by Ginger Booth
Clay recognized the picture. Actually, it was corporate advertising for a sports drink, emblazoned on a wall in the ball pits on Mars. He resumed walking and told Tharsis about their little VR project. “Three years is a very long time to entertain yourself in a small ship.”
“I would love a tour of Thrive,” Tharsis returned, grinning. Then his face blanked. Blink, blink. “After you’re chipped.”
“Of course,” Clay dismissed this. He preferred to see how Zelda reacted to the technology first, but no need to argue. “Now, after all my research on Mars, I’m betting you have killer sports facilities. What games do you play?”
He’d found the right question. Tharsis’ footfalls sped as he drew Clay to their training gym, complete with ga-ga pits. The colonel burbled with enthusiasm about the Martian teams’ current standing against the Loonies and Gannies in a variety of sports.
Clay’s eyes narrowed. “Isn’t this the middle of the work day?” The gym was mobbed with adults intent on their sports training. He observed a three-way ping-pong game, ferociously fought.
“Yes, we made the ultimate sacrifice and now enjoy our leisure.”
That credo got old fast. Unlike Tharsis, Clay actually made the ultimate sacrifice a long time ago and hadn’t rested on his laurels yet. The past three years of forced leisure bored him silly. Even picking fights with Sass was growing dull.
“Do you play any sports outside the domes?” Out of Shiva’s surveillance. And Sass’s.
“Horseback riding!” Tharsis supplied with enthusiasm. “I – once you’re chipped, I could show you a picture. We communicate and share data through our chips.”
Clay drew out his pocket comm. He showed off a good image of himself and Sass riding horses on Mahina. They packed out on the regolith camping just before the long trip to Denali.
“Are those real horses?” Tharsis admired wonderingly. “On a moon colony?”
“Yes. How’s your terraforming coming along?”
Blink, blink. “We have no plans to terraform Sanctuary. We are safe in the colony.” His brow crumpled. “It’s fun to go out joy-riding though.”
“I’d love to try it!” Clay encouraged. “Could we? Now? You have to understand, I’ve been cooped up for three years. Your colony is lovely, but I’d kill to spend some time outdoors. See your landscape. Maybe visit your lake. We have no open water on Mahina. I miss it.”
Blink, blink. “You miss open water?”
“Yes, where I’m from on Earth, we had oceans, lakes, rivers, marshes. Toward the end it rained non-stop. Water everywhere.”
“Let’s head outside –!” Blink, blink. “After you’re chipped. There was an agreement. Your crew must be chipped.”
Based on seventy-five years of experience, Clay had a fair idea what would happen if he were ‘chipped.’ His nanites liked to form an abscess around foreign material. The pus pockets didn’t last long, but they hurt for half an hour. They looked revolting when they festered. Or the chip might be small enough for them to disassemble and toss into his excretory system.
“I think my nanites aren’t compatible with your chip comms. Let’s see the horses first.”
Tharsis sped up again in eagerness, then blinked and slowed. “Shiva demands that you be chipped first.”
During his bout of enthusiasm, Clay figured out which door Tharsis was making for, and kept striding. “This one? Do I need to fetch my pressure suit?”
“The air system is integrated into the horse,” Tharsis replied, catching up again. “I don’t know if your clothing is adequate, though. Oh, this way –” He stopped dead. “I really must insist that you get chipped.”
“Of course,” Clay agreed. “Have a pole robot meet us by the horses.”
“Oh, yes, that works!” Tharsis agreed, much happier at this solution to his schizophrenic dilemma.
A brief diversion into another gym netted Clay his own…pink track suit. They could so easily have picked a charcoal grey for the pants, he mourned. He changed into the outfit then and there, enjoying the tittering attention from onlookers. The fit was snug, reminding him of the diving suit he wore on the Denali sea bed. The local uniforms worked as pressure suits.
Now both dressed for the outdoors, Zeb Tharsis led him at a trot across the hall and up the stairs to the ‘stables.’ A line of robo-horses stood rump to the wall, recharging. Their tails served as the power cords.
As promised, a lone pole robot stood brandishing an inoculation gun at the motionless nose of the first horse. “Ah, thank you!” Clay boomed. He rushed the robot and twisted the gun out of its grip. A single karate chop served to disable its ‘wrist’ servos. A quick kick laid it flat, wheels whirring.
“May I use this horse?” Clay asked Tharsis, who stared fixedly at the downed pole robot.
“Ah – yes.” As soon as the colonel turned away from the polebot, he seemed to forget about it. He demonstrated to Clay how to unplug the horse’s tail and access its breath mask accessory. While his back was turned, Clay took advantage of a power switch exposed under the base of the pole robot, and set the device out of the way against the stall wall.
Clay swung into the saddle, extracted the holstered breath mask, and slapped it onto his face. Only half-listening to the colonel’s orientation pitch, he examined the horse’s control pommel. He had reins, one dial for speed, and another with nine gait choices. He selected walk, speed level 1, and hauled back on the left rein to make a left turn for the airlock.
Only then did he figure out how to turn on the air feed to the mask. He stowed the disabled inoculation gun in the saddlebag. He meant to keep that. If he stuck around here too long, he was sure Shiva would send him another.
Tharsis hustled to catch up. “Wait! You’re not trained yet!”
Clay shot a grin back at him. He spotted the bowling ball heads of another three polebots headed up the stairs. They weren’t quick at stair-stepping. Good to know. “How do I open the airlock?”
“Automatic,” Tharsis replied, just as Clay’s horse crossed the sensor line.
Clay clopped straight in. His horse proved too stupid to stop until its nose hit the outer door.
“There are safety regulations,” Tharsis attempted, his voice booming as his horse drew into the chamber beside him.
Amplifiers, not radio, Clay deduced. Seeing Tharsis’ example, he pulled the rolled fabric edges of his mask into a balaclava-like attachment covering his hair and neck. Yuck. He pulled on the racked gauntlets, too. He hated it when his skin cracked around the fingernails.
The polebots had nearly reached the top of the stairs. The airlock began evacuating the breathable air. But the chamber had room for half a dozen horses, so the cycle was slow. Clay hopped off the horse and pressed an emergency override button to open the doors immediately, the air wasted. He vaulted back onto his steed, and shoved his toes firmly into the stirrups. He cranked the speed and gait to break out in a gallop with a “Whoop!”
The dusty yellow landscape looked pretty at the moment. Buttes carved by wind-blown sand reminded him of pictures of the rolling desert wastelands of the American Southwest. Assorted colors of rock scree almost looked like desert shrubs from a distance. The orange sun lowered as a live coal. With so little atmosphere, little dips and rises cast inky shadows, and a gravelly grey slope rose before him.
The thundering complaints from Tharsis muted nicely with the decreased air pressure.
Clay glanced behind, feeling mildly guilty. But Tharsis wasn’t half bad as a rider. Clay caught him by surprise, but the colonel was catching up. Clay cranked his power up another notch, his silvery steed kicking up plumes of dust behind him, sparkling like flying embers. He laughed out loud for the joy of freedom.
He crested the hill half-expecting another slope to open before him. But this proved to be the crest of a modest ridge. He couldn’t see the lake or spaceport from here, so he hung a right, and set to cantering uphill, hoping for a better vantage point. He wished the saddle and knee areas worked
as sensors to communicate his desires to the horse. But he quickly got the hang of tweaking the dials.
After another half kilometer, he called back to Tharsis. “Are you out of Shiva’s clutches yet, colonel?”
“Yes. Thank you. How did you figure it out?”
“You told us on our way in.” Clay pulled his reins to bring his stainless steel steed to a halt, and patted its neck by the golden mane of metallic yarn. “You had people outside the colony and couldn’t communicate with them. Besides, I had a dog chipped once back on Earth. The devices don’t have much range.”
Clay liked that dog. He was a rare breed, and came with a special permit from the Genetic Heritage Department. That allowed Clay and his wife to waste enough food on him to feed a family of tent rats. But he lost custody in the divorce. He hadn’t thought of them in years, the wife or the dog. He sighed.
Tharsis pulled to a stop beside him. His mount touted a coppery mane with little beaded braids. “I’m not sure how long ago I lost control. A crew of wildcatters arrived. They were disruptive. A lot of debate, whether to go colonize a more promising planet, or give up and join one of the first shell colonies. We’ll never succeed here.”
“They found an Earth-like planet?”
“More water than this one, anyway. Some nice biomes.”
“Did they arrive nine years ago?” Clay prompted. “Judging by the drive trails.”
“That long,” Tharsis breathed. “Damn Shiva to hell. She was supposed to pacify the situation, then relinquish control. And I didn’t expect her to take control of me, or Petunia and Kurt.”
“Kurt?”
“Commander Kurt Kallias, my counterpart for Ganymede Too.” Tharsis paused and stared, as though a map of dangerous terrain spread across his horse’s neck. “Kurt’s dead.” He shook his head as though trying to clear his mind. “It’s so hard to remember. What’s happened to us.”
“I’m sure my captain would join me in asking whether you’d like our help.” Clay had automatically transferred his personal grav generator – currently off – and his comms into his new pink pants pocket when he changed. He glanced at it but didn’t see any messages. He guessed the rock shielding the underground city blocked those. He’d only just now found line of sight to Thrive. “Mind if I check in?”
Not that he cared about Tharsis’ opinion. But the colonel waved for him to proceed. The ‘Martian’ sat lost in thought, but at least not blink-blinking anymore.
“Remi? Clay. What’s your status?”
“Clay! Where are you?”
“Horseback riding. I’m fine. How’s Zelda?”
“Zelda and Darren are struggling to fight off the ‘chip.’ I can’t reach Sass. Clay, robots keep approaching from the colony. The AI, ‘Sanctuary Control,’ she insists the captain wants to refill our water tanks. So far I toss them away with the grav grapplers –”
“Take off,” Clay interrupted. “Remain on station above the spaceport. See if a few meters will do the trick. If not, go higher. Sass can comm you from outside the city. Maybe you could throw down a swing or something to haul her up. Or she could use her grav generator. I’m fine for now.”
“Thank you! I do this now. Roy out.”
The first officer tucked his comm away. He ought to get back to the ship. Or, the gallant thing would be to return to the city and extract Sass.
But Clay couldn’t bear the thought of heading indoors again. Surely Remi could stave off a few robots. He’d had more than enough of Thrive, and Sass too. If she died, he could always retrieve her body tomorrow. She’d be fine.
“Let’s ride, colonel! It’s beautiful out here. Can we spot your lake before nightfall?”
114
Another robotic fist punched through the drywall into Hugo Silva’s office. So far Sass’s steel chair under the doorknob, plus her rump pressing it into the door, prevented entry. But if the polebots were breaking down the wall, she needed a weapon with authority.
She desperately scanned the busy electronics shop for a steel pole or something. Or…could she electrocute her pursuers? Preferably without electrocuting herself again.
Her eyes lit on a hard-core battery, and jumper cables that reminded her of frosty mornings in Upstate New York. This DC power supply was twice the size of the truck batteries of her Army days. But the setup looked similar, right down to the industrial grade alligator clamps on black and red cables.
No sooner seen than clamped. She couldn’t remember where ground came into play in this scheme. Sass never worked the motor pool. So she clamped red on one end post of the battery, black on the other, and hesitantly brought the far ends together. They started to spark within a foot of each other. Good to know.
The next punch through the wall from a polebot, she touched it with the red clamp. A spark arced beautifully. The jointed arm fell dead, hung through the wall. Perfect. Its little friends had no time to learn anything from is misfortune. Another one punched through seconds later. The captain shorted that one, too, using the black electrode this time.
But she wasn’t careful enough. The red claw dangled into the steel chair. The sudden voltage made her drop everything and jump back, hair standing on end, heart racing. She focused very carefully on inhaling for the next few breaths, until she was fairly sure her heart and lungs would continue on automatic.
The red alligator still touched the steel chair, though maybe on its seat, which might or might not be an insulator. The black claw rested only inches away. Ever so cautiously, Sass reached out her toe and –
Someone banged on the door. “Captain Collier?” a man cried. Startled, Sass’s toe nudge the clips closer together rather than apart, where they danced in sizzling sparkly abandon.
“Don’t touch the doorknob!” she cried. “Um, who is it?” Maybe she did want him to touch the doorknob.
“Scholar Silva. This is my lab. What’s going on in there? Why are dead robots embedded in my wall? Commander Lumpkin told me you arrived.”
“Ah, hang on. I need to disconnect a battery.”
Silva squealed in horror. “Captain, I have priceless machines in there!”
“Black to ground?” Sass queried. He talked her through the wiring challenge.
Sass’s hand hesitated above the battery. Did she trust him? “How do you feel about your AI, Scholar Silva?”
“Shiva runs this colony. Without her, we die. Other than that, I have issues. Let me in.”
She definitely wanted to talk to this guy, especially about that list of names. How did Silva know about Cope and Ben? And Teke of all people! Removing the first red clamp from the battery was scary. But once she transferred that to ground, she gained confidence and completed disarming the door.
She hauled the steel chair away and pasted on a friendly smile as she let him in. No one seemed to shake hands here. “So good to meet you in person –”
“Not yet!” Silva cried. He pushed past her to seize the aluminum foil helm and don it, molding its skirt to close around his neck. With that, he sighed in relief and sank to his monitor chair. “Captain Collier. Am I glad to see you!”
Perhaps foil hats weren’t a bad joke here? Sass pointed to her head. “Why?”
“Ah, I believe they mentioned ‘chipping’ to you?”
Sass pointed to her outer arm, in the typical inoculation spot.
Silva shook his head energetically. Then his hands nervously went to his neck again to assure coverage. “Yes, it’s not a chip. Oh, there’s a weak tracking transmitter, too, but they inject nanites. Those travel through the bloodstream and lodge in your brain. All our communications go through those, and Shiva.” He shuddered.
Sass’s eyes widened. “Your hat. It blocks Shiva from giving you orders.”
“It would be impossible for me to control her otherwise,” Silva agreed. “Not that I control her much now. I don’t have the god password. And she shuts down any process seeking to find the password.”
The captain dragged her doorstop chair next to his
to join him. “How long have you been at the mercy of your AI?”
“Oh, it started innocently enough. I’m sure you had the same issues on your little moon, didn’t you? Weak or no atmosphere or magnetosphere to protect you from radiation. Environmental toxins out the wazoo. Too few skilled workers. So we drilled habitat underground to protect our bodies. And we built robots, and robots to build more robots, and an AI to control them.
“But there aren’t enough resources here on the planet. Metal extraction is far easier in the asteroid belt. But you can hardly remote-control a mining drone with such a long lag time. So the AI grew more sophisticated, so the miners could retire and live safely underground here in the colony. I’m not sure when she became self-aware.”
“Did you build Shiva?”
“Oh, no. My grandmother did that. My mom, she wasn’t interested. But I took after the old geezer and studied at her knee. I was young when she passed away, though. So much more to learn. Though I’m older than I look. Like you, I’ve warped twice. I lost 14 years objective.”
“How long since the AI took over the people?” This was a wild guess on Sass’s part.
Silva shrugged. “Everything was incremental. I first heard the mayors recite that stupid credo after the last wildcatters returned.” He aped a sing-song falsetto to recite, “‘We made the ultimate sacrifice and now enjoy our leisure.’ All three borough leaders lost their minds at the same time. That’s about when the children started staring into walls.” He patted his foil hat. “And I made my helmet to keep her out!”
Sass hardly knew what thread to pull on next, there was so much wrong in what he was telling her. But that notebook was specific to her. She tapped it. “Where did you get this list?”
“Oh, that! A message arrived for you. Here, I’ll play it for you.”
Sass watched carefully and memorized his unguarded login and password, easy to do by watching his fingers. She hailed from a far less innocent place and time than small-town Sanctuary, and learned bad habits. The screen awoke to a familiar Ganny operating system, not much changed on Mahina since the Corps departed so long ago. Clearly Sanctuary had advanced its software little more than Aloha, aside from their monster AI.