Warp Thrive

by Ginger Booth

  Only when she looked toward the rise between her and the spaceport did she finally notice the dark bulk of Thrive, external lights off, hanging above the hill. “Why?” Her burning desire for an answer made her check her comms. Sure enough, they worked again. Sheepishly, she realized they’d been available ever since she reached the motor pool above ground.

  “Remi, Sass. I’m in a buggy flashing my headlights. Bringing home a guest and some equipment. Shall I come to you?”

  Instead, Remi brought the ship to her and hovered Thrive’s trapdoor mere inches above the buggy’s hatchback. In a few more minutes, she was home safe.

  117

  Husna Zales – hardly the hospitality staff Sass would have chosen – bounded down from the catwalk as soon as the captain popped the trapdoor. The captain made her introductions, and let Husna escort Hugo Silva to the galley.

  Sass made a stop in med-bay first. “Dot! Any trouble getting the chip out of Zelda?” She listened horrified as the nurse brought her up to date. Since his chip removal, instead of getting better, Darren’s mental competence nose-dived.

  “Have you tried them on the Denali drugs?” Sass suggested. “Those shouldn’t interact negatively, right?” The Denali happy pills operated through gut bacteria. “Most of them are too strong, but Cope swore by Farmer’s Joy. Lightened his mood without clouding his judgment.”

  Sass kicked over a step stool and pulled the box of pill bottles from the top of a cabinet. “This one. I’ll bring it upstairs. Let’s see the brain scans again.”

  “I can see what they’re doing,” Dot complained. “But the Yang-Yangs don’t see the new nanites as an invader to fight off. And I don’t know how to teach them.”

  Sass pointed lower on the head-shot. “Is it my imagination, or do some of these linger in the bloodstream?”

  “I don’t know. I assume they haven’t found their way to the brain yet.”

  “We need to catch and isolate some,” Sass reasoned. “Only then can we cook up a custom batch of Yang-Yangs to identify and fight them. And for that, we need your husband.” She grinned and tapped the vial on the table.

  On the way to the galley, she explained Hugo’s headwear to the nurse.

  “How very odd,” Dot agreed thoughtfully.

  “You removed his chip!” Hugo wailed as they entered the dining room. “No, you mustn’t do that!”

  Darren sat and stared dully at the table surface.

  “Why not?” Sass didn’t pause on her way to the galley end of the room. She poured a couple glasses of water to rinse down the pills. “Want some, Hugo?” She nabbed the fruit basket while she was there. Corky nodded and got busy making appetizers. By the ship’s clock, gradually adjusted to Sanctuary time over the past couple weeks, supper was due in little over an hour.

  “It’s naughty to eat between meals,” Hugo informed her, as she offered him fruit.

  Sass chomped into a peach, chewed, swallowed. “It’s a special day, Hugo. Live a little. Take a bite.” She flipped the peach around to present him an unbroken side.

  He timorously bit in. “Oh my stars, that is good! What is this?”

  “It’s called fruit. Feel free to try them all. We recycle most of it anyway.” Sass moved on to coax a Farmer’s Joy dose into Darren.

  Zelda lay on the couch with her eyes covered by a cryo mask. When Sass reached her, she burst into tears and apologized for being such a nuisance.

  “Shut up and swallow, Zelda,” Sass ordered. The young woman instantly sobered and nodded resolutely, though blindly.

  “Why didn’t I think of that!” Corky boomed. “Harass the sad sack and make her buck up!”

  Zelda mewled. Sass patted her shoulder and returned to the table. “The Denali meds aren’t quick. In a few hours they should start to cheer up. So Hugo, explain this to me. You don’t want Shiva controlling your thoughts. So instead of digging the chip out of your arm, you wear a…fine shiny hat. Do you need that on Thrive? Steel hull. Faraday cage.”

  “Oh, that’s true!” Hugo gratefully removed his foil helm and set it on an empty chair. He paused, and blinked a few times. Sass narrowed her eyes in mistrust, but he sighed in happy relief. “No access in here!”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “This fruit is amazing!” he marveled. “So many flavors and colors! I mean, we have fruit flavored deserts and drinks. But this is totally different!”

  “Focus, Hugo,” Sass urged. “What happened to Darren when we removed the chip?”

  “Oh, yes! This is just a theory, you understand. But I tried removing the chip eight years ago. I’d done it once before, when Shiva became…intrusive in my thoughts. But then Shiva developed new chips. And everyone started acting strange. And I could only think straight while wearing protection.”

  Sass tapped the table. “You removed your chip, and?”

  “Oh, the unbearable sadness. My theory is that the new system controls brain endorphins. The bugs in the brain collect up all the feel-good chemicals, and only release them with a regular signal from the chip transmitter.”

  “But wouldn’t that make you sad when you left the colony? And now, when your signal is blocked?” She’d asked Remi to park Thrive a few hills away along the lakefront once she was safely aboard. She presumed that went according to plan.

  “The system doesn’t rely on a signal from Shiva, just a regular heartbeat-type signal from the chip to continue drip-feeding endorphins,” Hugo elaborated. “You get a strong dose of happy for obeying instructions, or repeating one of her little mantras. Wash your hands before eating, ultimate sacrifice, rah-rah nanny state. Now I have two chips. I felt so much better after they replaced the one, and I’d kept the other for study, so I stuck it back in. With two chips, I felt almost normal. I could think past Shiva’s orders. Enough to wear my hat so I could think straight.”

  While he was explaining this, Remi joined them in the galley. “Anything I can do?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sass said gratefully. “We have nanites in the brain. If we can extract a sample, can you program a batch of nanites to identify and kill them?”

  Remi waved his fingers as though to fend off the assignment. “I know nothing of nanites. But Clay stole an inoculation gun. We can rendezvous with him. Or wait for him.”

  “Excellent!” Sass purred. “Dot, if we get an isolated sample, can you program the hunting nanites? Or do we need Darren?”

  The nurse pursed her lips. “I prefer he check my work. I don’t like to experiment on him.”

  “Smart,” Sass assured her sincerely. “Let’s see if the Denali microbes are strong enough overnight. If not, maybe we can reinsert the chip to bring Darren back to functional. Clay can return when he wants to.”

  She took out her comms and sent him a quick text requesting his plans. He shot back a request for permission to bring Colonel Tharsis and their horses home for supper. Sass suppressed a laugh and showed the message to Remi.

  To read it, he pulled out the chair next to Hugo and sat on the aluminum foil hat before noticing it. “Sorry.”

  Sass purred, “Don’t worry, Hugo. My engineers can make you a better hat. Can’t you, Remi?”

  Remi handed over the flattened wad of foil. Hugo sadly peeled it apart, trying to restore the model to 3D. Remi shook his head and sighed, reading the message. “Sure. I’ll make that right after I build a horse recharging station.” He raised his eyes to Darren. “I hope you fix him soon.”

  “That’s our priority,” Sass agreed. “But right now, I want to talk to Cope and Ben! So first you’ll help Hugo and me set up an ‘ansible’ in my office.”

  Remi returned her tablet. “I get to sleep tonight, yes?”

  “So that’s our state of play,” Sass concluded her summary over the ansible around 03:00 local time. She sat alone in her office, yet reunited with most of her dearest friends from Mahina.

  Cope and Kassidy, Hunter and Eli weren’t much changed. She’d never met the Sagamore metallurgist Elise Pointreau before.
The assured captain Ben Acosta was strange at first, but his sunny outlook still shone through. Her madcap young stowaway Teke, now a grown man and easily the greatest physicist in Aloha history, was the biggest shock. She was stunned at what they’d accomplished with their new warp breakthrough, and saddened to hear how Mahina had backslid.

  They had a lot of catching up to do.

  On Sass’s side, Clay and Darren popped their heads in for a few minutes to say hi, but didn’t tarry. The gut bacteria were helping, but Darren remained lethargic, and went to bed early. Clay was minding the ship and hosting the two locals. Of all things, he joined them and the electric horses sleeping under the stars tonight in an air tent, connected to the ship by an umbilical.

  On Prosper’s side, her dear friends only exited the conversation for bio breaks and to collect snacks. Sass wished Abel and Jules were there too.

  “So what can we help with?” Ben asked practically. “Our new warp isn’t quite tamed yet. We know Sanctuary had the tech base to build one. But it sounds like it may have been this AI.”

  Cope shook his head. “I wouldn’t transfer this technology even after it was working. Veto.”

  “Ditto the veto,” Teke declared. Elise nodded her head sharply. “The old warp technology has its advantages,” the physicist elaborated. “Discourages unwelcome guests, invasions, stuff like that.”

  Kassidy chimed in with a laugh. “Guys! She’s been there less than a day. Sass, I’m sure you’ll have the locals eating out of your hand in no time. Your first day was lovely compared to our first day on Sagamore.”

  Ben chuckled. “Or Mahina Orbital! Remember that stench? That revolting food?”

  “I quite enjoyed our first day on Denali,” Eli mused.

  “Until the bakkra infested our skin,” Cope reminded him. “Mostly I was grateful to survive the landing.”

  “Watch it,” Teke growled. “That’s my home you’re disparaging. Granted, I’m glad I left. I do miss the hunting.”

  That earned him several mock punches. No one else missed the self-defense against voracious monsters on Denali. In Sass’s view, it didn’t qualify as ‘hunting’ when she was the prey. And she couldn’t eat the beast even if she managed to kill it before it killed her.

  Cope smiled at the fond memories and reasserted control. And for Sass, that was the strangest part. He was the leader of the band now on the Aloha end of this call. Teke’s theoretical breakthrough was stunning. But bringing theory into practice, in a star system clinging to technological competence by a thread and failing spectacularly in the political realm, Cope’s achievement was phenomenal.

  “Impressed as hell, Cope,” Sass murmured. “With all of you, but Cope, wow. To think I knew you when. I’m so proud I could burst.” She wiped a tear.

  “You too, Sass. Wish I could give you a hug.” The ansible’s crappy little silver screen didn’t offer enough resolution for her to see his eyes, not with so many of them crowded into the view. But the understanding in his voice made her gulp.

  “Call us,” Ben invited. “Any time. But how about a full review in a week. And who knows, maybe we’ll fly out there and meet you before you warp back. With a spare device.”

  “That isn’t likely.” Cope quashed a hand over his husband’s face. “Bye cap – Sass. Old friend. Good luck.”

  They waved and called out good wishes. Then the screen died back to its Colony Corp placard, the hallmark of Sanctuary, an answering machine.

  Alone in the privacy of her office in the small hours of the night, Sass gave herself permission to cry. She missed them so.

  118

  Ben Acosta stretched luxuriantly out in the officer’s hall. They all piled out of Teke and Elise’s cramped cabin on Prosper, currently above the rings of Pono en route to Mahina Orbital. “So Cope. Why’d you shut me down so hard on visiting Sanctuary?”

  “Design of experiments,” his husband growled back. “You nearly got yourself killed on that last jump.”

  “Our aim sucks,” Teke concurred. “Jumping as far as Sanctuary, those little errors add up to disaster. Fatal.”

  Ben folded his arms over his chest mulishly. “It’s about time you let me in on your brainstorming sessions, guys. Yeah, I know, Teke. You’re the brains. And Cope and Elise, you’re the technical can-do. But gang, the test pilot is where it all meets cruel reality. Don’t count me out as the bus driver. I was there. You weren’t. That matters.”

  Teke sinuously leaned on his doorframe. Though younger than Ben, he adopted Cope’s more subtle strategy with Yang-Yangs, and slowed his apparent age slightly older, not far from his natural 29 now. At 35, Ben lived and breathed the spacer norms of the Pono rings, where you either looked 25 or were a destitute loser. Though as the owner of Thrive Spaceways, Cope was famous enough to consider an exception. Ben could probably get away with aging too. His vanity preferred younger.

  “Point, Ben,” Cope allowed reluctantly. “But let’s do the brainstorming session tomorrow. I want to call Nico tonight. He might be able to find some insight on how to crack this god password on the AI.”

  Ben frowned. “Nico is 16.”

  Cope shrugged. “He’s that good at software. He’s also surrounded by the best computer minds on Mahina.” His son now attended high school in Mahina Actual. But for programming, he studied at the university and worked professionally. “Tech geeks love a good challenge. Who knows, I might sponsor him on the ‘Ask An Engineer’ boards. But we’ll get better results if we hone the question first.”

  Kassidy and Eli had lingered with them in the officer’s country companionway. She suggested, “I should call Abel and Jules. And send them the video of that call. They’ll love it.”

  “You know, hold off, Kassidy,” Ben requested. “I’ll call Abel. Though you’re welcome to send the video.”

  “Though not to the whole star system,” Eli warned. “Edit it first. News, not personal details. Keep it short.”

  Cope ruled, “Don’t send anything until Hunter signs off on it.” That was Clay’s son, re-installed only a few weeks ago as settler power in the Mahina government.

  “Spoilsport,” Kassidy accused. But she looked thoughtful.

  “Yup, that’s me. The grown-up in the room,” Cope returned. “Beat it, gang.”

  Ben told him, “I’m with you. To marvel at our son’s brilliance.”

  The next morning on Prosper, Ben convened that promised brainstorming session in Teke’s cabin. “We should resume testing.”

  Cope picked at his worn coveralls. “I can think of ten better things to do. We need to earn some money, Ben.”

  Teke gave him a slight backhand. “Ben, you have insights. Let’s cut straight to that.”

  “Alright! So we have this warp gate fractal.” Ben started to trace the warp flower design in the air with his fingers, the stunning light show that spread across the stars when they engaged their new inner-system warp drive. That was its core advantage. Any warp drive went from point A to point B instantaneously. But their micro-warp system skipped that bonus three-year round trip from the system ecliptic. Plus, traveling N light years didn’t lose N light years of objective time. You’d arrive at the same time you left.

  But fingers and words wouldn’t convey what Ben needed to say. He brought up an image of the glowing phenomenon from his last warp test. “Remember how we made that adjustment, and the fractal slowed?”

  “Stopped,” Cope amended.

  Ben raised a finger. “No. Wait. After that change, I could go through without gross damage to my body. Good! But we still saw navigation errors. Big ones, unpredictable. Too fast, too slow, location off, not quite the right vector –”

  “I thought the heading was right,” Teke interrupted.

  “Nothing I couldn’t compensate for,” Ben allowed. “But they were all off. Anyway, this pattern is still moving –”

  “How is it moving?”

  “Cope, I’m trying to explain that,” Ben complained. “Prosper, the shuttle, the stars, P
ono, Aloha, the galaxy – everything in the universe is moving. You know this.”

  “I know this,” Cope agreed.

  Ben continued, “You know that pattern was never still relative to Prosper. Well, it was never still relative to my shuttle either. I tipped the helm ever so slightly to match its rotation.” He demonstrated using video from their warp trials.

  Teke murmured, “But you told us the pattern stabilized.”

  “It did,” Ben agreed. “This rotational drift is slow. But what made the difference in my cellular damage was when it stopped boiling. I don’t know what else to call it, the roiling unfolding.” He illustrated with another recording.

  “Night and day,” Elise murmured. “Hm. But there is change in shape on the latest video.”

  “That I’m not sure of,” Ben admitted. “But my next point. I noticed these green filaments within the arms. They don’t show up on the video. Not high enough resolution. But I watched through armorglass. I saw more fine detail. Here.”

  He zoomed in on the inner region of an S-curved lobe, slightly hazed with green. “In person, there are filaments here.” Using his stylus, he cross-hatched in the pattern he saw. “The lines are very fine, who knows how many. The same lines wriggle through a main frond. But I could see them separate against the black of space inside a curve like this.”

  He tucked his stylus away. “I could show you in person. Costs fuel, but we don’t have to jump anywhere.” He clicked off the display. “So what I was thinking. Teke, when we stabilized the pattern, you fine-adjusted the power modulation and the software, right?”

  “Cope and I did, yes,” Teke agreed. “And there’s nothing more we can do there?” He leveled the question at his engineering partner.

  Cope furrowed his brow but shrugged noncommittally. “Nothing within the tolerance of our instruments. We could buy better ones.”

  Ben shook his head. “Not where I was going with this. How to explain. There are lobes to the warp fractal, right? Picture my fingers as the lobes of the warp drive antlers. Like with the ansible.”