“He has the skills we need, but he’ll begin deteriorating very soon,” Captain Sloane said. “Adda, your impressions?”
“He’s suffering from some subset of depression, isn’t he?” She sounded unsure, but that was Iridian’s guess too, even though she’d only met him an hour ago. “Why hasn’t he been treated? I don’t like leaving him alone like that.”
“He’s well guarded, as I told him,” said Captain Sloane. “They’re there to contain him as well as protect him. As to why he hasn’t been treated, he claims that he doesn’t deserve to feel better. It’s part of his process, you see.”
What kind of gods-damned shit is that? Do they know how depression fucking works? Iridian subvocalized instead of saying to the officers. Adda gave her a worried glance, which meant that Iridian’s anger was showing on her face whether she spoke aloud or not. “He has to feel bad to torture people, and torturing people makes him feel bad? Why are we perpetuating that, let alone giving him somebody we’re trying to keep alive?”
“Torture is such a blunt instrument,” Sloane said. “It’s not his initial approach. He does cause a certain amount of trauma in the course of his work. His subjects emerge from their time with him permanently changed. Some are pathologically paranoid afterward, as an example, or catatonic. And he is extremely consistent about achieving the desired results. Liu Kong asked for a signature and Dr. Björn’s presence on Vesta. If that’s all Dr. Björn is capable of providing, so be it.”
So Sloane won’t cure Jiménez because he’s useful while he’s sick. During the war, Iridian would’ve understood that, and the risk to the professor’s brain, too. Everyone’s options were limited, time was always scarce, and the stakes were always high. But it’d been three years since Recognition, when the NEU officially recognized the colonial governments’ sovereignty, and Sloane had the resources to find a better option. Babe, we have to talk this over later. I’m not sure I can leave him like that.
It’s hard to treat somebody who refuses treatment, Adda replied. Aloud, but still quietly, she said, “I have something else in mind.” Everybody turned toward her, looking as surprised to hear her speak as Iridian was. “When I have everything arranged, ve should sign with Oxia willingly, which means we can avoid delivering an, um, catatonic subject.” Iridian gave Adda a small smile of encouragement. Doing the absolute minimum for a coercive boss was one thing, but it’d be cruel to mess up somebody else’s head just to make the job easier for herself.
Captain Sloane raised both eyebrows and accepted a drink from the delivery platform that rose from the center of the table. “I want details before you spend the funds.”
“Of course.” Adda stood and took the lift down to the dance floor. Iridian bowed their farewell to Captain Sloane before following.
Adda stood nearby when Iridian stepped off the lift, so Iridian spun her into an intimate dance step that ended with the two of them pressed together, with Iridian’s back to a wall. “So you are working out something better. I was afraid you’d let Sloane’s ‘only way to be sure’ shit intimidate you.”
Adda smiled up at her, eyes flashing in a strobing overhead light. “I’m thinking of it as an intellectual exercise. It’s a good one, actually. Lots of new factors. I’m going to make this work without hurting ver.” If anybody could find a way, Adda could. What they’d do to the rest of Björn’s life . . . that was bad enough.
But this was what they’d committed to, working for Oxia. No point in brooding while Adda was already making the best of the shit situation. Iridian batted her long eyelashes so she could watch Adda’s cheeks redden in the strobe lights. “Protective looks really good on you, babe.”
Adda’s whole focus was on Iridian now, in a way it hadn’t often been since they’d arrived on Vesta, and she let Iridian raise her chin to kiss her. Tomorrow Adda would start balancing of all of those new factors and wouldn’t have time for romance. For now, the music was good, and Iridian had her own plans to set in motion that afternoon.
* * *
Even with the mind-boggling funds to maintain healthy grav for the duration of the trip, it’d take about six days for Sloane’s crew to reach Deimos. If there was heavy traffic on the Martian reliable routes, they’d spend most of another day docking. Iridian had double-checked and confirmed Adda’s assessment that the only way to meet Oxia’s deadline was to launch as soon as they could and coordinate the op en route.
And they’d be on their own. Oxia wasn’t sending a fleet this time, and as Sloane told them, “Between Rosehach’s greed and Oxia Corporation’s airtight seal over Vesta, the crew is involved in too many unfortunate situations for me to leave the ’ject.”
On a wall projection behind the captain, a scrolling headline read, Sloane’s crew implicated in contaminated water scandal in Rheasilvia Station’s Lim Sang Jiyon residential module. Oxia Corporation had been using the crew’s network of experts to perpetrate a wide range of illegal business practices, and Sloane was spending a lot of time personally extricating crew resources from assignments that the captain couldn’t bear to be associated with.
Although Iridian and Adda would be the nominal lead operators, or kidnappers in this case, they’d have some support. A surveillance team was already in place on and around Deimos, shadowing their target. Sloane insisted that they bring Tritheist and Jiménez, and Adda wanted Chi along in case her plans failed to come together and somebody got hurt. That many people couldn’t travel comfortably in the Casey or covertly in the Apparition, which had a radar signature that screamed “rebuilt NEU warship.” Instead they’d be traveling in a passenger ship out of Sloane’s database of experts.
On launch day, Iridian reached the docks in as good a mood as she could have been, given the circumstances. “It’s about gods-damned time we took a ride without having to wonder if the ship’s going where we think it is.” Without an awakened intelligence at the helm, they’d finally be working with a human pilot.
Although Adda kept up with Iridian while walking to the terminal where they’d meet the new pilot, she was focused on her comp. Iridian lowered her head and quietly asked, “Have you heard from AegiSKADA?”
Adda glanced at Iridian, then went back to whatever was on her comp. “Yes, earlier today, but it hasn’t been able to describe its location well enough for me to find it so far.”
Iridian hated that it was back, creeping around yet another station and fucking with Adda like it had before. Since Adda already knew that Iridian hated it, she stopped herself from repeating that fact. “Talking’s a start, but you know how sneaky it is. Is there anything I can do to help you shut it down?”
Adda shook her head, still looking at her comp. “If I think of something, I’ll ask you for it.”
When they reached the terminal, Iridian paused for a few breaths to refocus on the op. Whatever AegiSKADA was doing, it could keep doing it on Vesta while she and Adda flew away from it. That was a hell of a lot better than Barbary. She approached the terminal door and triggered the motion sensor to open it.
Sloane’s chosen professional walked toward them with the inhumanly precise and uniform gait of someone who’d had one or both legs replaced with pseudo-organics. Vestan’s low grav heightened the effect. He grinned up at Iridian from behind a bushy, dark red beard and met her gaze with wide-set eyes that held far too much cheer for how early in the morning they were leaving. Every stitch of the pilot’s clothes would seal against vac.
After exchanging bows, the pilot held out a copper-toned hand toward the passthrough, palm up. The dock designator over the exterior door reported AT PASSTHROUGH: Mayhem. “Hi, hello! I’m Gavran, the owner and operator Gavran. Crew’s here, been here. Be nice to have the doctor. Safer with medical.”
Kuiper native, Iridian commented to Adda, then said, “Hi, thanks, nice meeting you,” to Gavran.
Accent? It felt like Adda was shouting the word in her head. Iridian would have to fiddle with her amp during the trip.
That, and his name is “
Gavran the owner/operator.” There’re max two people named Gavran in his home hab and they get DNA tests before they hook up, so that’s all the differentiation he needs. If he knew his family’s name, he wouldn’t use it, especially not this far from home. Iridian walked into the passthrough with one hand on the shield hanging collapsed at her hip and the other waving Adda back a few paces behind her. The Kuiper Belt colonies sat out the war. By the time their ships got far enough sunward to make a difference, it would’ve been over.
Adda nodded like that meant something to her, and maybe it did. Her Earther family never had a choice about getting involved in the war. All Iridian knew was that she didn’t have to watch her back as closely with a Kuiper pilot.
The Mayhem’s main cabin had blue and black thrust-resistant passenger couches for four and bedding for the same, with a closed-off bridge like the Apparition’s but with much softer surface coverings. The meticulous sunsim lighting already matched Vestan local time. Somebody would be stuck in the residential cabin during docking maneuvers and sleeping in the main cabin, but that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Kuiper colonists micromanaged enviro, so the cabin felt more comfortable than the terminal in the docks. Sturdy wall, floor, and ceiling handholds were backlit with yellow light instead of blending into the surfaces the way non-Kuiper designers preferred.
Chi and Jiménez sat across from each other in the main cabin’s passenger couches, not speaking. Chi stood when she noticed Iridian and Adda, though Jiménez stayed where he was. “Hey, good seeing you,” Chi said to Iridian and Adda. She glanced over her shoulder at Jiménez, who stared intently at a wall. “Can I talk to you a minute? Privatelike?”
“Sure.” Iridian yawned wide and followed Chi up a ladder built into the wall that went through the ceiling and floor, leaving Adda and Jiménez together. The leg Chi had broken in the Sabina’s printer lab must’ve healed cleanly in the intervening week, since the healing brace was off and she put the same weight on it as she put on the uninjured leg.
Telling Chi about Jiménez’s . . . impending mental breakdown, Iridian thought at Adda on the way. Chi would’ve read Sloane’s briefing, but the captain had been vague about Jiménez’s mental state during the planning stage. Iridian wouldn’t be surprised if there had been important gaps in the op briefing Chi received too.
Do Kuiper Belt colonists always repeat themselves? Adda asked subvocally. This pilot’s done it with every sentence and it’s getting annoying.
I forget which colonies do and which don’t, Iridian replied the same way. Signals break up out there. You’ll get used to it.
Chi took the news about their psychotic new crewmember well. She actually looked more annoyed with Tritheist, who arrived while everybody was strapped down for launch and scowled around at all of them. “Captain Sloane told me to work with you, trust you people. I don’t, but I can, get me?”
“Yes, sir.” Iridian’s mouth twitched at the corners, because it wanted to smile and that’d provoke Sloane’s lieutenant into some unnecessary authority display. Ops went a lot more smoothly when everybody involved could tolerate one another, and they needed this op to succeed. Sloane and the very small army on Vesta would be the first victims of Oxia’s wrath if the crew blew the op. When nobody else had anything to add, Tritheist stomped into one of the residential cabins and strapped into a bunk.
“This shouldn’t be complicated,” Adda said while Gavran extricated the Mayhem from Rheasilvia Station’s docks. “By the time we arrive, the professor I’m working with will have received evidence of damaging criminal charges against Dr. Björn, to be delivered to vis superiors. We’ve seen Björn fly vis ship once or twice a month during periods of stress. We’ll intercept ver once ve leaves Mars’s immediate space. One ship and a small crew for emergencies should be ideal.”
“Then why,” Gavran asked over a speaker from the bridge, “is another ship on our route? The second ship, on the identical route. Why that?”
“What’s its name?” Adda asked.
“It’s Charon’s Coin, the second ship is called,” said Gavran. “A tug. A tug has no reason to leave stationspace, most times.”
Iridian swallowed hard and her fists clenched around the passenger couch armrests. They weren’t far outside of stationspace yet, but it’d definitely be odd to see tugs this far out with no emergency to respond to. This was the second op that damned AI in the Coin had followed them on without asking.
“It wants to help stop Dr. Björn’s ship, I think,” said Adda.
“No extra details. None,” said Gavran over the ship’s comms, while Iridian said, “Fuck that, and how the hell do you know what it wants?” in person to Adda. The Coin didn’t talk to anybody. If Adda had gotten it talking somehow, then who knew what weird shit it could be saying to her?
Helping us is the only logical reason it would come, Adda said over their implanted comms. It’s possible that the Coin still feels the need to receive orders before it acts.
Not our orders, obviously, Iridian replied. The others could’ve taken her aggravated sigh as a response to her apparently unanswered question. You didn’t tell it to come, did you?
No, Adda subvocalized. Her eyebrows quirked like she was wondering why Iridian had to ask. It’s interesting that it’s here now, and Captain Sloane isn’t.
By interesting do you mean really bad? Iridian asked her. Because that’s what I’m seeing here.
Its presence implies that it’s interested in us specifically, and not Captain Sloane. Maybe Casey ordered it to help you, because it owes you for . . . what you brought it. Meaning the copy of Barbary Station’s security AI, which the Casey had promptly restored somewhere on Vesta.
“But who’s in that ship?” Chi asked.
Iridian’s fist clenched on the collapsed shield at her belt. The Casey thought hauling me around in exchange for AegiSKADA’s code was a fair trade at the time. Or at least, I assumed it did. What if it didn’t mean ‘just this one trip?’
“A friend,” Adda said aloud, apparently in response to Chi’s question.
“A friend who needs to fuck off,” said Iridian.
Adda muttered something at her comp. Seconds later, the whir-CLANK of ship-to-ship connectors locking down shook the Mayhem, jolting everyone against their harnesses. Thumps reverberated through the Mayhem’s sides. Grav started dropping so fast Iridian felt it. The Coin was stopping them in place.
Iridian’s heart rate kicked up in symmetrical response. “What is this?” Gavran demanded from the Mayhem’s bridge. “What is your friend doing?”
“Karpe, back it off,” Tritheist demanded from the residential cabin he’d strapped down in. Adda kept muttering to her comp. Her arms drifted out in front of her in the decreasing grav.
“This is putting a hell of a lot of strain on the hull, babe.” If Iridian had interpreted the situation correctly, the Coin had locked onto the Mayhem using its standardized tug hookups and the massive hullhooks that’d punched a hole in the lab they took off the Ann Sabina. Now that it had a solid grip on the Mayhem, the Coin was using its powerful engines to pull against the Mayhem’s, and the Coin was winning, dragging the Mayhem backward and slowing its acceleration.
The Coin’s engines could stop a much larger runaway ship, if the stopped ship could withstand that kind of pressure on the hull and tug connectors. If the hull was too weak it’d fracture at the attachment points. As far as she could tell from her admittedly uninformed position outside the bridge, Gavran was trying to force the Mayhem out of the Coin’s grasp, futile an effort though that was, and making the hull strain that much worse.
Nobody on the Mayhem was wearing an enviro suit, and their armor was crated up in the second-floor storage area. The passenger couches they were strapped into would deploy a lid and seal if the cabin lost pressure due to, say, multiple hull breaches caused by an overly aggressive AI tugboat copilot. Each couch carried about thirty minutes of O2, according to the safety info that scrolled over the armrests.
Add
a was still muttering. “Also,” Iridian said a bit louder, in case the Coin or another awakened AI were eavesdropping, “it’s got to look strange to any ITA reps floating around here and stationsec. One of Sloane’s ships getting assaulted by another of Sloane’s ships? We’ll get gawkers, and somebody’s bound to ask what the hell the Coin’s blocking traffic on this route for.”
Adda’s intense, inaudible conversation through her comp was starting to piss Iridian off. All that subvocalization probably meant that Adda was talking to AIs without a filter again. She communicated with them more effectively from a workspace, and the workspace software protected her from the manipulative fuckery that AIs did to human minds. When she wasn’t in a workspace she was supposed to use a digital intermediary to communicate with AIs, but Iridian had no way to tell if she was using it now.
“Damn, I’m about ready to ask that pilot myself.” Chi’s knuckles were white on her armrests, but she was also visually checking harnesses and watching for trouble. Iridian appreciated not having to worry about her panicking in the cold and the black.
Beside her, Jiménez had shut his eyes, not tightly like he was scared but peacefully, like he was ready to die. As unhealthy as the old guy looked standing up, he’d look about the same in a coffin. That “eternal rest” bullshit people talked about at funerals would’ve been an improvement on Jiménez.
The ship shuddered around them and Gavran said, “Thank you, whoever freed us, many thanks.” Acceleration ramped up until they were approaching healthy grav and back on track.
“Karpe, what the hell was that?” Tritheist shouted.
Adda winced and opened her eyes to glance around at the other passengers watching her. “I don’t know.”
She sounded appropriately worried, but it wasn’t a topic she’d discuss in public. Not even any guesses? Iridian asked her. Now would be a great time.
When I say I don’t know, I mean I don’t know. Adda gave Iridian the disgusted look that she only deployed when someone she trusted second-guessed her. They’re awakened intelligences capable of unimaginable forethought and complex decision-making. If I had multiple networked zombie intelligences dedicated to analyzing the Barbary intelligences’ experiences and behavior, and nothing else to do with my time, then I might expect to gain a clue as to their decision-making process. I do not have that network and I have more immediate problems to solve. So, for a fourth time, I don’t know. Adda returned her attention to her comp.
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