Stellaris: People of the Stars

by Robert E. Hampson

  The gate agent was there right away with a collar and medpatch to help the passenger. A couple of hand-sized bots were already cleaning up the mess. There was at least one newbie on every flight. By the time she boarded in—she squinted and checked the time display—in five minutes—there would be no evidence of the accident. Mace rotated her wrist and looked again at the message from Sandy. She could have just transferred it to her heads-up display, but she preferred the screen built into her left wrist. Social custom, she supposed. Most people got their messages on a wristcomp, so Mace configured her forearm accordingly. Social custom was still important to her, although she supposed that was all about to change.

  * * *

  Alexander Wolfe paid the autocab and pulled his Plac and the grocery bags out of the storage box on the back. The Personal Luggage Allotment Case had straps to fit over his shoulders, and he distributed the mesh-and-plastic bags between his hands. The house in Fredericksburg hadn’t changed much in eight years. Flaking paint, broken shingles, chipped mortar and bricks all just as he remembered. He could still see the loose security bars on the single window over the garage where he used to sneak out at night. The rose bushes he planted for Mom were gone, but then they’d been dead by the time he left.

  Sandy thought it unlikely that the sensors on the doorknob would recognize his ID. It was eight years, after all, and he’d had a few…modifications…since then. For that matter, he’d needed to reset his biometric signature every few weeks for the last couple of years. No, he would ring the doorbell and hope it worked—or knock and hope someone was awake enough or sober enough to respond.

  The bell worked, but no one answered. He could check the lock, but he didn’t have a hand free.

  He looked around. The neighborhood was run-down. Tall weeds and broken windows suggested that half of the houses were empty. In fact, his parent’s house looked positively well-kept in comparison. Good. There wouldn’t be anyone to react badly to what he was about to do.

  He looked down at his feet. He preferred to go barefoot most of the time because conventional shoes were too uncomfortable. His skin was tough and resistant to almost anything that he could encounter in space; rough ground, sidewalks or even the gravel streets of his old neighborhood didn’t bother him. He needed some way to keep his feet clean though, so he wore slippers when necessary. They looked like thin black gloves rather than shoes, but they were more comfortable that way. Sandy balanced on one foot and reached the other up to first slip off the “glove” and then grip the doorknob. As expected, it didn’t turn—his galvanic response and DNA were too different now. It had a keypad, though, and Sandy was certain that the combo would be the same. Mom would never think to change it, and he was sure that Dad assumed that he and Mace would never be back barring the end of the world.

  Sandy worked the combination with the digits on his foot. It was no longer accurate to call them toes, although one of his coworkers preferred the term “tingers.” The code worked and the door clicked open.

  “Mom? Dad?”

  He pushed through the door and worked his load through the front hallway, across the living room, and into the kitchen. He sat the bags on the counter and started to unload the contents. As he looked around, he noticed that the kitchen—in fact, anything he could see of the house—was surprisingly neat and clean. Hmph. They must have a maid come in. Either that or I’m in the wrong house! The kitchen had the same old look, though: a wall clock he made in Scouts, and the ladle holder Mace made in elementary school. It was the right place.

  The fridge was relatively new, and despite his expectations, had food in it—not just beer. Most of it appeared to be quik-heat and zap-wave meals, but it was food.

  …and no beer. Strange.

  Sandy started putting away the food he brought. Fresh, unfrozen turkey, all the makings for stuffing and gravy, fresh-picked vegetables, fresh fruit and dough for pies. He would cook tomorrow—well, in fact, he should get a few things started now. He liked cooking and his friends said he did it well. Of course, he insisted on fresh ingredients. The curse of being a life-systems bioengineer, I suppose. Dad didn’t cook, and Mom’s forays in food preparation were usually influenced by whatever was in vogue in her artist community. Most Thanksgiving meals were best forgotten, such as the year she prepared a “deconstructed raw-food feast” consisting of flavored soy chunks for the turkey, raw corn (still on the cob!), wheat germ in place of stuffing, and pumpkin seeds for dessert. That wouldn’t be the case for this meal.

  He pulled some pots and pans out of the cabinet and wiped the dust from them, drew some water, and sat them on the stove. He tried the turn on the stove, by pressing the igniter, but it wouldn’t take. I guess Mom never had a reason to replace this antique. Natural gas was cheap, too, and Dad liked cheap.

  He reached into his backpack. There were surprisingly few clothes and quite a few cooking utensils. He decided before leaving the station that he would need to bring his own. He pulled out a small utility melder—useful for plumbing repairs and spot-heating. It also made a fine igniter for almost any fuel source, but even that didn’t ignite the stove. He could smell the gas, but it wasn’t much, so it was probably just a bad supply. It was obvious from the appearance of the neighborhood that maintenance was a low priority here.

  He turned off the gas and reached into his pack again. He pulled out a rolled-up mat and snapped it to create a rigid, half-meter square that he placed over the stove. With a touch on the edge, he activated two of the four radiant heater spots on the portable cooktop. Oh yes, he would need those supplies to prepare a classic American Thanksgiving Dinner such as he and Mace always wanted, but never had.

  * * *

  Mace decided to walk from the tube station. It was 5:30 p.m. local time, and just getting dark in south Texas. The air was cool and dry, one of the virtues of autumn in the south, and this was her last time in the outside for…oh, about the next hundred years. Of course, she would hibernate most of that, unlike Sandy who would be awake for twenty years during the trip.

  It came as a great surprise to them both when the roster for Centauri Dreams was announced. Mace was unaware that her brother applied to the crew. She tried to keep in touch with her big brother for the first few years after college, but flight training and missions to the Belt made regular communications increasingly difficult. When the list was published last April, she was surprised to see her brother’s name above her own. It surprised Sandy, too, considering the email she received about thirty minutes after the list was out.

  “Hey, sis, long time! I’m glad to see you made it. It’s a small universe. They’re sending me to the Dreams for final checkout next month. When you pass through Gilster, give me a call.” He included a comm address and priority contact code. It was a Proxima Centauri b Corporation code. Mace wasn’t due to transfer jobs to PCbCorp for at least another four months, so it was doubtful that she would be at Gilster Station until right before departure next year. Those final months would be hectic, and she doubted that she would have enough free time to spend with her brother when the time came. It didn’t mean she couldn’t write, though, and they were in the habit of corresponding every week. The irony was that she arrived at Gilster a month ago, but Sandy was already groundside for the last of his “adjustment” sessions.

  Mace turned onto the street she once called home. It was more run-down than she remembered. Fredericksburg was never a large town, just support for the outlying ranches and a historic downtown square. It became popular when the electronics industry started getting new deep-space contracts. The San Antonio–Austin corridor was overcrowded, and residents enjoyed the respite that being outside the urban corridor had to offer. A small aircraft company in nearby Kerrville picked up a contract for aerodynamic control surfaces on shuttles operating out of Midland, and the San Antonio–Midland hyperloop passed right between Fredericksburg and Kerrville, just five miles from either city. The influx of jobs combined with people who could telecommute to high-tech job
s while living on the edge of the Texas Hill Country. The entire region started growing when she and Sandy were young; but this particular street was none too popular given that it was just the other side of a dry creek bed from the wastewater treatment plant.

  The old house still looked the same, including the broken fence rail where she repeatedly tried to set off a model rocket made with old fireworks. She was in middle school and interested in space, inspired by the many neighbors and classmates whose parents worked in the supporting industries. Fortunately, she was still interested in space even after getting yelled at by her father.

  The front door was unlocked, and she smelled food cooking. “Mom?” she called. She supposed it could be Mom, even though growing up her mother’s idea of a cooked meal involved someone else doing the cooking.

  “Nope, just me, sis,” called Sandy’s voice. “I don’t know where they are, but I figured I’d better get started. Still only one oven and the stove’s just as crappy as the last time.”

  “Yeah, I remember that. Not that it ever got used much,” Mace answered. “So, where’s the rents?”

  “Don’t know. Dad’s side of the garage is empty, but there’s fresh oil, so that’s a car gone. Mom obviously still has that roadster; it’s on the other side on chocks with the wheels off. No idea where they are. The house was locked, but the combo was still good.”

  “Strange. I suppose Dad could be at the VFW bar.” Mace paused a moment. “They do know we were coming, right, Big Bro?”

  Sandy turned, and looked right at his younger sister just before he swept her up in a bear hug. “Yeah, they know. I wrote; got an acknowledgement. I even commed Mom a few times over the last couple of months. She said they were looking forward to our visit and even had a big surprise.” He disengaged, stepped back and shook his head. “She sounded strange, though, more serious. I’m not sure what that’s about, but she sounded good.”

  Mace grinned. She and Sandy were always close. Most of the time, they were each other’s only support, especially when Dad was raging and Mom was absent. Funny, though—she remembered Sandy being taller. Have I grown that much? Is it one of those side effects of free fall that they warn us about? She stepped back and looked frankly at her brother and compared his height to the cabinets and fixtures in the kitchen. Yeah, definitely shorter.

  “Okay, bro, my eyes are working okay, and I can tell that you’re about five to six inches shorter than you used to be. What gives; I thought free fall was supposed to make you taller? You’ve been doing a bunch of zero-gee stuff, right?”

  Sandy grinned. “You should talk, sis. I felt plastic and titanium with that hug.” He sighed. “No, it’s the mods. The docs actually wanted me to be even shorter so that the free-fall stretching didn’t affect the heart too much, but this is all from the hip and leg mods.” He balanced on one foot, lifted the other, and waved it around just like a hand.

  As he put it back down, Mace could see that Sandy stood a bit bowlegged. His hips were wider, but with less bulk. His thighs were thinner, in addition to the broader feet and longer toes. “Ah, I see. So, you’ve got four points of contact in zero gee—well, five, when you land on your butt,” she teased. “Doesn’t it hurt in full grav, though?”

  “Not really, they reengineered the pelvis and femur. Shifted the head of the ‘socket’ for more flexibility, but also added a bone extension that locks into the pelvis when I need to stand. My shoulders do it too, which lets me brace in full or partial gee with better leverage. The new toes are great, too!” Sandy lifted his foot and slapped Mace’s hand where she was digging into the grocery bags.

  “Ouch!” Mace said with a hurt expression, then grinned. Sandy slapped her left hand. “Actually, though…”

  “Yeah, I’ve got full sensory in my tingers, sis. Titanium, polymer…glass?” He looked at Mace quizzically. “How much?”

  “Silicon nanotube. Standard pilot hemicorporotomy: left side from shoulder to feet, plus left eye and ear. Cyber-neural mesh on the right hemisphere.” Mace shrugged as if it was no big deal. After all, her genes were still the same and she still had her—admittedly short—hair, unlike Sandy.

  “The eye I can see. Gramps would have loved that electric blue. The rest isn’t obvious.”

  “Yeah, well there’s a covering I can remove to allow electro-optic interfacing if the inductive and IR pickups don’t work.” Mace dug her finger into the left wrist to peel back a portion of the skin-like covering.

  Sandy saw metal, ceramic, wire and optical components reflecting in the overhead lights. His own specialized vision allowed him to see deeper into the prosthetic, revealing multicolored optical nodes ranging from infrared to ultraviolet. “Cool. What if you’re left handed?”

  Mace set the “skin” back in place and it closed without a visible seam. “Then they do the right side and left brain.” At Sandy’s questioning look, she continued. “It’s not a left brain-right brain thing, that’s been largely disproven. It’s more that the hemisphere opposite to your handedness tends to be less specialized. Left brain controls the right side, right controls the left. The less specialized side is plastic enough to support additional functions. So, if you’re right-handed, you get left-side bionics and right-side cyber mesh to support it.”

  “Damn. I thought what they did to me was invasive. How bad was it?”

  “Hurt like hell until I learned how to control it. There’s a bed at Selene that’s been crushed into a one-meter ball from when I got mad at the docs.”

  “Heh, yeah; been there, done that. Well, not exactly, but apparently I smashed three nurses in the face, broke some bones and loosened some teeth because I was flailing around and locked my joints.” Sandy looked down in shame. “I was in pain, but that’s no excuse. They’d just adjusted my femurs and it hurt. Felt pretty bad about it afterward.”

  Mace found the soft drinks that Sandy placed in the quik-chill compartment of the fridge. She opened one and took a sip. Mmm. A local pop flavor from their childhood. She missed this, and it was probably the last chance to indulge during this quiet lull before the ordeal that was to come. She held it up as if in a toast. “Here’s to us, bro. There’s none like us!”

  “Hear, hear,” Sandy replied.

  “Shouldn’t someone be home by now?” Mace asked after taking another sip. Almost immediately they heard a vehicle crunching down the gravel of the street, then one, two, three, four car doors. The siblings looked at each other.

  * * *

  It was their parents, accompanied by a couple midway in age between their own ages and that of their parents. The man and woman were introduced as “Brother Erebus” and “Sister Elizabeth.” It was not immediately clear if they were husband and wife, actual brother and sister, or some other relationship. They were strangers to Mace and Sandy, and not the only strange thing going on.

  The first thing that Sandy noticed unusual was that Dad was in a button-up shirt and tie. There was no smell of booze and he seemed somewhat civil. Mom was dressed neatly as well—and she hung on Dad’s arm. They looked like a textbook example of respectable middle-aged husband and wife—which was totally unusual for them. They seemed genuinely glad to see their son and daughter. Sandy had the overwhelming sensation that something was amiss.

  The guests were an entirely different matter. Sure, they dressed nicely, Brother Erebus (“Call me Eric”) was wearing a suit. He spoke all the right words about being happy to meet “Sid and Mel Wolfe’s famous kids,” but there was something in his manner that just wasn’t right. “Sister” Elizabeth appeared anything but happy to meet them. Her gaze lingered for a few minutes on Mace’s face, likely taking in the startling blue of her artificial eye. When she looked at Sandy, however, she let slip a look of pure hatred before replacing it with an expression of disinterest.

  Sandy offered everyone drinks and some light snacks he had picked up just in case they needed something this evening. Surprisingly, the requests were for soft drinks and water all around. What? No beer for Da
d? What the hell was going on here? It didn’t take long after the introductions for Dad to explain:

  “Alexander, Melisande…I’m ashamed of my behavior…of how I raised you. I’m not proud of my drinking or my anger and I want to apologize to you both right now.”

  “Um, gee, thanks, Dad, but how did this come about?” Mace had a frankly incredulous look on her face.

  “As you know, I’m a drunk and abuser. Most of the time when you were growing up, I was drunk. I yelled, I screamed. I often raised a hand, although I never struck either of you or your mother.”

  “You sure threw things, though,” Mace interjected with a hint of bitterness.

  “Yes, Melisande, and for that I am truly sorry.” He looked briefly at his wife, who nodded. “That changed about two years ago when I struck your mother.” He held up his hands to forestall their comments. “Oh, not with my fists.” He looked down, and Sandy could see the beginning of tears in his eyes. “I did it with the car. I was angry. I’d been drinking of course, and I was careless. I was pulling out of the driveway too fast and your mother came out to try to stop me. I struck her with the car.”