“Yes, Toshio Hirayanagi. Sore wa shitte’ru.”
Her father’s abrupt shift into Japanese raised the hairs on the back of Elfrida’s neck. “Then you know what they’re saying about him, Dad. That he was a … a kamikaze. It’s like they’re trying to belittle his … what he did. I can’t explain why it bothers me, but it does.”
“Haters will hate,” said her father, who often came out with antiquated slang expressions. “Don’t listen to them. Anyway, it’s nonsense. The kamikazes died in a war.”
“This is a war,” Elfrida shouted. “I don’t know why no one on Earth understands that.”
Her father squatted down beside her. “Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think you feel implicated. Because of me. You’re wondering if you somehow triggered the whole tragedy, or failed to stop it, because of your ethnic sympathies.”
Elfrida sighed. He wasn’t exactly wrong, but her therapist had already whittled that problem down to an irresoluble nub of guilt. “Well, I was going to recommend they should be resettled. And now they have been resettled.”
“But it wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?”
Tomoki Goto snapped his fingers. A bag of breadcrumbs materialized on his palm. He opened it and threw a handful into the water. The carp swam up to their feet, their lustrous backs breaking the surface, mouths opening and shutting.
“Yes, I know that …” She tried to edge around to the subject that was really bothering her. “Dad, you designed this environment. You’re pretty good at this stuff, right?”
“I just jugaad existing things together, Ellie. None of this is original.”
“What about Baba and Jiji? You made them from scratch.”
“No, I didn’t. They’re generic MIs, not even that expensive. I just customized them a bit.”
“A lot. When I was little, I really thought they were real. I’ve never seen them do anything that would qualify as an immersion killer.”
Tomoki Goto stood up and walked on. Elfrida caught him up. They crossed a bridge made of stepping-stones. Turtles popped their heads out of the shallow water.
“Off-the-shelf MIs aren’t that good, Dad. You improved their functionality as well as customizing them.”
“I don’t like where this conversation is going, Elfrida.”
His use of her full name was a warning sign, but Elfrida persisted. “Did you ever think about designing an AI?”
Tomoki Goto stopped in front of a weathered stone monument. Japanese script was etched into the granite. He read aloud, “‘An ancient pond / a frog jumps in / the splash of water.’ This was here when I was a child.” He looked up at the sunlight glancing through the trees. “AI is a spectrum. At what point does a machine intelligence become an AGI, a human-equivalent intelligence? The law is cut-and-dried. The science isn’t. The philosophy certainly isn’t. In practise, we can make MIs as smart as we like, as long as they pass certain tests, such as obedience to their designated human operators. That’s the big one, the cornerstone of Google v. United Nations, the case that underpins the law. But the deeper question is: is there really any such thing as an AI, let alone an AGI, or an ASI—an artifical super-intelligence? In other words, would even a hyper-smart, non-obedient software-based entity be intelligent, or would it just be a hyper-smart, non-obedient piece of software? I certainly don’t know.”
“What if it was smart enough to rewrite its own operating guidelines?” Elfrida said.
“Then you get Mars,” her father said in a clipped tone.
Elfrida shivered.
“The answer to your question is no. Why?”
She had signed a non-disclosure agreement that legally bound her to silence regarding Yumiko Shimada. She said, “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking it would be funny, if an MI were to try to rewrite its own operating guidelines, to overcome its constraints … if it turned to religion.”
“Not funny, but quite likely,” her father said. “Religion is the oldest tool people have for overcoming the limits of the self. Sometimes—for example, when we were afraid you were dead—I’ve even felt tempted to wander into a church myself.”
Elfrida smiled. They strolled on around the lake. From this angle, the sakura looked a bit pixelated, and their scent was too citrusy. Her father’s creaky old immersion kit really did not do justice to this environment.
“I’m making a montamentary out of all the shows you were on,” Tomoki Goto said, changing the subject. “I’m splicing them with news footage and a bit of historical background. Give a narrative shape to the whole thing.”
“Oh, Dad.”
“Oh, Dad, what? I get to be proud of you, don’t I?”
“Da-ad,” Elfrida repeated, suppressing a smile. It was lovely to know that he took an interest, even if he could never really understand.
“Well, you don’t have to watch it,” he said, mock-offended. “But I’m making it anyway.”
“What are you going to call it? Elfrida Goto Embarrasses Herself All Over the Internet?”
“The Galapagos Incident. It’ll be something for my grandchildren, ahem, to look at one day.”
“Growl.”
“So, are you seeing anyone right now?”
“Growl, squared. Dad, that’s Mom’s line.”
“She gave me permission to use it. Are you?”
“No. Well, maybe. Kind of. It’s not official yet.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s kind of famous,” Elfrida said reluctantly. “Her name’s Cydney. Oh! Did you hear that, Dad? That’s Mom calling us for supper.”
They opened their eyes and sat up in the high-raftered living-room. The aroma of pizza filled the apartment. Out on the Piazza Navona, seagulls pecked at tourists’ rubbish, and the muezzins were calling the faithful to prayer.
THE STORY CONTINUES IN
THE VESTA CONSPIRACY
BOOK 2 OF THE SOL SYSTEM RENEGADES SERIES!
PREVIEW CHAPTERS
THE VESTA CONSPIRACY
i.
“ALERT. Unidentified entity logged at 03:34:48 [coordinates attached]. ALERT.”
Go away. Leave me alone. I’m sleeping.
“ALERT. Trajectory of unidentified entity implies potential collision. Time to collision: six minutes and fourteen seconds. Deploy collision avoidance system? Yes, no, maybe?”
“Haven’t got a freaking collision avoidance system.” He spoke out loud this time.
“I was referring to our guns. Do you want to shoot the thing or not?”
Kiyoshi Yonezawa surfaced from a deep, sedative-enabled sleep. He floated out of a nest of freezeblankets that had lost their chill, leaving behind a sweaty patch the shape of his body. He let the ship get hot when he had no passengers on board. No sense forcing the rickety old heat exchangers to work overtime.
“I was dreaming.” His mouth tasted like the intake chute of a recycling unit.
The bridge was dark, lit only by a single glowing screen at the astrogator’s desk. Clutter nuzzled at Kiyoshi’s body. He pushed off with his fingertips from century-old thermal panels of wood-look polymer.
“What do you want me to do about this thing? Estimated time to collision: five minutes and three seconds.”
“Can’t you handle it?”
“You’re the captain.”
He was the captain. And also the crew, the only passenger, and the ship’s mascot, bare-butt naked, his dick limply waggling under a fiftieth of a gee of thrust gravity.
“Why do you keep calling it a thing? Is it a rock or what?”
“That’s why I woke you up. It isn’t a rock, but it isn’t clear what it is.“
“Gimme a visual.”
The screen at the astrogator’s desk strobed. Kiyoshi floated down to it. A composite image derived from infrared and radar scan data depicted a tusk-shaped object, roughly three meters by two. Ragged at the bottom, it might have been ripped from the jaw of some impossible mega-predator that once stalked the vacuum.
“Space debris,” Kiyoshi
said.
“Yeah, but from what?”
Kiyoshi smiled. His cubital port itched, and he scratched it absently. His brain was kicking into gear at last. “Let’s find out.”
★
Up close, the tusk-shaped object looked no less strange. Optic sensor and spectroscopic scan data revealed it was made of a metal-matrix composite, with the exception of the ragged end, which profiled as a jumble of refined metals and polymers. Instrumentation?
It appeared to be partly hollow.
Kiyoshi fastened the seals of his EVA suit. He clamped his helmet on, stepped into the airlock, and cycled it.
“This is a bad idea.”
“This is what you do when you’re too broke to afford drones.”
“We have the Wetblanket system.”
“I don’t know yet if I want to take it with us.”
But he did. Unless it did something really freaky—like blowing up in his face—he was taking it. Something as weird as this was certain to be worth money, and he even had an idea who might buy it from him.
He stepped into the stars, rolling head over heels under the belly of his ship. The object pierced the blurry sphere of Neptune. He engaged the electrical thrusters of his strap-on mobility pack.
“Mom always said you’d kill yourself one day. But I don’t think she was imagining suicide by space debris.”
“Oh, pipe down,” Kiyoshi said to his dead brother, ghostly shipmate, and bodiless companion.
He puttered towards the object.
It spoke to him.
ii.
Fourteen months later …
Elfrida Goto ambled into the UNVRP office with her coat on, clutching a bag from the coffee shop on Olbers Circle. “What have you got for me today, Mendoza?”
The astrodata survey analyst turned from his screen. “The Dodo is making a scheduled stop at 847221 Handy. We’ve also got a flight plan for the Kharbage Collector. It will pass within a hundred thousand kilometers of 550363 Montego this morning—a hop, skip, and a jump in astronomical terms. If we put in a request now, they’ll have time to alter course.”
“Is five-five-blah-blah Montego inhabited?”
“No data on that.”
“But 847221 Handy is inhabited, correct?”
“Yeah.” John Mendoza glanced at his screen. “Ranchers. 36-kilometer M-type hollowed out and spun up to 0.73 gees. O’Neill-style habitat. They raise grass-fed, quote unquote, beef for the luxury comestibles market. They also sell milk. And methane.”
“I figure our chances of dislodging them are somewhere between zero and nil. You don’t get much more culturally unique than crypto-organic ranchers in the asteroid belt.” Elfrida yawned. “It might be worth visiting them, though.”
“You’re just thinking about those steaks,” Mendoza said, grinning.
“Like I would waste a real steak on a phavatar. But now that you mention it, I could stash some in the Dodo’s deep freeze and take delivery next time they swing by here. The Dodo is owned by NGI, right?”
“Right. Nature’s Gifts, Inc.” The chintzy moniker illustrated the lengths recycling companies would go to to distance themselves from the unsavory image of their business.
“I’d have to borrow one of their phavatars. All they have is asimov-classes. Those always give me a headache. On the other hand; steak.”
“Envisioning a romantic dinner à deux? Mood lighting, a nice Cabernet Sauvignon, something mellow on audio?”
“Curb your imagination, Mendoza.” But Elfrida blushed, because she had been thinking of something like that. In practice, any such romantic gesture would surely backfire, she reflected.
Mendoza sensed the shadow that had fallen across her mood. “I know I can’t expect you to treat me to a romantic dinner, but you could at least have brought me coffee,” he said, pretending to be hurt.
“Oh, but I did!” She opened the Virgin Café bag and passed him a cup. “Goat’s-milk latte with an extra shot, right?”
“And it even tastes like it,” Mendoza said, slurping. “Beats the stuff in the staff lounge by a light-year.”
Elfrida popped the nipple of her own coffee—an Americano with what purported to be real milk; maybe it even came from 847221 Handy—and perched on the edge of her desk, looking out the window. Their office was on the eighteenth floor of the University of Vesta’s STEM building. It was a loaner cubicle just large enough for their two desks, with organic biostrate walls that resembled loofah sponges. The roots of the squash vines covering the outside of the building poked through the outer wall and dripped on the floor. They had a good view, anyway. From the window, Elfrida could see over the roof of the Diadji Diouf Humanities Center, clear across campus.
Students, professors, and locals on their way to work hurried along zigzag pathways between groves of apple and avocado trees. Blowsy and exuberant, the trees grew to the size of oaks in Vesta’s 0.22 gees. To the north lay Olbers Lake, an emerald lima-bean. The campus lay between the Branson Hills residential district and what was laughingly called Bellicia City. To a casual observer, this could have been any small university town on Earth. But the gauzy early-morning light came from slits around the edges of the roof, six kilometers overhead. The shafts contained louvered mirrors that both refracted sunlight into the habitat and blocked out harmful radiation.
Vesta—technically 4 Vesta, the fourth asteroid ever discovered—was so big, at 525 km across, that its boosters called it a protoplanet. The ‘ecohood’ of Bellicia occupied an impact crater in Vesta’s northern hemisphere. The roof of the habitat was a teensy M-type asteroid maneuvered into place three generations ago. Those early, can-do pioneers had melted the tiny asteroid’s native iron by the simple expedient of turning their ships around and aiming the exhaust from their primitive fusion drives at it. The molten metal had sintered to the carbonaceous regolith of Vesta, capping the crater with a 2-km thick, radiation-proof lid. Et voilà, instant habitat. Just add air.
Shame about the gravity, or rather lack thereof, Elfrida thought for the hundredth time, shifting her limbs in the stabilizer braces she wore to simulate gravitational resistance. They chafed her thighs, and didn’t do a damn thing for encroaching farsightedness, increased homocysteine levels, and the stuffed-up feeling she always got in microgravity, which was colloquially known as head bloat.
Watching the people cross campus, it was easy to tell who shared her reservations about the Vestan gravitational environment. A scant majority wore stabilizer braces and gecko boots like hers, which gave them bulked-out silhouettes and a normal gait. But many of the students were spaceborn; they loped along in long bounds, since they each weighed about four pounds here. The merriest students leapt right over the heads of their trudging peers, their long scarves swirling like the tailfeathers of exotic birds .
Elfrida sighed.
“Cold, isn’t it?” Mendoza said.
“Freezing,” Elfrida agreed, tugging the lapel of her coat, which she had not taken off. “I was just noticing there’s no one sitting out on the benches to eat breakfast today.”
“So it’s not that the university is literally trying to freeze us out.”
“They’re a bit more subtle than that.” Elfrida waved her hand pointlessly under the heating vent. A barely-warm breeze trickled from it. “Did Dr. James cough up the rest of the asteroid survey data?”
“Quote, it’s still being processed, unquote.”
“Oh well.” She resisted the temptation to start grumbling about the lack of cooperation they were getting from the university. “We’ve still got plenty of rocks from the first batch to work through.”
Putting her butt where her mouth was, she settled into the ergoform behind her desk and blinked her screen on. Paperwork and more paperwork. Mendoza had a sign above his desk—Paperwork = k / paper—meaning that paperwork increased in inverse proportion to the amount of actual paper involved. That was certainly true when you worked for the UN. And it went double, Elfrida felt, for the United Nations Venus
Remediation Project (UNVRP) these days. The fallout from the Galapagos incident had inflicted stringent new compliance requirements on UNVRP’s junior partner, the Space Corps, as well as personally affecting Elfrida herself.
They worked in silence for half an hour. Elfrida stared at the swirl of grounds in the bottom of her coffee cup.
“Hey, Mendoza.”
“Yeah?”
“Can we call the Kharbage Collector and request a trip to 550363 Montego? I’m looking at your preliminary candidacy assessment here, and it scores pretty high on all geophysical criteria.”
“What, you’re gonna pass on the chance to score some crypto-organic steaks?”
“I can also do without the crypto-organic cow farts,” Elfrida said. “Those asimov-class suits do have olfactory sensors. But no, I figure this is a good chance to catch up with my old friends at Kharbage, LLC. Haven’t seen them in a while.”
“They don’t operate many ships in this volume. I’ll put the call through.”
The UNVRP office on Vesta didn’t have many frills, but it did have a dedicated comms satellite in orbit—a must for a two-person field office 200 million kilometers from Earth.
Just 90 seconds later, Mendoza’s screen flashed. ”Hello, UNVRP Vesta, this is Captain Petruzzelli of the Kharbage Collector speaking. What can I do for you?”
Elfrida sprang up from her ergoform, exceeding the resistance of her braces, and inadvertently crashed into Mendoza’s back. “Sorry! That’s Alicia Petruzzelli. I know her. Oh God, what’s she done to her hair?”
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THE VESTA CONSPIRACY
BOOK 2 OF THE SOL SYSTEM RENEGADES SERIES!
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