Pandora’s Crew

by Gorg Huff

  “Is she coming?”

  Danny pulled a cleaning cloth from the toolpack and started cleaning up the residue of his repair. “Nothing concrete, but my read is that she’ll come or do everything she can to keep the others from coming.”

  “Professora Stuard is a potential second pole of authority. She is a natural leader and skilled in bureaucratic infighting.”

  “Not worried about that.” Danny squatted and picked up the cover plate. “She’s smart enough to realize that the true power on this ship resides with you, and you are loyal to me. What worries me is how she will respond to not being the boss. She can still make trouble, even if she isn’t trying to run a revolution.”

  “I suspect that she is skilled enough to avoid that, Captain.”

  Danny replaced the cover plate, then turned around and looked out at space, then down. With the ship accelerating, there was a very definite down. A down filled with nothing but stars.

  “I still say you could have used a drone for this, Captain.”

  “Pan, if you had your way I would spend every waking moment in my accel couch with my skullcap on, running drones. And, yes, I know I could have the same view from a drone’s camera. But it wouldn’t be the same.”

  Location: Danworth System, Station Seven

  Standard Date: 07 04 630

  Rosita noticed almost at once how much less efficient her personal assistant was while Sally was in the outsystem. It worked, but wasn’t nearly as good at anticipating her needs. It was the month of separation that made Rosita realize how much she depended on Sally. She suspected that the ACCRC was learning the same lesson.

  She made some discreet inquiries and learned that, no, Sally was not as tied into the ACCRC systems as she thought. A series of rulings had been pushing Professor Schmitz’s Frankenstein out of the decision-making loop. There had been disruptions, which were taken as proof that they were too dependent on the inhuman devices, and that the artificial brains—especially the large ones like Sally—were a threat to human liberty and endeavor.

  Rosita managed not to snap at the bearer of these tidings. In large part because he was just that, the bearer. The ACCRC was by no means of one mind on the subject. However, the anti-brain faction was in the ascendancy at the moment, with the full backing of the DIT board of regents. Still, losing Gerhard was going to leave a big hole in the ACCRC artificial-brain program and another, almost as large, in the interface section.

  It made her a bit more sympathetic to Gerhard’s position. She honestly hadn’t realized how bad things were getting. She was still pissed, but less pissed and more worried. It was just possible that getting out of here wasn’t a bad idea.

  While the Pandora was outsystem, Rosita closed out her responsibilities and turned over her work to other professors in the department, cancelled the lease on their living cubage, and sold much of their furniture. There were still quite a lot of their better things remaining, which would go to the Pandora once Rosita worked out a few things with the captain. She rather liked Danny Gold, but she didn’t like the idea of putting her family under his authority.

  Location: Danworth System, Pandora, Docking Orbit

  Standard Date: 07 05 630

  Rosita pressed the entrance button next to the hatch to the bridge and the hatch slid open, receding into the bulkhead. The room had a large, curved screen filling one wall and three accel couches with interface tables that were rotated back to their out-of-the-way positions.

  Danny Gold was sitting up in the center accel couch, which was adjusting with his movement. He waved her to the couch to the right of center, which was turning to face him. “Come in. Have a seat, Professora.”

  “I have been researching your ship, Captain.” Rosita walked to the couch and sat. It was in its upright position, so acted much like her office chair. She decided to get right to the point. “You owe a large debt to the System Management and Organizational Governance Savings and Loan. Which is, in turn, owned by the Drake Combine. Have you considered becoming a strictly Cordoba shipper?”

  “No, I haven’t. And I am not going to, for several very good reasons,” Danny said. “First, the greatest profits are made by crossing from the Drake chains to the Cordoba chains and back. Second, I like the freedom, and were I to go strictly Cordoba, I would be completely at the Cordoba’s mercy. Considering what’s happening to your family right now, that reasoning should make sense to you.”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, it makes excellent sense. Though, considering the Drake’s attitude toward artificials, I’m not sure how much good visiting Drake space would do us.”

  “Well, you have a point there, though they look the other way as long as you don’t try to sell artificials there.” Danny shrugged. “No, it’s the gray chains, the unaligned ports and systems, where your husband will find a good market for his work.”

  “Possibly. But we would all be better off with better paperwork.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “If the Pan were our ship—the family’s, I mean—it would be owned by Cordoba stockholders and would have both greater rights and protections.”

  Danny almost laughed. “Chutzpah? Is that the word? I’m not the expert in ancient languages you are, but chutzpah sounds right.”

  “You would, of course, be assured of employment, Captain.” Rosita didn’t deign to respond to Danny’s chutzpah comment.

  “No. Ownership of the Pandora will remain with me.” Danny considered. “Robert is going to be crew and his girls are crew family. Gerhard is a passenger at the moment, but he’s adequately paid his way with the work he did on the suit-bot.” The suit-bot was working fully again and was in the process of making new suits for all the adults. That would take over a week per suit, and making a suit-like system for Checkgok was going to take considerably longer. Then there would be suits for all four girls, which they would grow out of way too soon. Handing down suits wasn’t practical, since they had to be fitted to the wearer. In any case, the suit-bot was going to be kept busy for a while, and was more than worth Professor Schmitz’s fare for the next few months as long as he was willing to go where the Pan was going. That, of course, left Professora Stuard. “So, as it happens, you’re the only one whose fare hasn’t been negotiated.”

  “Well, I could . . .” Rosita gave Danny a calculating look. “Just what is the fare? What is the price of a ticket on the Pandora to—” Another pause. “Where is the Pandora headed from here?”

  “We’ll be making our way to Parthia, but not directly. It’s some distance from here, and not on this chain.” Danny smiled. The large screen at the front of the bridge filled with a map of jump routes. “In fact, the shortest route I am aware of takes us back through Drake for a short chain.”

  “Fine. How much is the fare to Parthia?”

  “Pan, how much is the fare to Parthia?”

  “Fare to Parthia on a Cordoba passenger liner would cost seven thousand Cordoba marks, or twenty-two thousand Danworth dollars. It would take nine months and involve three ship transfers. Conveniently for the professora, one of those ship transfers would be at the Cordoba’s capital system, New Argentina, where her elder son teaches. Our route, though not firmly set, is unlikely to go through there.”

  “Okay, so there are some minor disadvantages. But we figure to reach Parthia in from three to five months, right, Pan? So we would be getting her there sooner.”

  “I have no particular desire to go to Parthia,” Rosita gritted out. “I asked because you said that’s where you were going.”

  “Yes, I know,” Danny said. “Rosita, I am not that much younger than you are. And believe me, politics on Cybrant Five are whole orders of magnitude tougher than on Danworth. What you want is to be with your family and to continue your work. We can do that, at least the ‘be with your family’ part. What arrangement did you come to with the Institute?”

  “I will be doing a survey of linguistic fragmentation in the outworlds and how that is impacted by the elec
tronic transfers.”

  “Didn’t Carlton do that fifty years ago?” Danny asked. “For the University of Caledonia on New Earth?”

  “Yes and no. Carlton’s work was incomplete, and there has been more time for the situation to stabilize.”

  “Good enough then,” Danny agreed. “So we can carry you around and at every stop you can record accents and, I’m guessing, local theater?”

  Rosita nodded.

  “While Checkgok negotiates, either in person or through Robert or John, we will probably be able to delay our departure while you are consulting with the local academics. But what do we get out of it? What do you contribute to the ship?” Danny grinned. “There’s an old pre-space saying. ‘Gas, grass or ass—no one rides for free.’ “

  “I am familiar with it, Captain Gold,” Rosita said. “You can forget the ass right now. Gas would be money, and I honestly don’t know how grass would fit.”

  “Consider it general support for the ship, like Robert’s work, even Gerhard’s work on the artificial brains that we bought in the outer system. Not direct cash, but it contributes either by decreasing the ship’s running expenses or increasing her income.”

  “Well then, I think it’s going to be gas for now, though I will be looking for a way to grow some grass.”

  “I hope you’re not being literal,” Danny said. “My designers tweaked my neural receptors. Pot doesn’t do a thing for me except burn my throat. Anyway, Pan, what do we charge the professora for transport to Parthia?”

  Pan named a figure somewhat less than first class passage on a liner would be. Rosita negotiated that down some more.

  It was the response that Rosita expected, and—for now—she was willing to let it stand. If the records of the Pandora in the Cordoba database were any guide, Danny Gold would find himself in need of cash down the road. And at least partial ownership of the Pandora would shift.

  Location: CSFS James Bond, Gray Chain off Cordoba Space

  Standard Date: 07 03 630

  “What are we doing here, Skipper?”

  “A favor for a friend, Tanya,” Commander Lars Hedlund said, thankful that she waited till they were in his quarters to talk. Lars liked Tanya, he honestly did, but she could be a bit stiff sometimes. He made a gesture that indicated she should join him in virtual space. Once there he indicated the three-dimensional jump map. “There is a freighter out of Pamplona that we are going to meet.”

  Tanya didn’t say anything, but he could see her mouth tightening. Pamplona was in Drake space.

  “It’s not a Drake registry. It’s an independent, a free trader. But, yes, it’s technically smuggling.”

  “What are we getting?”

  “Chocolate.”

  “Real chocolate?”

  “Close, but no. At least not the chocolate of Old Earth. It’s the stuff the Catta grow on their home world. But that stuff is good, better than the carob that you can get in Cordoba space.” There were actual cocoa trees on New Florida, but the cocoa tree had not adapted well to the Pamplona Sector, and it didn’t do well in station hydroponics. That made chocolate an expensive product in Cordoba space, and chocoholics would pay good money for it.

  “What do they want?”

  “A wing controller.” Both militaries used artificial brains for their wing controllers and armaments, but artificial brain-based wing controllers were getting harder and harder for private merchantmen to acquire.

  “That’s . . .”

  “The stern A wing controller has gone off line, and Chief Pomeroy is changing it out as we speak.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tanya said.

  But Lars could tell she wasn’t happy.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  They made the jump and saw the hulk three seconds later. They investigated and found an irradiated ship. The chocolate and all the other goods were too radioactive to be of any use to anyone. The crew was dead.

  “This makes no sense,” Lars said. “A Drake should have just gotten a rake off or, at most, confiscated the ship. A pirate, the same. Even more so. There is no profit in killing a ship, and I knew Albert Finch for years. He wasn’t the sort to put up a fight.”

  “Someone making a point?” Tanya asked.

  “Maybe. But what point, and who?” Lars asked in turn.

  Location: Drake Patrol Cutter Steel Elk, Big Dark

  Standard Date: 07 03 630

  Second Officer Monro saluted sharply. Not out of respect. Out of fear. Lieutenant Commander Lord Rodrigo Saverin, captain of the Steel Elk, was a scary son of a bitch.

  Monro had expected the captain to stop the merchy and take a cut. But he hadn’t. Instead, without even warning them, the captain—no one would think of calling Commander Saverin ‘skipper’—just opened up with hunter-nukes. Three of them, one after the other.

  Then, once the merchy was dead, he said, apparently to himself, “And that is the way of the Drake royal house with all traitors.”

  Now Monro was just trying to stay alive until they got back to base on Pamplona. And, if this really did represent the new policy of the Drake Combine, God help the merchies.

  Chapter 15

  The Drake and Cordoba Combines didn’t start out as governments. There were many merchant franchises whose internal cultures were oriented toward individual profit. By the time just the Cordobas and the Drakes were sole survivors, they were governments whether they wanted to be or not. But the mindset had not changed. Drake and Cordoba middle management and franchise holders still, all too often, operated primarily for their own profit.

  Both combines introduced laws and regulations to try to fight the problem, but the culture of corruption just got more corrupt.

  The Downfall of the Merchant Houses, Dr. Francois Draper, Pamplona University Press

  Location: Cordoba Space Big Dark

  Standard Date: 07 07 630

  Rosita walked the corridors of the Pandora’s living spaces at a brisk pace. She carefully avoided occupied sections as she went from living quarters to shops to hydroponics and back to living quarters.

  Shipboard life was incredibly boring. Rosita discovered that in the first few days. She was used to working all day, every day, and most of that work was administrative, dealing with people and their problems. Lots of interactions.

  Now, she read a lot. She studied tapes of languages, and she spent time with Jenny, Hirum, John, and Danny, examining their accents. Danny wasn’t much help. He spoke several languages, and was well educated. He was also something of a natural mimic, and tended to reflect the dialect of whoever he was talking to. Hirum was interesting, but not really that unusual. There were a lot of loners in the asteroid belts of every explored system, and they all had their own accents. Jenny made an excellent subject, because for some three years on Bonks she did not use her interface, and one of the things Rosita was studying was the effect of the interfaces on the development of accents. She called up a file as she walked and listened to tapes of Jenny’s accent as she said different words and phrases.

  The interface circuitry allowed the electronic transmission of sound, image, and data to a person. Rosita was trying to gauge how much that direct transmission affected speech. When you can have a book fed into your brain, what effect does it have on how you speak the words in that book? It was an interesting subject and people had been studying it in one form or another all the way back to the first real interfaces in the late twenty-first century. But she finished setting up the data gathering protocol for everyone on the ship in the first day or so, and she was ready to chew her way out of the bulkheads by the third.

  Rosita was a problem-solver looking for a problem. She knew herself well enough to know that if she didn’t find one soon, she was going to become the problem.

  So she did another round of her walking path, then shifted to Gerhard’s lab, where she found Gerhard working on one of the small brains they bought in the Danworth System.

  Gerhard looked up as the admittance signal chimed. “What can I do for you,
Rosita?”

  “I need a problem to work on, Ger, or I’m going to go out of my mind.”

  “I have one for you.” Gerhard put down the tool he was using. “How do we prevent the collapse of galactic civilization?”

  “I’m serious, Ger!” Rosita rolled her eyes.

  “So am I. I wish you would realize that, Rosita, I really do.”

  “Because they don’t want you playing with your artificial brains?”

  “That is not the only indicator, Professora,” Sally interrupted.

  “What are the others, then?”

  “The largest is the collapse of the Federation of Systems.”

  Rosita’s tiny bit of interest died. “That was five hundred years ago, Sally. It’s a bit late to prevent it now.” Rosita turned and started to leave.

  “Will you please slow down and listen for a minute?” Gerhard snapped.

  Rosita managed not to snap in return. She turned back, nodded, and stayed silent.

  “The collapse was followed by a marked reduction in interstellar trade,” Sally continued. “And it is that reduction more than the Federation’s fall that was the real problem. While separation of populations is good for speciation in the biological sense, it is not especially good for advancement in the sociological sense. Advancement in many fields diminished as competitive pressures were decreased by a lack of interstellar trade, and reduced even more by lack of free flow of information. Suppression of experimental results, to keep an advantage or to avoid giving your competitors such an advantage, became common practice.”

  Rosita nodded. This wasn’t exactly news. It was a big part of why the great merchant houses had developed. As the systems cut off trade to protect their local industries, the interstellar trading houses were put under such pressure that they had to use force to open up the markets.

  “The attempts by the great trading houses to open up trade were not completely successful,” Sally explained. “They started well, but with the loss of each trading house, the impetus to innovation was diminished.”