Debatable Space

by Philip Palmer

  Within a year the factories of Kornbluth can create a million warships and five hundred million soldier DRs. It’s faster, by far, to grow soldiers from scratch than to ship them from one part of this vast galaxy to another. This is the source of the Corporation’s impregnable power. They have limitless energy, limitless manufacturing capacity, and they have conveyor belts which can churn out entire armies of soldiers every few hours.

  So we have decided to take them on at their own game. We have our own space factory, we have an asteroid’s worth of rock and metal ore, and we have scoops that ceaselessly dredge in dark matter and space debris to fuel our smelting vats. We, too, are growing polymer skins for warships. We too are mass-producing weapons.

  And we too are growing soldiers. The Bacchanalia that ended our historic evening in the Pirates’ Hall is a memory that will never fade for me. Hundreds of thousands of pregnancies have resulted; and artificial wombs are already growing the human foetuses that were conceived that night. As the factories build more warships, the newborn babies will be carefully spread among our fleet, nurtured and loved by vicious and powerful pirates. Each child will have two parents, and half a million uncles and aunts. These children will be cherished, but they will also be hothoused, and trained. They will be strong, fit, fast, fearless, able to multi-task in battle, able to effortlessly commune with computer intelligences while planning war strategies.

  And new babies are being conceived every day in this, our first month in space. In a year the conceptions will cease and the new generation will be raised. In twenty years, by the time we reach Kornbluth, we will have 10 million new soldiers, ranging in age from eighteen to nineteen, at the peak of their physical powers. We will also have 200,000 new warships, giving us in total a fleet of near a quarter of a million vessels.

  It will be the most formidable pirate horde ever seen in space. An army greater than any ever assembled in the long and bloody course of human history.

  Our fleet sweeps through space, chewing up every inch of matter and energy on our route, while raising and training an army of magnificent warriors.

  We are not just a mosquito; we are the impossibly vast mosquito swarm that grows and grows and flies up high into the sky in an attempt to eat the sun.

  We expect to burn and die in glory.

  Alliea

  I have chosen to be a mother. I think the Captain was surprised, after all I’ve told him of my desire for celibacy and a life lived in mourning for Rob. And, of course, on the night of the sexual Bacchanalia, I carefully abstained. I spent the evening playing checkers with myself, as orgiastic sex erupted on all the tables around me. Annoyingly, I kept forgetting which of me had played the previous move, due to the distracting genital imagery, so I concede the game was something of a disaster.

  But I kept myself pure then, and I still do now. But as the months passed, and the deadline for the final conception loomed closer, I found myself increasingly beguiled at the prospect of motherhood. After six months (with the help of growth-accelerating artificial womb techniques) the first of the babies was born. I began helping out in the nursery and acting as babyminder for a dozen or so pirate mums. I discovered I had an ability to completely lose myself in the child; time and space would vanish in a haze of tears as the baby stared blearily and angrily at me and demanded its milk.

  I opted for artificial insemination; six months later my baby was born. I called her Roberta. She was a small baby, with big black eyes that peered out soulfully. Then she started to bawl and she became a raging pixie. Then I fed her with bottle milk and she almost swallowed the teat in her joy and luxuriant pleasure. I got the haze of tears thing again.

  I was still in combat training, obviously. But I no longer socialised so much with the others. I was rarely to be found in the bar or the common room. I never watched movies or saw concerts. I became a baby-loving hermit. The Captain used to smile indulgently whenever he saw me with Roberta, but I felt the jealousy surging through him. He wanted it to be his child; he wanted to be part of my universe. He wanted, in short, to be my true love. But he wasn’t. That could never work.

  Then Roberta got an infection and I spent twelve hours by her cot, panicking. Infant mortality is almost unheard of these days, but there are viral infections that can damage a baby’s brain and cause behavioural problems later in life. These are almost undetectable and untreatable; some say the Cheo himself had been virally infected as a child. So I lived through twelve hours of fearing the worst.

  But it was just meningitis, easily cured. I breathed easy and hugged my baby. Hera, the woman from Hecuba who spoke that night in the Pirates’ Hall, was on nursing duties. She made me sit down and drink some tea and lulled me to sleep with a gentle mantra. When I woke Hera was cradling my baby. I didn’t mind. It seemed right.

  That’s how it began. Hera, like me, had sworn a vow of celibacy. Sex was too traumatic for her to even consider. And neither of us had lesbian orientation. But I didn’t want a lover, male or female. I wanted another parent for my child.

  I wanted someone to share my joy at Roberta’s first smile. I wanted someone who didn’t mind me talking to them for long long hours about the new little funny little thing my baby had just done. Puking on my nose! Rolling from one wall to another! Having a really big shit! These were moments to be savoured, but also to be shared.

  I could see the Captain didn’t approve of my new intimacy. But it was a shared love of unique intensity. A triangular affair of baby, woman, and woman.

  Hera delights me with her gentleness, and her wryly acid humour. She is a born home-maker, and has transformed our spartan cabin into an oasis of rugs and wall furnishings and burning candles. She cooks for me, we play checkers together. We quiz each other on galactic phenomena. We even train together. Hera is a fierce and agile warrior. I have learned much from her; and I believe she has learned from me too.

  And together we have raised my baby, Roberta. She is the most perfect baby ever born. Sometimes she cries and cries but she always falls asleep when I sing to her. I imagine what kind of child she will be. I hope she has blonde hair, like my sister. And Rob’s grace, and sense of humour. I hope she’ll be my best friend. She’ll tell me everything, and I’ll listen to her patiently, and I’ll laugh when she tells me silly jokes. I’ll care about her and about her friends. And my only regret is the knowledge that she is unlikely to ever live to be a woman, and to have a baby of her own.

  I have done my best to keep her safe. I made the Captain concede that when battle eventually commences, the youngsters will be in the rearguard. Let the old-timers like us be in the first wave to die. Let us be the cannon fodder, and spare the children for as long as possible. And the Captain agreed, reluctantly, to this. But I’m aware that it’s a small, and a worthless, concession. The odds are massively against us; our enemies are legion; and most if not all of us will die.

  Yet I am desperate for my one and only child to live for at least a little while after I die. I want her to savour the pain of grief, the agony of losing me. I long for that moment, for only when I am mourned, will I truly feel I have completed my life’s journey.

  Smile for me, baby. Let me wipe your poo. Let me hug you and kiss your sweet cheeks and watch you feed till you are bloated.

  And then when you are a woman, or very nearly a woman, grieve for me, my baby. When the moment of my death comes, as it inevitably will, honour and lament my demise, in those precious minutes or even hours before you, too, have to die.

  Brandon

  “Captain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “No.”

  “Can I help?”

  “No.”

  “What did Alliea say to you?”

  “She had a request. I granted it.”

  “Good.”

  “Not good. Fuck off, please.”

  “You shouldn’t get so melancholy, Cap’n. It’s bad for morale.”

  The Captain stares at me. “Brandon,” he
says.

  “Yes?”

  For the first time ever in dealing with the Captain, I fear for my life. There is a rage in his eyes that is less than sane. But he visibly chokes back his berserker rage.

  “Leave me be, Brandon,” he says wearily.

  “Yes, Cap’n.”

  Lena Are you brooding?

  Mulling. Reflecting. What about?

  About love. I fear the Captain is madly, dangerously, obsessively in love with me. What? I mean, oh yes, I’m sure you’re right.

  He tries to hide it of course. He always speaks roughly to me, and he has perfected an ornately sarcastic style with me. “Yes, Lena,” he’ll say, “we are your humble servants, unworthy to polish your slightest witticism.” Or: “How can we serve to further exalt you, O beloved mistress, in a manner that leaves us even more abased than we already, most wretchedly, are?” It’s all sham, of course, a show of rudeness to conceal an inner awe and longing. Indeed.

  It does get wearisome though. Recall how I played my new concerto to a selected audience in my cabin, an inspired piece created as a homage to superstring resonance theory. Yes, you…

  Indeed, I devised my own scale based on the string resonances of atomic structure; the first note is electron, the second note is electron-neutrino, the third is up quark, and so on and so forth. The parallels I created between musical resonances and particle resonances are, I concede, a little contrived. But I do consider it to be a profoundly revealing musical artefact.

  But for days afterwards, Flanagan kept humming the melody. “Dum dum dum dum DUM DAH DAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAh.” But it wasn’t meant to be a tune! It is a musical symbol of the hidden structure of the Universe. I found it to be magnificent.

  Thank you. And for all the flaws of my composition, it is better by far than those interminable bluesy dirges he plays. Repetitive three-chord transitions, sung in a grating pseudo-labouring-classes voice. How utterly pretentious and pathetic is that! Very.

  Indeed. But I have to keep reminding myself – Flanagan is a relatively unsophisticated human being. I, by contrast, have lived on Earth; I have mastered two dozen languages; I have attended classical concerts in Prague and Vienna and New York; I have seen at first hand the great paintings of Picasso, Beril, Marotti and xander P. I am a cosmopolitan woman of the Universe.

  Am I not? Sorry. Yes, indeed you are!

  Flanagan, by contrast, grew up in a cave, and has spent his life in the company of pirates. He’s quite widely read, I concede, but essentially he’s a philistine.

  But curiously, this is the quality that’s beginning to attract me. His rough-hewn, artless, naive nature. I feel that he is clay which I could mould. I could make something special out of this shaggy-haired foulmouthed kidnapping fool.

  And we do have a wonderful banterflow. He insults me daily, and I mercilessly mock him back. “You need a shave,” I tell him, with devastating irony. Or: “You’re such a clod,” I argue, with rapier-sharp wit. Or: “Oh shut the fuck up you patronising cs mf!” You observe of course, my mastery of rhetorical irony?

  He does have an annoying smile though. More sneer than smile, really. And he constantly doubts my version of history. He argues that Heimdall was authorised long before my tenure as President of Humanity. He points out that Hope was run by a collective of scientists and philosophers and was by no means my private fiefdom. But I never said it was! It was merely my obsession. Yes, of course, my child had many fathers; but I was still her mother.

  Also, Flanagan nagged me for ages to have a baby to swell the ranks of the pirate army. This, of course, I could not endure. Am I a brood mare? I will not be demeaned in such a way. And besides, the very idea of my eggs being fertilised by some man’s sperm feels to me a violation akin to rape. At my age, sex itself is something of an ordeal. Conception is entirely beyond the pale.

  I have had to take some steps to stamp my authority over Flanagan. As I keep reminding him – I am the leader of the pirate horde, he is merely my trusted aide-de-camp. I am the hero of the hour; he is the sidekick. I think he takes the point. And, every day, I make a point of addressing the entire fleet via the intercom with one of my poems, reflecting some vital point or other about our mortal existence. These go down very well; I am frequently congratulated for my day’s illuminating broadcast. “Keep up the good work, Lena!” I am told by ugly cut-throats. “We love devastating use of litotes!” The dykes seem to like me too. I think for them I am a role model of robust yet sexy femininity.

  But ohmigosh, I wish they wouldn’t wear those external clitoris rings.

  I do feel a certain trepidation about the forthcoming battle. And I have begun to seed possible escape routes to cover the inevitable moment when we are doomed and facing certain death. I have instructed my remote computer… That’s me.

  I am addressing my readers and listeners, please don’t interrupt.

  … to send out distress beacons which are carefully calibrated to start transmitting after the battle is lost. That way, I can escape by liferaft and claim that, after all, I was all along a hostage of these evil pirates.

  I do not consider this a betrayal. I am, after all, throwing in my lot with them. I believe in their ideal; I yearn for a peaceful and democratic society. I yearn for the overthrow of the Cheo’s dictatorial regime.

  But I yearn to live for another millenium. There is so much I haven’t done, so much I haven’t seen. Indeed, I have a folder containing details of everything left for you to do.

  But there’s more, far more! There are things you haven’t thought of, that you could never dream of, being a mere, as you are, machine. I stand corrected.

  Indeed you do. Oh and I have, by the way, and I trust you have not been eavesdropping upon these moments, compelled Flanagan to have a sexual relationship with me. I explained to him that my psyche requires validation and support, and that it is his duty to support me. Naturally, of course, he readily agreed, despite a playful grimace and a curse so foul I had never actually heard it before. So now we have fantastic passionate sex on a daily basis. But you thought/said just a moment ago that sex was repellent to you.

  I have mellowed since the beginning of this chapter. Besides, I was curious. Is he good?

  Satisfactory. And you? How would you rate your skill as a lover in your own, so to speak, humble opinion?

  I am magnificent! I am sensuality incarnate! Eros deified! Though I must admit, I do have a habit of falling asleep immediately afterwards. And sometimes, during.

  So, you have been spying on me? Of course not. I am careful to respect your privacy, by disengaging at any and all intimate moments.

  Oh, I don’t mind, feel free to watch me rogering the Captain. You never know, you might learn something. With respect Lena, I am a molecular computer the size of a pebble with pre-programmed emotions and a 300 gigagigabyte hard drive. Tantric sex holds little appeal for me.

  You’re being snide again. No, no, not at all. It merely seems that way, because you programmed me with your own razor-sharp sense of humour.

  Hmm. You were telling me about your sexual congress with our Captain?

  Yes, so I was. Ah, what bliss, what ecstasy. I never thought I would once again experience the joy of being in love! You should write a poem about it.

  Or a concerto. Stick to poems, they hurt less.

  What did you say? I said, a concerto written by you and inspired by love would be a joy to hear and a boon to humanity.

  I get muddled sometimes. I could have sworn you said… Are you sure you’re logging all this for posterity? As always.

  It’ll need editing. I shall do that for you.

  Do you really think he likes me? He adores you. You are magnificent, he has never seen a woman like you.

  Why isn’t he nicer then? That’s merely his bold piratical style.

  I sometimes fear he is faking his orgasms. How could he? The physical evidence is…

  But he takes so little joy in the act of love. For me, it is an adventure, a balle
t of the senses. For him it’s… Wham bam thank you ma’am. That, I believe, is the correct idiom.

  I deserve his love and his passion. Indeed you do.

  For he needs me. Without my leadership, this whole doomed expedition would be… Doomed?

  Yes. You know what I mean. You should rest.

  Why? You’re getting cranky, and incoherent.

  I feel tired. I feel I carry the world’s burden on my shoulders. You are a goddess.

  That’s putting it too strongly. You are a goddess.

  Or perhaps not. You are a goddess, and I worship you.

  I can live with that. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

  Roberta Jane

  I can’t imagine a better childhood.

  I’ve read lots of books, of course, about children on other planets. Novels about girls in a boarding school on the colony of Arcadia, where every child comes from genetically superior stock and the teachers are all Nobel Prize winners. And stories about boys and girls living on an early settlement in the Asteroid belt, always getting into mischief. And my mum has always encouraged me to read the ancient Earth texts to “help define the nature of childhood”. Books like Swallows and Amazons, Five Children and It, The Railway Children, Tracy Beaker, Arabella and Her Orphan Family on Mars and Dragos.

  But I am being raised on the Rustbucket, a Type 3 warship which sails with the pirate horde fleet to wage war against an evil empire. Our ship has a vast central atrium which has been turned into a virtual museum of Earth habitats. Our play area was usually a tropical rainforest; but we could swap programs whenever we wanted in search of the perfect environment. One day we would be nomads in the Gobi Desert; another day we would be cowboys and Indians in Earth’s Monument Valley. We could do anything, be anywhere. Perfect!