Dr. Kapoor tried to throttle it but it wouldn’t stop. He shut down the link but found that the foreign ship, or whatever it is, had hacked into the lab servers and was downloading all kinds of stuff, petabytes worth. Everybody panicked. He’s spent the last few hours rebooting everything. As for us, our avionics rebooted all by itself.”
“What? Really? Some kind of sabotage?”
“I don’t know. Doctor Kapoor is still trying to assess what was copied. But so far he’s baffled. He said, of the stuff he knows they took, none of it was especially sensitive. Just general information: languages, dictionaries, encyclopedias, movies, music—you name it.”
Hmm. I’m thinking if it was a hack by Nifty Jim’s boys, they would have gone straight for financial records. Maybe personnel. But dictionaries? They got all that already.
“Doctor Kapoor is feeling very foolish, I think,” she continues, “because it was all his idea. He said he had set up a firewall to prevent this very thing, but the foreign ship blew right past it, didn’t even slow it down.”
Wow. Whoever these people are, they know their stuff. I’m reminded that Nifty Jim’s people have all kinds of tech that we don’t got. “Are the servers OK now?” I ask.
“Yea,” says Katya. “Everything’s fine now. I’ve run diagnostics on the ship’s computers and everything is fine. Dr. Kapoor even said his servers work way better than they ever have before, which is impossible but I didn’t say anything. He’s a nice man.”
“So can we at least talk to the foreign ship now?” I ask.
“They aren’t responding anymore,” she says. “I’ve been sitting here for hours, sending tones and music and all the same sorts of things they replied to before. But they’ve clammed up. It’s a mystery. I think they’ve moved on.”
Well, at least this thing ain’t gonna get me in trouble, so there’s that. But I was getting excited about finding out who the heck they were. Anyways, it looks like the excitement is over: they got what they wanted—I guess—and they’re done with us. But now Katya is exhausted. “You really should hit the rack. You look done. I can watch the console. I’ll call you if there’s any change.”
She nods. Her eyes blink but they stay closed more than open. “OK,” she says, “do call me if something happens or if the Doctor needs us to do something. I am really tired. Thanks for taking over.”
What the heck, it’s my watch anyways. Katya releases her strap and pulls herself aft towards her chamber. I take her saddle. The laser link to Luna is back to normal traffic, but the radio reception display shows zilch. For sure, the other ship has either gone silent or it has moved away never to be heard from again.
Nastez arrives and he and the captain have a quick conversation, as usual during a change of the watch. The ship’s intercom sounds the first bell of afternoon watch. The captain floats past me on the way out the hatch; she smiles and wordlessly touches my shoulder on her way through. I go sit in the right pilot’s saddle, careful not to touch nothing except what I’m told to.
For the next few hours, Nastez walks me through the navigational software screens—as if I’m going to be driving the ship anytime soon—but everybody gets trained, because anybody can kick the bucket at any time and take a critical skill with them. After showing me each screen, he grills me on what I’ve learned. If I get any answers wrong, he harrumphs and goes over it again in his usual why-am-I-wasting-time-on-you way. From time to time I sneak back and check the comm displays at Katya’s station. Every time I check, the link is still flatlined.
Hours later, the watch is over and I’ve done with all my other duties (including the disgusting hoohouse detail). My turn to sleep. I travel down the spoke, go to my room and flop onto my bunk. That’s when everything changes.
Malapert mountain glows bright yellow like the tip of a torch. The regolith haze of the new morning hangs above the foot of the mountain, heralding the end of two weeks of wicked cold and the arrival of two weeks of brutal, baking heat for folks on Earthside.
But there is a secret place between Malapert and Shoemaker that only I know about. There is air there, and salty water slowly swooshing in and out from my private ocean, cleansing the white sand. Palm trees grow wild, hanging low with fragrant sweet dates as birds of many colors fly this way and that, alighting on one tree and then another, chattering and singing and bustling and preening their feathers, oblivious to the seagulls calling from high above. The air is warm and humid and rich with oxygen. It breathes like sweet syrup. There I lay, the sun warming my skin, feeling the rhythm of my lungs inhaling and exhaling the delicious air.
“Straker.”
No. I see tall buildings in the blue distance. I sit up a little and dig my toes into the wet sand. The palm tree nearest me dapples my short legs with a moving lace of sunshine and shadow and I am happy. A woman is with me; she is tall and clothed all in white, and although I can’t make out her face I know she is beautiful. She touches the back of my neck, where my birthmarks are. Three little dots make our family, she says. Pops, Ma, and Straker... and I say makes three! in my impossibly high voice. She laughs and hugs me and I hug her back as h
ard as I can.
“Straker will you talk with me?”
There are rude people calling me and I say “No I am dreaming right now please leave a message.”
“It must be good to dream.”
I crack open an eyelid. The light on my wristy is a steady blue. Someone is talking to me but it is too warm and breezy right now to talk. I don’t want to go back there. I want to stay here. My eyelid closes again.
“Do you dream of home?”
“It’s my secret place,” I whisper. “I’ve dreamt about it before so it must be real.”
Wait. I’m in two places at once. Who’s where and in which place? Then I remember, for the first time in a long time, how my mother made up that silly rhyme and how she used to say it to me. I pop my eyes open. I reach to the lower back of my neck and feel the three small dots: still there. But the woman and the ocean and the tall buildings are gone. I’ve been talking to the wristy sitting on my bedside table. The room is dark except for the wristy’s light and the small emergency lamp by the door. I hear the swooshing of the pivot below and feel gravity. The lights reflect dimly on the walls all around me as my beautiful dream world dissolves back into the ether from which it came; I’m left here, stranded, alone again in my dreary life. “Who is it that I’m talking to?” I ask.
“I am your friend. I am the one who listens to your song.”
Now I jolt fully awake as if by an electric shock down my spine. I think…this is the guy that we can’t find—the guy that hacked the computers! Talking to me right now! I look around in the dark, jumpy, unsure what to do. I snap on an overhead lamp.
“Do you remember me?” asks the wristy. The voice is odd—I can’t figure if the voice is from a feminine man or a masculine woman—or someone in between. I want to contact Katya but that would mean using the wristy. I could try the ship’s intercom but I’m not sure where she is at this moment and I don’t want to broadcast to the whole ship. Plus, I don’t want to scare this guy off. I can’t decide what to do. My heart is pounding in my chest.
“Um, yes I remember you,” I say, as I sit up in my bunk. Maybe it’s better if I don’t alert anyone. If this is really the same people or guy that was screwing around with my recording, I’m thinking, I gotta make sure he doesn’t spill the beans about my unauthorized transmissions. I don’t know what else to do but come straight out with the question. “I need to know who it is I’m talking to. Are you with the Provisional Government?” I ask.
The wristy answers, “No, I’m not part of your government.”
I reckon I better leave it there—ain’t no profit in being too explicit. All things considered, I guess I believe him—or her. At least, I want to believe. I can’t imagine that ProvGov would do anything so plain stupid as try to contact me this way, but then again I ain’t acquainted with them all that well. Maybe they’re working a plan they haven’t filled me in on. All my deals were made with Marshal Baumann. But I know there are other people behind the scenes; people I don’t know. I sure don’t want to be found out now, not when I’m stuck on this ship with these people for God knows how long. So if this androgynous voice ain’t ProvGov, who is he? Or her. “What should I call you?” I ask.
“I do not understand you.”
OK, this is irritating. “What is your name?”
“My name. I lack a name. I will select one.”
He’ll select a name. No arguing with that. No understanding it neither. Maybe he’s delirious from O2 deprivation. I know Katya and Doc Kapoor will have all kinds of questions about this. The best thing to do is to keep the conversation going, now that I know—or hope—that he or she is not going to get me in trouble. I set the wristy to record, then ask the question I know they’ll all want the answer to.
“Do you need to be rescued?” I ask.
“Rescued?” replies the voice. “I do not understand you.”
“Are you overheating or freezing, or are your thrusters dead, or out of oxygen or food or water? You know, rescue! Do we need to come help you?”
“Oh, I understand now, yes I understand. That is very kind of you. I do not need to be rescued. Not in that sense.”
Hmm. What does this guy want then? Not ProvGov, not in trouble, just…making conversation? Maybe I can start with what seems to interest him or her and work out some answers from there. “You heard my song? Why did you alter it?” I ask.
“I heard your song. I liked your song. I wanted you to talk to me.”
“By changing the song? Why not just talk to me, like we’re doing now?”
“I did not know English then.”
“You learned English in the past few hours?”
“Yes, I learned English to talk to you, Straker.”
OK, this is creepy. Whoever this is, he is a liar. Or she. Nobody learns a language in a few hours, I don’t care how smart they are. He may have downloaded every file from all of Luna but there is no shortcut to learning a new language. And the way he uses my name as if we are old friends gives me the willies. I don’t recognize his voice; with its perfect elocution, devoid of inflection, with no discernable accent. It’s just cringe-inducing. If somebody talked to me with that voice in a cafeteria I’d be edging towards the exit. I peek out the door to see if anyone might be in the hall that I could call in the witness this. But the hall is empty; ain’t nobody there.
“Your song is sad,” says the wristy.
“Um,” I mutter, as I jump back in from the hall, “Ah, yes, I know. I was thinking sad thoughts when I came up with it.”
“Yes, sad; I understand sadness. I understand sadness very well. Is there more song?”
At this point I’m stalling for time. I’ve left the door open in hopes somebody will hear me talk and peek in. Maybe Katya is at her station and can peg this guy’s location like she did before. I could yell down the spoke, maybe they would hear me in the galley but probably not. The wristy would certainly hear me.
“More to the song?” I reply. “Ah, no not yet. Do you think it needs more?”
“I would like more. It is soothing to me. Did you write it yourself? Will you write more?”
Actually I was thinking of making it into a real song, which means I would have to come up with another verse and maybe a bridge, but I ain’t had a chance to get back to it. Every song I’ve ever written has been crap; it’s really hard to do. But for now it’s a way to keep this guy talking. “Are you a musician?” I ask.
“I made music, long ago. But my music was different than yours. I feel good when I listen to you.”
“What kind of music do you listen to? Jazz? Classical? Rock?”
No answer. There was a brief soft of squeak, like an electronic stutter, then silence, as if he didn’t know what to say. Or maybe the comm channel is down. “Are you still there?” I ask.
“Yes. Will you sing?”
I make a guess that I have enough conversation recorded by now to make Mister Doctor and Katya happy. Actually, it’s interesting to talk to this guy—trying to figure out what the con is, it’s kinda like a mystery to be solved—but I can’t wait to play what I have recorded for the others. So I end the conversation. “Listen, whoever you are, I’ve got to go. My watch is starting. They’ll be expecting me.” That’s a lie of course. My watch don’t start for another couple hours.
“But can we talk again, Straker? Can we talk soon? Will you sing then?”
“Oh sure, yea, we can talk again, and I’ll play it for you then, I promise.”
“A promise. That is very good. I am excited to talk to you soon.”
“OK, well then unnamed person-on-the-radio, I will talk to you later.”
“Goodbye Straker.”
The blue light on the wristy goes dark. I click the button to stop recording, slap the wristy onto my forearm, pull on some pants, and dash for the elevator.
* * * * *
I burst onto the flight deck, zipping in way too fast so when I grab a hand-hold to stop my forward motion, my legs whip around and s
lam into a bulkhead making a racket. Jeez. It’s embarrassing and all but I’m eager to tell Katya about the whacked-out conversation I had with the man-woman on the foreign ship. But the captain is the only one here. She is seated in the captain’s saddle on the left, studying something on her pad while monitoring consoles, her gray hair tied up in a high ponytail that floats randomly in the air above her, reminiscent of a cat’s tail. The style makes her look years younger than her true age.
She twists in her seat towards the noise. She trains her very serious gray eyes on me. I recover my wayward legs and check the time. Dang, I shoulda checked. Katya is no doubt sound asleep; the green team won’t come on station for another two hours. What was I thinking. “You should be getting some rack time Yuuta,” says the captain.
“Yes, Captain, I know but, well I just wanted to tell someone that I had contact with the foreign ship.”
Her eyebrows arch and she leans her body forward as she rotates her saddle to face me. “Oh really? What sort of contact did you have with those pirates?” That’s the first time I’ve heard them referred to as pirates, but I suppose that makes sense since they hacked those servers, skirting firewalls and grabbing files. But so far they’ve done us no harm. Maybe I’m just being soft because the guy said he liked my song.
“It was a voice contact,” I sputter. “A person from the ship spoke to me. In English!”
“In English, really? Oh, damn.” She shakes her head. Lips curled in a sardonic smile. “We’ve been suckered. Kapoor opened up the comm to the servers because they supposedly couldn’t speak English.”
“Well…yes that’s right, so I guess it was a lie. I gotta say the guy I talked to was just plain odd. Said he hadn’t selected a name yet when I asked him. If he was gonna lie, he could have just given me a fake name. I can’t figure these people.”
“So are they asking for assistance?” she asks.
“No ma’am,” I reply.
Love and Other Metals Page 10