by E. M. Foner
“Don’t hold it against the captain, it’s the Wanderer way,” the chief engineer explained. “They are culturally allergic to hard work, and restoring the Miklat to anything like serviceable condition is too big a task for him to contemplate. If he took the job on and completed it successfully, the other Wanderers would certainly exile him from the ship for behaving in an inappropriately industrious manner.”
“Weird,” Bill muttered to Dewey, who nodded his head in agreement.
“I encountered a Wanderer mob some years back when they stopped at Union Station, but I had no idea that their post-employment philosophy included the ship’s officers,” Woojin said. “It’s a wonder anything gets done at all.”
“We have a saying in Zarent that if you want something done, you have to do it yourself. My only interaction with the ship’s officers amounted to begging for resources, which were always promised and never delivered.”
“Then I’m surprised they even bothered promising.”
“It’s easier to agree than to refuse, and you can always count on the Wanderers to take the easiest path,” the Zarent said. He pulled something that looked like a flashlight from a holster on his harness. “Although we are officially on strike, I couldn’t refuse the request from your ship’s AI to bring your repair team up to speed on the Miklat’s most urgent problems. Are all of these people engineers?”
“I’m afraid not,” Laura spoke up. “We’re in training to manufacture two-man traders using Sharf designs and factory equipment in a new shipyard Flower is establishing on board.”
The Zarent’s unicycle actually stopped dead for a moment, and the chief engineer had to extend several tentacles to regain his balance. “You mean you’re here for on-the-job-training?”
“Flower just wants us to contribute any way we can so all the work isn’t done by bots,” Don said.
The chief engineer let out a loud buzzing noise, then said, “Is this all a trick to get me to declare an end to the strike? Under any other circumstance, it would be effective, but five of my team are still in stasis due to the unsafe working environment. If they recover and Flower restores the condition of the Miklat to critical, then it will be time to talk about returning to work.”
“Isn’t critical the lowest possible level?” Woojin asked.
“Observe.” The Zarent triggered his flashlight, which turned out to be a hand-held holographic projector of sorts. A schematic view of the ancient Dollnick colony ship appeared, most of it in red. “The green denotes the systems in good working condition,” he began. “The blue highlights equipment that is scheduled for maintenance. The yellow shows the infrastructure that is in critical condition, and the red is for the systems that have failed.”
“I don’t see any green,” Laura said, and then frowned. “Oh.”
“The Miklat is about ten thousand years overdue for a major overhaul,” the chief engineer continued. “The hull, decks, and the spokes are the only components of the ship that aren’t either in critical condition or failure mode. We only carried twenty thousand Wanderers on board because that’s all that the life support and ag decks could sustain. That’s down from the design capacity of five hundred thousand souls if all systems were functioning properly.”
“What about the primary pile?” Woojin asked.
“Why do you think the secondary pile failed?” the Zarent countered. “The primary pile hasn’t been hot in a millennium, but the Wanderers refuse to comprehend the difference between an emergency backup system and a spare. The only power on board now comes from the fuel pack farm, and that hasn’t been fully charged since I was an apprentice.”
“What about the ship’s bots?” Dewey asked.
“Excellent question,” the Zarent said. “Some of the legends say that the ship’s AI took the bots with it when it transferred to a new vessel after the Miklat was gifted to a mob as a bribe to leave Dollnick space. Other legends say the ship entered the mob with a full complement of bots but the Wanderers sold them off to pay for goodies. We’ve been building ag bots from scratch to keep everyone fed, and we used our own funds to purchase some cargo handling bots from the Drazens to use for heavy lifting. We keep those in our living area except for when we need them to move equipment so the Wanderers can’t sell them on us. Other than that, all of the work on board is done by tentacle power.”
Everyone stared at the little octopus. “It sounds like you should have gone on strike a long time ago,” Woojin said.
“Don’t encourage him,” Flower admonished over the captain’s implant. “Inform the chief engineer that our next stop is Chianga, a Dollnick open world, and I’ve already made a deal with them for several hundred obsolete maintenance bots that can be adapted for the Miklat’s systems.”
Woojin dutifully passed the message along, and again the chief engineer was so surprised that he almost lost his balance.
“Are we talking about scrap yard bots that will require complete rebuilds?” he demanded. “If we had time for that sort of thing, we would have manufactured our own.”
“Tell him that they are all in working condition, currently in use on Chianga’s elevator hubs and an orbital that’s been undergoing restoration,” Flower told Woojin. “I brokered a deal with the Stryx to finance new replacement bots for the current owners so everybody wins.”
The captain relayed the new message, and the chief engineer perked up visibly. “If we had even a partial complement of maintenance bots to work with, I could—what am I saying?” the Zarent cut himself off. “We’re on strike.”
“Flower wants me to pass along that we’ll do what we can with our current resources, and by the time we have the replacement bots reconditioned and programmed up, she’s sure that M793qK will have your people back on their feet, er, unicycles.”
The chief engineer hesitated a moment, rocking back and forth to maintain his balance, and then said, “I suppose I can at least give you a brief tour. Just make sure that your magnetic cleats are all on the highest setting because the Miklat is rotationally locked to Flower for the tow. That means our angular acceleration is lower than normal and you’ll find that your weight is less here due to our smaller radial dimensions.”
By the time the damage control tour was completed and they returned to the core docking bay, Woojin was beginning to wonder if he was too old to learn how to ride a unicycle. Just as he was taking his leave from the chief engineer who was to return in the bookmobile with Dewey and Bill, a veritable fleet of Flowers bots entered the Miklat’s core. They were shepherding an enormous metallic sphere.
“No, it can’t be,” the Zarent said. “It would be impossible to find a replacement on such short notice.”
“What is it?” Bill asked.
“A self-contained Dollnick pile, larger than our primary. We would have to do some cutting to get it in, but it would solve our—” the chief engineer caught himself again. “I’m sorry, Captain,” he addressed Woojin. “I can’t just call off the strike while some of my injured are still in stasis. It would be like selling them for gold.”
“Flower completed her assessment of the Miklat’s primary and secondary piles and she reports that they are beyond repair,” Woojin relayed what the Dollnick AI was telling him over his implant. “She made a deal with the Stryx to replace her own secondary pile with the latest model in return for donating the current one to your cause. I don’t pretend to understand much about technical stuff, but Flower informs me that her secondary pile was only operated for the recommended break-in period, so it’s essentially in new condition.”
“We would be overpowered!” the Zarent said, unable to hide his enthusiasm. “It’s not just that the third generation secondary has more capacity than our primary, it’s a complete redesign that operates more efficiently with less maintenance. We could sell the excess power to other ships in the mob.”
“Flower informs me that she’ll have to remove part of the bulkhead separating the docking area from the Miklat’s power plant to install
it, so she’s going to do the work with bots now while the ship is uninhabited. The work will go much faster if we all leave and she doesn’t have to worry about maintaining a breathable atmosphere.”
The chief engineer stared longingly after the fleet of bots maneuvering the new pile deeper into the docking bay, and then began furiously pedaling his unicycle toward the bookmobile. The captain, Bill, and Dewey heard the little alien complaining about illegal strike-breaking tactics, but even filtered through the translation device, it was clear that his heart wasn’t in it.
“Did Flower really just give up a piece of herself to help the Wanderers?” Bill asked Dewey as they followed the Zarent.
“Nobody expects to get rid of them for free, and if the Stryx offer is what she says it is, Flower will actually come out ahead on this one,” the artificial person said. “The fact that the chief engineer didn’t call the strike off on the spot tells you how bad the situation must have been working on the Miklat. But I’ll bet you twenty creds that Flower has less trouble convincing the Zarents to return than the Wanderers.”
“I’m not a gambling man, and even if I was, I would never accept bets related to Flower,” Bill said. “She’s too good at getting what she wants. Isn’t she the one who suggested that you trade in your robot body and become an artificial person?”
“I’d been thinking about that anyway,” Dewey said as he headed up the ramp of the bookmobile. “Keep this to yourself, but now she wants me to find another artificial person and set up housekeeping.”
Bill stopped dead on the ramp. “Do artificial people do that?”
Dewey shrugged. “Some do. I know a couple who work for EarthCent Intelligence who have been together for years.”
“Can they have, uh—”
“Offspring is what artificial intelligence calls the next generation, and yes, though it’s not as simple as with biologicals. All you and Julie have to do is to let it happen.”
“That’s what Flower keeps telling us,” Bill said.
Nine
“How long do you plan to stay on the surface?” Julie asked Vivian. “Chianga is one of our regular stops, and there are always thousands of people already waiting at the space elevator hub to zip over when we arrive. They were some of our best customers when I worked in the library, though the guests from the Verlock academy worlds borrowed more books per capita.”
“I’d skip the visit altogether if I thought I could get away with it,” Vivian said. “I barely know the girl my brother married, so staying with her parents just because they happen to live here isn’t at the top of my list. But her father is the mayor of Floaters, and Sam wants to get his input on how we should be proceeding with the Human Empire. The mayor is also on the ad hoc committee that sort of runs the Conference of Sovereign Human Communities and he’s pretty influential.”
“You really are making this a working honeymoon,” Julie said.
“I could have dealt with more of a vacation, but you’ve seen what Sam is like. Sometimes I feel like I’ve spent my whole life keeping him busy so he doesn’t wander off and find somebody who needs him more. Did I tell you that when we were children we used to practice Vergallian ballroom dancing three hours a day?”
“Three hours?” Julie asked, still trying to process her new friend’s unexpected revelation. “You must be really good.”
“We placed in the Vergallian Junior Championships on the station a few times, but they were never going to give the top prize to a human couple,” Vivian said, and then backtracked. “No, I’m not being fair. Maybe they would have given us first place if we had been the best couple there, but there are upper-caste Vergallians who start their dance training before they can walk. I honestly thought we had a shot towards the end, but then they disqualified Sam from the Juniors based on his age after they prorated for our lifespans.”
“Ouch,” Julie said and took another sip from her gourmet coffee. “You know, it’s kind of fun just sitting in an upscale café like this and talking. I’ve been on board for almost two years and I’ve never come in here.”
“Don’t you have a crowd you hang out with?”
“Flower has been enough of a crowd for me, though since Jorb and Rinka started dating, they bring Bill and me out with them everywhere. And I guess I sort of think of all the aliens on Everyday Superheroes as friends. There’s something about fighting evil as principal animation actors that brings people together. Oh, and I should be getting to work.”
“Want to show me your office?”
“Sure, but won’t Samuel miss you? Where is he, anyway?”
“Flower heard from Jorb that Sam has a lot of experience LARPing, so she asked him to take a look at the studio she’s setting up,” Vivian said. “As soon as we arrive at Chianga, I’ll contact my in-laws, and then we’ll figure out the best way to get to the surface. If there aren’t shuttles running back and forth, we’ll have to rent an atmosphere capable ship or find a trader willing to bring us, because the space elevator takes around twenty hours each way. No, let me get that.”
“You always want to pay,” Julie protested. “This is my chance to pick up a tab that I can actually afford.” She gave the waitress the only ten cred piece in her purse and was visibly surprised at only receiving four creds in change, but she left two of them as a tip.
Vivian blushed slightly as she rose to follow her new friend out of the café. “Sorry, sometimes I forget that everybody doesn’t have a rich mother. I mean, we never went around buying jewels or vacation homes on luxury worlds, but when it comes to eating out, I always went wherever looked interesting. Sam complains about my spending habits sometimes because he wants us to live on our own income.”
“Doesn’t the Human Empire pay well?”
“We don’t even have official job titles yet,” Vivian said. “The sovereign human communities chose the Thousand Cycle Option to become an empire, but it’s short on details and long on timeline—like a hundred and fifty years. That’s why we’re waiting for our mentor to show up before really digging in. The Cayl run one of the more successful empires in the galaxy, and Sam’s mother hosted the emperor in their home when he visited Union Station around fifteen years ago.”
“I thought the Cayl were some scary military power from the other side of the galaxy,” Julie said as they entered the lift tube. “What was the emperor doing on Union Station?”
“Trying to abdicate, if I remember the story correctly. I was just a little girl at the time, but the Stryx held a sort of open house to attract new members to the tunnel network. The Cayl emperor showed up with representatives from the principal species in their empire to see if some sort of merger was possible. I wasn’t old enough to understand what was going on, but in the end, the emperor decided to stay on his throne, which was probably what the Stryx intended from the beginning.”
They exited the capsule across from the impressive doors embossed with the new Flower Industries logo, and Julie led the way through the labyrinth of halls to her office.
“Wow, are you sure you aren’t earning a big salary?” Vivian asked. “An office with a door is an upper-management perk on Union Station. Everybody else works in cubicles or open-floor schemes.”
“I thought this was normal,” Julie replied honestly. “I guess that Flower doesn’t like people seeing all her unused capacity, so she spreads things out as much as possible to fill the space better.”
“And this must be the famous scale model,” Vivian said, examining the two-man trader that stood higher than she was tall. “It looks like you got it all back together right.”
“I haven’t exactly had a chance to take it apart yet. I was going to try again today.”
“Whoa!” Vivian wavered on her feet and grabbed the corner of the display desk to steady herself. “I think we just arrived at Chianga.”
“Have we?” Julie asked. “I didn’t even feel it. I guess after a couple hundred tunnel transitions and jumps I’ve gotten used to the little ones.”
“The women in my family are famous for being sensitive to space travel. My mom used to date a guy who invented a sort of system that deployed a counterweight on a cable so the ship and the mass could spin around a common center of gravity and create weight.”
“What happened?”
“He dumped my mom and married Aisha, who became the host of Let’s Make Friends.”
“I meant, what happened to the counterweight system?”
“Oh, it worked, that’s just physics, but it turns out that there isn’t any demand,” Vivian said. “Zero-G doesn’t bother any of the advanced species, and the humans who live on small ships are a self-selected bunch, so it didn’t make sense to try to commercialize it. I think my mom said he was planning to design ships that could split into two sections rather than hauling the extra mass around. But for big ships, the simple solution has always been to build cylinders like Flower and spin them so that everybody is living in a centrifuge.”
“This is your captain speaking,” Woojin’s voice came over the public address system. “I regret to inform you that Chianga traffic control is refusing to grant us a low orbit, and we’ve been instructed to keep our shuttles in our docking bay. They will send officials on board to inspect any commercial shipments scheduled for drop off and will provide their own transportation. Any merchandise on order from Chianga will be delivered as promised, but we’ve been placed in quarantine. Under the circumstances, our departure will be moved forward to as soon as our business here is completed. I will provide an update when we have more information.”
“Looks like I just missed out on three fun-filled days with the in-laws,” Vivian said happily.
“What’s going on?” Julie asked out loud.
“It’s the Wanderers,” Flower replied via the overhead speaker grille. “I attempted to suppress the information, but unfortunately, word got out. Nobody wants to find themselves stuck with guests who refuse to go home, and the Dollnicks running Chianga have decided to play it safe. It’s a bit insulting that they won’t allow me to launch any shuttles for fear that I’d try to sneak Wanderers off the ship.”