Absolution

by Rick Partlow

  “You ever been here before?” Dog wondered.

  I was surprised he’d asked. He had access to most of my history with the Marshals, but I supposed there were some parts still classified due to sensitive government data.

  “Never had the pleasure. But Larry did. He was out here for a murder investigation once, something too hot for the local corporate security to handle.” I turned back to Beckett, who was still in the navigator’s position, though no longer handcuffed. I hadn’t seen the point, since Dog would have ripped her throat out if she tried anything with the ship. “Larry was my old partner in the Marshals,” I elaborated.

  “You were with the Marshals?” She seemed surprised. “What happened?”

  I winced, feeling as if I’d been slapped. It wasn’t the memories she’d brought up, just the casual assumption that a bounty hunter had to be some scapegrace with a tragic backstory.

  Well, aren’t you?

  “I made the mistake of thinking the law applied to everyone.” The words came casual, as if there was no emotional baggage hanging off of them. I’d gotten pretty good at that over the past couple years. “And I wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  The communications board lit up with an incoming signal and I leaned over to activate the cockpit speakers. Static crackled for a half-second before the voice came through.

  “Unidentified civilian craft, you are approaching restricted space. You need to adjust course immediately and leave the area.”

  “They all sound exactly alike,” I mused. “Every traffic control coordinator I’ve ever heard could have been the same guy.”

  “That’s because half of them are the same AI program,” Dog told me. “And the other half try to imitate him.”

  “Hanuman Traffic Control,” I broadcast, leaning over the audio pickup, “this is the civilian transport Charietto declaring an emergency and requesting immediate clearance to land. Our hyperdrive is malfunctioning and if we try to jump anywhere else, it’s likely going to rip us to atoms.”

  “Wait one, Charietto.”

  He sounded annoyed and I was guessing this was a human imitating the aforementioned AI program. AI’s of sufficient complexity could get annoyed, Dog was proof of that, but you weren’t going to waste time and money buying an anthropomorphic sentient program when one that could fake it was just as workable.

  “Do you think they’ll…,” Beckett blurted, but I shushed her with a finger over my lips and a pained look. I hadn’t turned off the audio pickup.

  “Charietto, you have clearance to land at Commercial Platform Three. Follow the signal in and do not deviate or you will be reported to the Navy. If you attempt to land anywhere else, the locks will not be opened for you and you will not be allowed to dock. Once you land, wait for the docking umbilical and allow our inspection team on board before trying to disembark. Please acknowledge.”

  “Hanuman Control, instructions acknowledged,” I said. “We will stick to your flight plan, and thanks very much for the help.”

  I very visibly cut the connection before I turned back to Dog and Beckett.

  “I guess they take their security seriously out here,” I allowed. “Take us down, Dog. And make our systems nice and presentable in case they check them.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Dog rolled his eyes before turning back to the controls. “What the hell do I keep you around for, anyway?”

  “Because you can’t talk without someone putting a blaster shot through you,” I reminded him.

  “Okay, I’ll give you that one.”

  The descent through the atmosphere was both quicker than usual and more energy intensive, since there wasn’t much atmosphere to descend through. Not as much friction but not as much lift and not as much input to the turbines, so we were boosting most of the way down on the plasma drives, burning way too much fuel for my frugal tastes. The featureless wasteland of Hanuman clarified with proximity, cracks opening and broadening, outgassing from hundreds of volcanic cones pumping sulfur dioxide into the air and, eventually, out of the atmosphere to the faint ring around Agni.

  The course we’d been given by the navigational signal took us only a dozen kilometers or so past one of the volcanos, jagged and seething, the glow of a single red eye burning through the haze of gas at its apex. Down twenty or thirty kilometers from the base of the mound were the mines. Not gas separators like the ones in Agni’s atmosphere, these stripped ore from the ground the old-fashioned way, with massive excavators and an endless chain of cargo buckets riding a conveyor into the smelting plant. Man-made volcanos right beside the natural kind, and if there was anything good to say about the brutal, industrial inelegance of it all, at least it wasn’t tearing up a living planet.

  Nothing lived here, not even the hardiest extremophiles, not even in the warmth of the volcanic vents. Only humans, tucked safely inside their climate-conditioned caves, braved this hostile moon, and only because training and supporting human workers was still cheaper than paying the exorbitant government licenses for the sentient AI to do the same job.

  Which, I guess, is the point of those exorbitant license fees. All some well-intentioned attempt to keep humans relevant. Probably doomed, like everything else government tried to socially engineer.

  The colony itself was small, more of an industrial park than a settlement, a handful of domes affixed to quake-proof platforms on hydraulic support columns. Barely bigger in all than Absolution, though spread out further, connected by pressurized cylindrical passageways. The landing platforms were broad and circular, each marked with a number large enough to see from the air a kilometer away, and only one was currently occupied, with what looked like a conventional orbital shuttle. I figured they kept it on hand for trips to whatever orbital transfer vehicle took them to the gas mining stations in Agni’s atmosphere for maintenance visits.

  We landed gently on platform three, as ordered, the belly jets kicking up sprays of burning sulfur powder deposited there by the volcano. Dog killed the ship’s field generator and the local gravity kicked in with an almost euphoric lightness, maybe a third of a standard gee. I was careful not to spring up too quickly when I removed my flight harness, not wanting to fetch up against the overhead like some greenhorn who’d never been anywhere but a space station before.

  “Docking umbilical is raising up out of the platform,” Dog said.

  “Don’t talk,” I warned Beckett. “They’re going to be suspicious enough, so let’s keep it simple. I’m a bounty hunter, because I can’t hide my ship registration. You’re Rebecca Mitchell and you’re apprenticing with me. We were attacked by raiders in orbit around Morrigan and jumped here out of desperation. Got it?”

  She nodded, but that wasn’t going to be enough under the circumstances.

  “No, repeat it back to me,” I insisted.

  “I’m Rebecca Mitchell,” she said, “your apprentice. We got attacked by raiders at Morrigan and jumped here by accident.”

  Something was sparkling in her eyes, something I hadn’t seen in them before. It might have been hope. I didn’t bother telling her it was premature. Let her enjoy it while she can.

  When the inner airlock opened, the three of us were lined up waiting for it like we were posing for a family portrait, trying to look as innocent and harmless as possible. The three, armed security guards who emerged from the lock didn’t seem as if they were buying it.

  “Whose ship is this?” their leader demanded, glancing back and forth between Beckett and me, beady, dark eyes sheltered under brows that might have come straight from his Neanderthal ancestors. He hadn’t drawn his blaster, but his hand rested on it, forefinger tapping against the polymer of the holster. “BramCo Mineral Acquisitions Security Police” was stenciled onto his body armor along with what looked like sergeant’s stripes, but there was no name tag to go with it.

  Dog whined slightly, as if he was insulted not to be included in the question, but I silenced him with a nudge of my toe.

  “I’m Grant Masterson,” I sa
id, offering the man a hand. He ignored it and I shrugged, withdrawing both the hand and any good will I might have extended along with it. “I’m the owner and pilot of the Charietto.” I motioned towards Beckett. “This is my apprentice, Rebecca Mitchell.”

  “What the hell kind of name is that for a ship, anyway?” That wasn’t Neanderthal, it was one of his subordinates, a skinny fellow nearly two meters tall, who I guessed had been raised on a lower-gravity world. Neanderthal glared at him for talking out of turn, but I went ahead and answered the question, anyway.

  “Charietto was a bounty hunter,” I explained. “One of the first. He was a German who worked for the Romans back around the 4th Century on Earth. Barbarians kept crossing the Rhine river to raid the local towns, so Charietto got a bunch of his friends together and hunted them down, killed them, cut off their heads and took them back to the Romans for the reward.”

  The thin man stared at me wide-eyed, as if the story had horrified him, but didn’t risk another disapproving glare from Neanderthal for talking again.

  “Our scans confirm your damage,” Neanderthal said curtly. He still hadn’t offered a name, so I was just going to keep thinking of him as Neanderthal until he did. “They also show it looks like blaster fire caused it. Who shot at you? Was it the Navy?”

  “The Navy wouldn’t have any reason to shoot at us,” I assured him. “It was raiders. We tried to call the Navy for help, actually, but I got spooked when they damaged us and jumped away to the closest preprogrammed route I had in navigation, which was here.”

  Neanderthal grunted with obvious skepticism, and the sound seemed to go well with his looks.

  “Is that a dog?” he asked, staring at Dog.

  No, genius, it’s an aardvark.

  “He’s a robot. Basic K-9 apprehension unit,” I expounded. “He’s programmed to restrain without harming and obey a few simple commands.”

  Except shut up. He never obeyed that one.

  Neanderthal seemed to consider it all, trying to wrap his brain around our story and the facts he knew and come up with something sufficiently officious and paranoid without actually breaking the laws about helping damaged ships affect repairs.

  “This is what’s going to happen,” he declared, finally. “You’re all coming into the base and you’re going to stay in one of the public areas where we allow visitors. If you have any weapons, you’re to leave them here. No personal weapons are allowed in the facility. Our techs will board your ship and see if we can repair the damage to your drive. If we can’t, we’ll give you enough fuel and food to reach the next public station in the belt.”

  I shaped a silent whistle.

  “That’d be like a forty-day trip one-way with the sublight engines,” I calculated. I tried to put a little desperation into my voice. “I sure hope you can fix the hyperdrive.”

  “That’s not my job,” Neanderthal said without much sympathy. He motioned back at the lock. “Get inside. You’ll be scanned before you’re allowed out of the docking area, so don’t try sneaking any contraband in with you.” He turned to the tall man. “Officer Pruitt, you stay here and wait for the techs. I’ll take Jones with me and escort the…guests inside.”

  He’d been about to say “prisoners,” I’d have been willing to bet.

  “Right, sure thing.” Pruitt offered Neanderthal a casual salute, earning yet another dirty look.

  The guy just couldn’t win.

  The public area reminded me a lot of the terminal of a commercial spaceport: uncomfortable furniture, boring entertainment programs running on a loop in the buggy, poorly-maintained holographic displays, and overpriced soy products masquerading as food in the vending machines. The only difference was, there weren’t ten thousand other ill-tempered travelers waiting with us.

  “Stay here,” Neanderthal had told us, just in case we’d missed it the first time. “The doors require base ID to get through, so if you need anything, call security on the intercom.” He’d pointed to a panel on the wall near the sealed hatch into the rest of the base. “There’s food, water, bathrooms, everything you need in here. They’ll call you when they figure out if your drive can be repaired, so don’t bother us unless it’s an emergency.”

  I’d rewarded him with a bland smile and an even blander reassurance.

  “Don’t worry, you won’t even know we’re here.”

  And I hoped I hadn’t been lying to him.

  “Dog, we close?”

  Dog had his front paws draped over the public data terminal, looking for all the world as if he were about to start humping it. He had to establish a physical link to the terminal because a wireless connection would have been more easily detected…at least, that’s what he always told me. What I know about cracking computer encryption could fit in the operating system for an electric toothbrush.

  “Closer if you stop distracting me.”

  Which was a lie. He could talk just fine while penetrating a network. He just liked making me wait.

  “Isn’t someone going to notice this?” Beckett asked, glancing around nervously as if she could find the security cameras hidden in the walls or ceiling.

  “Notice what?” I wondered. “A robot dog acting like a real dog? It’s how most of them are programmed.”

  “I wouldn’t know, I could never afford a robot pet. When I was a kid in Absolution, we had real pets. A German shepherd and a tomcat. Why the hell do people want robot dogs?”

  “Places like the Panicle and the Paragon, space colonies, the taxes and quarantine fees for importing live animals make them too expensive for most people.” I explained, trying very hard not to sound condescending. Not everyone had the same life experience I did. “Robots are cheaper and they don’t carry diseases, or shed, or poop on the floor.”

  “Unless you piss us off,” Dog added. “Put your ‘link on the data terminal, meatsack.”

  He was speaking in a low enough tone that anyone listening on a security monitor would have trouble telling his voice from ours, but I still winced, feeling paranoid. I put my ‘link on the flat, glowing data terminal, which would automatically charge it as well as letting it update its settings. A red light began flashing on the display screen, indicating it was receiving an update, then turned green with completion. Dog sat back down on his haunches with a look of self-satisfaction.

  “Now you have clearance anywhere on Hanuman these rent-a-cop wannabes do,” he told me. I picked up the ‘link, staring at it for a second as if I could tell the difference. “Also,” Dog added, “I fed their security cameras a simulated video loop I put together showing the two of you sitting around, going to the head, etc.…” He cocked an ear. “They’ll figure it out eventually, but it should give us a couple hours.”

  “Then let’s not waste it.” I headed for the door, waving at the two of them to follow.

  I had done dumber things in my life, of that I was sure. But at the moment, I just couldn’t think of one.

  Chapter Nine

  The hatch to the restricted sections of the base was thick and imposing, grey metal with officious warnings plastered across it telling us the penalties for unauthorized entry. I held my ‘link up to the ID plate mounted on the wall beside it and waited, wondering if today would finally be the day Dog screwed up. A heavy, scraping clank from a metal bolt sliding out of its housing answered with a resounding “no.” I replaced the ‘link on its belt clip and nodded at Dog before I grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. I wasn’t armed and hadn’t wanted to take the chance they’d have good enough scanners to pick up a blaster in Dog’s hidden compartment, so he was the best weapon we had right now. Though I wouldn’t have admitted it to him.

  The passage on the other side of the door was dimly lit and unoccupied, for which I murmured profound thanks to a God I hadn’t spoken to much the last couple years. I wouldn’t have put it past Neanderthal to leave a guard outside the door, but maybe he figured it was a waste of personnel. I knew they couldn’t have too many security guards here—t
he expense of housing and feeding them would have been hard to justify to corporate. Maybe ten or twelve, tops, I figured, and half those off-shift at the moment.

  The tunnel went down about thirty meters before it split in two. I shot Dog a questioning look and he sighed his exasperation and led us off to the left.

  “It’s on your damned ‘link,” he told me as he passed by.

  “And maybe I don’t want to be caught staring at my ‘link if trouble pops up.”

  “Do you two always argue like this?” Beckett asked me. I’d been a bit worried about her rabbiting on us, but she was sticking to me like a covalent bond and she nearly ran into me when I paused to turn back to her.

  “You can back up just a little, Ms. Beckett,” I said, cocking an eyebrow. “I promise I ain’t gonna run off and leave you.”

  “Sorry.” She held back a step as I kept walking, following Dog, who hadn’t stopped and was casting an annoyed glance back at us.

  “And to answer your question, yes, we always argue just like this. Dog says it’s an inevitable result of him being forced into subservience to an inferior intellect. I personally think he’s just bored.”

  “Why not both?” Dog suggested.

  The corridor wound further to the left and took us to a ramp heading downward. Stairs weren’t necessary in the low gravity here and ramps were much easier to build. Dog scampered down the thirty-degree slope easily while the two of us followed at a more sedate pace. Falling would hurt less here, too, but I didn’t want to put the physics to the test personally.

  There were hatchways set on either side of the passage, some of them little more than cheap, plastic doors plainly marked as storage closets or bathrooms while others were airlocks connected to other cylindrical corridors leading to the other domes. Dog ignored them all, so I did too, except for a longing look at the bathroom. I should have gone before we left the ship. I’d barely had the thought when Dog sprinted to his right, straight for one of the storage rooms.