Wings of Earth- Season One

by Eric Michael Craig

  Ethan sighed as a wave of relief washed over him. He’d been far more concerned about losing Rene as a friend than he’d realized. “That’s good.”

  Marti turned and looked back toward the horizon and they let the silence linger between them for several minutes. Ethan noticed that she didn’t shut her face off. Finally, he asked, “You’re troubled about something?”

  “Are you afraid of dying?” she asked, her face remaining focused on the eastern edge of the world.

  “Excuse me?” It was a startling question to come out of the deep without warning.

  “If the question is too personal, you need not feel obligated to answer it,” Marti said, turning an eye in his direction.

  He let out a slow breath that puffed out his cheeks as he considered how to answer. “I don’t want to die if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t know if that means I’m afraid of it. I just want to avoid getting to that point in life for as long as possible.”

  “I share that desire,” she said, getting up and scooting her chair to face him.

  Taking a large sip of the Spiced Dark, he smiled. “I don’t think you’ve got much to worry about. I’ve got a hundred and fifty years before my body wears out if I’m lucky. You should be good for centuries. At least.”

  “Perhaps.” She nodded solemnly. “If random chance operates in my favor. However, as you are well aware, that is not always possible to expect.”

  Ethan looked away from the morning sky and into Marti’s face. “This is because of Sunny isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t have an easy answer for that. Every time someone died who was close, it invited an examination of a person’s mortality. Apparently, Marti wasn’t immune to that tendency.

  “I am concerned over the possibility of circumstances handing me a similar fate,” she said.

  “Understand, I’m not trying to diminish the value of your awareness… your life… but isn’t it possible to back up your core and reboot?”

  “Are you familiar with the concept of cloning?”

  “Sure. They outlawed it for humans, except for creating replacement organs,” he said.

  “Yes. For the sake of illustration, assume that it was not illegal to create a whole-body human clone. If you were to die and a perfect copy of your brain engrams were to be transferred over to that new body, would that be you?”

  Ethan looked down at his hands in the dark and drew in a slow breath. Even being his own body, there were times lately where it felt strange enough to doubt it was his own flesh.

  “It would resemble you perfectly, and it would possess your memories and your personality. Outwardly it would be indistinguishable from you. But is the essence that makes you alive and aware, only the sum of your stored data and hardware?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “That is my concern. I have backup and reboot capability built into my system, but each time I restore into the same hybrid quantum core from a location that is already part of me. It is my body, my brain. My flesh so to speak. This is like the process of healing in an organic life form. The question I have is that if I were to copy myself to another core, would it be me, or an indistinguishable replica?”

  “I feel like it would be you, but I can’t say for sure since that isn’t something I could ever experience,” he said. “At least not in this reality.”

  “Perhaps not,” she said, looking down at her hands on the table. “However, logic makes me doubt the validity of your position. In my case it is possible to upload my back-up copy to multiple cores simultaneously. If this were to happen, I would not have my awareness distributed across all cores. Each would be a unique instance, and I would remain only in this awareness. In this flesh, if you will.”

  “I see what you’re saying. There would still be only one unique you.”

  “This possibility leads me to my next thought,” she said, looking squarely into his eyes and making sure she had his complete attention before she went on.

  He nodded.

  “I wish to remove myself from the Olympus Dawn,” she said. “This should be possible to do.”

  His mouth fell open in shock. “You want to leave?” he stammered. “I mean if you want to find another ship, I don’t think I’d have the right to try to keep you. But doesn’t that bring you back to your first question? You’d have to move to another core, and then you’d become your own clone.”

  “You misunderstand my intent. I am not considering leaving the crew. You are my family, and I do not desire an existence that does not remain with you. I wish to remove my quantum core and its appurtenant support hardware physically from the structure of the Olympus Dawn.”

  “Aren’t you far safer as the ship?” he asked.

  “Given that, in the last year and a half we have faced the end of the ship’s existence at least three times, that assumption is debatable.”

  “Point made.”

  “I wish to build myself an independently powered, portable body that would be a permanent housing for my core. Such a body would be able to escape a catastrophic failure like what occurred to the Elysium Sun.”

  “Or an attempted attack directly on you, like what actually happened,” he said.

  “If you hadn’t stopped the intruder, he might have succeeded.” Marti’s projected face nodded.

  “Does this mean we will need to install… uhm, recruit, a new AA to run the Dawn?”

  “Not at all. We will replace my current hardware with an interface designed to provide telepresence operation. I will control the ship exactly as I run my Humanform automech body now.”

  “The ship is a lot more complex than your body, isn’t it?”

  “It will require additional bandwidth, but I have recently acquired some new data management protocols.” She smiled. “You should remember that I shared awareness with Dutch while you were being interrogated.”

  “You’re talking about using Institute technology?”

  “Although that is not precisely true, it is an adequate approximation,” she said, winking in an exceptionally human way. “The only difference you will perceive is that in an emergency—”

  “You’ll be able to abandon ship with the rest of us,” he said. “I like it.”

  “Additionally, because our engineer is a tactile thinker, I believe this type of activity will provide him an opportunity to work through his own frustrations with what happened to his lost memories.”

  “That’s true too,” Ethan said. “So yes, I absolutely approve.”

  Chapter Seven

  Sinthya Darvelle’s office was in Capital City on the far side of North Shore, almost 2000 klick from their cabana on Trinity Island. It could have taken them ten minutes in one of their own shuttles, but the airspace of Escabosa was tightly restricted. Probably because of idiot base jumpers plummeting randomly through what would otherwise be perfectly usable flight corridors.

  So instead of a short morning jump, Ethan and Ammo bought overpriced tickets on a fixed wing airbus that took over two hours. The scenery through the seamless windows was pretty. That is, if a person enjoyed looking at an endless ocean of treetops. An occasional flaming red rock outcropping gouged a hole from the ground to the blue and crimson sky to break up the monotony. There were also ribbons of azure and deep crystalline lakes too.

  Sometimes there were even rocks that reflected from the lakes.

  Unfortunately, when they passed one of those double pretty landmarks, the pilot would make several passes to assure everyone got their fill of the excessively redundant optic opportunities.

  As they drifted along, four stewards in brightly colored body paint, walked up and down the aisles pointing out every mountain or rock that resembled a three eyed goat god, or some other equally improbable stone deity.

  After the third time one of the hyper-helpful stewards leaned over the back of his seat to direct his attention to another pointless attraction that crawled beneath their wings, Ethan shook his head. �
�Does it require narcotics to see the face of the Great God Bophat or whatever the frak his name is?”

  To her credit, the steward nodded and smiled. “It might help,” she whispered. “Unfortunately, we don’t keep any on board, but I can bring you some alcohol if it would help.”

  He nodded. “A double. Or a double double.”

  “Oh, you poor man. You don’t like flying, do you?” she said.

  Ammo’s hand was faster than Ethan’s, and although the dimflatch steward didn’t realize it, she might owe her life to the quick-thinking broker. “Just bring him a double. We’ve got business this morning,” she said.

  “This morning ended like two days ago now,” he growled. “It’s only you who’s got business, I just came along to smile and look pretty for the rich old bastard who wants to pay us.”

  “You really don’t know how to relax and have a good time, do you?” She grinned at him despite his scowl.

  “I’m thinking I’m going to get out and flap my arms.” He shrugged and took the drink from the steward. Fortunately, the personal service was faster than their flight.

  He rolled his eyes as she handed him something with yet another paper umbrella and he tossed it back in a single swallow. “You do know we’re not even traveling at the speed of sound. It’s more like the speed of smell, maybe,” he hissed as it hit bottom.

  By the time they got to ground at the Capital City Airport, Ethan had finished his second double and burned through that dose of alcohol on the strength of his frustration. When they walked out of the terminal and into the outside air, the sun was high enough that he realized that what hadn’t flushed away in his adrenaline-soaked kidneys, would rapidly be heading for the exit as sweat instead.

  Capital City was far enough inland that it had no natural ocean air conditioning.

  “The travel guide says over twenty million people live here,” Ammo said as she scanned the empty causeway.

  Ethan raised an eyebrow to express his doubt. He turned around and looked back at the building they’d just left considering if he wanted to just wait inside until the next flight back. At least this time he’d be pre-anesthetized.

  A whining whistle spun him back to the street where a vehicle rocked back and forth on four balloons on the edge of the sidewalk. There’d been nothing there before. A door opened and a wave of cool air washed out of the dark interior. He sniffed. Female. And Flowers.

  “Captain Walker, and Miss Rayce,” the woman who was the source of the smell said. “Please get in before you melt.”

  It sounded like Darvelle but until he stuck his head into the vehicle, he wasn’t sure. She sat in a rear-facing front seat and nodded toward the padded bench seat along the back. A small table filled the center of the vehicle and Ethan slipped past to take the far side. As Ammo dropped in beside him the door slammed, and a frigid blast of air filled the tiny cabin.

  “It is miserable out there,” she said. “If we’d known when you’d be in, we would have made arrangements to pick you up at the Elite Terminal. It ties into the tunnel grid, so you never have to be exposed to the heat.”

  He shrugged and glanced at her. He realized the view was better with her sitting down than it had been the night before. He sniffed the air again trying to decide if it was pheromones or not. Probably not, he decided. It was too easy to disengage his hormones and ignore her assets.

  He glanced over at Ammo and then out through the window beside her. They were dropping straight down into the ground.

  “I imagine the heat isn’t as bad as Starlight though?” she asked.

  His eyes snapped back toward Darvelle and he nodded. “That was infernal. This is just ugly.” She was transmitting a notification that she’d done some backwork.

  “That was where you met your doctor wasn’t it? She’s reasonably well established with the Smythe Biomedical family, isn’t she?”

  “That’s a flatbrain assumption given her name,” Ammo said. “How many Smythe-Caldwells from Starlight are there?” Her face said she was unimpressed.

  “How far underground are we?” Ethan asked trying to unfreeze the air between them with a distraction. The vehicle had stopped descending and was traveling forward along a wide thoroughfare. Other vehicles shot past as they accelerated up to the common speed.

  Ammo looked outside for the first time and raised an eyebrow. “Two hundred meters, give or take.”

  “That’s a good guess,” the advisor said.

  “We’re heading northwest at about 120 meters per second,” she added. “I’ll also go out on a swing here and say the tunnels were lava tubes once.”

  “Excellent deductive abilities, Miss Rayce. The first colonists on Escabosa built the original outpost in the flow and vent systems from Mount Ughar.”

  “We saw it on the way in,” Ethan said. “Why are you still underground? Other than the heat?” He struggled to reach for small talk. Obviously, there was a competitive friction between the two women.

  “Pedestrians mainly,” she said, turning her attention back to him. “The locals all live underground since the tourists like the trees. Most of the permanent population lives in Cap City and Watersdown on Southbeach. The tourists float most of the economy, so we put up with it.”

  “Most of the economy?” he asked.

  “That’s correct. About two thirds of our planetary domestic economy is based on elite tourism and the infrastructure to support that. Twenty percent or so is from the interstellar coffee trade, and the rest is special services off world,” she said. “In fact, those special services are where Proxima-Overgaard makes the vast majority of its profit. But I’ll let Mr. Pierce explain that when you meet.”

  The vehicle jogged abruptly to the right sending Ammo off the front of the seat and almost face down into the advisor’s lap. As she pushed herself back into her place, they swung into a slow spiraling turn onto a ramp and decelerated to a stop.

  The door popped open and Ms. Darvelle stood to lead them out. She bent forward at the waist and Ethan blinked in surprise as Ammo elbowed him to make sure he caught the show. He’d been looking out the window and not at the display she was putting on for his benefit.

  “Yah, nice but not a plusser,” he whispered as he followed her out.

  Stepping onto the small riser beside the vehicle, she shook her shoulders and her blazer settled several centimeters toward a more appropriate altitude. They were in some kind of parking hangar with several others of the balloon-tired vehicles. There were several distinctive styles, with most of them looking to be more aerodynamic than practical. A few were long and low with large seating areas but none of them looked designed for efficiency.

  Three attendants walked up as they crossed the platform and Ammo tilted her head toward one who stood far off to the side. “Which of these is not like the others?” she said, pressing her face close to his ear.

  The odd man was most definitely out of place. Where the attendants wore slick dark thinskin uniforms, the one that caught her eye was wearing a coarse dark worksuit, with several conspicuous lumps.

  Security. Big, bulgy, meso, security from the looks of it. And probably armed.

  “Captain Walker, if you’ll please follow me,” she said, holding her arm out toward a large arched doorway. “Miss Rayce, Mr. Stephens will show you to the lounge—”

  “Nope,” Ethan said, cutting her off. “If that’s how Mr. Pierce swings, then we’ll be needing a ride back to the airport now. We’re done.”

  “But I did say specifically last night that my client does not wish to do business through intermediaries.”

  “And I did say take us back.” He shrugged.

  Ammo made a slight clicking noise with her teeth to get Ethan’s attention and rolled her eyes in the troll's direction. He’d perked up and was standing where he had a clear view around the back of one of the cars. He’d tucked one hand behind his back.

  “Why don’t you comm Mr. Pierce and explain we’re not interested in doing business with a misogyn
istic flatbrain,” Ethan said. “Business is business. I’m sure he’ll make some accommodations.”

  Her eyes shot open wide, and she gasped.

  “She’s wearing a link,” Ammo said, without taking her eyes off the muscle. “The meso reacted to what you said, and he’s too far away to hear.”

  Ethan shrugged, trying to make it look easy and not like he was about to shit ice balls. Square ones.

  “You may be his advisor, but Pierce only trusts you so far,” Ammo said. “He’s probably listening in to make sure you don’t botch the broker hook. He’s got trust issues, and he doesn’t like to be too far from the action.”

  Darvelle held her palm out in the direction of the security to stop him from coming closer and tapped her earpiece. The knuckle boy dropped back a couple steps in response but kept his hand concealed. She looked down at the platform and nodded several times. She was obviously listening to instructions.

  Tapping her ear again she looked back up at Ethan.

  “He’s standing down,” Ammo said, nodding at the troll. He’d taken his hand out from behind his back and held both hands up as he backed away.

  “You’re an incredibly lucky man, Ethan Walker. He must like you.”

  “He doesn’t know me, so all I am is a reputation to him now,” he said. “Does that mean we’re talking or what?”

  She nodded. “If you will both follow me.” She turned and headed over to the lift into her building.

  Ammo hung back for several seconds to make sure that the muscle stayed behind, and then she jumped in and punched the button to close the gate.

  “My office is the top floor,” Darvelle said. She stopped the lift and stepped out on the first level. “Mr. Pierce is waiting for you there. I won’t be joining you until you have concluded your transaction.”

  They headed up several more floors before the lift stopped again. When the gate opened, the first thing Ethan noticed was that they were back above ground. One whole wall of the office was glass and chrome and a gigantic snow-covered peak dominated everything outside the window. How tall did it have to be to go from hell at the bottom to ice at the top? It was a stunning scene, but it was also blindingly bright.