by Zack Jordan
“Tell them kind of,” whispers Ace in her ear, feeding her the information they’ve been poring over together. “Recently, anyway.”
“Article one hundred five,” reads Sarya. “Paragraph nineteen. In the Event of Shipowner Death.”
Roche’s lenses lose focus for a moment. “Ah, yes,” he says. “I remember being on the receiving end of this one.”
“Really?” says Mer, picking his teeth. “How did that work?”
“Not well,” says Roche. “It’s heavily weighted against the deceased. I was forced to purchase my own ship back, just because I spent a few days legally dead. And I ask you: is that fair?”
“Honestly, yeah,” says Mer, scratching himself. “It sounds pretty fair.”
“All right,” says Roche, turning back to Sarya. “Let’s assume the ship is available to us, free and clear. Given this, what business would you propose?”
Here it goes, step two. “We have a hold full of water ice,” Sarya says, barely weaving in her seat on the floor. “Heavy water ice. Seven hundred tons of frozen deuterium oxide, according to the manifest. And all that heavy water is suddenly more valuable—at least in the short term—because Watertower is ions.” The old Sarya would not have gotten through that sentence without choking up. Whether because time has passed or because she has half a Widow wedged in her brain, she barely even feels its passage now.
“Speaking of cold,” murmurs Roche.
She takes a breath: now for step three. “So we sell it,” she says. “We take that money, and we buy Network passage. We leave this solar system and we don’t look back.”
Roche tilts his head to one side. “Do you have a destination in mind?”
Another breath. “There are millions of possibilities,” she says. “Plenty of places to earn a living. But first,” she adds, almost like it’s an afterthought: “The Blackstar.”
The other two stare at her.
“The Network Station?” says Mer. “The big one?”
I’m on every Network Station in the sector, echoes a memory in her mind. “The big one,” she says. “We have to pass it anyway. Why not take a look around?”
“Normally one does not dock with a Blackstar,” says Roche. “One waves as one passes by.”
“Tourist traps,” agrees Mer. “For rich tourists.”
“We can buy a new cargo there,” Sarya says. “And we can take it anywhere we want. Our Blackstar services a hundred million cubic lightyears. That’s eight hundred Networked solar systems, all branching off that one station. Can you imagine the business, just in our sector? We were lucky enough to stumble into ship ownership, friends. Let’s not squander it.”
She halts, here at the end of her presentation, slightly out of breath. She glances from one face to the other, trying to judge their reactions.
“That was good,” whispers Ace in her ears. “I see you changed the last sentence from your rehearsals.”
Mer clinks a talon against his teeth and performs what her unit tells her is a [shrug]. “I like it,” he says.
“Roche?” Sarya prompts.
“Excellent presentation,” says Roche. “A well thought out plan.”
Sarya feels a rush of relief. “Great,” she says. “Then we’ll plan on—”
“There’s only one problem,” says Roche. “The owner of the ship is not dead.”
Sarya stares at him. She has not rehearsed anything for this particular objection. “Hood is…alive?” she says. She makes a sound that she is startled to realize is laughter. “Oh no,” she says. “Last I saw him, he was definitely dead. Even if he wasn’t when I left him, Watertower is—”
“Hood is not the owner,” says Roche, and now her Network unit has inserted a glimmering [amusement] next to his lenses.
She feels her stomach sink; what did she miss? “Who is?” she says.
And now Roche doesn’t even bother to hide his [laughter]. “Sandy is,” he says.
Sandy is in her cabin when the Human comes to see her. She’s been awaiting it for days—it takes forever for twos to get around to accomplishing anything, even when they’re not almost dead—but is still startled when the notification appears in her mind.
[Door], says her helper intelligence.
[Open], she tells it in return.
The Human stands there, rank in the stained utility suit it has insisted on wearing since it arrived on board. It’s ridiculous. Everyone on this ship knows its species; why insist on hiding its anatomy? It is also injured. It stands under its own power, but barely; Sandy can tell it’s doing everything it can to remain upright.
“Hi,” says the Human.
Sandy cannot hear the words but she can read the simple Standard in its mouth movements and feel its voice vibrate her fur. She watches the Human sway in the doorway, clutching the frame with the android’s hand. Its eyes do what Sandy expected them to; they flicker over Sandy’s own body, over her cabin, and finally come to rest on the object hanging on the wall. They widen, which surely means the same thing as it does for Sandy’s species. Sandy waits a carefully measured moment for the Human to drink it in…and there’s the sudden tightening of facial muscles she was waiting for.
[Hello], says Sandy.
The Human doesn’t reply immediately. Sandy waits, watching it stare at the thing on her wall. It’s fascinating: you can actually see its glacial thought processes lumbering up to speed. That’s one thing she misses about the academy; say what you will about her classmates, but at least they were sufficiently high-tier for a decent conversation. The Human probably barely clears a two. If this were one of her classmates darkening her doorway, the visit would have been over by now. For every Network symbol that was spoken, a dozen would have been understood. A tier two, if it saw Sandy communicating with a fellow high-tier, would think it barely a conversation at all.
I understand you own the ship, the Human will say in a moment, in its ponderous way, when it has managed to tear its eyes away from what Sandy has hanging on her wall.
I do, Sandy will reply. What will go unsaid, and yet will be understandable to even a two, is that this makes the Human a guest. It has no more right to its cabin than it does to the food bars it’s been metabolizing or the oxygen it’s been consuming. This is Sandy’s ship, and those are gifts. The Human, and the other two, are no more than passengers.
I have a proposal, the Human will say next. It will attempt to hide its anger, but Sandy already knows that it is sullen and irate. It is a Human with Widow memories and more than a touch of Widow nature. Sandy’s research has shown her that this could be a potent combination. Take a Human’s inflated sense of self, its lack of respect for boundaries and order. Combine that with a Widow’s hunter focus, weaponized rage, and love of violence. Blend well, and you get this thing standing in Sandy’s doorway. This Human has its own goals, and it wants to make its own decisions to get there. It wants control of its own destiny. However, it has yet to learn one very important lesson. In this galaxy, no one has control of their own destiny. Go ahead, Human. Ask that thing on the wall you’re so fascinated with: did he have control of his own destiny?
No, would say Hood’s spare faceplate, fastened to Sandy’s wall through two of its four eyeholes. I did not.
The bounty hunter had not realized that he was subject to the whims of higher minds, and he was easily a full tenth of a tier above this Human. His death on Watertower became inevitable over a Standard year ago, before he ever met Sandy. It was decided at the academy, the night Sandy’s chief rival visited her dorm to gloat.
[Hello, Sandonivas], said her rival, crouched in her doorway. [I assume you’ve seen the scores?] Her rival was a mere two-nine. That meant her statements were simpler than Sandy’s, but still must be sifted for meaning. What this particular sentence meant was: There is now documentation of what both of us already knew: I’m better than you
.
[I haven’t had time], said Sandy in return. What she meant was: I don’t care about the scores any more than I care about you.
[I am First Student], said her rival, smugly. What she meant was: Of course you care. You care that it will be me going to the exhibitions and not you. I—and not you—will represent the shining pinnacle of what the academy—and our species!—can accomplish. I will be honored, I will be feasted, I will be allowed free travel anywhere in the Network. A hundred years from now, when our class has matured, I will be given a mate and you will not. That is because you, Sandonivas, are in second place. I am First Student, and you are not.
[I wish you luck], said Sandy. What she meant was exactly what she said.
A year later, to the day, Sandy was awakened from her mandated afternoon nap by an urgent message. The academy’s prized First Student had experienced a bit of bad fortune: she had been injured by an overzealous sanitation station, of all things. As Second Student, it was Sandy’s duty to travel to the exhibition in her place. But as Sandy found when she arrived at the dock, her rival was not the only one experiencing some bad luck.
[How could this happen?] demanded her handler of the dock intelligence. It was generally agreed that Sandy had the worst handler in the academy: petty, low-tier (two-point-three), and always shouting. Xe was shouting now, jabbing a bony limb once for every word. [We had this ship reserved fifty days ago! We launch in two hours or you will be collecting scrap for the rest of your existence.]
[You reserved a ship], returned the dock intelligence (a one-nine) coldly. [You did not reserve a pilot intelligence. The only one available today is cleared for that ship.] It highlighted the ship in question, a small four-passenger at the edge of the dock. [If you still wish to launch today, you may. I have one window remaining, in twenty-four minutes.]
[Oh yes, we’ll go in that thing], said her handler. Xe stamped a bony foot. [Are you an idiot? What will the other academies think?]
[Hopefully not what I’m thinking right now], replied the dock intelligence. [Take a window in twenty-four minutes, or in four days.]
Her handler wasted two of those minutes screaming further, but the dock intelligence was implacable. Xe dragged Sandy to the ship in question and spent two more minutes whittling the First Student escort from twenty down to three—including xerself. Sandy watched innocently as the irate messages went out. But when the launch window arrived, the other two did not show.
[An elevator malfunction?] shrieked her handler with less than a minute to go. And then, as the launch warning began flashing: [I will not miss this exhibition. We shall go alone, the two of us.]
The handler did not ask Sandy her opinion. No one ever did.
But the run of luck that began with her rival’s injury did not cease. The second day of the voyage, her handler was scandalized to learn that the ship, the one the academy had seen fit to give xer, had missed its last maintenance entirely. Due to several uncaught issues, said the pilot intelligence, the ship required emergency service.
[How could this happen?] demanded her handler again.
[Things happen], said the pilot intelligence. [But we can still make it to the exhibition. The next waystation is tiny, but the caretaker says he can fit us in.]
[Oh, how fortunate], snapped her handler. [See if he can get us another pilot intelligence as well.]
The approach was uneventful—if you don’t count the ceaseless pacing and muttering of her handler. Sandy stayed out of the way, making herself as small as she could. As the ship came to rest in the cramped hangar, she opened a food bar as quietly as possible.
But it was not quiet enough for her handler. [Must you eat so loudly?] xe demanded as xe paced.
[I’m sorry], Sandy said, chewing so gently that she was making almost no progress on the bar.
[Of course you’re sorry!] cried the handler, ripping the bar from her paws and hurling it to the floor. [You are sorry, my associates are sorry, every intelligence I’ve had to deal with in the past two days is sorry. Your whole goddamn stinking species is sorry. How does sorry help me?]
[Hey, here comes the station keeper], said the pilot intelligence, clearly trying to defuse the situation. [What are the odds he’d be the same species as the little one?]
[Oh, is he?] said Sandy’s handler, whirling away. [Then I have something to say to him as well.]
It was at this exact moment that Sandy began to choke. She pointed, with every paw, to the lump of food bar lodged in her throat. Her many eyes opened and closed in desperation as she thrashed off her seat and onto the floor.
[Oh, no, you don’t, you little furball!] cried her handler, forgetting the keeper and turning back to her with sudden ferocity. Xe lifted her bodily and turned her upside down, as if xe would shake the obstruction from her windpipe. [You will die when I say so—and not a moment sooner!]
[Be gentle!] cried the pilot intelligence. [You’ll hurt her!]
Thus it was that when the hatch hissed open, the scene inside the four-passenger ship was one of violence. A two-meter-tall stick of a being held a tiny bundle of fur and eyes aloft, shaking her and swearing, while the ship itself cried for peace. And in witness, standing on the landing ramp, was the waystation keeper.
This was just bad luck for Sandy’s handler. Xe had only worked with a very select group of Sandy’s people, and was unfamiliar with the diversity of the species. There were those few who were bred for intelligence, the Thinkers: small, fragile, weak in everything but mind. But then, there were others bred toward vastly different goals. For example: the two-hundred-fifty-kilo mass of muscle, talons, teeth, and killer instincts who had just glimpsed a member of his own people being violently abused.
[Sorry about that], said the Strongarm (tier one-nine) a few seconds later, as he licked the handler’s blood out of her fur. [I saw what xe was doing to you and I just—I don’t know what happened. Instincts took over, I guess.]
Sandy shivered and drew herself into a ball. Her coughing had disappeared without a trace but her trembling, if anything, had increased. She lifted her eyes to the Strongarm’s, fighting with every scrap of her self-control to keep her true emotions out of her gaze. She had prepared for this moment for a long time, rehearsed it even; it would be a pity to ruin it with a face full of self-satisfaction.
[Oh, thank the Network], said Sandy. [I was so frightened.]
[Don’t mention it], said the keeper. [I’m Mer, by the way.]
Sandy’s rival: tier two-point-nine. Sandy’s handler: tier two-three. The handful of loaders, maintenance drones, cleaners, and the sanitation station: tier one-seven, on average. Mer the Strongarm: one-nine. Roche the android, Hood the Red Merchant, and finally this Human that stands in her doorway now, shaking like it’s going to fall apart: low twos, all of them. A year of good and bad fortune, divvied up among these lower intelligences. All of them witnessed it, most of them noted it, yet not one imagined that there was no luck at all. That they were each, obliviously and in their own small way, contributing to the goal of a higher intelligence.
They were helping a seven-year-old tier three run away from home.
Luck is not magic. It’s nothing but hidden strings and planning. The Networked galaxy has holes in it, it has give, it has blind spots and unregulated spaces. It is not difficult to teach a sanitation station or an elevator a new trick, any more than it is to distract a maintenance crew or confuse a scheduling intelligence. Getting someone a job at a waystation—even if it requires an accident to remove his predecessor—takes no more than patience, preparation, and knowledge of the Network. The galaxy is more dense with minds than it is with technology, and those minds have this in common: they do not look upward. When a high-tier accomplishes the most basic feat of manipulation, a low-tier shakes its head and calls it luck.
That’s if they notice anything at all.
Like this Human, who sta
nds in her cabin doorway and stares at Hood’s faceplate with confusion written all over its smooth and nearly eyeless face. Its low-tier mind is formulating a theory right now, trying to explain to itself why Sandy would have a bounty hunter’s faceplate pinned to her wall. The Human will wonder, over the next few days, what that was about. It will add to Sandy’s high-tier mystique in the Human’s mind. And when Sandy needs it, it will be there.
Sandy watches the Human, her annoyance building. It’s been in her room for nearly three seconds, and it hasn’t said another word. That’s it. It had its chance for conversation. Time to impress.
[I have already sold my cargo], says Sandy. [All of it], she adds significantly.
The Human’s eyes turn to hers. Its mouth opens slowly, as if its owner is now unsure what to do with it. Somewhere in its feeble mind, it is now realizing that Sandy is many steps ahead of it. It does not have a plan for this eventuality. It probably constructed vague plans for two or three branches of potential conversation: one if Sandy seemed reluctant, one if Sandy was generous, and so on. It had no plan labeled if Sandy is smarter, faster, and better than me in every way.
[You are welcome to come with me], continues Sandy. [I am meeting my first buyer before we leave this solar system, and the second on the Blackstar. Between the two of them, they have spoken for all the cargo on my ship.]
The Human’s mouth closes slowly: so embarrassingly, nauseatingly slowly. Sandy watches the emotion spread over that furless face, soon to be followed by confusion when the Human realizes it’s been outsmarted, yet is getting exactly what it wanted after all.
“Well, that was easy,” says the Human.
Sandy blinks a smile. [Sometimes you get lucky], she says.
“Mornin’, partners!” says a raspy voice from the galley ceiling, in an accent Sarya has never heard before. “Pilot intelligence Ol’ Ernie here, he/him etcetera, independent, two-seven, yadda yadda, nice t’ meet y’all. We’ll be gettin’ to know each other until y’all’s Network transfer slot, which is in…let’s see…four days. Hooboy, on a budget, are we? Shoulda known when I met y’all’s ship intelligence—don’t talk much, does it? Well, that’s all right; I talk plenty.”
