by Greco, J. I.
“Could be,” Vei said. “That or an extremely lucky beach ball.”
“It’s got to be a data core,” Dag said. He stared at the sphere in the holotank and licked his lips with a flat gray tongue. “I knew we’d find something. That’ll cover fuel costs and more.”
Vei croaked out a grunt. “If it’s not intact.”
“What do you mean?” Dag asked.
“Can’t salvage it if its Brain is still alive,” Vei said. “Sentient being laws. If it is alive, once we bring it aboard, we’re legally responsible for making sure it gets someplace safe. More trouble than it’s worth.”
“Well,” Dag said, leaning close to Vei and lowering his voice, “we can always erase the Brain if it’s there. Nobody will know the difference.”
Vei bobbed her head in agreement. “Bring it aboard, Feh.”
“Well?” Vei asked.
The five foot wide sphere of data core sat on the floor of Exalted Refuse’s hold on the cargo receiving pad next to the engineering block, towers of junk looming behind it. Knobs–data and power connection points–studded the outside of the sphere. Most had been bent and twisted in the explosion, some having been sheered completely off, and all showed signs of charring. But the sphere’s casing itself appeared, at least visibly, intact.
“So, is it dead?” Dag asked.
“We’ll know soon enough,” Feh said, dragging a coiled power cord up to the data core and clamping it to one of the least bent and charred knobs, just below the core’s manual interface panel. He glanced back over his shell. “Vei, hit the juice, will you?”
Crouched next to the engineering nest-station, Vei reached over the rim and gave the power feed bulb a squeeze.
A small speaker in the data core’s interface panel emitted three short beeps, then a burst of static.
“That sounds promising,” Vei said.
“Hello?” Dag knocked on the side of the data core with a crowbar. “Anyone home?”
The static went away. “Who turned out the lights?” Igon asked in the rent-a-speedship’s sexless voice. “Gladys, is that you! You came back for me! I knew you would!”
“Damn,” Vei said. She scratched at her neck mold. “Somebody’s home.”
“Not for long.” Feh waddled back to his nest-station and hopped inside. He pulled at a pair of control tubes. High above them, hydraulic servos hissed and gears screamed as a massive, softly humming electromagnet crane descended from the hold’s ceiling. “This will erase it good.”
“Erase?” Igon asked in a panic. “Wait a second... I’m too pretty to die—”
Feh swung the electromagnet down towards the data core. It clanked against the sphere’s top.
“Hey!” Igon protested.
“Careful,” Vei said. “We just want the personality erased – don’t damage the matrix.”
“I know what I’m doing.” Feh yanked a tube and the electromagnet rose to hang a foot above the data core. He twisted a bulb and the hum from the electromagnet intensified. “Stand back,” Feh said, and slapped his fleshy palm against a pressure-sensitive nodule.
The magnet pulsed, a booming crack of a sound that echoed through the hold.
“Ack!” Igon squealed. “Hey, that tickles...”
“Give it another,” Dag said.
Feh hit the nodule again. The magnet pulsed. The data core shuddered.
Igon broke into song. “Daisy, Daisy, give me an answer…” The magnet pulsed again. Igon shrieked, his voice warbling. “Who is Daisy? And what the hell is a bicycle?”
“One last one should do it,” Feh said, and twisted the power bulb up five notches. The electromagnet’s hum became a roar. Dag covered his ear-slits with his hands. Feh reached for the pulse nodule.
“You guys are blowing a huge opportunity!” Igon yelled. “I can pay you!”
Vei grabbed Feh’s wrist just as he was bringing it down on the nodule. “Hold it, Feh. –What do you mean, pay us?” she asked the data core.
“Get me a body,” Igon said, “and I’ll explain.”
Vei croaked a grunt. “Dag, where’d that utility robot get to?”
“The one you shot for breaking the air exchanger’s humidifier?”
“That one.”
“Pile 17, I think.”
“Patch it up and bring it here.”
Feh disconnected the transfer cable from the data core and waddled back to his engineering nest, where Vei and Dag waited, crouching. Dag had a bent-barreled autorifle on his lap, one hand covering the hilt to hide the fact it didn’t have a powercell.
“All right, you’ve got your body,” Vei said. “Now, where’s that pay you promised us?”
“All in good time,” Igon said, sitting up and looking his “new” body over. It was humanoid–two arms, two legs, and an oblong head, all of three foot tall. Its metal skin was splotched with rust where the several dozen coats of paint had been worn away, and there was an irregularly-shaped aluminum plate freshly welded over a jagged beam scar in his chest. He stretched his new arms, flexing the years of inactivity and neglect from the servos of his stubby single-jointed fingers. “I’ve been in worse,” he declared, and plucked the transfer cable from the back of his neck with a shrug. “You’ll get your money as soon as we track down Gladys. ”
Dag scratched at his crotch. “Who’s Gladys?”
Vei let out an impatient bleat. “Feh, power up the magnet.”
“No… please,” Igon said. “She’s got some data. Valuable data. We stole it, me and her. We were gonna sell it to a warlord. My share was gonna be huge, and I was only in it for ten percent. But if we track her down and take the data, we can cut her out of the deal. A hundred percent, all mine. –Except for a very generous two percent I’m willing to give you, of course, for the help.”
“Two percent of nothing is nothing,” Vei mused. “You said you could pay us. Now.”
“I can,” Igon said. “I will. All we need to do is find Gladys, then Klakraw. Gladys wouldn’t tell me exactly where he is, but he’s in the Otulak system, that much I know. ...Unless Gladys was lying about that. Wouldn’t put it past her... she’s a crafty one. Sexy, but crafty. See, she actually put the deal together—only brought me on to crack a safe, take her verbal abuse... fall in love... no, wait... love?” Igon made a fist and whacked the side of his head. “Damn, I think some of my bits got flipped what with all the blowing up and magnets... Does anybody else smell almonds?”
“Erase him,” Vei told Feh. “He’s insane.”
Feh stopped scrubbing at the shell-rot mold on his left knee with a wire brush and reached for the electromagnetic crane controls.
“No, wait!” Igon stood, stumbling a moment before getting his balance on his creaking new legs. “I’m not insane. I’m serious. It’ll be a huge payday for all of us. We just have to get the data back. And that won’t be hard at all—Gladys is probably still stuck in the life boat.”
“There’s a life boat?” Vei asked.
“Yeah. That’s how she survived my little ambush. Really should have disabled the thing, now that I think about it.”
“Now there’s something that could be worth salvaging,” Dag said.
Vei croaked at Dag to shut up. “Are you offering us the life boat?” Vei asked Igon.
“It’s all yours.”
Vei scratched at her neck mold. “All right. If the life boat isn’t a total piece of crap we’re partners for it and two percent of this deal you got going. Otherwise, you’re erased.”
“You’ll see,” Igon said. “We’ll all be rich. Now, this bucket got any weapons?”
“To take on a life boat?” Feh asked.
Igon walked up the engineering nest-station and looked up at Feh. “Gladys is human. They’re tricky. Especially this one. She’s a monster. She’s half machine, and not the good half. No morals whatsoever. I mean, look at what she did to me, right?”
“We have a plasma cannon,” Vei said.
“It work?” Igon asked.
“Sometimes,” Dag said, “you kick it right.”
Vei again croaked at Dag to shut up, emphasizing her point by cracking her elbow against Dag’s shell. “Doesn’t matter if it works or not. Ammo costs money.”
“Make it three percent, then,” Igon said.
Vei extended her hand. “Agreed.”
FIVE
“And voilà! A lunch fit for a sexy queen.” Lieutenant Detective Hackenthrush put a single red Drantini rose atop the eleven-course meal stacked high on the cart. Bottle of wine tucked under his arm, he pushed the cart towards the mess hall’s exit. “I’ll let you know how she likes it. I’m guessing long and hard, so she’s in luck.”
Rikki stepped in front of the cart. “Not so fast.”
Hackenthrush stopped, but not before banging the cart into Rikki. And then backing up and banging into him again. The plates under their chrome presentation domes clanked together. “My boat, my cart.”
“Sure,” Rikki said, rubbing his knees while his tail flicked out to pluck the bottle of wine from under Hackenthrush’s armpit. “But it’s my wine.”
Hackenthrush arched an eyebrow at Rikki. “We’re going to have to fight over this, aren’t we?”
Rikki’s ears flattened against his head. “To the death. Or until we get bored.”
“Choose your weapon,” Hackenthrush said, his eyes slowly – and he hoped unnoticed – drifting towards the autorifle on the nearby table. “I’ll take the–”
“Dibs on the autorifle.” Rikki quickly swiped the rifle off the table and hugged it to his chest.
“Damn!” Hackenthrush jabbed a finger at Rikki. “But you’re wearing a blindfold.”
“Fine.” Rikki shrugged and handed Hackenthrush the autorifle while he tied a napkin over his eyes, then reached out blindly in front of him.
Hackenthrush handed the rifle back and opened his jacket to stare at his empty shoulder holster. Growling, he turned to examine the table. He picked a plate off the stack and examined it dubiously. “Guess I’ll use a plate, then…”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant Hackenthrush,” 8724 called over the mess hall intercom.
“Can he get back to you?” Rikki pointed the autorifle at Hackenthrush. “He’s about to get shot. Right between the eyes.”
Hackenthrush swallowed – the rifle was aimed dead at his crotch. He lightly grabbed the barrel and lifted it, pointing it at his chest instead. “It’s okay, 8724. Go ahead. Please.”
“Junior Officer Loy needs to see you on the bridge.”
“The what, 8724?” Hackenthrush asked.
8724 sighed. “The cockpit, Lieutenant Detective.”
“Heh, heh,” Rikki chuckled, and whacked his palm against the autorifle’s power stud, slapping it up to full charge. It came on with a dull, teeth-shakingly lethal hum. “You said cockpit.”
Hackenthrush looked at the autorifle, then at his plate, then back at the autorifle. Then up at the intercom speaker in the ceiling. “Well, if it’s important… we’ll be right up.”
“What’s up, rookie?” Hackenthrush asked as he climbed up through the hole in the deck and onto the bridge. “You manage to get Jack Benny to come in clear on that thing?”
“No… sir.” Junior Officer stood in front of the bridge’s main CRT. A mug shot of a slender, athletically built woman in her mid-twenties rotated on the screen. “I took the liberty of running our guest through the DUPES Criminal Database. And good thing I did.”
“Hey, that sorta looks like Miss Swartzbaum,” Rikki said as he climbed up onto the bridge and saw the mugshot on the CRT. “Only she’s a brunette.”
Loy nodded. “And her name’s not Swartzbaum.” She pointed at the printout spewing from the chattering dot-matrix next to the CRT. “It’s Hershell. Didi Hershell. Or, it’s Vivian Lee. Or Myrna the Torch. She’s also been known to go by Dorothy Wynant, Maureen O’Sullivan, Minna Gombell, Natalie Moorhead, Nora Charles... Point is, she’s had a lot of names.”
“And apparently some breast work,” Hackenthrush said, plopping down into his commander’s chair. “For the better.”
Loy tore the first ten pages off the printout and walked it over to Hackenthrush. The printer continued to spew behind her. “She’s some kind of criminal mastermind. Look at this record. Hundreds of arrests in dozens of star systems... Grand thefts. Extortions. Confidence games. Rigging elections. You name it, she’s been arrested for it, or is wanted for it.” She scanned the printout, her eyes getting wider and wider. “How is she not locked away for life?”
Hackenthrush shrugged. “She’s hot. Special rules apply to people like her and me.”
“Ha!” Rikki blurted.
“Hot?” Loy asked. “She’s clearly an anti-social psychopath–”
“Sure,” Cortez said, “blow up one elementary school and they brand you for life.”
Loy looked up from the printout and past Hackenthrush to see Cortez’s head and shoulders popping up through the hole in the deck, her robomechanical hand on the lip of the hatch, ready to close it, and her other hand around her needler, aimed at the back of Hackenthrush’s head.
“Hold it!” Loy shouted, fumbling with the printout while reaching for the service raygun at her hip.
Cortez disappeared down through the deck hole, slamming the hatch shut behind her. A moment later, the wheel spun, and the clank of a locking bolt being fitted into place on the other side of the hatch echoed ominously through the bridge.
Which is when Loy finally managed to get her raygun out of its holster. She pointed it at the closed hatch. “You’re under arrest…” Her voice trailed off.
“Don’t look so glum, rookie,” Hackenthrush said, leaning forward to pat Loy on the shoulder. “You’ll get her next time.”
Hopping off the ladder onto Deck 5, Cortez holstered her needler and tapped commands into the underside of her robomechanical arm. “Still with me, Ship?”
“I am here,” 8724 said. “How can I serve you?”
“Lock your controls to me only. Then kill all power to the bridge except for emergency lighting and life support. Then get your ass over to the Otulak system.”
“Controls locked. Bridge powered down. Charting a course to – excuse me, but did you say the Otulak system?”
“Yup.”
“You are aware that is a prohibited system?”
“So I hear,” Cortez said with a enthusiastic nod. “Completely lawless, neutral no-man’s land territory. Anarchy from one end of its Oort cloud to the other. Pretty much lethal for anybody who isn’t backed up by a war fleet to slip into.”
“Just checking,” 8724 said. “Charting a superluminal course now. It will take a couple minutes.”
“Ooh,” Cortez said, clapping her hands together hungrily as she hung a left into the mess hall. “Just time for a snack.”
“8724?” Junior Officer Loy asked again, staring at the black screen of the CRT. Every gauge, indicator bulb, and CRT on the bridge had gone dead and silent just moments before. The only illumination came from the dim red emergency bulbs in the bridge’s conical ceiling, and the only sound was the rattling din of the air exchangers. “Please respond. Now’s not the time for a joke.”
Nothing.
Loy listened to the silence for a half minute before sighing. “All right, 8724’s either off-line or unresponsive as well. So, no radio. No controls. No Ship’s Brain. No anything. I don’t know how she managed it, but she did.”
“You know,” Rikki said, “I’m starting to think Miss Swartzbaum isn’t a very nice person.”
“She’s a psychopath,” Loy said.
“I’ve dated worse, but still, I think this time, it’s a deal breaker.” Hackenthrush leaned back in his commander’s chair and yawned. “Pity… –Rikki, grab me a pouch of beer, will you?”
“Beer?” Loy asked.
Hackenthrush slapped his thigh. “You’re right. Situation like this calls for the good stuff.”
“Powdered tequila coming up,” Rikki said, walking across
the bridge to the First Aid locker set into the base of the curved bulkhead. He popped the lid open and reached in, taking out three shiny metallic pouches.
“There any of that margarita mix left?” Hackenthrush asked.
“Not since Cinco de January,” Rikki said, tossing a pouch into Hackenthrush’s impatiently waiting hands. He held out one of the other two pouches at Loy. She pursed her lips with disapproval and shook her head curtly. Shrugging, he stuffed it into a pocket and tore the top off the third pouch with his teeth. He raised it at Hackenthrush. “To you health, my good sir.”
Hackenthrush raised his pouch. “And to yours as well, my good fellow.”
Loy crossed her arms over her chest as the two “clinked” pouches. “We can’t just let her take over the ship.”
“She’s already taken over the ship,” Hackenthrush said, tapping glittering brown dehydrated tequila powder from the pouch into his mouth. “And she did a damn nice job of it, too, I have to say.”
Loy glared at him. “We should at least try to take it back.”
Hackenthrush gave her a displeased shake of the head. “Oh, no, rookie. You said it yourself, she’s a psychopath. We’re better off locked in here. Best to leave well enough alone, sit tight, and enjoy the downtime. See how it all plays out.”
“We can’t just sit tight–we have to do something,” Loy said. “We have a–”
Hackenthrush held up a warning finger. “Don’t say it.”
“–duty” Loy finished.
Rikki chuckled. “Heh heh, you said duty.”
“Told you not to say it,” Hackenthrush said.
“Lieutenant, sir, please… Who knows what she’s up to out there?”
“Whatever it is, what can we do? We’re stuck in here.” Hackenthrush crumbled his empty tequila pouch and let it drop to the deck onto the pile of other crumpled pouches already there around the base of his chair. “The hatch is bolted from the outside, and there’s no other way in or out of the bridge.”