by Corey Ostman
The door chimed.
“See? I bet that’s Renken Larchmont arriving to break his son out of jail right now,” Grace said, sarcastically.
Kyran rose to answer the door, but she held him back.
“Wait a sec.”
“What?” He turned to look at her.
“Tim?”
Tim’s face flickered. “Of course it isn’t Renken Larchmont—I’d have said so. It’s Mhau Tapang and Jacob Rander.”
“Handy,” said Kyran, “that blurp network.” He resumed his bounce to the door, then ushered the pair inside.
Pair? Yes, it definitely was a pair. Grace noticed their shared body language. They both looked haggard in their own ways. And Mhau even winced for Jacob when he banged one of his hands on his chair.
The doctor pulled up a seat. “Can I look at those?” he asked.
“I think I got into a fight,” Jacob said as Kyran took his hands. “Something I used to be good at.”
“You were winning,” Grace smiled. “I had to pull you off of Lee—good thing for him that I got there when I did.”
“You Red Fox folks aren’t the only ones who get the job done,” he said.
Grace paused. She hadn’t intended her quip to be confrontational. Jacob’s tenor seemed resentful, but he was tired, and she did have his old job.
“You’re right,” she said. “I’ve heard some good stories about you Hounds.”
Jacob’s expression softened.
“Cadets used to tell me I had an overgrown sense of justice,” he said.
The word justice seemed to stick in his throat.
“I know what you mean,” Grace said.
He regarded her.
“Thanks for the assist,” he offered tightly, wincing as Kyran probed his wounds. “What are your plans for Lee?”
“As you said: justice,” Grace replied. “I’ll hold him for the Belt Assizes and let compstate sort it out. Bode-6 should be more orderly from here on out. Give you time to get healed up and…” She paused as Mhau yawned loudly. “Mhau to get some sleep.”
Mhau blinked. “It’s not that. I’ve been wrestling malfunctions. Hatch locks, communications. Mess was having problems last night.”
“Early this morning, too. My firstrise meal was late and cold,” Grace added.
“Is this something we should bring up at clash?” Kyran asked.
“I’m managing,” Mhau said. She pressed her lips together.
“She is,” Tim’s disembodied voice came in Grace’s dermal dot. “But Jacob is not. I’m detecting micro tremors throughout his body and his IR image shows a slight fever.”
“Are you in pain?” Grace asked Jacob.
He glowered at her. “I’m ok.”
“Still,” said Kyran. He slid over to a row of drawers, rummaged through one, and slid back with a couple of medbinds. “These should help.”
“Fine.”
Kyran reached out and snapped the medbinds onto Jacob’s hands. The tremors quieted.
“Thanks, doc,” Jacob said, rising.
“Of course,” Kyran said, smiling. “Get some rest.”
“He will,” Mhau added as she stood and hooked an arm through Jacob’s. “I’ll be going back on duty. Hopefully things will be less eventful this shift.”
She led Jacob to the door, and they left.
Grace stood for a while, considering the door.
“I could use some help,” she said, then turned to Kyran.
The life drained from Kyran’s face. He shook his head.
“No, not me, I can’t.”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “Relax, Sarge. I wasn’t talking about you.”
“Who, then?”
Jacob. Somewhere under that disheveled, trembling man, was honorable cloisterfolk who’d once been a protector. Grace wanted to restore to him some self-respect.
Chapter 21
Mhau winced at the sudden burst of channel noise inside the helmet. Son of a grasshopper! She blinked through the COMM display. When she reached SQUELCH, she adjusted until the static was clipped.
“…protocol wasn’t received.”
“Incomplete,” Mhau said, “say again.”
“Crawler dock protocol wasn’t received. Airlock malfunction. We need you here, Tapang.”
Technician Tzaki. A quick blink through the tactical map showed his telemetry coming from the outer spiral.
“On my way. Tapang out.”
Mhau twisted her helmet to the left until it clicked with the collar ring of her pressure suit. The visor display came alive, first with green symbols representing basic Bode-6 systems, then with an amber tactical alert display showing the depressurized sections.
Bwisit! All of Chamber Three and part of the outer spiral.
It had been a long night, full of glitches. Temperature control had fallen offline. Then, as soon as she had gotten the environment stabilized, a cascade of faults had rippled through the crawler scheduling system. The sponsor had sent several terse messages. She wondered if this would ultimately cost her the engineering position at Bode-6.
Mhau bounced toward the outer spiral. Airlocks on either side of Chamber Three had triggered and sealed. She hoped they held. There were several residences just beyond those airlocks. She sent out a pressure suit warning just in case.
Two roiders came toward her, also in their pressure suits, but with helmets still strapped to their sides. Mhau blinked the PUBLIC ADDRESS icon, activating her suit’s external speakers.
“You two know the procedure. Helmets on!” she barked.
The roiders grumbled, snapping on their helmets. Mhau nodded tersely at them, made a left turn, and bounded forward. H-15 awaited her at the end of the corridor. Tzaki would be on the other side of the hatch. In vacuum.
She blinked through layers of tactical data until the residence map appeared. There were two residences near her, between H-14 and H-15. Both were marked vacant, but she’d have to check visually.
Mhau approached the residence to her right, fingering its access panel. The room reported VACANT and the panel itself showed that the privacy mode was in UNLOCK, so she tapped the control and opened the door. She poked her head inside: empty room.
The residence on the left reported VACANT, though its privacy mode was LOCKED. She tapped the chime. No answer. She entered the emergency seal code on the access panel and waited until it confirmed. If someone was in there, he or she wouldn’t be able to get out until the malfunction was over.
She peered through the small hatch window in door H-15. Tzaki was moored there in his pressure suit, looking mildly panicked. Like most of her staff, he was on edge.
“I’m going to override H-15,” she said into the comm.
“Got it,” came Tzaki’s voice. His reply sounded more like ahht in the static mess of the communications circuit. It was easier to lip-read through the hatch.
After Tzaki anchored himself down the tube, Mhau blinked OVERRIDE on her display. Through her suit, she heard the hiss of air escaping through the hatch. Tzaki’s suit rippled as air rushed past him and into the vacuum. Then silence.
Mhau launched for Tzaki. He grabbed her tether and clicked her in. She touched her helmet to his, knowing their proximity network would have higher fidelity than the bode’s comm.
“You ok?” she asked, seeing the drops of sweat beneath his short black hair.
He nodded. “Still breathing.”
“What’s our status?”
“Chamber Three’s exterior hatch won’t lower.”
“Manual?”
“Not possible. Telemetry has a crawler stuck in the airlock.”
Mhau looked into Chamber Three. The crawler sat parked neatly in the center of the bay, not at the hatch. For whatever reason, the bode was receiving faulty telemetry. Or noisy telemetry, she reminded herself.
“Naykopo,” she complained. “Have you talked to the crawler’s crew?”
Tzaki nodded. “Yeah. They all got out.”
Mhau
frowned at the crawler. “It’s powered down, right? No noise?”
“Correct,” he said.
What’s sending bogus telemetry to the bode?
“Tzaki, go aboard and restart the crawler. Don’t move her. Just initiate the auto-start.”
He bounced away and disappeared into the ship. She waited until she saw the crawler’s aft beacon illuminate, then she checked her display. The crawler was now registering as inside the hatch.
She initiated a manual seal of the chamber. Once the large hatch locked shut and the failsafe lights glowed green, she blinked on PRESSURIZE. Mhau waited until the reading stopped at one hundred kilopascals.
“You can power down the crawler, now, Tzaki.”
“Copy.”
She was about to remove the helmet when she noted a priority message wink into view.
“SHUT DOWN EACH SYSTEM UNTIL COMM INTERFERENCE STOPS.”
The colony sponsor. Mhau was surprised and a little annoyed that an aposti would lecture her on how to debug. He’d never delved into such technological minutiae before. Mhau wondered if she’d have to start packing soon.
She had just closed the message when another flashed across her helmet. The sponsor again, this time with a prioritized list of known sources of electromagnetic radiation.
But it was his final sentence that caught her attention.
“COMING TO CERES MYSELF.”
Chapter 22
Grace reclined in Kyran’s exam chair. She stretched her legs and put her hands behind her head, massaging her neck with her thumbs. A clandestine broadcast of the conversation between Lee and Jacob buzzed in her dermal dot.
The outer door opened and Kyran walked in, carrying his med bag. He frowned when he saw her.
“My chair,” he said.
She put a finger to her lips and pointed down the hall.
“What?”
“Lee has a visitor,” she whispered. “Jacob.”
“How long?” Kyran mouthed the words.
“Few minutes.”
“Where’s Tim?”
She pointed down the hallway. “He’s laying on the bed,” she said. “I let Jacob in the isolation pod at his request. Tim’s recording the exchange.”
“That’s not necessary. The pod records everything,” Kyran said. “For medical emergencies.”
“Mhau asked me to shut it down earlier.”
“What? Why?”
“She’s trying to locate a source for the glitches.”
Kyran’s frown remained as he began to clean his tools, repacking them neatly. In her dermal, Jacob and Lee were talking about Ink again.
“Tim can’t be recording,” Kyran said. “The isolation pod door has a layer of vacuum to prevent contamination. There’s no way to hear through that.”
“Did I just hear Kyran telling me I can’t possibly record?” Tim asked through her dermal dot.
Grace smirked. She knew he was two seconds away from accessing Kyran’s dot, and then…
“Kyran. I’ve focused a low-level LEMP onto the glass surface of the inner pod door,” Grace heard through her dermal. “My eyes are picking up the slight changes in diffraction due to the glass vibrating with the voices. I have plenty of reserve capacity to calculate the Fourier transform that allows me to extract—”
“Enough! I withdraw the question,” Kyran hissed.
“Then if you are done interrupting, we will return to our normally scheduled broadcast,” Tim said, sounding smug.
Instantly, Jacob’s voice returned.
“…should worry about you.”
“Me? You think my father worries about me?” said Lee.
“Interesting,” Kyran said.
“What?”
“Jacob used to be good at getting people to talk about—”
“Ssh!” Grace said. “Lee’s talking again.”
“Given what I know, maybe my father should worry about me,” Lee said.
“That’s not what I meant,” said Jacob. “He’s your dad.”
“So.”
“So,” Jacob said, “why did he storm out of here? What did you say to him?”
Lee laughed. “I told him that the Belt Assizes aren’t for another month, and even I could become a credible witness in that amount of time.”
“I wish I could see their body language,” said Grace.
“If I moved, I’d have to reset the LEMP reflection,” said Tim. “They’re both breathing normally, though.”
“I told him, ‘I want out,’” Lee said. “‘Or I’ll start talking to Donner.’”
“About what?”
“What do you think? Everything.”
“You could tell me, instead,” Jacob said.
“You? You’re an Inker, Jacob,” Lee said. “You think you stop, it goes away? Speaking of which, I’d like to get some.”
“Jacob is at the pod door,” said Tim. “He wants out.”
“I don’t blame him,” said Grace.
She stood, then looked at Kyran. “What’s your plan for getting him off Ink permanently? Folks here won’t respect him unless he’s been clean for a while.”
“I think I have something,” said Kyran. “Go let him out. Bring him back here, and we’ll talk.”
Grace bounced to their bedroom and opened the door. Jacob slid out. He looked angry. Grace approved: it was better than looking defeated. She motioned him to follow her.
Kyran had a large medview ready when they flew into the exam room.
“Have a seat,” said Kyran, pointing to a chair.
“What’s this about?” asked Jacob.
“Ink.”
“I don’t need any help,” said Jacob. But he sat down anyway.
Kyran gently tapped Jacob’s right hand, then his left. “How’re you doing?”
Jacob stretched out his hands. Grace noticed the medbinds were still on each arm.
“Better,” he said. “Haven’t streamed since Lee’s been in there.” He motioned in the direction of the isolation pod.
Kyran tapped the medview and its display shifted to Jacob’s eyes.
“Watch the lights,” the doctor said.
“Right.” Jacob’s eyes tracked the lights dancing across the rear of the medview.
“I can help you block Ink,” said Kyran, inputting data. “But sometimes there are sensory problems afterwards, so I need a baseline visual reading.”
“I don’t like the sound of ‘sensory problems,’” Jacob said. His voice sounded small. Grace wondered how many people, other than Mhau, ever had Jacob’s best interests in mind. Did he trust anyone? Was he trustworthy?
Chapter 23
Tim studied the wispy tendrils of fog that hovered centimeters above the dust-strewn surface. Compared to the violent orange gales on Mars, the atmosphere of Ceres was anemic. It had ground-level phenomena only, either due to radiation cooling or sublimation. He increased altitude and moved forward until his snout touched the surface of the viewport. His nose wasn’t wet, but he still sensed the cold.
It relaxed him to watch the mostly unchanging exterior. He’d been hiding since arriving on Ceres, after being out and open as an AI on Mars. He missed the intellectual camaraderie of the Martian AIs. He had linked with the bode, but it wasn’t the same. More like a hyper awareness of extra organs, extra limbs. The ongoing glitches at Bode-6 felt like muscle spasms, making him both irritated and uncomfortable.
Hyper awareness. He’d call it instinct for now, as he wasn’t always privy to the lowest-level machinations of his blue gel matrix. He stretched his consciousness and dove deeply. His hyper awareness was focusing on Jacob now, who was just down the hall, having accepted Grace’s offer of guard duty. He empathized with Jacob, understood in part the loneliness he was feeling. He knew Jacob must miss the heightened Ink consciousness. Perhaps if he offered to enhance Jacob’s awareness, the former protector’s need for Ink would evaporate.
To do that, Tim would have to speak. Come out as an AI. He wasn’t sure it was safe wi
th cloisterfolk, even one who’d traveled to Ceres. Tim recalled the first time he’d ever spoken to Grace. She’d pulled her weapon so quickly that he had to resort to LEMP. It wasn’t an auspicious beginning, though they’d gotten closer. Saving Raj, bringing down Maud. Their long journey across the sands of Mars. When she was recovering from torture, they’d touched minds, briefly. Maybe that was why, though his thoughts raced beyond the speed or understanding of humans, she always seemed to know what he was thinking.
And it all began with speaking out as an AI.
Tim took one last look outside and then turned toward the hallway. He could hear Jacob breathing in the bedroom. It wasn’t loud or ragged. He sounded calm.
Tim executed a smooth yaw into the room. He felt an old human urge to clear his throat. His thrusters made noise, but he knew they were basically inaudible to fleshies.
Jacob faced the isolation pod door, hunched over, his eyes close to the portal and its view of their prisoner. Tim saw the outline of Jacob’s shoulder blades through his shirt. Limited calories. But there was some muscle left. The blurp audio of Jacob and Lee fighting replayed in his mind. Whatever Ink had done to his brain, the sleep squeeze had kept Jacob in decent, if thin, physical condition. He just needed to eat more like Grace.
Tim stretched his forepaws and laid down. He was about to lower his head when he noticed Jacob repeat a motion he’d seen before. Arms to his sides, a fidget with his right hand, ending in a clasp.
Tim cocked his head. He recognized the motion.
“Do you miss your gun?” Tim asked.
Jacob looked at him.
Should I wag my tail?
“Grace? Why transmit through your PodPooch? I’m wearing my ptenda,” he said.
It would have been so easy to say, Talk to you later, Jacob, and just scamper out of the room, but—
“It’s not Grace,” Tim said. “It’s me. My name is Tim Trouncer.”
Jacob continued to gaze at him with a mild expression. Did he think he was experiencing Ink fever? Tim had tapped into Kyran’s research on illicit neural software. He had even constructed a simulated version of Ink to experience it himself. The altered reality was not that dissimilar to the dreams Tim once had from the AIs on Mars. They were disturbing at first, but he now missed them. He felt he understood Jacob.
