by Ginger Booth
Abel sure was good at those detail niceties of running a business.
“His kids are twelve now,” Sass said. Sassafras Acosta-Copeland, Cope and Ben’s daughter, would be eleven, and Cope’s baby Nico sixteen. She gulped, and resolved to re-record the message. While she was dressed up and vanilla-looking, today would be good.
She shoved her tablet into her jeans pocket and sat on the bed. Her pants wouldn’t show on the video. “Was there something you wanted to advise me privately, Clay? Aside from how to dress.”
“We chose not to hail them this far out. Remember? Maybe we should manufacture technical difficulties. Static.”
“Good idea, except that Abel already answered,” Sass pointed out. “I don’t like subterfuge, Clay. We need to be honest.”
“Yeah, you’re a poor liar.” He ignored her irritable scowl. “Then spin it out. She didn’t give you anything. Not even her name. Acknowledge the hail, and identify yourself. Play twenty questions. Please, Sass. Don’t begin by announcing your entire agenda, attaching the cargo manifest and details of Belker’s demise. Play getting-to-know-you. Talk less. Listen more. Don’t give up more information than you get.”
He was so annoying when he was right. He poked at her weak points, too. “Alright. Let’s record in front of the others. We’ll do several takes, get feedback, choose one, send it.”
Clay spread his hands. “That’s all I ask.”
Back in the galley, takes one through three went straight into the bit bucket. Meanwhile Corky and Remi gave a white tornado treatment to the galley. They removed wayward dishes and napkins, and other slovenly bits that went unnoticed until company came calling. Nearly three years, after all.
Then Sass took a breather by re-recording Abel’s automated message. “Hello! This is Captain Sassafras Collier of the starship Thrive, home port Schuyler City, Mahina Colony, Aloha star system. Please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you soon!”
Remi thought she should add more sex appeal, but Corky hit him before Sass could reach. Aside from that, “Perfect!” was the general consensus.
Which was just as well, because a minute later Sanctuary Control called again, transmitting the exact same message as before. And they received a brand new automatic response.
Sass deflated. “Well, that was lame.”
“Perfect,” Clay reasserted.
Seven minutes later, almost exactly the round-trip speed of light, they received a new missive from the lady in rose. “Thank you for your response, Thrive. What brings you to Sanctuary?”
“Not big on smalltalk, one feels,” Sass mused. “Sanctuary Control, we are here to connect with the only surviving colony we know outside Aloha. May I ask, how many people live in Sanctuary now?”
Her jury of peers felt this was perhaps a little too forthcoming, but not dangerous. She sent it.
Sass was snacking on a peach by the time the reply reached them. “Thrive, please redirect to our facilities in the asteroid belt. Coordinates attached.” Like the Earth system between Mars and Jupiter, the next planetary orbit out from Sanctuary was occupied by smithereens.
Darren muttered, “There’s something off about her.”
“Best poker face I’ve ever seen,” Clay agreed.
“Barely human,” Corky hollered from the galley.
Like Sass, Dot was more intrigued by the message than the messenger. “Why would they abandon a planet to colonize the asteroid belt?”
Sass ran with that question, since she hardly knew Rosie well enough to get personal. “Sanctuary Control, we are confused. Our information placed Sanctuary Colony on the Goldilocks planet, on the shores of Great Alkali Lake, at 32.4 degrees North latitude. Is this no longer the case?”
The first settlement established the prime meridian, so that part went without saying. Mahina Actual, Sagamore Landing, and Denali Prime shared the same longitude, 0 degrees West.
They were clowning around with a can-can number when the next 7 minutes, 38 seconds completed like clockwork. Unlike Sass, the pink one’s replies seemed to require no time to think or confer.
And her response came out of left field. “Thrive, be advised that for the convenience of our trading partners, we prefer you visit our shipyards in the asteroid belt. All your needs can be met there.” The video froze at a placard providing the coordinates.
Sass pointed one of the ship cameras toward those coordinates. After a day or so she could study the recordings, but she didn’t expect to learn much from fuzzy visuals. Remi added the location to their navigation database.
Of more interest were the implications. Trading partners? Our shipyards? Her heart thudded. Was that even possible? Sanctuary not only thrived, but engaged in interstellar commerce with other human systems? That alone of the human diaspora, the Aloha colonies were backward?
That would be embarrassing. If she believed it. But she really didn’t.
Meanwhile Darren checked the time lag. Sanctuary Control’s responses came like clockwork. The messages were of unequal length, yet took exactly the same time to reply. Which meant they took zero time to compose. But these were data bursts, arriving as complete videos. His eyebrows rose. “Sass, you’re talking to a computer.”
“I never see an avatar so good,” Remi remarked, peering over Darren’s shoulder at the data. The pair of engineers got along fairly well these days. Sass used that excuse to drag them out of cold sleep together the first time, only a couple months after warp, and she stood by it. They seemed to split the ship’s systems in half, neither touching the other boy’s toys without invitation. Fine by her.
“Computer, is the message computer-generated?” Remi inquired.
“Probability over 60%,” the computer allowed. “Samples are insufficient to assign more than one digit of accuracy.”
Remi had a flair for talking to AI’s. The captain suspected this had much to do with the lack of female companionship on Hell’s Bells. “Computer, what question might determine whether this is a computer avatar?”
The computer replied primly, “You could ask her. Or ask to speak to a human.”
Sass thoughtfully nodded her thanks for the assist.
But the content of the message still bugged her more. “Trade? Computer, have we seen evidence of another spaceship in this system? Drive trails? Anything?”
“We detect drive trails consistent with mining and manufacturing in the asteroid belt.”
Sass read off the coordinates still frozen on the display. “Does that location show drive trails?”
“Yes.”
Remi took over. “Do any drive trails visit the planet? Or maybe someone enters the system to visit the location in the asteroid belt?”
“No other recent drive trails are detected.”
“Recent,” Remi pounced. “Computer, describe older drive trails, most recent first.”
“Six months ago, a ship visited the planet from the asteroid belt. Twenty-five months ago –”
Remi eventually extracted the facts. In the past 9 years, round-trips from the asteroid belt to the planet colony recurred every 19 months, when the two locations made their closest approach. A ship may have arrived from out-system 9 years ago. The computer was unable to discern whether that trail led to the belt or the planet. Drive trails older than a decade would be too attenuated to detect.
“OK, gang,” Sass redirected. “Do we ask to speak to a human next? Or tell them we need to visit the human colony? Though we’d be happy to visit their gift shop on the way out.”
“Both,” was the consensus.
Clay quibbled, “I wouldn’t phrase it that way.”
The next reply starred a man of similar age, wearing the same cut of bodysuit in a color matching Sass’s shirt. His collar bore tiny matching stars instead of pips. Tidy iron-gray hair failed to match his baby-smooth complexion, unlined and stubble-free.
“Hello, and welcome to Sanctuary. We prefer all guests visit our asteroid facility first.” He almost smiled, like the first avat
ar. However, instead of a blank wall, his background included a window onto a desolate landscape, including a lake rimed with something white, and presumably alkaline.
“It’s another avatar,” Darren advised. “No time lag to bring a human being into the conversation, or to record.”
“And the face is fake,” Dot added wryly.
“Computer,” Remi inquired, “was this message computer-generated?”
“Probability 100%.”
“Why so certain?”
“Great Alkali Lake is currently below the terminator.” Night-time at Sanctuary Colony, Sass readily translated. “Blink pattern and speech cadence identical to the first avatar. Voice lowered one octave.”
Sass didn’t ask for opinions this time. She simply began recording. “Sanctuary Control, I need to speak to a human being.” Specific requests brought better results. “I prefer a medical nanite specialist, preferably of Ganymede descent. A Colony Corps veteran of the settlement ship Vitality would be ideal. Thrive out.”
That time, 7 minutes, 38 seconds elapsed without response. Indeed Sass eventually went to bed without receiving an answer.
The answering machine AI never answered her question. Were there any people on Sanctuary?
101
Sass wasn’t surprised after breakfast when Dot, Corky, and Remi opted out of continuing a conversation with 7 minute lags. They could catch the recap at lunch. She missed Remi’s flair for coaxing intelligence out of Thrive’s computer, but Darren and Clay were probably her best advisors for this.
No message ever arrived in response to her request to speak to a medical nanite specialist from Ganymede. “Sanctuary Control, this is Thrive. We would love to speak to the authorities on Sanctuary. Any human would do.”
Rosie was back. “Thrive, be advised that our asteroid facility is where we engage with visitors. There we extract and refine many resources of interest to space-faring cultures, and build spaceships.”
She said that already. Sass’s next gambit was to engage the AI’s agenda. With luck, that would collapse some menu tree and require a human salesman to intervene.
“Sanctuary Control, we’ve seen the ship Nanomage sent to the Aloha system from Sanctuary. Is this the sort of courier ship that you build in the asteroid belt? Do you offer other models as well?”
She bit her tongue on the temptation to ask exactly what form of payment this shipyard expected. Her credit line at the Bank of Mahina, perhaps? Sass was happy to give them a copy of every database she possessed. But she’d do the same whether the locals gave her a sandwich in return, or star drive fuel and a new warp drive. Other than that, Thrive could offer fruit, truck garden vegetables, and a few technology consultants. None of which could touch the price of spaceship, surely?
“Thrive, our shipyards offer the Nanomage-type courier vessel, plus the JO-3 model asteroid miner, and several smaller utility vessels. Nothing larger than your ship.”
Thrive was a JO-3 built in Pono orbit instead of Jupiter, thus labeled a PO-3. Sass flirted briefly with a vision of replacing her aging bolt bucket with a fresh shiny one. This was about as tempting as breaking in a new AI. These skyships were death traps until their hapless crews ironed out the kinks. The immense refugee ship Vitality featured a polished Colony Corps crew section up front. The rest was a nightmare do-it-yourself project left for the refugees to complete. After three years, one deck never did get the latrines working.
But let’s pretend.
“Sanctuary Control, do you offer spare warp drives? And third generation star drive fuel?”
“Thrive, warp drives are a controlled technology. We use fifth generation star drives, but can manufacture third generation fuel. Or, upgrade your ship to a fifth generation drive.”
“Yegads,” Darren murmured, eyes greedy with technological lust. The third generation drive on Nanomage yielded an incredible power upgrade. They went two levels further?
“Sanctuary Control, this is very exciting!” Sass encouraged. “But who could we talk to about warp drives?”
That was a waste of 15 minutes. The AI decision tree maintained that warp drives were not for sale. She tried a different tack next, that she already owned a warp drive and merely sought a consultation with a qualified repair technician. Rosie treated her to an exposition on the excellent benefits of a fifth generation star drive. The AI conceded that no, a star drive was no substitute for a warp drive. But a fresh new JO-3 hull might make generation travel more comfortable.
Shakedown would certainly give me a hobby.
“Rosie, this ship is bound for Sanctuary, not your asteroid belt,” Sass finally told the damned thing in exasperation. “We will visit people first. Hopefully humans open to discussing my warp drive problem. Because if I don’t fix my warp drive, my people need to stay here with your people. Do you have people, Rosie? Warm human bodies?”
Clay tried to block her hand from sending this, but Sass prevailed, then rose resolutely to take a break. Hammering the standing bag would hit the spot. Or… “How about best two falls out of three, Clay?”
Once they were down in the hold, they squared off against bags to warm up. Clay offered supportively, “Talking to an AI is frustrating.”
“I noticed.” Sass threw a backhand, cross-punch combo. “Yes and no. In some ways, computers are easier. People always have an agenda.” She followed up with a straight kick.
She vividly recalled her first dealings with Mahina Orbital, the Saggies of Hell’s Bells, and the baffling Denali. Or hell, those heart-breaking meetings with Mahina Actual when Vitality arrived after 3 grueling years en route. A mere 70 or 80 years didn’t seem like long, but social standards evolved fast under pressure. And stress didn’t come much stronger than an artificial environment.
Settlers on Mahina were just as bad. Sass was simply used to them. Thrive cracked Mahina’s insularity wide open. Fifteen years now since they began. She wondered if that crack remained open, or slammed shut after she left.
No, she could trust her old crew to keep a system-wide conversation going. She smirked at the idea of anyone trying to shut Kassidy up, their flamboyant urb, or the assertive Denali envoy Aurora.
She wished they were here now. Alas, Sass was the most socially gifted of her new crew. Kassidy and Aurora were wizards at manipulating people, but a misery on the long voyage between planets. Clay warned her against recruiting anyone so outgoing for this trip. He probably couldn’t find one willing to abandon her social network for twenty-odd years.
Sass gave the bag a full set of kicks, then backstepped and threw a feint at Clay. “Hit me!”
The crew watched in horror at the abuse they both dealt out. The couple quit avoiding blood and pain a long time ago. “Focuses the mind,” as Clay put it. They went for best three out of four falls, before Sass conceded defeat.
She was good. Clay was bigger.
Rosie the AI – aka Sanctuary Control – did not respond further that day. Sass should have realized that was a bad sign.
By nine days later, Sass developed the habit of spending one hour per day in an exchange of views with Rosie. Darren and eventually Clay gave up on the pastime. She couldn’t blame them. The AI was infinitely patient, and infinitely stubborn.
“Belker, the nanite specialist I was telling you about,” Sass shared today. “I’m curious if he has any next of kin on Sanctuary. Or a surviving colleague who might relish the opportunity to read his lab notes.”
She sent that, and settled to review her notes. She kept a greatest hits collection of snippets from Ganny diaries during the Vitality voyage that brought her to Mahina. Her crew read the personal journals for entertainment and research on their first voyage to Sagamore. But the authors likely died long ago. Their sordid love lives might be titillating to their descendants, but Rosie wouldn’t see it that way.
Oh, good! Sass found a section from a Ganny technician, written to a star-crossed lover from Luna. The Ganny died before they left Aloha, on an ill-fated PO-3 shakedown cruise
. The Loonie likely never knew she still pined for him. Kassidy had a field day with the romantic tale. She invented latter-day descendants, united by the tragic stories of their courageous great-grandparents, who fell madly in love against a backdrop of two ethereal cultures still at odds after all this time.
Sass stiffened as her main guns fired, then the lesser lasers. She checked her tablet. Yes, thank you, that was scheduled maintenance and target practice, Remi being a dutiful third officer. With decades of experience mining the rings, he was a better shot than she was, or her original third officer Ben Acosta. Though Remi lacked the boyish gusto Ben brought to the sport.
She read another couple pages. The Ganny science type had grown to appreciate the philosophical nihilism of her cold Loonie lover all the more, as the light years fled behind her. Sass couldn’t relate, to either of them. The Ganny sounded self-absorbed. The Loonie read like the profile of a serial killer. Clearly the Ganny preferred to keep any risk of love beyond arm’s reach.
Her next 4 minutes was up. The comms lag was decreasing. She’d commenced deceleration burns into the the planet.
“Thrive, we have no record of Belker descendants. The last access of his lab notes occurred 32 years ago. We have no interest in his documents.”
Sass was still contemplating how to phrase her Ganny-Luna lovers gambit, when a surprise second message arrived from Rosie, only 2 minutes after the last.
“Thrive, we detect weapons fire from your ship. Confirm that these weapons are yours.”
Was it Sass’s imagination? Or was Rosie a mite tetchy this time?
“Sagamore Control, yes, my third officer was shooting target practice. Basic gun maintenance.” She clicked off the recording, then reconsidered, and added, “Please be advised that our home world lies in an asteroid belt. PO-3 ships use guns for mining and self-defense. The Pono moons in Aloha also maintain huge anti-meteor batteries. We use them on rocks, not people.” Sass smiled, and hit send.
She’d just about given up on her conversational gambit about the Ganny-Loonie lovers when Rosie’s next response arrived. “Thrive, be advised that we are ready and able to defend our colony against hostile action. You are not, repeat not, to approach the planet. This is your final warning.”