Warp Thrive

by Ginger Booth

  Better than tinfoil hats. And Corky deserved the praise for keeping their guests entertained while Sass played catch-up this morning. The whole crew was present, even a yawning Remi. Darren poked his breakfast in disinterest, while Zelda quietly wept.

  Asserting an upbeat tone, Sass relayed Shiva’s demand that Thrive release her hostages. “I’m also eager for help getting those endorphin-control nanites out of my crew’s brains. Chief Markley here is our nanite specialist. Would the hoods help any?”

  “No.” Hugo in his silvery helm sized up Darren. “Did you have a chance to look over the chip controller, chief?”

  “Hm?”

  Dot poked her husband. “You did, Darren. Remember? In med-bay. You whined that you needed your nano-bench to see much, and babbled about a battery.”

  Darren rose from his chair and faced the wall.

  Alarmed by his behavior, Sass said, “I thought they did that at Shiva’s orders.”

  Hugo shook his head. “It’s a default. The nanites react to a spike of anger. Then you stare at a wall and they release a flood of feel-good endorphins.”

  “Oh, good!” Dot pounced. “Darren, are you feeling less useless?”

  Hugo Silva clarified, “You also forget what you were angry about. Or anything upsetting, really. Just lose yourself in a happy now.”

  “Not very useful then,” Sass concluded. “Dot, final warning.” She used a glare to convey the rest – be nice to your husband, or else. She’d already chewed out Dot once this morning, and it was only 08:15.

  At the captain’s gesture, Remi gently retrieved Darren and sat him to his breakfast. Which he ate, this time.

  Sass continued, “So our only recourse is to put the chip controller back into him? No, two of them is what you used, Hugo?”

  “Only one of them will work,” Hugo replied apologetically. “Each chip is keyed to its own nanites. Otherwise we’d all be reacting to someone else’s signals. I hope you labeled which controller came from which person.”

  “No,” Darren supplied. “We didn’t.”

  “I’m sorry. Then we’ll need to insert both of them into you. Then you’ll be able to figure out which one controls your pretty friend.”

  “Zelda,” Sass corrected. “But Colonel Tharsis, you can function with only one chip?”

  He sighed. “It’s easier not to think. Then I get angry, and I’m battling the compulsion to face a wall. But Darren seems better off than me.”

  “We have that stronger med from Denali,” Clay suggested. “Manic Joy.”

  Sass shuddered. “Destroys all judgment, Clay. We can’t give Darren that before setting him loose on brain nanites.”

  Clay conceded the point.

  “Hugo, could you advise Dot while she reinserts those chips? And hopefully aid Darren in constructing a better solution.”

  “Certainly. If you could make us more hoods, Corky?”

  The housekeeper nodded emphatically.

  “Next problem,” Sass continued. “Hostages. And an attack ship arriving. Or, can this ship attack us? Computer, do we have a name on the incoming ship?”

  “Courier class ship Cupid.”

  Hugo provided, “That’s the courier we sent to Nozomu. Modest guns. Not like these asteroid hoppers with the mining lasers. Just enough to dodge through an asteroid field.”

  A light dawned on Sass. “Would Cupid have a warp drive? And an ansible?”

  “It certainly did when it went to Nozomu. Now? I don’t know. But the devices aren’t good for much else.”

  Sass tamped her grin with difficulty. “Any idea how to get Cupid to land peaceably? Colonel Tharsis?”

  The colonel toyed with a strawberry on his plate. “Now that I’m thinking more clearly. Why are you here, Captain Collier?”

  Drat. “We learned of your existence. We were curious. You have tech we don’t. We hoped to find an advanced society which could help us. Trade for technological advances. The three worlds of Aloha struggle to thrive because we don’t have enough people to maintain a high tech base. Yet these worlds aren’t survivable without technology. With so few settlers, we feared you were in the same boat.”

  “Very much so,” Tharsis agreed.

  Sass continued, “We also hoped you knew how to reach other colony worlds. And perhaps the wildcatters found the grand prize, another planet like Earth.”

  “They didn’t,” Tharsis confirmed. “Though Sylvan isn’t bad. The original terraformers would have been overjoyed. Alas, no terraformers remain.”

  “Not so. Mahina is terraformed.” The colonel’s eyes flew wide. “Didn’t Clay tell you? We have our old dome city, and some mining tunnel settlements. But most people live outdoors. We have open-air fields, forests, cities.” Well, calling their irrigated scraps of woods ‘forests’ was stretching it. And Schuyler and MA were pretty modest as cities went.

  “You called it a moon!” Tharsis accused Clay.

  “It wasn’t easy,” Clay agreed. “There’s a sort of bubble holding the atmosphere. Never really understood the chemistry. Zelda does.”

  Zelda wiped her dripping nose with her napkin, and nodded morosely.

  “Well, don’t get too excited,” Husna sniffed. “Mahina’s terraforming remains incomplete. Those fields and ‘forests,’” she huffed again, “scarcely cover one percent of the moon. And don’t get me started on the water situation.”

  Sass cut her off. “We’ve come a long way. Still, we don’t live in a tunnel. Husna, if you’re finished eating, you’re free to leave. I know you have samples to process.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Husna Zales growled. Porter, the agronomist, apologetically nodded by her side. They came all this way.

  “Hostages,” Sass reminded them. “You do realize, Colonel Tharsis, that you are free to leave at any time. I can transport you wherever you’d like.”

  “With your horses,” Clay added. “We have a shuttle, but the horses won’t fit.”

  Tharsis dismissed these concerns with a little lift of his fingers from the table. “I believe you. But if I may, I’d prefer to stay and see if you can clear these nanites so I can think straight. The hat helps. But not enough to make decisions.”

  “But can you call Shiva and tell her you’re staying with us voluntarily?” Sass requested. “And probably your counterparts as well. The other mayors.”

  “I can do that. I can’t promise how Shiva will respond.”

  “To be clear,” Sass pressed. “Do you want our help to free your people from Shiva’s control?”

  Hugo Silva nodded enthusiastically. To her surprise, Remi and Clay vehemently shook their heads no. Others looked ambivalent.

  “Not at this time,” was Tharsis’ slow verdict. “Captain, you need to understand that Sanctuary is wholly dependent on our AI. The current situation is…not ideal. But how to change it is not obvious. Options are welcome. Interference is not.”

  That made sense to Sass. Trust was earned, and she hadn’t earned it yet. “Understood.” Sass rapped the table. “Anything else before we get started?”

  “Water,” Remi said, with a sad glance at the chief engineer. Their stores were Darren’s job.

  “Ah, yes!” Sass acknowledged. “Are there any technical problems with us refilling our tanks? Or…?”

  “Or,” Tharsis confirmed. “You’ll need the spaceport facilities. The lake’s mineral content is extreme. Hard on the plumbing.”

  “Ah. I collect a sample today,” Remi said grimly.

  “I’ll join you,” Husna Zales announced. “This is within my specialty, captain.”

  “I’m glad something is. Let’s get at it, then. Porter, Joey – please pack up the tent and horses in case we need to maneuver.”

  “May we borrow the horses?” Husna asked suddenly, then looked guilty.

  Sass stared at her.

  “Please. You’re welcome to use the horses,” Tharsis encouraged. He assumed the question was directed at him.

  “Fine,” Sass growled.
“Have fun, Remi.” She mourned her original plan to set down at the spaceport, find a bar and make friends. Why did things always have to get complicated?

  “Colonel, you’re with me.” She rose and led the way to her office.

  123

  Clay ducked back into the med-bay. He’d escorted the key players here after breakfast. But then he excused himself to teach Joey and Porter how to stow the tent and umbilical. Then he stayed outside to give Remi and Husna a quick horseback riding lesson.

  Today was clearly shaping up as another out-of-comfort-zone day for the first officer. They needed a solution here. And Sass was ever so much more technically inclined.

  She was also nuts if she thought Thrive could take point on reshaping Sanctuary. We’re outnumbered, and light years from backup. His partner chose to tilt at windmills at the damnedest times.

  Focus on the task at hand. “How are we coming along?”

  “My brain’s back online,” Darren reported.

  “He’s doing wonderfully!” Hugo Silva enthused. “I’d love to try some ‘Farmer’s Joy.’ I didn’t think his mind would clear so well on only one chip.”

  “He has two chips,” Dot confided to Clay. “We were just about to test…” She muffled one of Darren’s forearms in a Corky-helm. Clay spotted the new incisions just above both wrists. “Now hold your arms out as wide as you can. Zelda, come here.”

  Hugo drew Zelda to the hand not swaddled, and kindly offered Darren wrist support. Dot stood back with her arms crossed. Darren grimaced at her and shifted his wrapped wrist to the counter rather than hold both arms out at shoulder height indefinitely.

  “Any change, Zelda?” crooned Hugo. “Is your mind clearing?”

  Clay deemed the question too vague. “Zelda, what is Mahina’s atmosphere containment bubble made of?” This was a trivial question for an atmospheric terraformer. Even a grade school kid knew the stuff was pumped up there by ‘ozone spires.’

  Zelda shook her head, and pulled free to stare at the comforting wall.

  “Trying the other arm.” Darren swapped the radio-blocker wadding. Then he shifted along the counter and reached his next trial hand to rest on Zelda’s shoulder. Hugo crowded her other side to keep her from cringing away.

  “The Mahina spires?” Clay hinted.

  Zelda replied, “They’re called ozone spires because the dominant component of the amalgam is ozone, O3.”

  “Bingo. Welcome back, Zelda!” Darren engulfed her in a warm hug. Then he sighed and turned to Dot. “Go ahead. Cut it out of me. You know you want to.” The devices didn’t work unless embedded, because they used body chemistry as a power source.

  “Oh! I’m late for work!” Zelda remarked in alarm.

  Hugo reined her in and slipped a hood onto her.

  Zelda blinked. “Oh. That’s much better. She’s going to cut me next, isn’t she?” She clung to Hugo’s chest.

  Hugo turned her and blocked her view while Dot cut into Darren’s arm.

  “Would it kill you to clean the instrument first?” Darren demanded.

  “Don’t be a baby! That didn’t hurt.”

  Clay ordered, “Dot, leave the room. Immediately. Retire to your quarters until further notice.”

  “You can’t –!”

  “I most certainly can. The captain warned you. Go.”

  The nurse complained further about how she was a trained medical professional until the door shut behind her. Clay paid her no heed. He bowed his head over Darren’s arm. He sterilized tweezers. He delicately extracted the chip and laid it on sterile gauze. He blotted the wound with a gentle antiseptic and closed it with a butterfly bandage. He added a dab of painkiller as well.

  “Not that you needed all that,” he murmured. “But you surely didn’t deserve abuse.”

  “Thank you,” Darren breathed.

  Clay turned. “Hugo? Talk me through this tiny procedure on Zelda. How deep does the chip need to go?”

  As with Darren, he doused the extracted chip with the antiseptic and rinsed and blotted it, ready to slip into an incision, and sterilized the scalpel and tweezers again. Nanites were unavailable to settlers until shortly before they left Mahina. Thrive was instrumental in bringing the technology to the masses. Urbs like Dot might not worry about microbes, but an infection could kill a settler. Back on Earth…even more so. Her attitude infuriated him.

  He gently inserted the chip into Zelda and closed up the wound. “There you go. How are you feeling?”

  “Mortally embarrassed?” she quipped.

  Clay smiled at her warmly and patted her shoulder. “So Darren. Now that you can think again – what do you think?”

  “I’m still not back to normal,” Darren groused. “Ordinarily, I’d shrug off what just happened with Dot. Now I’m wondering why I never divorced her.”

  Clay smiled at him sadly. He often wondered that himself. “I meant the nanites.”

  “Right. First, Hugo, let’s see how they’ve embedded in your brain. Step over here, please?”

  Unfamiliar with the med-bay equipment, Darren paused to read the instructions. Then he mapped Hugo’s brain nanites, and compared them to the scans Dot made yesterday of himself and Zelda. Even a layman could see that Hugo’s nanites were more extensive, with a choke-hold at the base, but peppered throughout the brain. Then Darren positioned Zelda to take an updated scan. Hers too had fanned out, though not as thickly as Hugo’s.

  “Thoughts?” Clay prodded. “Dot seemed to think it was a simple matter to program a new nanite to kill them.”

  “Dot expects all engineering done in under an hour,” Darren murmured. He sighed and returned the sensor to its rack. “But nanites aren’t biologics. These aren’t in the bloodstream, so I can’t filter them out.”

  “Aren’t biologics? Meaning?”

  “I can program a nanite to identify a biological pathogen and kill it. But that’s based on recognizing a protein signature. Nanites don’t have any. And these are clearly self-replicating.” He zoomed far in on Hugo’s scan. “It’s like they’re inserting themselves throughout the cortex and hippocampus.” He returned the screen to its normal settings and dropped his hands, staring into space, his eyes flicking rapidly behind his lenses.

  Hugo seized his arm. “Darren, do you hear me?”

  “I hear you fine.”

  Clay drew the scholar away and explained softly about Darren’s glasses.

  “Oh, cool! I want some!”

  “We’ll see what we can do. When we’re a little less busy.”

  “Yes. Right.”

  Darren thoughtfully asked, “Hugo, have you characterized the messages these chips send to the nanites?”

  “I don’t know how to do that. More of a software guy.”

  Darren grimaced. “Then I think we have a lot of work to do.”

  “What’s the plan of attack, Darren?” Clay pressed.

  “I have no way to remove these nanites in my own brain, let alone every occupant of Sanctuary. Which leaves us two options. Gain cooperation from Shiva. Or come up with a device that overrides the chip. Perform the same positive functions, block the negative ones. Which means I have to characterize everything it does and provide a counter. And I’m not sure…”

  “Not sure of what?” Clay asked, after the pause grew long.

  Darren pressed his lips. “With these devices controlling our brain hormones, we might not be able to restore normalcy. The personality change might be permanent.”

  Clay contemplated his friend, grown close over the three years of their passage. He admired the joy with which Darren attacked enormous engineering challenges, his delight at the thorny bits, and his boundless capacity to meet Dot’s petty sniping with a happy thought.

  “I’m sorry, Darren. Don’t give up without a fight.”

  Daren sighed mightily. “Clay, this could take months. Years. Never. Reverse engineering this system is tedious. It’s not clear the system was designed to be removable. Shiva’s cooperation is a better op
tion. That’s my professional opinion.”

  The first mate nodded gently. But he wondered if the real Darren would give up so easily. “Don’t psych yourself out. Study the problem some more. Another approach might occur to you.”

  The engineer raised his hands and dropped them helplessly. “Clay, this isn’t my field. I know you hate to hear that. But nanites are complex. I’m not qualified.”

  “Duly noted. But even a partial solution is better than nothing. Like your hat. Work on it today. See if you can find more low-hanging fruit. If you still think it’s an exhaustive effort, maybe we can enlist someone to carry out the grunt work. Keep me apprised, chief.”

  124

  Sass set Tharsis up at Clay’s desk in her stateroom. He looked around the luxury finishings in wonder. Clay really did go overboard with the hardwood flooring, topped with a deep-pile rug in the sitting area, and matching wood panel sections on the walls. Granted, the living flower vines curling everywhere were Sass’s fault.

  “I hope you agree that you’re under no duress?” Sass prompted the mayor. “If you need anything at all, just ask. You are not a hostage. Right?”

  “Agreed,” Tharsis allowed, amused. “And I press these buttons to send, and end.”

  “Good. I’ll leave you alone to say whatever you need to say to Shiva.” Sass smiled, and backed her way out of her cabin.

  And she immediately ducked into her office to eavesdrop on his transmission from her desk. He could say whatever he wanted. But she needed to know what that was. She just didn’t stand in the room with him for fear of…exerting duress.

  “Shiva, Zeb Tharsis of New Hellas. I confirm that I am not a hostage.”

  Shiva’s Rosie avatar looked unflappable, of course. Flapping would require prodigious compute cycles and a nuanced emotional model of upset and how to portray it on a human face. “Colonel, please communicate through normal channels.”