Ceres Rising (Cladespace Book 3)

by Corey Ostman

  “I could just come in with you,” said Tim.

  She shook her head. “No, I want two layers of defense.”

  The PodPooch sailed over to her bed and landed.

  “Good doggie,” she said.

  From wall storage, Kyran withdrew a small wedge with a tiny parabolic surface on one end.

  “I can immobilize Lee with this,” Kyran said, tapping the unit. “Similar to Tim’s LEMP, though not as powerful.”

  “Good enough,” Grace said. She grabbed the lock on the pod door and spun it.

  Lee was sitting on his cot.

  “Stay right where you are.”

  “Why should I?” Lee asked. But he didn’t move.

  “Pressure suits are down at the end,” Kyran said, pointing to a row of lockers.

  “Are you airlocking the pod?” Lee yelped. “Give me a suit!”

  Grace bounced to the lockers and found herself a suit. It was a basic design, much like the suits she’d used on Mars. She unzipped the torso, jumped into the legs, tossed Marty between her hands as she threaded them inside, and zipped up the torso. Low grav sure made it easy.

  She clamped the helmet into place. The visor immediately lit with data as her ptenda interfaced. Her vital signs, as well as those of Kyran and Lee, scrolled by. Half of the screen was tactical, with a pulsating red blip for the loafer. It wasn’t moving as rapidly now. It was flying, oddly enough, in a circle.

  “Kyran, can you see the loafer?”

  “Not without a helmet.”

  “It’s doing some kind of jig. Repeating steps.”

  “Might be part of the glitches.”

  “I’m not gonna take a chance. Heading out.”

  Grace reached for the airlock control but stopped as she heard and felt a resounding thud. She spun around to see Kyran lunging for the pod door. Lee was still in his bed.

  “It’s locked, Grace!” Kyran yelled, his voice distorting in her helmet speaker.

  Grace rushed to the pod door. She got her face close to the small window.

  “Tim, we’re locked in,” she said. She couldn’t see him.

  “Grace,” Kyran said, “Our comms are still out.”

  “Tim!” she yelled, pounding on the pod door.

  • • •

  Tim saw the loafer approach the exterior of the isolation pod, pause, and move further away. Repeatedly. He had witnessed such behavior before. The loafer was on a preprogrammed path. It wasn’t enabled for intelligent exploration, which probably meant it wouldn’t offer Grace much difficulty. He was attempting to isolate the command frequency for the loafer when a nearby sound caught his attention.

  Whoosh.

  Strange. The sound of Kyran’s apartment door opening.

  Whoosh.

  And closing!

  Tim checked the security sensors on the apartment door. No alarm. All his telemetry feeds were operational and receiving data, yet he was somehow blind to this basic perimeter incursion.

  Tim backed up, feeling wrinkles of bedding beneath his paws. He repositioned himself on the bed so he could have a clear LEMP shot for both the bedroom doorway and the isolation pod. To his left, he could see a small amount of Kyran’s shoulder through the open pod hatch. If he did have to LEMP, Kyran might receive some collateral damage.

  Doc will understand.

  Tim heard movement in the hallway. Footsteps, and the sound of fabric rustling. Somewhere deep inside, he wanted to cry out Show yourself! but he realized those instincts had to be suppressed, be they latent human or PodPooch. Stealth in this situation was the better choice. He waited.

  A figure appeared in the doorway, draped in silver cloth from head to toe.

  Tim moved forward on the bed, closer to the silvery phantasm, a modest PodPooch claiming his territory. Although Tim thought his actions could be interpreted as aggressive, the figure remained stationary, angled toward the isolation pod.

  “Kyran!” he barked in warning.

  In a flash, the intruder moved across the room and slammed the isolation pod door, spinning its locking handle.

  Tim’s power plant kicked into overdrive and released a strong wave of LEMP. As he did, the silver drapery seemed to fill the room. Too late he realized the intruder had thrown the fabric at him. His mimic coat sensed the reflected LEMP blast, shimmering as it dissipated the energy. The silver cloth covered him, smothered him in reflected EM. Faraday cloth.

  Strong hands gripped him. Tim attempted to thrust away. He tried to turn his head to get in another LEMP shot, but there was no way to maneuver inside the cloth.

  “Stop struggling!”

  A male voice. Tim didn’t immediately recognize the speech pattern. It was deep and sonorous, but it was also vaguely familiar. His blue gel could recognize a voice immediately—even if he’d only heard it once before. This voice taunted, like something from a dream. Someone he had heard prior to his life in the gel.

  There was a tap Tim associated with ptenda use, and then another voice, this one very familiar.

  “Be advised, I have a visitor headed my way.”

  No! Tim thought. It was Mhau.

  Things began to move. Under the cloth, he saw nothing beyond the bright white of his mimic coat, but even in the weak grav field of Ceres, his gyros reported their orientation. He was being picked up and rolled in the fabric.

  From nearby, there came a metallic crackling, not unlike the sound of aluminum foil being crumpled. Then the crisp snap of a bag being unfurled. His world turned over and over again as he was dumped into it. He tried to wriggle up and out, but the man was strong and so was the bag.

  “Be still,” the man grunted.

  No connection with the blurp network. Tim inventoried what he knew, a different part of his gel concentrating on each task. The man lacked weapons: Tim’s personal sensor net would have detected any. No access alarm had sounded when the man entered Kyran’s apartment. Probably Mhau’s work.

  Movement now. Walking. Judging by his chassis accelerometers, his captor was progressing slowly, carefully. With no external grid signals, Tim didn’t have absolute positioning data, but he knew from the few tentative steps that he was still inside Kyran’s apartment.

  Whoosh.

  The sound of the outer door opening and then the familiar soundscape of the outer spiral. Tim’s gyros screamed as the man slung him up and over his shoulder. They headed away from Kyran’s apartment.

  Data filtered in. He heard the sound of roiders nearby, talking. Tim tried to turn his head, hoping to triangulate using both ears. His kidnapper laughed, a soft sound that made the latent, human part of him tremble.

  “It’s been a long time, Eugene.”

  Chapter 26

  “I don’t think that’s going to help,” Kyran said.

  Grace shifted the wheel left and right. Again.

  “And I don’t think the door is wedged shut,” Kyran said. “It’s probably locked.”

  From behind, Lee chuckled.

  She strained at the wheel, growling with the effort, but to no avail. She slapped her palms against the pod door in anger.

  “Where’s Tim?” she said.

  Lee laughed. “Aww, can’t get your PodPooch to open the door? So unreliable.”

  “I don’t care about the door!” she shouted at him.

  “What are you? Stupid?” Lee said.

  I need him to stop. Now. In the corner of her eye, she spotted her helmet where it lay on the deck. It would be so easy to grab it and wind up the pitch—

  Grace took a deep breath. I’m better than this. She looked from the helmet, to Kyran, to her sneering prisoner, and finally aft to the exterior airlock.

  “Kyran, we can’t wait. I’ll head outside and enter through another port.”

  Kyran nodded, looking at Lee and gripping his small weapon tighter. Grace grabbed her helmet and went into the airlock, arming the sequence for evacuation. As she tapped the controls, she noted there wasn’t the usual haptic feedback. She waited, but the air pumps
did not activate.

  She blinked through her helmet display. ENVIRO showed standard atmosphere outside the suit. She blinked over to AIRLOCK and tried to select ARM. Nothing.

  Grace ducked back into the pod.

  “Kyran!” she yelled through her helmet. “Why can’t I exit?”

  “You should be able to,” he began. Then his eyes darted to the closed hatch. “Oh no. Grace, I’m so sorry. I don’t use this pod very often—”

  She gestured impatiently at him. “And?”

  “There’s a failsafe for the pod airlock, because it’s meant for patients. It has to be disabled from the panel in your bedroom.” He shook his head, dropping his gaze to the deck. “I was going to reach around and turn it off when you were ready, but then Tim yelled and the door slammed…”

  We really are locked in here.

  • • •

  Eugene. His captor had used his old name. Neural cascades of panic swept over Tim. He tried to kick, to bite, but he couldn’t move and couldn’t gather any of the bag in his mouth.

  “Such emotion from a PodPooch.”

  Tim curled into a ball, refusing to answer. He inventoried those of his systems on heightened alert and adjusted them lower so he could think more clearly. He’d been pushing his servos, but running wasn’t an option. He’d been capturing images, but all he’d gotten was the inside of the bag. His nuclear powerpack was causing his LEMP to charge and dissipate, but that was futile. He would focus on hearing and thought, clawing his way back in charge and transforming his panic into observation and speculation. Solutions.

  The most important thing was to pinpoint his enemy’s identity. Only Raj and Kyran knew Tim was linked to Eugene. Grace knew what he was and his former name, but not who he had been. He had mentioned parts of his past to Grace, so she could certainly have put the pieces together if she so desired. But she hadn’t. Grace knew him first as Tim, and to his relief, she’d kept it that way.

  “My designation is Tim Trouncer,” he said. “I am Protector Donner’s PodPooch. Please desist immediately.”

  “Whatever you say, Eugene.”

  Tim noticed the bag shift, then heard a disgusted grunt.

  “Bah. She’s got company.”

  Who has company? His gyros sensed turning right, and then turning left. There were roider voices, but he couldn’t tell if they were getting nearer or farther.

  Whoosh. Tim felt the press of the man’s body as he ducked inside a door. The sound of it shutting. Tim rotated as his captor dropped the Faraday bag. A short, soft-grav fall to a hard floor.

  “There,” he said. “Now we’ll wait.”

  The first reflected sound returned quickly at 5.8 milliseconds. The room was square, two meters on each side, and they were near its center. A quick scan of his internal map showed there were eleven such storage rooms at Bode-6.

  “Talk to me, Eugene. I’m disappointed you don’t remember me. Well, maybe part of you does, judging by your outburst before.”

  “My designation is Tim Trouncer.”

  “Oh sure, now it is. But it was Eugene before. It was Junior before.”

  “What is your fascination with Eugene?” Tim asked.

  “He vanished,” the man said. “And then you came to light. Dumped into a PodPooch. Infecting ITB.”

  “Infecting?” Tim said. But he knew what the man meant. Grace had deposited a tiny amount of his blue gel into Italitech-Bransen’s network, back in Port Casper. This had allowed Tim to roam freely within their systems—until they’d discovered the incursion. So this man is connected with ITB, or monitors it.

  “You infect every place you’ve been, Eugene. You started with ITB, but it wasn’t enough, was it? You had to spread your disease to the Mars robots—saw it myself. And now you’re hiding here, festering, before spreading your contagion back to Earth.”

  Saw it himself? He was on Mars. It snapped together. The aposti on Mars, the aposti here—the one Grace is looking for.

  “You made me leave home, Eugene. Leave Earth. I’ll always be corrupted by it.” He spat. “You should have died properly. Died like a human being, Junior.”

  The man drew out the word Junior, imitating the cadence of the elder Bransen’s voice. It was a latent memory, but it was enough for Tim to finally make the connection. Uriah Panborn, an aposti once employed by his father’s subordinate, Tadi Varghese, to drill protectors in weaponless combat—at least officially. But Tim had discovered—Eugene had discovered—that Varghese was giving Panborn other, less legitimate assignments.

  “You were my assassin,” said Tim.

  There was no response at first. Then, in a soft voice, his captor spoke again. His tone was reproachful.

  “That implies you died. Did you?”

  “Protector Donner knows you’re here, Panborn,” Tim said. “There’s no way you’re getting off Bode-6.”

  “Do you think that matters?” said Panborn. “You should ask yourself how dangerous you are, Eugene. There are gene addicts who would sell everything to become you. There are mechflesh who would see your blue gel matrix as the best of upgrades.”

  “Don’t people deserve immortality?” Tim asked, realizing evolution might have been a better word. The technology to move forward, to progress, to evolve. Immortality was just a bonus.

  “Have you been so fond of your immortality, Eugene?” said Panborn. “Are you looking to have a PodPooch family, reproduce yourself? Is a broken, mechanical afterlife what you’d wish on your fleshed friends?” The deck thrummed as his captor paced. “You’re a monstrosity. A memory.”

  You don’t really understand AI, Tim mused. You still think I’m a machine.

  Chapter 27

  “Be advised, I have a visitor headed my way.” Mhau spoke into her ptenda. She sat at her desk, partially in shadow, her hair floating with the static of recent movement.

  Jacob stood in the doorway. “A visitor? Is that all I am?”

  “Jacob,” Mhau said, her eyes searching his. Then she glanced back down at her ptenda. “I don’t have much time.”

  “Not even to eat?” He patted the package hooked on his belt.

  “I shouldn’t picnic while the bode is glitching,” she said.

  “What’s the rush?” he said. “It’s been doing that for days. Besides, I brought some natural food.”

  He saw the question on her face and reached down, flipping the lid on his storage container. Inside, atop some mess hall pucks, were six hot baby potatoes.

  She smiled. “Do I need to scrounge up some plates?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Forks?”

  He laughed. “Got those, too.”

  “My my.”

  “That’s right—I’m prepared. Get used to it.”

  “I just might,” she said, hands on her hips.

  Jacob scooped up Boot from the table and let it scamper up a wall. Mhau looked at him and then clapped her hands.

  “I’ve got it!” She slid over to the cabinet, opened it, and started to rummage around the top shelf.

  Jacob removed the plates and divided the pucks and potatoes. He looked back at Mhau as he heard the tinkle of glass.

  “Eto na!” she said, presenting a bottle.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “Tubâ,” she said, opening the bottle of coconut wine and pouring it into two proper glasses.

  “I’m worth it now, eh?”

  Mhau looked up at him. “You were always worth it. You just had to realize it again.”

  They sat in silence, potatoes steaming between them.

  Mhau jumped as her ptenda bleeped. She smiled apologetically at Jacob. “I really do have to hurry.”

  He handed her a knife and fork and she poured the coconut wine. They tried the potatoes together. Jacob was surprised at how much the spuds saturated his senses. It had been more than a year since his last real food, direct from the ground. He savored the earthy taste, reminding him of home. Across from him, Mhau had already eaten two.

&
nbsp; “Want some of mine?” he said.

  “Mmm. No, but—incredible,” she said, trying to chew and speak. Mhau raised her glass. “A toast,” she said.

  “To our first potatoes,” he replied.

  “And second beginnings,” she added, clinking her glass against his.

  Jacob looked at her, knowing he was grinning, probably looking goofy, but he couldn’t help himself.

  She tipped her head to one side and returned the smile. Behind her, there was a flicker of purple light from her desk.

  “What’s that?”

  Mhau turned behind her to see what he was looking at. “Something our sponsor brought with him from Mars,” she said, turning back to their food.

  “Brought? He’s here?” Jacob asked. “Will I finally get to meet him?”

  Mhau frowned. “Stand down, cloisterfolk. Just because he’s aposti doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the best intentions for Bode-6.”

  Jacob understood now why Mhau was rushed. She’d always wanted to prove herself to Panborn. Jacob had never understood why. Mhau was a modern citizen, fluent in tech and savvy in the ways of the compstate. Aposti were even more anachronistic than cloisterfolk, and sometimes a little too eager to hire on with the wrong crowd.

  “He called them ‘pawns,’” Mhau said. “Thinks they might help get to the bottom of the glitches.”

  “What’s an aposti doing with—”

  They both stopped as her ptenda pinged again. Mhau sighed.

  “Another power failure.” She looked at the display, then frowned, putting down her glass. “Jacob?”

  “There a problem?”

  “Kyran’s medical isolation pod. Lee’s prison.”

  “Life support?”

  “Checking,” said Mhau, tapping furiously.

  “Hold on,” Jacob said, going to his ptenda and connecting to Kyran. The display froze for a moment, then presented a connection failure icon.

  “Damn,” he said. “Kyran’s not connecting.” Jacob tapped his ptenda again, this time selecting DONNER. Another connection failure.

  “Where is everybody?” he said.

  One silent comm circuit bothered Jacob. Two really worried him. And then there’s the isolation pod.