Sanctuary Thrive

by Ginger Booth

  Sass introduced him to Hugo and explained that he was on a courier crew like Belker’s, except to the Cantons/Steppe system.

  “Software, information technology, and AIs are my specialty,” Hugo added.

  Teke blinked. “That’s remarkably broad. I wouldn’t call it a specialty.”

  “Well, yeah,” Hugo allowed. “We only have five thousand people here.”

  Teke nodded matter-of-factly. “Any other tricks to this device?”

  “Not really. All of its settings are on that menu. Oh – including the ability to set up an answering page and recorded greeting. None of the cache ansibles would have initialized that. Because no one would return to check for messages.”

  “Very cool.” Teke’s face disappeared behind his hand again while he studied the menu in greater detail. “Broadcast. What’s that?”

  “It calls every other ansible. No message or anything. The receiving nodes emit a chime and record who sent it. And send back a receipt. They aren’t really capable of one-to-many communication. None of the ansibles have been in use for decades.”

  “Teke!” Elise Pointreau interrupted from off-screen, in a lilting Sagamore accent. “Have you forgotten Sora?”

  “Sorry, Sass, gotta go! Any message for Cope and Ben?”

  “I’ll talk to them soon,” Sass assured him. “Bye! Oh, wait! How was your big probe test?” But he’d already disconnected. “Hugo, what’s that clanking?” They’d been so amused with calling another star system, that she hadn’t noticed the noise right here. But it was coming closer.

  He glanced out the door and blanched. “Uh…bots.”

  “Time to go then.” Sass flicked off the ansible and jumped to her feet. Indeed, one of the smaller devices from the hold busily climbed the steep ladder stairs. Sass pulled in front of Hugo and kicked it off the rungs. The spindly machine crashed into a bigger one, also on the move.

  Hugo begged, “Computer, disable mining equipment in the hold!”

  “Unable to comply. Mining equipment is under instructions from Sanctuary Control.”

  39

  Sass studied the robot movements in Cupid’s hold. If they were trying to reach her, they were hobbled in their aims. The little one could roll over the treads on the big ones. The rest stood locked into position by each other’s bulk. They shuffled back-and-forth like a children’s puzzle game. That was the good news.

  The bad news was that most of them cut rock for a living. They waved claws far more dangerous than the wimpy pole-bots inside the colony. Sass gulped. “Masks on!” she barked to Hugo. “Trapdoor open!”

  “But the –”

  She saw it. One of the drill-miners was currently rolled half-on the trapdoor. But everything would shuffle into that space in turn during their hold-wide jockeying for position. “NOW, Hugo!”

  She grabbed him by the belt and flicked her gravity to 1g up, then jumped to the ceiling. But some of the nastier robotic arms could reach her standing form. She prudently dragged Hugo onto hands and knees to crawl. “Hold onto my belt. Do not let go of me!”

  Carrying a grown man on a personal gravity generator really worked best if his center of gravity was clasped to hers. A fireman’s carry worked a treat. Trying to crawl while holding each other’s belts, not so much.

  Hugo lagged and inched out of her field. Sass felt his weight shift and begin to fall to the pincers below. She yanked hard on his belt. He slumped sideways onto her crawling legs, and his belt loops broke.

  “No good,” she decided. “I’m going to ride your back. You’ve got to keep moving. Get us above that airlock.”

  She draped herself onto him, with her left arm hugging his thick waist. Hugo wasn’t exactly a powerhouse. She tried to keep most of her weight on her own knees, shuffling between his, but a third of her bulk rested on him.

  On the bright side, she was much better positioned to goose him along. “Trapdoor, Hugo,” she reminded him.

  “But – Fine! Computer, emergency override! Open inner and outer doors on the trapdoor airlock!”

  The monster currently parked on the doors rocked and tilted. Unlike the outside doors, these didn’t open outward. Rather the door sections rotated and slid into the floor below. With a frantic whine, the robot’s lug wheels accelerated, trying to find purchase on the door edge. For a moment Sass though it might actually stay inside.

  But no, it fell down through the hole. This was one of the bigger models, too, with three arms, all extended above its head. Problem one, each of those arms ended in a different mining tool, all quite damaging to tender human flesh and pressure suit. Problem two, the damned thing was stuck blocking the hole, waving its instruments at them.

  Sass scowled at it, and glanced to the other airlocks. If she used the door airlock, there was no way to keep several smaller but deadly bots from joining them. If she opened the cargo lock, they could all follow her out onto the spaceport pad like a monster parade. She – or rather Cupid – could invert the ship’s gravity, and the waving arms and tons of machinery below her would –

  No, dumbass! “Hugo tell the computer to roll gravity to 0.9 g, direction 120 degrees up from centerline.”

  Stumbling over the unfamiliar concepts a little, he relayed the instructions. Sass rammed an unapologetic knee up between his legs to hold onto him as she reset her grav generator to counter the ship’s field. In her haste, she guessed wrong, and they rolled ‘down’ the ceiling aft, as the heavy machinery fell forward to the overhead. One of the smaller devices came flying at them. Sass grabbed Hugo’s waist with both arms and rolled, wrestling him on top of her as the device sailed past.

  And with all that excitement, the big driller was still stuck in the trapdoor. Because of course it is. The angle she’d chosen wouldn’t let it fall upward. The other robots clanked and crawled as Shiva struggled to right the disorderly pile.

  Sass considered what new angle of gravity might work to clear the trapdoor. Then she thunked her helmet on Hugo’s. “I’m an idiot.”

  The floor was open beneath them. The door-shaped airlock was free of all machinery. She considered explaining what she was about to do to her dance partner. But even her computer instructions turned out clear as mud. Some things were just hard to explain.

  “Hold on to my waist!” she directed Hugo. He seized her, and she used both hands to perform a gravity slide, down the ceiling, down the wall. She punched the open button while they lay next to it, presently head-down. Rather than explain how to flip, she slid them into the airlock, closed the door behind them, and repeated the gravity slide until their feet were beneath them. Then she opened the outer door, and cut her grav as they hopped down to the ground at Sanctuary’s native 0.4 g.

  “Hugo, tell Cupid to restore normal gravity.”

  “I can’t from out here.”

  Sass looked back. She considered the challenge of explaining to Hugo how to go about this safely.

  She got on her comms instead. “Porter, Zelda. How are we doing on water barrels?”

  “Only two left to fill!” Zelda reported proudly.

  “Excellent work! Be sure to put all the spaceport equipment back exactly as you found it,” Sass encouraged, feeling like a rego hypocrite.

  No. She shouldn’t leave Cupid in this condition. She sighed.

  “OK, Hugo. You stand here, and yell at the computer once I have the inner lock open. Ready?”

  She entered the door lock and told Hugo to order the computer to set gravity to 180 degrees upward from the centerline. As soon as she felt the shift, she flipped to the ceiling, rolling with the ship’s current gravity. A cacophony of crashing robots came from inside the hold as she cringed by the outer door, upside-down from Hugo. When the clattering and whirring died down a little, she peeked in. Good. The trapdoor was clear. The robots probably weren’t in good health.

  But hey, that was the life of a mining robot, right? How would I know? Sagamore miners used men and tools. Mahina Actual robots tended toward manufacturing, with les
s intelligence than a turnip.

  Relayed through Hugo, Sass told Cupid to close the trapdoor, then restore gravity to ship normal. The door airlock she closed for herself.

  “Barrels full!” Porter relayed in triumph.

  “Well done!” Sass assured him. “And is the hose put away neatly?” Utter hypocrite… Gee, she’d closed the doors and restored gravity. She’d also left the ship’s hold full of broken robots. Uh, I was just looking around. Granted, fixing the robots was Shiva’s problem, and Shiva’s fault. Somehow she doubted the mayors would see it that way, let alone Clay.

  She and Hugo strolled to the barrels. In an excess of paranoia, Sass stood well back while Hugo tested a couple barrel caps at random for a good seal. Two didn’t even have caps on.

  “Zelda? Here. Now.” Sass made her go though the water barrels, systematically, in order, and tighten every cap. “It’s such a blessing to see you happy! And thinking! Now picture yourself this scatter-brained and defending your dissertation.”

  “I’ll do better!” Zelda vowed. “I’ll calm down, I will!”

  “An excellent ambition! I’m cutting off your Farmer’s Joy supply.”

  Sass also strolled – not too close – to check on Porter’s handiwork. She made him adjust one loop of the hose, then gave him a thumb’s-up. She quite liked this pair. She couldn’t trust them out of her sight yet, but that was normal for space newbies. Testament to the bone-dry air, the hard-top was almost dry again.

  “How much spillage?” she asked Porter. She pointed him toward the meter.

  He checked and reported they’d spilled 20% of what went into the barrels. Sass considered this more-or-less par for their skill level. “Next time, don’t waste a life-giving resource, OK? If that were star drive fuel, this whole town would be a gaping crater.” Not accurate, but it made them think.

  “Yes, sar!” they barked, intimidated.

  “Well done. Get aboard.”

  Sass walked Hugo back to his three-wheeler. They switched him back onto that air supply, and Sass tucked her spare air canister under her arm.

  “About your civil disobedience. I owe you, Hugo. Call me if things get too hot for you in the city. You and your kids are welcome on Thrive.”

  40

  Sass dolefully doodled on her desktop, waiting for Copeland to come to the ansible. After she spoke to Teke on Cupid, he’d apparently told Cope. Who called back and left a message while Sass battled robots, rendezvoused with Thrive, argued with Clay, relocated Thrive, ate supper, and fought with Clay some more.

  “Sass!” Cope greeted her, and took his seat facing the ansible, perched on Teke’s bed. “Whoa. Who died?”

  She shook her head and smiled. “Just a rough day with Clay. And complications with Sanctuary. No biggie.”

  “Not buying it, Sass,” he replied. “Want to talk? About Clay?”

  She shook her head. “I keep thinking we can change, you know? We appreciate each other. We’re both from Earth. Got gobs in common, lots of history, live on a cozy spaceship.”

  Cope smiled crookedly. “That sounds like all the things I fight with Ben about. Oh, hey, did I tell you? We just got remarried. The kids are still up here at MO, Abel and Jules, the whole gang. We toasted you many times.”

  “Remarried?” Sass inquired.

  Cope waved that away. “Ben and I broke off when I had that third kid by Teke instead of Ben. Kind of obvious in retrospect. He thought I was in love with Teke, which is ludicrous. I just wanted a third kid. Ben didn’t, because his life was in space. He claimed there’d be plenty of time later. But there’s never a convenient time for kids. You just want them all in a clump so you’re not tied down forever. ’Cuz they take 15 years. Over 20 with Sock, my youngest.”

  “I had no idea,” Sass murmured. “All of that.”

  “Yeah, well. All’s forgiven. I love him more than he drives me nuts. And he’s willing to step up with the kids. Sort of. So long as I stay in space with him again, anyway.” He shook his head, and they both laughed softly.

  “You are a spaceship engineer,” Sass consoled him, trying not to laugh.

  “Yeah, rub it in.”

  “Speaking of, how did your first probe test go to Denali? Any better on the navigation?”

  “Dead on. Flawless,” Cope replied gratefully. “In fact, we can’t calculate any error bars, which makes me nervous as hell. So, next probe is Sanctuary. You game?”

  “Wait, what?” Sass sat bolt upright, stunned. “You’re ready to send a probe here? When?”

  “We can do it any time. I mean, tomorrow at the earliest. But tomorrow would be great. The kids want to watch – all five. Abel and Jules’ kids are with us, too. I ought to take them home to school soon.”

  “Tomorrow? Yes! Please! Can I meet the kids, too?”

  He laughed out loud. “Yes! But not during the probe test, please. Later.”

  They bent heads to their respective tablets to calculate the right time on Sanctuary to intercept a transmission while facing away from the local star. And they set a date.

  “And all I do is record the transmission and report back to you?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Cope, impressed as hell. Really. You’ve come so far! In so many ways. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you this past decade. But only because I missed you so. You didn’t need us.”

  “Thank you,” he mouthed. Cope never did take compliments easily.

  “Talk to you tomorrow.”

  The next day, Sass shut herself into the office a half hour before go time on the probe. She invited a few others to join her in a few minutes, but first she wanted to confirm they were on schedule.

  And sadly, she needed to inform Sanctuary Control. Whether she personally wanted to convert that rego AI to a washing machine was irrelevant. Likewise Colonel Tharsis, but he also required the courtesy of advance notice.

  “Sanctuary Control, Thrive Actual, Captain Sass Collier speaking.”

  Rosie completed the handshaking, her face as pleasantly bland as ever. Sass only wished they could snarl at each other. But that was pointless.

  “Shiva, I’m calling to give advance notice of a navigation test which will enter Sanctuary system space in forty-two minutes. This is only a probe. It will appear, broadcast some information, and that’s all.”

  “I do not understand. How is this possible? Who sent this probe?”

  “I’m not at liberty to explain further at this time. But the probe is harmless science.” Sass reflected that wasn’t true. This probe would change everything for Sanctuary. Your days are numbered, AI. “This is a courtesy call. Do not be alarmed. Thrive out.”

  Sass cut the comm right as Rosie began to reply, then called Tharsis and repeated her briefing.

  In confusion, Tharsis asked, “Why would you send a probe only a month after your starship?”

  Because my old friends ran faster than I did. “Colonel, this is just a heads-up. Don’t be concerned sort of thing. Sass out.”

  When no one called back immediately, she imagined the mayor called Clay to appeal her unreasonableness. May you enjoy each other.

  She chatted a little with Ben, but mostly listened over the ansible. Remi and Darren slipped into the office with her for the final ten minutes, while Clay hosted the rest of the crew in the galley. She’d set up a camera to echo the ansible picture and sound out to them. The silvery image quality was terrible, but they could hear alright.

  The countdown came, and – nothing. Sass checked her receivers. They seemed fine.

  Teke entered the ansible screen. “Sass, the probe is taking readings. Expect a message to begin…3, 2, 1, now.”

  And it did. Sass furiously scribbled coordinates, bearing, and speed as backup to the signal Teke could hear for himself over the ansible.

  Darren leaned over the desk and fixed a camera on the small probe, barely bigger than a basketball and about two diameters of the planet away. “My word, I think they got it. The probe is entering orbit!�
�

  On the screen, Teke was tackled by an ecstatic Elise Pointreau, shrieking in triumph.

  “Congratulations! That was the plan?” Sass inquired. “High Sanctuary orbit?”

  She had to wait through a thorough kiss, plus Cope and Teke also hugging. Then they reported in to Ben that he was brilliant. Apparently Nico pressed the go button, and his baby brother Sock was unbearably jealous. She heard cheering out on the catwalk on Thrive as well, and probably Prosper. The distant celebration let it sink in. Instantaneously, that probe traveled the distance her crew lost eleven objective years to traverse.

  Finally, Cope ducked into the ansible pickup to answer. “Yeah, if we got it right, the probe will orbit 10 times, then decay and burn up on atmospheric entry.”

  Sass calculated it out. “I get an expected 42 minutes per orbit? And a fiery finale in 7 hours.”

  Cope laughed. “Wrong team-mate. Ben?” On the warp gate generating shuttle – with ‘help’ from his sons – Ben corroborated her math.

  “Damn,” said Sass, shaking her head. “So when do you put Prosper through it?”

  “Tomorrow!” Ben’s voice came through weakly.

  “Day after tomorrow!” was Teke’s vote.

  Cope shook his head in disbelief at his scientific partner. “Open for debate. Guys, get real. It takes more than a day to refuel and provision for anywhere we’d want to go.” He turned back to Sass. “I assumed the next trip was to Denali. And we’ve got a Denali envoy here who’d be pissed as hell if it isn’t Denali. But now Abel’s agitating for Sanctuary.”

  Sass’s jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “No. He’s after that gift shop you were telling us about. Spare spaceships in the asteroid belt? Thing is, he wants another courier ship to serve as the warp gate to transfer cargo between Pono and Denali. And then jump through the warp itself to the destination. So Denali could stage an arbitrary number of containers into orbit. Then the courier warps in, warps the containers to Pono orbit, then warps itself to join them. Then the courier and PO-3’s collect the containers and distribute them before orbital decay.”