Pandora’s Crew (StarWings Book 1)

by Gorg Huff

  The months while Grandma and Grandpa were insystem made a change in the girls. They were more grown up and thought of Pan as home. Her little future academics had been transformed into little spacers, and Rosita wasn’t at all sure she liked the change.

  Location: Kiig Council Room, Parthia

  Standard Date: 06 06 631

  “We need Kiiggaak back!” said Kiigssik. They were in a small, dingy room which was where the Kiig council had met for the last hundred years. The Kiig were a borderline clan with interests on the planet’s surface and minor interests in space. They owned a small piece of one of the human-crewed jump ships that traded with the Parthian system and a manufactory in one of the Fkis stations. The clan had twelve active breeders and about eight hundred members, with seven hundred on the planet and about a hundred on the station.

  “I’m not disagreeing, Kiigssik. But I don’t see how we can possibly afford to return the deposit,” Kiiggook said.

  “I know, but you don’t seem to understand how much it has learned while working with Goldgok. The clan needs that experience!”

  “I’m a bit concerned about what sort of thing it learned from that pervert,” said Kiigfesk, a breeder male and the representative of the breeders on the clan council.

  “That was all Kox propaganda, Breeder,” Kiigssik insisted.

  “I don’t doubt that there was a lot of self-serving blather in the Kox version of things, but where there’s that much smoke there is probably a fire somewhere.”

  “Maybe,” Kiigssik agreed doubtfully, “but it doesn’t change the fact that working with Goldgok these last months has allowed Kiiggaak a great insight into the actual prices of production in the human systems. And we need that insight.”

  “We need our own space station and two new zero-g factories too. But I don’t think we are going to get them any time soon,” Kiiggook said. “What part of ‘we can’t afford it’ didn’t you understand?”

  “I do understand that. But, honestly, we need Kiiggaak back even if we have to sell some more laborers to pay for it.”

  “Who to?” Kiigfesk asked. “We weren’t the only clan to take a bath in the recent market upheavals. There is a glut on the market for workers.”

  “Maybe the Pandora,” suggested Kiiggook. “If Kiigssik is really so convinced that we need Kiiggaak back that he is willing to sell more of the clan, I’ll withdraw my objection. We are going to have to pull back some on our zero-g production for a while anyway.”

  “What about the devices?” asked Kiigfesk. He was talking about the bodies of some missiles that Clan Gold was contracting for.

  “Clan Zheck will be making most of the parts that are made in gravity. We will be making the superconducting cable in our factory in Fkis Station Two. But while the project will help, it’s not going to make up our losses, and it’s also not going to occupy all our people on the station. We’re still going to have to cut back. If we don’t sell some of our engineers, we are going to have to bring them home and put them to work in the guk fields.”

  Location: Fkis Station, Parthian orbit

  Standard Date: 06 07 631

  Kiigdis squatted on the pad and used its mouth-hand to select a slice of dohkc meat. “Did you hear the clan is going to be shipping some of us down to the planet to work in the guk fields?”

  “That’s just a rumor,” Kiigzak said from across the table. They were sharing a large bowl of tiskas.

  “No, it’s not. I got it from Kiigvok and it works in the personnel section.” Kiigdis gestured emphatically with its right eyestalk. “It was going to be fifteen of us going back, but they got some new project, so it’s only going to be five.”

  “I don’t want to grow guk.” Kiggzak’s mouth-hand scrunched up, “I’m a qualified shuttle handler and I have experience living and working in zero-g. Putting me on a guk plantation, cutting stalks of weeds with a bronze chopper, is a waste of my skills.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Kiigdis, eyestalks drooping morosely. “It will be a steel chopper.”

  Location: Fkis Station, Parthian orbit

  Standard Date: 06 08 631

  The next day the Kiig station staff was called to a meeting area.

  Kiigvok, a neuter male from the personnel section, gave them the news once everyone was in place. It waved its eyestalks in a sweeping gesture. “You know that things are really tight in the clan’s finances. Well, in spite of some new projects, we just don’t have enough work for all of the staff. We have an offer to buy two space-qualified engineers and there are going to be some people sent down to the planet. I have to tell you that the sales are to the Gold Clan, and that will mean traveling out of the system.”

  Surprisingly, they got seven volunteers. It wasn’t that they wanted to be traded from the clan of their birth, but most of them didn’t want to be sent back to the planet.

  When Goldgok and a human showed up to talk about implants, four of the seven decided that they would rather go down to the planet after all, but the other three were willing. Two of them were actually intrigued. They saw humans using their interfaces to control machinery and envied them the ability.

  For the return of Kiiggaak and a sum of money, Clan Gold acquired three new crewmembers, all of whom agreed to be fitted out with implant interfaces.

  Location: Pandora, Parthian Orbit

  Standard Date: 06 08 631

  Goldgok, followed by Dr. Schmitz, strolled into the lounge. It saw Danny out of its left eyestalk, and with its mouth hand scrunched about halfway up and over to the left side said, “The new interfaces are ready for the new crew.”

  Danny looked at the Parthian and recognized the expression. It translated as “it’s necessary.” It was a bit like the expression that Goldgok still got over the Bangers. Disapproving, but willing because it was needful.

  Danny had other concerns. “That’s experimental surgery. No one has ever actually stuck a probe into a functioning Parthian brain before. We don’t know if your brains have the plasticity needed to interface with the implants.”

  The brains of a Parthian were structured even more differently than the brains of an octopus or an insect.

  “I’m fairly confident on that score, Captain,” said Dr. Schmitz. “I’ve seen the functioning of the Parthian brains under scanner while they were thinking, looking, listening, touching, tasting, and pathing.”

  Pathing was a sense Parthians had that humans didn’t. It was connected to hearing, but because of the way the bugs heard, it included something of echolocation and a sensitivity to winds and air currents. It was one of the reasons that Parthians didn’t do well in suits, even big suits. There wasn’t much chance of them using that sense in space. It wasn’t a prime sense for Parthians like sight was for humans—and Parthians, for that matter. But it was a basic one. Along with scent, it affected the primitive parts of their brains.

  “That’s great, Doc. I’m glad you’re confident and I hope you’re right. But you know, and I know, that these guys are going out on a really long limb. So I am going to want to talk to them before you do any surgery.”

  Location: Pandora, Parthia Orbit

  Standard Date: 06 08 631

  “Welcome to the crew of the Pandora,” Danny said to the three Parthians when they walked into the lounge. They spoke some English and Pan was translating anyway, so there wasn’t much difficulty in communicating.

  “Thank you, Breeder,” said the small one, a non-breeder male about half the size of the other two or Goldgok. Danny knew its name was Kiigvokx, now Goldvokx. It was an engineering tech that worked on the construction of rocket nozzles, which was rather more important for the Parthians than for Pan, which used the wings. Still, Danny was assured by Pan that Goldvokx had a clear understanding of engineering principles and could be taught what it didn’t know.

  Danny looked at the other two. They were neuter females about Goldgok’s size, though their spines had different patterns and coloration. They were Goldfax, a ship operator, and Gold
tak, a general spacer and one of the rare Parthians that was comfortable in vacuum. Goldtak had the bolts that held the vacuum mask in place.

  “You people know what Doctor Schmitz wants to do?” They all nodded. “Well, you don’t have to. I’m not going to make anyone go through experimental surgery.”

  “I thought it was vital to the clan?” asked Goldfax.

  “Frankly, it is useful to the clan, and I suspect that in the long run, if it works, it will be vital to Parthians in general. But that doesn’t mean you have to be the ones to take the risk.” He looked at each of them, watching their eye stalks and mouth-hands for indications of nervousness or disgust. And there was some of that, but there was also curiosity and something else. Dedication, Danny thought it was. “All right then. We will do this one at a time. Who is going to go first?”

  Both the females looked to the male and its eyestalks gestured assent. Apparently, even though female Parthians were larger, the males were more adventurous.

  “All right. Once Goldvokx has gone through it, we will wait a bit to make sure that it’s all working right for it. Then the other two of you will get your turns.

  “But none of that’s going to happen today, in part because this is politically sensitive here on Parthia. We want a chance to see clearly how it works before we go public with it.”

  Location: Parthian Outsystem

  Standard Date: 06 12 631

  Danny’s mind flowed into the ship and felt with Pan as they flapped their way between jumps. The Parthia system, like most systems, had jumps all over the place. But less was known about the insystem jump routes here than in any system Danny Gold knew about. There was just the one standard route from the Parthian outsystem, actually a continuation of the jump route between Canova and the planet Parthia. That and the jumps Danny found on his survey were the only ones known in the Parthian system.

  The jump they were headed for was out near TjisKee, three jumps from Parthia, and he was shifting the Pan in a curlicue pattern that would make it hard for any telescopes trained on them to follow them as they made their way to the jump. The location of the routes he discovered was proprietary clan knowledge with the Zheck clan.

  It took them a day and a half to reach the hidden jump point and more time to find the asteroid once they’d entered it.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Danny strolled into lounge and saw the professor watching the asteroid they were approaching on the big screen. “Okay, Gerhard. It’s time to drop your toys.”

  “Right,” the professor said, then used his interface to signal Robert.

  The shuttle launched and a few minutes later landed on a very large chunk of rock and rare earths.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Robert, in his new flex suit and tethered to the shuttle, reached into the cargo hatch and pulled the mining drones out. He tied each of them to the rock before fetching the next. They would use a set of tethers and pitons to make sure that they stayed attached to the asteroid, but Dad wanted the first attachment made before they were activated, because this chunk of rock floating in space had less than a fiftieth of a standard gravity.

  Everything in place, he sent the signal and the manager bot woke up. It sent out several small bots to start a survey even before Robert got back to the shuttle and lifted off.

  “Well, Dad,” he sent, “if we get back to find that the robots have taken over the system, it’s all your fault.” He tried to sound like he was joking and mostly was. But he was a little uncomfortable leaving artificial brains to manage bots unattended by humans.

  An hour later he was back on the Pan, heading for the jump point so they could continue their trip to Canova.

  Location: Canova-Parthia Chain

  Standard Date: 06 14 631

  The surgery started with an injection, or rather a series of injections. Then Doc Schmitz interfaced with Sally and the two of them guided the nanites which would build the structure of the interface in Goldvokx. It took the nanites two days and during that time Goldvokx didn’t feel a thing. That was the main reason that Gerhard Schmitz was so confident. He was quite sure that he could prevent any damage by simply turning off the devices.

  Turning them off didn’t turn out to be necessary. There were some bobbles in the initial activation as Goldvokx learned to distinguish its new sensory input from the much less organized natural input. “It’s strange. I can hear the Pandora and she speaks with the accent of the Kiig clan. But why a breeder?”

  “I am not a breeder, per se, but I was designed by humans who are much more comfortable with he or she than it. Also, I was inculturated into their way of thinking, both in my design and my training. I would guess that an artificial built by Parthians would think of itself as an it—not even as a male or female non-breeder. Just as a non-breeder of no gender at all.”

  Goldvokx’s eyestalks crossed in a grin. “That makes sense, Pandora,” it sent.

  “You will now be able, through the network, to speak to other artificials, and even humans that have an interface,” Sally told it. “Doctor Schmitz and I built a translation function into the interface, but be careful of it. There are things that will not translate in the best possible way until the system has learned how your mind interprets the signals better.”

  That turned out to be true. A lot of the overlying, or perhaps underlying, structures from which meaning were made were different in Parthians than in humans. And the fact that Parthian brains were more spread out caused their thoughts to be more duplicated—to appear in diverse parts of their brains at roughly the same time, but in differing detail. It was both like and unlike the way human brains worked, and the translations of thought between the two species taught Doctor Schmitz a great deal that he then used in designing artificial brains. But all that would take years to work out. For now, Goldvokx was enjoying its interface and the ease that the interface gave it in handling the drones and servos of the ship.

  “But the best thing is that when I am linked into the ship, it feels like I am working with a team, only closer,” Goldvokx told his shipmates.

  “I can hardly wait,” offered Goldfax.

  “And it doesn’t hurt?” Goldtak asked.

  “No, but it tickled in some strange places at first. Sally says that’s because there are several distinct neural nets that are all having to learn how the others work at the same time. She thinks that your interfaces will tickle less because they will have learned from mine, and yours can be installed with most of the weights preset to close to optimal balances.”

  “Is that why they are waiting before they do the rest of us?”

  “That, and Captain Gold wishes to be sure there won’t be any side effects.”

  Chapter 21

  Susan Drake: His rewards are small who will not put to chance to win or lose it all.

  John Franklin I: Maybe so, but he’s also less likely to end up in a shallow grave. We wait.

  From the play The First King of Franklin, published in standard year 524

  Location: Canova Outsystem

  Standard Date: 06 15 631

  “P

  andora, this is the Bonaventure. We need to inspect your cargo.”

  Danny felt himself stiffen even as Pan relayed the signal. There shouldn’t be any ship out here, much less the Bonaventure. He stood quickly and ran for the bridge.

  With a mental flip of an internal switch, Danny signaled Pan to send back to the Bonaventure, which was approaching from the port down bow about a half light-second away. “I thought the Bonaventure was a merchant.”

  The Bonaventure was feeding plasma to its sails, which were just starting to glow. At half a light second distance it would take a burst of grapeshot about fifteen seconds to reach the Pan. Pan would have a decent chance of dodging and a good chance of blocking the grapeshot, assuming the Bonny decided she wanted a fight. But Pan couldn’t avoid the fight and it wouldn’t be a short one. Bonaventure was on a matching course, not an intersecting course. From the vectors, it was clear th
at the Bonaventure coasted in, not under power. And that meant that they had to know that Pan was coming, and at least had a good idea of when.

  Which was possible. The Canova system had a chain of seven short-hop jumps from the inner system to the outsystem, where the jump route that led to Parthia left the system. The chain of jumps made a zigzag loop halfway around the system in normal space. The start of that loop was thirty astronomical units and would take fifteen days to travel in normal space. It took five days and a lot less fuel to use the short jumps. On the other hand, from insystem you could see a ship entering the outsystem from the Parthian Chain just four hours after it happened. That meant there was time to send a ship from insystem to intercept them before they got all the way insystem. Pan was between jumps five and six on their way in. Time, but no reason. At least no good reason that Danny could think of. Still, Pandora was fifteen AUs from Canova II, the marginally habitable Venus-size rock where about half the population of the Canova system resided. So if the Bonny wanted to do something out where no one was looking, this would be the place to do it.

  “There’s official, and there’s the way things are done, Gold,” came back Captain Farris’ voice a second later.

  Danny reached the bridge and flung himself into his command couch. He strapped in as he signaled Pan. “Get us some distance and head for the jump insystem.” After a short pause—Danny wasn’t that used to crew—he commed, “All hands, action stations. Get the kids into safety suits. Have Robert and Goldvokx ready a couple of the shield missiles, just in case. Pan, run a backtrace on their vector. Assume they started at the insystem gate. When did they have to come through the gate to be where they are, moving on that vector?”

  Pan was already shifting and the gravity was increasing as he dumped more plasma to the wings and shifted their course.

  Then, strapped in, with captain’s cap on, and ready, Danny signaled Pan to turn the comm back on and looked at Farris. “Captain Farris, I don’t actually give a shit about the way things are done. And I especially don’t give a shit about the way things used to be done. You don’t have any legal authority to inspect my cargo, and you’re not going to do it.”