“Yes, Dr. Eiden,” says the soothing voice of the AI Synthia. “Added to your exobiology notes, filed under category: Visited Planets, Aldrin Independent Colony. However, I must point out this task is better suited to an L-2 assistant. Your access to me is nearing its monthly limit.”
“So it is,” says the man, whom Karli now realizes is the wealthy tycoon she’s come to meet. “But I do so enjoy our chats; I can’t help myself.” Dr. Eiden is on all fours herding the four-legged beetle around with his laser pointer. “Fascinating carapace…”
“It’s called a quaddy,” Karli says. Her voice sounds loud and brash to her own ears. “The bug you’re looking at.”
Eiden stands up and faces her, pushing a pair of bifocals up the bridge of his nose. “Ah. You must be Karli Hart. Very good.”
“It appears your hyperlight call has begun, Doctor,” Synthia says. “I will take my leave.”
“A pleasure as always, my dear.”
“Goodnight, Dr. Eiden. Goodnight, Karli Hart.” There’s a soft beep, indicating a disconnected line.
“Charmed, indeed,” says Eiden, his virtual self stepping up to her. “I’m Dr. Aaron Eiden, Professor, and Engineer of Closed Systems Habitat Design. CEO and founder of Eiden Architectural.”
“Karli Hart. Hydroponic…um…farmer.” Karli runs a hand through her hair and nearly pulls out her barrette. She feels immediately silly. And nervous. She wonders how she wound up lying to her father and sneaking off to a secret meeting with a trillionaire. What am I doing?
Eiden smiles warmly and walks toward his desk. The projection of the office scrolls along with him, giving Karli the feeling of being pulled along. “Farmer, eh? My father was a rancher in Wyoming. Capruans revere farmers. Vital profession on a planet with a two-week night.” He takes up a tall porcelain teapot with a blue floral pattern and fills a cup. A slot opens in the wall to Karli’s right, revealing an identical cup already filled. The earthy smell of tea rises in the air. “Won’t you join me in a spot of tea?”
Karli’s never liked tea—it tastes bland. Not wanting to be rude, she grabs the teacup and takes a sip. Ugh—like it was brewed from weeds. “Hard to believe you came all the way from Earth. A trip like that used to take decades. Those new catapult stations must be something.”
“Hmm.” Eiden stirs sugar into his cup with the care of a surgeon. “Even so, I think I spend more years in the darkness between stars than I do in their light. Will you take one lump or two?” He points to a dish of sugar in the slot where she found her tea.
She spoons in four.
“A fellow sweet tooth.” Eiden smiles.
She drinks too fast and splutters hot tea down her chin. “Sorry. I’m, um, a little nervous. I don’t usually do things like this.”
“Quite all right. My associate, Lieutenant Treadaway, tells me you have something for me?”
“Oh, right. The KitBot.” Karli sets the cup on the saucer. She digs through her satchel until she feels the smooth dorsal and ventral shells of the drone, the mechanical contours between, and the cluster of lenses on its face. Her finger finds the power button, and there’s a musical series of tones. The drone zips out of her bag, whirring like a mini fan. It flaps its upper and lower plates like beetle wings.
“Welcome to KitBot 4.0,” says the drone in a peppy girl’s voice. “I’m Kitty—your virtual assistant and shopaholic bestie! To select a new name and personalize my heuristics, open the KitBot app on your Bangl and tap ‘settings.’”
Eiden’s mouth falls open. He stares at the drone like he’s seen a ghost. His hands tremble as he sets down his tea. “KitBot, play last recorded video file.”
“You got it, Sam!” The drone buzzes up to Eiden and manifests a screen in front of him.
Karli sees the reverse side of the image as the video plays.
A pretty 12-year-old girl sits on a small bed in a starship cabin. The camera shakes as she turns on the KitBot, then steadies as she lets it float away. “Kitty, go higher.”
The shot gets wider, revealing a girl with fine things all around her—the latest holobook computer, suitcases overflowing with cosmetics, and a smart-skin Bangl that mimics the appearance of diamond-encrusted bracelets.
“So, Papa, our ship finally docked with a LANCE drive. We’ll be breaking the light barrier soon, so this is the last video out for a couple months. It’s scary leaving the Sol System. I’ll miss my old school on Earth, but I’m so excited to see Ikiru and all your new buildings. I can’t wait to meet my first exo-species! Capruan girls are so good at fashion.”
As the video plays, a redness creeps into Eiden’s nose and gaunt cheeks. His brow trembles then collapses. Tears run down his face as the girl tells about her day on a starship, her excitement of seeing the city-stations in space, and her latest song demo. Karli looks away, feeling as if she’s intruded on a private moment.
“Kitty, get a look out the window for Papa!”
“Sure thing, Bestie,” says the drone.
The camera finds a deep portal in the wall, which looks out toward a breathtaking vista of the planet Saturn. The bands of golden clouds and the razor-thin rings encircling the planet gleam in the light of a tiny Sun. The great circular engines of the ship bisect the image. In the foreground, little airships drift between the enormous metal struts of the LANCE module.
“Isn’t it beautiful, Papa?” says Marysa. “I still hate to be leaving Stockholm. But after seeing this…” She turns a beautiful smile toward the camera. “I guess maybe…it’s not so bad. I still want the grav-treads you promised. Okay, love you, and I’ll vid you when I get to the next system.”
The video closes, and the drone buzzes away. Eiden clears his throat and pulls off his glasses. After a moment to wipe away the tears, he slides them back on. “You must forgive me. I thought Marysa’s video lost.”
“Marysa, that’s your daughter?” Karli asks.
“Yes. The KitBot was a present—to soften the blow when I moved our family away from Earth. She would have been your age by now.”
Would have been? Karli feels a rush of vertigo as realization sinks in. All this time, she’s been carrying the drone of a girl who passed away. More than repairing a broken toy, all her work had been to restore a daughter’s final message to her father. Her heart aches for Eiden, and she fights back the tears. “I’m glad I could get the bot working again. And I’m really sorry about your daughter, Dr. Eiden. But…” Karli swallows hard. “I don’t know if I feel right accepting what you paid me for the repairs. And I can’t figure why you’d want to meet me like this. I don’t usually do this kind of thing, you know.”
“No, I don’t imagine,” says Eiden, still scraping tears from the corners of his eyes. “All the same, I’m pleased you made the journey.”
“Least I could do, I guess.”
“And you are right. The fee I paid you is far out of proportion to your achievement. In fact, you did what all my finest programmers and technicians could not. And in the doing, you gave me a gift beyond all price.”
Karli realizes that she’s spinning the empty teacup on a bank of controls and quickly shoves it back into the dispenser. “Wow. That’s awful nice of you to say.”
“I offer no platitudes, Karli. Only the truth. That is the reason I have asked you here. To grant you something priceless in return.”
“Aw, gee…” Karli runs fingers through her hair. “You don’t have to…”
“That bracelet.” Eiden points to her wrist. “It indicates terminal Morphoplast Rampancy Syndrome, does it not?”
Karli’s hand instinctively moves to cover the bracelet. “Uh…yeah. I guess.”
“When will your symptoms present?”
Every fiber of Karli wants to flee the room. But something in the man’s unwavering pale blue eyes holds her in place. As if by his sheer will. She hangs her head. “I’m stage 4. Doctors say I got a year, maybe two, before I start dissolving from the inside out.” She snif
fs back a tear.
“Someone you loved suffered that fate.”
Karli nods.
“I know all too well. Which is why I intend to offer you an alternative. I intend to offer you a cure.”
Karli’s head shoots up. “A cure? But there is no cure.”
“There wasn’t. Eiden stands as calm and confident as ever in his airship study. “Until recently, that is, when my colleagues and I found one.”
“But how?” Karli’s heart begins to race, both at the excitement of the prospect and the fear it’s all too good to be true. “The government says a cure is years away, and anyone saying otherwise is running a scam.”
“I don’t work for the Earth Concordat. I do this work on behalf of all Humanity. Let me show you.”
The industrial tycoon walks over to the holograms on his coffee table. He waves his hand over the wireframe buildings. The projections vanish, replaced by a model of a ship. Four long modules are interconnected at right angles, with intricate dishes, fuel tanks, and power coils dotting the hull. Near the stern, there’s a strange spherical module just forward of the engine core. A sleek nose cone with sloping windows forms the bow. “This is the CMS McKinney Steward, in orbit of Aldrin right now. She operates in independent space, where the ICCAP party’s edicts can’t restrict our research.”
As Karli marvels at the ship, she can’t deny her inner gearhead. Two hydroponic domes. Four airship landers. A quad fusion-torch drive. An orbital-drop habitat. This thing must be huge. Still, something Eiden said nags at her. “Isn’t that illegal? To hide from ICAAP like that?”
The pixels shimmer in the projection of Eiden’s glasses. “I am a doctor, Karli. I concern myself with what is possible. The progress of mankind. Questions of legality I leave to the lawyers. What matters is that aboard this ship, there is a cure.”
“But…how do you know?”
“We call it the Perseus Morphoplast. It acts like an antibody against the malignant morphos. Our live tissue experiments have yielded a 99.6% success rate. We know our treatment works. Human trials are a mere formality. I am offering you a trip on the McKinney Steward, and freedom from your disease. The freedom to live your life and pursue your love of mechanical things.”
For a moment, she can feel Eiden’s eyes on her, but she keeps her stare on Kitty. The drone is sweeping Eiden’s bookshelves with a thin wedge of pink light. Yes! I’ll go! Something in Karli stops her from blurting out these words. She thinks of the papers she signed. The words of the document loom over her like shadows in the night. “…under penalty of perjury, I Karli Hart, hereby agree…”
“But these new morphos of yours are experimental,” Karli says. “My family already signed papers with the government. If I go into self-quarantine, my family gets free meds and 200 cubic meters on the quarantine station. I leave on an ICCAP ship tomorrow. If I break the deal, my family could go to jail.”
“No great achievement comes without risk,” Eiden replies. “The captain of the McKinney is in Port Macclesfield, preparing to break orbit tomorrow. If you get there by 8am, he can take you with him.”
“Macclesfield?” Karli cries. “That’s 500 kilometers northeast, across the Salt Flats. That’s a long journey…by myself. And I don’t even have a vehicle.”
“Find one. Forge a path.”
“But…what if I can’t? I’ve never even been away from home for much over a day.”
Eiden takes off his bifocals and rubs them on his sweater. He thinks for a moment, then puts them back on. “Karli, you are the progeny of spacefarers. Your ancestors left Earth and plunged into the black, knowing they could not return. Their journey across the stars took generations. They brought life to this barren world. The blood of the bold flows in your veins.” Eiden looks up through his airship windows. “You belong among undiscovered wonders. But to reach the stars, as your ancestors well knew, it is we who must rise.”
Karli follows his eyes upwards. She thinks of summer nights long ago, on the barn rooftop with her brother Ty. They would look up at the constellations, calling them out to each other—the Old Woman and the Pail, the Cowboy and His Dog, the Chu Nine-Phoenix. Beautiful characters traced in starlight, never seen by Earthborns. The offer is all the more tempting for the promise to see them up close.
It’s overwhelming. No one in Karli’s life has ever offered her such a break. Or shown her so much…faith. She blushes from the embarrassment. Her heart pounds from the terrifying realization that she wants this more than anything. “I’ve always wondered what the stars look like when you’re flying faster than light.”
“It’s a sight you never forget.”
“I know you can do it, Bestie!” The drone displays an old-timey poster of a woman in a headscarf flexing her bicep.
The wealthy engineer and the farm-raised mechanic share a smile.
Cam’s face comes to mind, along with Karli’s promise to him.
“If you go back to sleep, I’ll bring you banana pancakes in the morning.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Eiden,” Karli says. “I just can’t risk it. My brothers need this ICCAP deal. I’ll make sure you get the drone back.”
Eiden’s brows pinch. It’s clear he’s disappointed, but he says, “No need, Karli. Keep the bot. Marysa would be happy to know Kitty found a loving home.”
“Thank you, Dr. Eiden. You’ve shown me kindness like I’ve never had around here, and I won’t forget that.”
“Ooh! Good-feels selfie!” The drone buzzes between them. It flips around, emits a flash, then animates a holographic cat jumping under a rain of confetti. A moment later, a picture of Karli and holographic Eiden appears, each of them caught with puzzled expressions. “Let’s take the best of five. Your Starnet socials are at zero likes, Bestie. NOT GOOD. Say chuckles!”
“Bot, sleep mode,” Karli commands.
The drone pipes a few tones and settles into her backpack. Karli and Eiden share a laugh.
“What the hell is going on here?” says the voice of Jake Hart.
Karli turns around to find her father storming into the comm booth. He’s only wearing his work pants and undershirt.
“Ah, where are my manners,” says the soft-spoken engineer. “Dr. Aaron Eiden.”
“Daddy, I did some work for him,” Karli says.
“Stay out of this, Sparks.” Jake turns a glare on Eiden. “I don’t give a damn who the Hell you are or what scummy rat-filled Earth city you crawled out of. I want to know what you were doing on a vid call alone with my daughter.”
Karli looks from her father to Eiden in stunned mortification. She’s so embarrassed by her dad’s rudeness, she considers running away—if only she could unfreeze her feet.
There’s the briefest pause as Eiden meets Jake’s eyes. To Karli’s amazement, there’s no anger in the brilliant doctor’s expression, nor fear, nor offense. Only the slightest crease in his brows, as if he’s calmly considering his reply. Then Eiden says, “Closing a sale.”
“Closing a sale?” parrots Jake, blinking.
“Yes.” Eiden slips his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “I understand you’ve had a run of bad luck selling your crops. As it happens, one of my vessels is on your colony provisioning for a journey of several lightyears. Your daughter was kind enough to offer a fair market price, and I’m pleased to say I’ve acquired the lot.”
“The lot?” Jake’s eyes dart from Eiden to Karli and back again, face frozen in a frown. “Of my crops? Which ones?”
“All of them.”
Now it’s Karli’s turn to look slack-jawed at Eiden.
“I don’t…” Jake shakes his head. “I don’t need no charity from some silver spoon—”
“Who said anything about charity?” For the first time tonight, Eiden’s tone takes on a hard edge. “The crops are for sale. Or am I mistaken?”
“Well, no, they’re for sale. But there’s the matter of price—”
“Splendid. As for price, Ka
rli has the exact figures. I’ll leave the details to her. We have a bargain then.” Eiden’s question sounds like a command. His eyes bore into Jake’s.
As if unable to think of a way out of the deal, Jake nods.
“Excellent. A pleasure to meet you both. Goodnight.” Eiden tips his head to Jake, then to Karli. His gaze lingers on her for a moment. He and his grand airship vanish. And it’s just then, as Karli is pondering what price to write into the doctor’s blank check, that she has a realization.
She never said anything about trouble selling crops.
Mark 04
…Now
CMS McKinney Steward
Interstellar Space, Coordinates Unknown
April 11, 2232
1613 Hours, OGT
“This can’t be happening.”
The words cycle through Karli’s head over and over as she clings to the handrail. Her eyes are shut tight, but that’s no protection against the slithering, slimy sound of the growths. The air is humid, hot, and stagnant. Yet the mounds of fungus and their red pustules move as with a breath of wind, swaying. Throbbing. Creeping. They make a wet, revolting sound—like boots squishing through a manure bog. She knows she needs to open her eyes. She needs to get away from these things. To find a way out of here. But she can’t move.
“This can’t be happening,” she repeats again. “What is this stuff? Where is everybody?”
“Repeat!” says the ship’s L-4 AI. “Critical systems failure. Early awaken protocols activated. All patients evacuate capsules and proceed to escape pods on Vault Module, Deck 7.”
The AI continues to squawk her warnings. Karli thinks she’ll never muster the strength to open her eyes. A metallic clicking on the surface above forces her eyes open wide like little knives jabbing the walls.
Click-tap-click-click. Click-tap-tap.
Gooseflesh rises on Karli’s freezing skin. She feels a chill crawling down her back, as if from the breath of Death itself. Her body trembles as she looks up through the spherical medical bay, with its vertical capsules, bolted-down chairs, and computer terminals jutting out of the walls. Some of the handrails crisscrossing the space have gaps as if the strange goo has eaten away the metal. The warning beacon sweeps the otherwise dark room with its wedge of orange light every couple of seconds. Flakes like dead skin and round, red droplets dance in the air. The mounds of fungus creep over every bare surface like the steady progress of a snail. Her eyes search out the source of the sound directly above her head.
Galaxyborn: Season 1 Premiere Page 4
