by E. M. Foner
“Thank you for that confirmation,” the spymaster said. “Assigning Yaem to Flower was a bit of an experiment for us, and we’re paying EarthCent Intelligence a substantial fee for hosting him. When a character so obviously based on Yaem appeared on Everyday Superheroes, I was afraid he had sold out to Flower in order to indulge his passion for anime. I recruited him from the entertainment industry, and to be honest, I have my doubts about his dedication to the cause.”
“He always puts the Sharf first,” Bill said, laying it on thick. “I work in the cafeteria where he eats with the other alien spies, and I’ve seen them get into terrible arguments over whose culture is superior.”
“It’s good to hear he’s standing up for our interests. Now, what can you tell me about the station chiefs on board? I’m particularly interested in this Lume fellow who seems to be working directly for Flower rather than Dollnick Intelligence, plus anything you can tell me about Captain Pyun on a personal level. All I have is his official EarthCent Intelligence personnel records and they don’t say much about who he really is as a man. And you may as well fill me in on whatever you can about the others as long as I have you here.”
“EarthCent Intelligence shares their personnel records with you?”
“Not intentionally,” the Sharf said with a dry chuckle. He pulled a device from his belt pouch and set it on the floor between them. It began to spin like a top, and then emitted an eerie green glow. “Don’t let the holo recording field bother you. It’s a secure device that will only play back the recording if one of us is present in the field. The other species would kill for this technology.”
“It, uh, sounds very impressive,” Bill said, desperately trying to think of a way he could get out of reporting on the alien spies from his cafeteria. “Lume is, well, very tall, and, uh, I know he eliminated an assassin who was on Flower to kill my fiancée, though she wasn’t my fiancée yet.”
“Yes, yes. I know all about Miss Gold and EarthCent’s poor excuse for a witness protection program from our sources on Earth.”
“You have spies working on Earth?”
“More than we have any need for,” the Sharf said in exasperation. “When we opened an embassy there, your people practically broke down the doors trying to be the first to get on the payroll. And unlike the sources from open worlds you and Yaem have been recruiting for us, the Humans on Earth show no hesitation about providing detailed information about the local governments and power players.”
“Well, they grew up there,” Bill reasoned. “On open worlds, we’re basically guests.”
The Sharf’s eyestalks shot out like a cartoon character’s, expressing surprise. “How could our analysts have failed to make the connection? Of course, that explains why the sources you’ve recruited are providing excellent information about the Humans and other species visiting the open worlds, but nothing about their hosts. They’re simply being good guests. Perhaps we need to look again at the grade we assigned Humans for social graces.”
“We didn’t do that well?” Bill asked, happy to talk about anything other than the aliens from the cafeteria who he thought of as friends.
“Let’s just say that—Hortens,” the spymaster cursed, and snatched up his spinning holo-recorder like a kid grabbing his top to run home for dinner. “We’re out of time. Write me up profiles of the alien spies on board and have Yaem submit them through our regular channels. It was interesting meeting you, Bill. I’ll see about getting you a bonus.”
“Thank you,” the confused young man called after the rapidly retreating alien’s back. Then he looked around the dimly lit factory floor and headed in the direction that Dewey and the old engineer had taken. A minute later, he was outside. Bill took a deep breath of relief and climbed the ramp into the bookmobile.
“So if I can summarize what you’ve told me, these instructions are mainly for tweaking the controls to get a quality stamping out of worn-out molds, but when it comes to setting up the equipment, we’re on our own,” Dewey was saying.
“I didn’t limit myself to panel production,” the old Sharf protested. “You’re going to find the order-of-assembly steps invaluable. Imagine welding a bulkhead into place only to find that you haven’t installed the wiring harness or the air ducting that runs behind it.”
“I didn’t mean to minimize your efforts,” the artificial person attempted to mollify the engineer. “It’s just that we were expecting some basic setup instructions. It’s not clear to me that our workers will be able to figure out which parts go with which machines.”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” the engineer said, and fishing in his pocket, pulled out a data chip. “We took holographic images of all the equipment before breaking it down for shipping.”
“That’s what I was waiting to hear,” Dewey said, and reaching in his own pocket, took out a programmable cred. “A little bonus from Flower.”
Gaer flipped the Stryx coin to the side showing the amount and let out a delighted whistle. “If there’s anything else Flower needs, feel free to contact me. I don’t suppose you’ll be coming this way again anytime soon, but I’m officially retired, and the wife has been pestering me about taking a grand tour of the galaxy before we’re too old. It’s just so cliché. Could I borrow your arm, young Human?”
Bill walked back down the ramp with the old engineer, then he reentered the bookmobile and strapped himself into the co-pilot’s seat.
“Did your meeting with Yaem’s boss go well?” Dewey asked as he began ticking through the brief prelaunch checklist.
“How did you know? It took me completely by surprise.”
“Process of elimination,” the artificial person said. “We all know that you work for Yaem, and who else would come all the way here just to meet you?”
“He was a bit intimidating,” Bill admitted as the bookmobile slowly rose above the factory. “I’m supposed to send him my impressions of all the other alien spies on board, and he even asked me for information about the captain. I’m not sure what to do.”
“Talk to Captain Pyun,” Dewey advised. “Your first loyalty has to be EarthCent.”
“This being a double agent business is getting confusing,” Bill said as the bookmobile began to accelerate. “I’m going to have to start writing things down.”
Five
When Julie returned from lunch, the door to her new office in the headquarters of Flower Industries was open. She steeled herself before entering, expecting yet another impromptu meeting with a baffled person who the Dollnick AI was trying to recruit for a job that didn’t even exist yet, but it turned out to be a maintenance bot in the act of placing a spaceship next to her desk.
“Is that a large toy or a miniature lifeboat?” Julie asked.
“It’s a scale model,” Flower replied via the bot’s speaker grille. “They’re very useful for wind tunnel simulations when engineers are designing craft that can enter planetary atmospheres, though the Sharf worked all of that out for this model over a hundred thousand years ago. I had my shipyard employees completely tear down a two-man trader so they’d learn how it was put together, and then they built a few scale models for practice.”
“So you had them turn one big ship that actually flew into a bunch of little ships for office decorations?”
“Laura and Don used the knowledge they gained to build the model, not the actual parts. In fact, they were able to put the original ship back together again, though the technicians are still troubleshooting a few minor problems with the drive and life support.”
“So what is it doing in my office?” Julie asked.
“As my executive assistant, it’s important that you familiarize yourself with all aspects of Flower Industries. You already have experience with anime production, and I know that Bill is always talking to you about our food business, so I want you to start getting up to speed on the shipyard.”
“I don’t know the first thing about technology, much less space engineering. I’m not even that good at math when
you get beyond counting money.”
“Counting is fundamental, and this is why I gave you the scale model,” Flower said. “I want you to take it apart and put it together again at least once a day. Think of it as a three-dimensional puzzle.”
“And that’s supposed to teach me something about shipyard work?”
“The pieces are labeled on the back so you’ll learn the names of all of the major components that make up a two-man trader. Gaining an understanding of how they fit together is no small thing. Why don’t you go ahead and start?”
“What about my afternoon meetings? I was supposed to see Third Officer Lynx to discuss your long-term plans for this deck, and then you had me scheduled to take Samuel and Vivian around looking at real estate.”
“There’s been a sudden change of plans,” Flower said. “I don’t want to steal the captain’s thunder because he’ll be making a ship-wide announcement in approximately—now.”
“This is Captain Pyun speaking,” Woojin’s voice came over the public address system. “We’ll be dropping into regular space in five minutes in response to a distress call forwarded to Flower by the Stryx. Those of you who experience any dizziness with jump transitions may want to take advantage of this notice to lie down. We don’t have any details about the nature of the distress call, but I will be updating the ship’s calendar as soon as we have more information. I’m requesting that all inhabitants with experience in medical emergencies make their way to the core to be on hand in case your help is required. Don’t forget to wear magnetic cleats.”
“What was that all about?” Julie asked. “Since when do the Stryx ask people like us for help?”
“The location of the distress call is in interstellar space so it’s safe to assume that there’s a disabled ship involved. I suspect that we were contacted as the closest vessel capable of providing meaningful help,” Flower added, not without a hint of pride. “If their life support has failed, I have the spare capacity to take on board over four million moderate-sized oxygen breathers, more if they’re willing to double bunk.”
“But you don’t know anything about who they are or where they’re from?”
“We’ll have all of the answers in another three minutes,” the Dollnick AI said. “Now why don’t you get started on taking apart the model and call me if you get stuck.”
“Are there any instructions?”
“You’ll miss out on half the fun if I show you the exploded view. Just start from the top and see how far you get. The pieces are held in place by embedded magnetic monopoles so you’ll have no trouble pulling them apart.”
Julie sighed. “All right. Good luck with your emergency and let me know if you need any help. I picked up some basic first aid while I was working for the drug syndicate as a teenager because the dealers were always fighting over territory.”
“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” Flower demanded. “The scale model can wait until tomorrow. Hop on a lift tube for the docking bay. And don’t forget your magnetic cleats.”
“I wore my new walking shoes today in case you wanted me to show Samuel and Vivian the inner decks. The cleats are built-in.”
Julie gladly left the intimidating scale model behind and made her way to the lift tube. She clicked her heels to activate the magnetic cleats, and a minute later, emerged in Flower’s core. Looking up, she could see hundreds of people milling around over her head on the opposite side of the cylindrical core’s inner surface, a reminder that she was living in a giant centrifuge built from concentric decks like a tubular onion. Then a tentacle gripped her shoulder and she jumped.
“Jorb! Are you here to help with the medical emergency?”
“You can’t teach in a dojo without picking up the basics of first aid,” the Drazen explained. “Did Flower give you any details beyond the captain’s announcement? We’re all in the dark.”
“Apparently she doesn’t know any more about what’s going on than we do. The Stryx just forwarded her the location.”
“I hope we’re not showing up for the aftermath of a war or a pirate attack,” Jorb said. “Drazen Intelligence made me sit through a holo-course for combat medics and it wasn’t pretty.”
“Flower assigned you both to me,” a mechanical sounding voice spoke from behind them, and Julie turned to see M793qK. The Farling physician was wearing his external translation pendant around what passed for his neck, and he was carrying so many medical bags that he looked like an over-packed tourist heading off on vacation. “Do you both have Dollnick stunners?”
“I brought two,” Jorb said. “Just in case.”
“Give one to Julie,” M793qK instructed.
“Do you think it’s a trap and they’re going to board us by force?” the girl asked nervously.
The Farling buzzed his speaking legs together, producing his version of a snort. “Can’t you see the line of combat bots Flower has waiting just to the inside of the atmosphere retention field? If this is a trap, the bait is going to find that it’s bitten off more than it can chew.”
“Then what’s the stunner for?” Julie asked, accepting Jorb’s spare and clipping it to the waistline of her slacks.
“Combat anesthesia,” M793qK responded. “And if there are a large number of casualties and I have to set up triage, the two of you will be responsible for making sure nobody jumps the line. I’ll be the judge of who to treat first.”
For a split second, Julie felt like she was back on the lift tube as Flower dropped into normal space. All of a sudden the view through the transparent atmosphere retention field showed a run-down colony ship with dull red emergency lighting showing through the ports of the outer decks.
“We’re right on top of them!” Jorb exclaimed. “How did you do that?”
“The Stryx have been supplying me the location feed via the controller’s transponder,” Flower replied over their implants. “I came out of the jump as close as physically possible because every second counts in rescue operations.”
M793qK had set down all of his bags and was now staring intently at the screen of a Farling device that Julie had never seen before. “That’s strange,” he said. “I’ve accessed their internal comms and I’m picking up eleven different languages—make that twelve.” His wings flashed out from his carapace and then retreated, as if he had been about to take flight and then fought down the urge. “It can’t be.”
“Can’t be what?” Julie asked.
“Wanderers,” the doctor replied grimly. “I just heard some chatter from the Zarent damage-control team—they’re telepaths, you know.” He paused for a moment before adding, “It sounds like the secondary pile containment field detuned and there was an explosion, but it happened days ago.”
The axis of the disabled ship was now perfectly in line with Flower’s open end, and the waiting combat bots launched themselves across the shrinking gap in a wave. They passed through the atmosphere retention field, and a moment later, entered the other vessel’s core.
“This is Captain Pyun,” Woojin’s voice echoed through the docking bay. “Flower has identified the damaged ship as a Class One Dollnick Colony Transport, that’s the original model that was discontinued over a million years ago. It was decommissioned long before Flower herself was built, but it seems to have found its way into the hands of the Wanderers. I’ve just spoken to their captain, and life support is failing, so we’ll begin taking their people on board as soon as the injured are evacuated. We don’t yet have an exact count for the populace, but it sounds like less than twenty thousand oxygen breathers from a dozen species. Captain out.”
“That’s a relief,” Jorb said. “Twenty trips with one of Flower’s main shuttles will move all of the survivors. If the number had been much larger we would have had to extend our atmosphere retention field and set up safety lines for spacewalking. It’s never a good idea for ships this large to get so close together that they’re almost touching.”
“Who are the Wanderers?” Julie asked.
“Yo
u didn’t study the Wanderers in school?”
“I didn’t go to school, and my teacher bot never said anything about them. I’d never even heard of them before the awards party where the doctor won the best stand-in award for an anime production. A show about a Wanderer ship was a finalist in one of the categories that Everyday Superheroes was nominated for, though I’ve forgotten which.”
“The Wanderers have been around for millions of years, maybe tens of millions,” Jorb explained. “They usually move in large fleets called mobs, so I don’t know what this ship is doing out here on its own. The original Wanderers were a species that never developed interstellar jump technology, but they excelled at building space habitats. So they set out to colonize space in slow motion, with generation after generation living their whole lives on giant ships. When they reached their destinations, some of them decided that they’d rather continue living in space than returning to planets.”
“But the captain and M793qK both said that there are at least a dozen species living on board that ship,” Julie said. “Do the original Wanderers encourage alien immigration, like Stryx stations?”
“I doubt there are any original Wanderers on this ship because they keep their vessels in tip-top condition,” Jorb said. “Most of the mobs I’ve heard of lately were comprised mainly of tunnel network species, with a few neighboring aliens thrown in. They’ve developed a sort of post-employment culture, so they count on their parent species for handouts.”
“He means that they’re bums,” M793qK interjected, then he gestured towards a group of Flower’s bots that were returning with something in tow. “All except for the Zarents who do the ship maintenance, and from what I’m hearing, it sounds like they’ve given up. Those bots are bringing back some stasis pods with Zarents who were badly injured when the secondary pile failed. I’ll see to those later, but there are some walking wounded as well, so let’s get to work.”