by IGMS
The Pandora project was a blessing; it was much more than just a fresh start for the colony. Everyone slept well in Deep Slumber.
James pushed the foam back down around her canister, tucking her in one last time. A lump rose in his throat. She looked so peaceful. While it was his shift, she trusted him to protect her. That made all the sacrifices, all the loneliness, worth it. Just a few more hours and he could join her in hibernation until their journey ended.
But the nagging feeling was still there.
He didn't want to think about it. As he resumed his rounds, James spoke to Pandora. "Any chance of some working music today?"
"I'm sorry, sir. My programming will not let me transmit more than necessary within twenty-four hours of a shift change."
Of course. It was all part of the game: War made people paranoid and they became overly cautious. Some of that paranoia drifted into everything they did. Pandora was the perfect case in point: disguised to look like a meteor from the outside and impervious to scanning. Every bit of light, of sound -- anything that could be used to detect signs of life -- got absorbed by the foam within twenty yards of emission. And Pandora had life support for only one person at a time -- one person who stayed out of Deep Slumber, just in case anything went wrong.
It was extreme, but the security was necessary. Their enemies were powerful; so many of his people were already dead. And those who weren't, like their little colony, were in hiding. Hundreds of years of travel would provide not only time, but the distance that would hopefully keep their descendants safe long enough for them to grow strong again.
As James entered the heart of Pandora, which stored all the primary and secondary processors, the back of his neck prickled. This was definitely more than a temporary feeling, more than just his shift coming to an end. Something was wrong.
It was just as well that Pandora had refused to play anything for him: the music would have kept him from his thoughts. If something was screwed up, he needed to see it, think it through, find a solution, and get it fixed.
His first inspection of Pandora's heart showed nothing out of place, so he started over. This time, James let his hand drift over every inch of the black foam, feeling for anything that didn't belong.
He found the inconsistency on the secondary communications processor. He turned his head from side to side so that the light would play against it from different angles. Nothing appeared out of place, but when he brushed his hand over the panel again, he felt a divot forming a line down the middle of the panel. He pulled a knife from his pocket, sliced the foam along the divide, and revealed the processor beneath.
"Pandora, run a diagnostic on secondary communications."
After a few moments Pandora said, "All automatic testing returns without failure."
Okay, so nothing was blatantly wrong. "Check the wiring against construction schematics."
"There are some anomalies, sir, though they appear in line with standard maintenance repair."
James couldn't shake off the tickling feeling in his gut. This is why he was so nervous; he was sure of it. He paced in circles around Pandora's heart, letting his thoughts wander.
Pandora's voice startled him. "It's time, sir. I'll start waking up your replacement." Good grief, how long had he been pacing? "The hibernation tube can be ready by the time you return to the dormitories."
"Belay that." James surprised himself with the force of his voice. Why? What was it about his replacement that bothered him? "Who's on deck for the next shift?"
"Trinn Leeman, sir."
James pounded his head. Trinn Leeman . . . Trinn Leeman . . . A picture of a short, pudgy man with thick fingers and unnaturally dark lips flashed in James' mind. James had been a little disgusted by the man's appearance before the trip, but that didn't matter. Right here, right now, the only question James needed to answer was if Trinn could be trusted.
"Pandora, I need a bio synopsis of Trinn Leeman. Now."
After a brief pause Pandora returned. "Trinn Leeman, 27 years old at time ofhibernation. Married to Sandra --"
"Skip the minor details," said James. "Start with military history."
"Mr. Leeman has limited military experience. He received an education waiver during the primary conflict."
Strike one. "Continue with his education, then."
"Undergrad completed from MIT in microbiology; advanced degrees in nano-broadcasting from --"
James stopped listening; that was enough. Trinn was a broadcaster. "Where are Leeman's personal articles stored?"
"Searching . . ." said Pandora. "Storage deck twelve, container A-17."
He left Pandora's heart, moving as quickly as he dared in the blackness of the corridors. Yet it seemed he couldn't get to the storage area fast enough. Pandora was droning on about something, but James wasn't listening. When, at last, he stood before container A-17, he finally made out what she was saying.
"May I remind you again, sir, that it is a violation of community law to open the personal storage containers of a fellow traveler --"
"Except in times of emergency," James said, finishing the line. And this was certainly an emergency -- or at least it might avoid one. He used his knife to cut through the foam and pry open the top of the storage container.
"This violation has been noted on your service record."
"Fine." Let the council decide what to do with him once they arrived and everyone was safe. James rifled through Trinn's belongings, finally tipping the container over and letting the contents spill across the floor. He tossed the items back into the container one at a time as he decided they were harmless: clothing, extra large; cases of toothbrushes and toothpaste; textbooks and novels galore -- the guy obviously didn't know how to be alone with his thoughts.
Toward the bottom of the pile, next to an ivory-handled mirror, he found them: thought broadcast-patches. They were perfectly harmless for long-distance interpersonal communication, but Trinn would be alone during his shift; there was no need for them. If Trinn attached a receiver to a fully functioning communications processor, he could send their position across the galaxy. And the bounty on the colony was high enough that someone with the means would find it impossible not to. Trinn could doom them all and have enough money afterward not to care.
James was the only person who could do anything about it.
He realized he was shaking. He'd sacrificed too much already, hadn't he? He'd spent so much time alone in the blackness of space, in the blackness of the ship.
Besides, there was only a chance Trinn would turn them in. Trinn was probably a good guy, pudgy, thick fingers and all.
But when he thought about Nadia, he knew any chance was too great. She needed him to be there, to protect her.
"Pandora, as acting commander, I'm overriding the shift transfer to Trinn Leeman. Authority code 6-7-1-1-9-2. Effective immediately, I'll be taking his shift."
Pandora whirred and hummed in his earpiece. "Are you quite certain, sir?"
"Yes, I'm sure," he said. "Who's scheduled for the shift after Leeman?"
"Patricia Mallo."
Good. He remembered Patricia. Nice woman. She came from a wealthy family and had given up her fortune to escape with the colony. She knew what it was to sacrifice. He could trust her.
James picked up the remaining items from the floor and nestled them back in the storage container. As he placed the mirror on top of a stack of books, he caught a glimpse of his reflection.
He swore. He hadn't seen himself since before he went into hibernation. When had his hair turned gray? And the creases in his forehead? When did they appear? This was more than three years could do to him. "Pandora, how long have I been awake?"
"Twenty-seven years, sir. You have served eight shifts beyond your original term of service."
Eight shifts? Could that be right? He couldn't remember. "List them, please."
"Jackson, Troyovich, Niles . . ." As Pandora continued the list, James counted them off. Eight shifts.
&
nbsp; But they were all untrustworthy. He couldn't give control of the ship to any of them.
At least Patricia was up next. He remembered her as a striking woman, a natural leader. Occasionally she dyed her hair bright red, but that was just a foible. He could trust her.
He could.
Couldn't he?
Well, he had three years to figure it out. He could hold off thinking about it -- for a while, anyway. "Pandora, since the transfer isn't happening, how about some music?"
"Certainly, sir. What would you like to hear?"
"Surprise me."
He realized he was hungry. Hopefully what's-his-name . . . Trinn . . . requisitioned some real food for this shift.
Stringed instruments whispered to him through the earpiece: Barber's Adagio. A good choice.
He sighed. Three more years.
Until then, Nadia could sleep peacefully.
Salvage
by Orson Scott Card
Artwork by Scott Altmann
* * *
The road began to climb steeply right from the ferry, so the truck couldn't build up any speed. Deaver just kept shifting down, wincing as he listened to the grinding of the gears. Sounded like the transmission was chewing itself to gravel. He'd been nursing it all the way across Nevada, and if the Wendover ferry hadn't carried him these last miles over the Mormon Sea, he would have had a nice long hike. Lucky. It was a good sign. Things were going to go Deaver's way for a while.
The mechanic frowned at him when he rattled in to the loading dock. "You been ridin the clutch, boy?"
Deaver got down from the cab. "Clutch? What's a clutch?"
The mechanic didn't smile. "Couldn't you hear the transmission was shot?"
"I had mechanics all the way across Nevada askin to fix it for me, but I told em I was savin it for you."
The mechanic looked at him like he was crazy. "There ain't no mechanics in Nevada."
If you wasn't dumb as your thumb, thought Deaver, you'd know I was joking. These old Mormons were so straight they couldn't sit down, some of them. But Deaver didn't say anything. Just smiled.
"This truck's gonna stay here a few days," said the mechanic.
Fine with me, thought Deaver. I got plans. "How many days you figure?"
"Take three for now, I'll sign you off."
"My name's Deaver Teague."
"Tell the foreman, he'll write it up." The mechanic lifted the hood to begin the routine checks while the dockboys loaded off the old washing machines and refrigerators and other stuff Deaver had picked up on his trip. Deaver took his mileage reading to the window and the foreman paid him off.
Seven dollars for five days of driving and loading, sleeping in the cab and eating whatever the farmers could spare. It was better than a lot of people lived on, but there wasn't any future in it. Salvage wouldn't go on forever. Someday he'd pick up the last broken-down dishwasher left from the old days, and then he'd be out of a job.
Well, Deaver Teague wasn't going to wait around for that. He knew where the gold was, he'd been planning how to get it for weeks, and if Lehi had got the diving equipment like he promised then tomorrow morning they'd do a little freelance salvage work. If they were lucky they'd come home rich.
Deaver's legs were stiff but he loosened them up pretty quick and broke into an easy, loping run down the corridors of the Salvage Center. He took a flight of stairs two or three steps at a time, bounded down a hall, and when he reached a sign that said SMALL COMPUTER SALVAGE, he pushed off the doorframe and rebounded into the room. "Hey Lehi!" he said. "Hey it's quittin time!"
Lehi McKay paid no attention. He was sitting in front of a TV screen, jerking at a black box he held on his lap.
"You do that and you'll go blind," said Deaver.
"Shut up, carpface." Lehi never took his eyes off the screen. He jabbed at a button on the black box and twisted on the stick that jutted up from it. A colored blob on the screen blew up and split into four smaller blobs.
"I got three days off while they do the transmission on the truck," said Deaver. "So tomorrow's the temple expedition."
Lehi got the last blob off the screen. More blobs appeared.
"That's real fun," said Deaver, "like sweepin the street and then they bring along another troop of horses."
"It's an Atari. From the sixties or seventies or something. Eighties. Old. Can't do much with the pieces, it's only eight-bit stuff. All these years in somebody's attic in Logan, and the sucker still runs."
"Old guys probably didn't even know they had it."
"Probably."
Deaver watched the game. Same thing over and over again. "How much a thing like this use to cost?"
"A lot. Maybe fifteen, twenty bucks."
"Makes you want to barf. And here sits Lehi McKay, toodling his noodle like the old guys use to. All it ever got them was a sore noodle, Lehi. And slag for brains."
"Drown it. I'm trying to concentrate."
The game finally ended. Lehi set the black box up on the workbench, turned off the machine, and stood up.
"You got everything ready to go underwater tomorrow?" asked Deaver.
"That was a good game. Having fun must've took up a lot of their time in the old days. Mom says the kids used to not even be able to get jobs till they was sixteen. It was the law."
"Don't you wish," said Deaver.
"It's true."
"You don't know your tongue from dung, Lehi. You don't know your heart from a fart."
"You want to get us both kicked out of here, talkin like that?"
"I don't have to follow school rules now, I graduated sixth grade, I'm nineteen years old, I been on my own for five years." He pulled his seven dollars out of his pocket, waved them once, stuffed them back in carelessly. "I do OK, and I talk like I want to talk. Think I'm afraid of the bishop?"
"Bishop don't scare me. I don't even go to church except to make Mom happy. It's a bunch of bunny turds."
Lehi laughed, but Deaver could see that he was a little scared to talk like that. Sixteen years old, thought Deaver, he's big and he's smart but he's such a little kid. He don't understand how it's like to be a man. "Rain's comin."
"Rain's always comin. What the hell do you think filled up the lake?" Lehi smirked as he unplugged everything on the workbench.
"I meant Lorraine Wilson."
"I know what you meant. She's got her boat?"
"And she's got a mean set of fenders." Deaver cupped his hands. "Just need a little polishing."
"Why do you always talk dirty? Ever since you started driving salvage, Deaver, you got a gutter mouth. Besides, she's built like a sack."
"She's near fifty, what do you expect?" It occurred to Deaver that Lehi seemed to be stalling. Which probably meant he botched up again as usual. "Can you get the diving stuff?"
"I already got it. You thought I'd screw up." Lehi smirked again.
"You? Screw up? You can be trusted with anything." Deaver started for the door. He could hear Lehi behind him, still shutting a few things off. They got to use a lot of electricity in here. Of course they had to, because they needed computers all the time, and salvage was the only way to get them. But when Deaver saw all that electricity getting used up at once, to him it looked like his own future. All the machines he could ever want, new ones, and all the power they needed. Clothes that nobody else ever wore, his own horse and wagon or even a car. Maybe he'd be the guy who started making cars again. He didn't need stupid blob-smashing games from the past. "That stuff's dead and gone, duck lips, dead and gone."
"What're you talking about?" asked Lehi.
"Dead and gone. All your computer things."
It was enough to set Lehi off, as it always did. Deaver grinned and felt wicked and strong as Lehi babbled along behind him. About how we use the computers more than they ever did in the old days, the computers kept everything going, on and on and on, it was cute, Deaver liked him, the boy was so intense. Like everything was the end of the world. Deaver knew better. The worl
d was dead, it had already ended, so none of it mattered, you could sink all this stuff in the lake.
They came out of the Center and walked along the retaining wall. Far below them was the harbor, a little circle of water in the bottom of a bowl, with Bingham City perched on the lip. They used to have an open-pit copper mine here, but when the water rose they cut a channel to it and now they had a nice harbor on Oquirrh Island in the middle of the Mormon Sea, where the factories could stink up the whole sky and no neighbors ever complained about it.
A lot of other people joined them on the steep dirt road that led down to the harbor. Nobody lived right in Bingham City itself, because it was just a working place, day and night. Shifts in, shifts out. Lehi was a shift boy, lived with his family across the Jordan Strait on Point-of-the-Mountain, which was as rotten a place to live as anybody ever devised, rode the ferry in every day at five in the morning and rode it back every afternoon at four. He was supposed to go to school after that for a couple of hours but Deaver thought that was stupid, he told Lehi that all the time, told him again now. School is too much time and too little of everything, a waste of time.
"I gotta go to school," said Lehi.
"Tell me two plus two, you haven't got two plus two yet?"
"You finished, didn't you?"
"Nobody needs anything after fourth grade." He shoved Lehi a little. Usually Lehi shoved back, but this time no.
"Just try getting a real job without a sixth-grade diploma, OK? And I'm pretty close now." They were at the ferry ship. Lehi got out his pass.
"You with me tomorrow or not?"
Lehi made a face. "I don't know, Deaver. You can get arrested for going around there. It's a dumb thing to do. They say there's real weird things in the old skyscrapers."
"We aren't going in the skyscrapers."
"Even worse in there, Deaver. I don't want to go in there."
"Yeah, the Angel Moroni's probably waiting to jump out and say booga-booga-booga."
"Don't talk about it, Deaver." Deaver was tickling him; Lehi laughed and tried to shy away. "Cut it out, chigger-head. Come on. Besides, the Moroni statue was moved to the Salt Lake Monument up on the mountain. And that has a guard all the time."