“Can’t we send it on autopilot as usual?” he asked.
“The last message I received from the Sky Cleaver crew was most insistent,” Wak told him. “Besides, you’ve heard the rumours. If something bad has happened out there, there may be no one around to troubleshoot if the automatic systems are down. We need that fuel.”
“What about the weird growths?” asked Zotz. Quirinus saw him looking warily at the tendrils spread throughout the cabin. “Are they dangerous?”
Quirinus frowned. “Ship, did you get all that?”
“A new schedule of basic repairs overseen by a crew of three will take approximately thirty-two hours,” replied the AI. “The recommendation is however for all repairs to be completed in full before launch.”
“And the tendrils?”
“The organic matrix is an extension of the AI core,” the ship replied smoothly. “These have infiltrated pre-existing systems and have the capacity to operate as a parallel control system if needed. They pose no danger to crew.”
“No danger to crew?” muttered Wak. “I beg to disagree.”
Quirinus remembered how one animated stem tried to garrotte the professor during their earlier holovid conversation. “Ship? Care to comment?”
“Recent traumas compromised the safety of the ship. I have therefore taken the liberty of developing a limited defensive capability. Do you disapprove?”
“You’re asking me?” Quirinus scratched his head, puzzled. Artificial intelligence systems were not supposed to be so obviously self-aware and he wondered whether he should be looking deeper into what the growth hormones had done to his ship. “No, I don’t disapprove. It would perhaps however be polite to warn someone before throttling them.”
“Confirmed,” replied the AI.
Wak gave Quirinus a hard stare. “You cannot take a half-repaired ship to Tau Ceti!”
“My daughter is in trouble. I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
“Ravana is in trouble?” exclaimed Zotz, startled. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s probably nothing,” Wak reassured him. “She never met the ship at the depot to call her father, that’s all.”
“She would not forget a thing like that!” retorted Quirinus.
Zotz looked solemn. “No, she wouldn’t.”
“See?” said Quirinus. “Something’s wrong!”
“This heap wouldn’t get you to Aram anyway,” Momus pointed out. “It’s a Mars-class ship. If you didn’t burn up on entry you’d never get back out of the gravity well.”
“She’s on Falsafah, not Aram,” said Quirinus irritably.
“But he’s right,” said Wak. “Surface gravity on Falsafah is less than that on Aram but still around point eight gee. The Platypus only has enough thrust to break orbit from point five, maybe point six. It was built to operate from Ascension, remember.”
“I’ll think of something,” muttered Quirinus, his mind already working overtime. “Ship! Reschedule for minimum repairs, maximum haste!”
“New schedule confirmed,” intoned the AI. It did not seem too happy about it.
* * *
Zotz had not been back to the Dandridge Cole since it was abandoned and was shocked by how much of the hollow moon was now out of bounds to its human crew. The cavernous interior beyond Dockside was bitterly cold and the air had long gone stale. The artificial sun had been the primary source of warmth as well as light and the two kilometres of rock between the inner chamber and deep space had not prevented residue heat leaking away as the asteroid continued its long orbit around Barnard’s Star. Mobile heaters were set up prior to the evacuation to try and save crops, but with fuel supplies low his father had decided it was not worth keeping them going once he became the only person aboard.
The fields lay under a heavy frost and not a living thing stirred in the dark. Some livestock had taken up residence in Dockside or made the trip to Newbrum on the Indra; the fauna and flora left behind was dead. Restoring the sun would be just the first step in bringing the hollow moon back to life and as Zotz stared through the window at the dark, icy landscape he wondered whether it would ever be the same again.
He still did not understand the obsessive attachment his father had with the century-old colony ship. Wak had long ago assumed responsibility for maintaining the hollow moon’s life-support and other systems, a job that had gradually taken over his life. Wak remained on the Dandridge Cole when everyone else departed on the Indra on the grounds he was awaiting the return of the Platypus, yet still insisted on staying even when a rescue team from Newbrum arrived to take Quirinus and crew away. Wak’s excuses veered between expressing a fear of space travel, to pointing out he was needed to feed the remaining animals and to make sure the robot maintenance teams behaved. Zotz knew his father preferred solitude when working but suspected there was more to it than that.
Zotz had finished the few tasks he had been given on the repairs to the Platypus and would not be needed again for a few hours. Bored, he retreated to the Dandridge Cole’s small gaming suite, where he soon immersed himself in rewiring a virtual reality booth so it could intercept broadcasts from the transceiver he and Endymion had fitted inside Ravana’s electric pet. He often wondered what the world looked like from a cat’s point of view.
Jones was a fully-interactive electronic cat Ravana had received for her sixth birthday, back on Yuanshi when her mother was still alive. The pet’s brain was an organic AI unit that enabled it to learn all the bad habits a real animal would have. It had long ago developed an annoying habit of wandering off without warning and a penchant for eating random electrical items, but over the last few months its behaviour had become more erratic still. Zotz knew that Ravana believed the growth hormones released by Taranis’ cloning experiments, having caused the AI unit of the Platypus to sprout strange tendrils, had also done something to her cat. When Zotz and Endymion secretly opened up the electric pet to fit a wristpad transceiver, they found Jones was indeed suffering from Woomerberg Syndrome, with wispy strands growing from the AI chip throughout the cat’s electronic innards.
Zotz sat engrossed as he encouraged the cat, via the VR link, to creep up on Momus aboard the Indra. Momus, having drawn the short straw, was preparing the tanker for a trip to Thunor and moaning more than usual. Zotz did not see his father enter the room and remained unaware until Wak leaned through the open door of the VR booth and tapped his shoulder. Startled, Zotz spun around on his seat, pulled off his headset and tried not to look guilty.
“I wasn’t doing anything!” Zotz protested.
The holovid relay monitor on the wall next to the booth showed a cat’s-eye view of the Indra’s flight deck. The odd angle and shaky image was down to Jones chewing upon a power cable to the life-support unit. Wak looked at the screen, confused.
“Never mind all that,” he said, sounding flustered. “You can play your games later. I came to say something. Quirinus thinks that, err... I’ve been neglecting you somewhat. Actually, he told me off for hiding away here and forgetting I had a son.”
“I thought you stayed behind to fix the hollow moon,” said Zotz, not realising his father was trying to apologise. “I don’t mind living with Quirinus and Ravana.”
“I know,” replied Wak. “But I am your father. I shouldn’t be relying on others to look after you. Your mother was most concerned when I told her about the evacuation.”
“Mum called?” exclaimed Zotz. “When?”
“Three weeks ago,” the professor confessed. “That’s the other thing I came to tell you. She left you a message. I meant to forward it on to you but it totally slipped my mind.”
“A message?” cried Zotz.
He slipped from the booth in a chaotic blur of limbs and came to rest at a nearby computer terminal, disturbing a large goose hiding beneath the desk. Within seconds he had called up his account and located the waiting holovid message. His raven-haired mother, an astrophysicist from Welsh Patagonia, had been away on Earth for almost a year, dea
ling with the tangle of business interests left in limbo following the death of Zotz’s grandfather.
As the holovid began to play, it was clear she had expected to find Zotz aboard and ready to talk to her in person. Her message to him was one she had hastily recorded at the end of her conversation with his father. Zotz was surprised to see her speaking from an open-air holovid booth at a tropical coastal resort, for all the pictures he had previously seen of Patagonia were of a cold and dreary slice of South America that his father assured him was just like Zotz’s late grandfather’s homeland on Cardigan Bay.
“Hi mum,” said Zotz, knowing full well she could not hear him.
Wak shuffled away to give his son some privacy. Zotz missed his mother more than either of them would ever admit.
“Hello Zotz,” said the figure on the screen. Zotz smiled at the sound of her familiar Welsh lilt. “I’m sorry you weren’t here when I called. Your father told me all about what happened to the Dandridge Cole and I’m glad you’re safe and sound in Newbrum. As you can see, I’m no longer down on dad’s farm,” she continued, waving a dismissive hand at her tropical surroundings. “I’m in French Guiana, the other end of the continent, at the space centre. My old boss heard I was on Earth and asked for my help on a new type of engine they’re fitting to a test rocket, so I’m afraid I won’t be on my way home to Barnard’s Star just yet. Of course, you’re always welcome to come and join me here before then!”
“Go to Earth?” murmured Zotz, as he settled down to watch the rest of the message. He did not see the perturbed look of his father.
* * *
Back on Ascension, the display on the console in Fornax’s hotel room declared it to be well past midnight. The slowly rotating planet beneath her bed had other ideas and above the dome the bloated sun was high in the sky. Barnard’s Star was much smaller and dimmer than Sol, but Ascension orbited far closer to its star than did Earth and the crimson disc of the red dwarf loomed large above the kilometre-wide glass and steel dome. The scarlet glowing strips between the slats of Fornax’s window blind were eerie and irritating in equal measure and despite her weariness, the reporter had failed to get any sleep.
Philyra had long gone, though promised to return the next day. Fornax was reluctant to wander around Newbrum without a guide, but nonetheless found herself pulling a black-and-grey tunic and a pair of leggings out of her suitcase after deciding that an exploratory walk around the city was a better use of time than staring at the ceiling. Her slate had the latest guide and street map of Newbrum, which had the shortest tourist information section she had ever seen. Her finger paused upon a grey blob on the map along Curzon Street.
“BBC local office,” she mused. “Then find a café that serves a decent cup of coffee.”
Fornax slipped on her boots, grabbed her battered pseudo-leather jacket and bounded downstairs to the hotel foyer. Other than a lonely janitor robot, the reception was deserted. The multi-limbed wheeled robot scrubbed at a stain on the threadbare carpet, but judging by its heavy-clawed stance was probably doing more harm than good. Pushing open the door, Fornax skipped nimbly over a dead rat and into the street.
The local gravity took some getting used to, but she liked the weird sensation of being light on her feet. Her map revealed the street plan of Newbrum was pleasingly logical. The town inside the main dome was split into four quadrants by the main thoroughfares that emanated from Circle Park Road: Corporation Street, which ran north and on through the dome wall to the spaceport; Sherlock Street to the south; Broad Street to the west; and Curzon Street to the east. Four concentric routes linked these roads together; Circle Park Road being the innermost, followed by Paradise Circus, Queensway and then an unnamed service road that hugged the inside of the dome wall. Her hotel was on Paradise Circus in the centre of Colmore, the north-east quadrant, next to a dingy alleyway that offered a short cut to Queensway. Fornax looked at the broken-down hovertruck outside the hotel, the crumbling concrete walkway and the tatty apartment-block frontages along the road and decided that the Paradise Hotel was probably not in the best part of town.
The British Broadcasting Corporation’s office was in Digbeth, the south-east quadrant, on the south side of Curzon Street near where it intersected Paradise Circus. The streets were surprisingly busy given it was supposed to be nearly one o’clock in the morning, but Fornax guessed that those who lived with the lengthy Ascension days and nights had long decided to ignore what time it was supposed to be, or else gone mad. For this reason, she hoped to find someone at the BBC despite it technically being the middle of the night.
The buildings were a lot smarter on Curzon Street. The concrete apartment blocks were painted in elegant pastels, many with colourful floral hanging baskets alongside the numerous ultra-violet street lamps installed to boost the sun’s weak rays. Most of the shops at street level were open for business, the road looked freshly-swept and there was even the occasional anachronistic wrought-iron bench waiting to provide the weary with somewhere to rest. The people walking the street looked slightly less stressed than Fornax had seen at the spaceport and elsewhere, but she was struck by how no one looked truly content. There was a sign: ‘SORRY, NO CHOCOLATE’ in a nearby store window, which she considered a good enough reason for Newbrum’s malaise.
The BBC office was above a shipping insurance broker. The window of the latter was dominated by a large holovid screen and Fornax paused to watch a surreal sales pitch aimed at those importing sheep to the high-gravity world of Taotie, Epsilon Eridani. A noise behind made her turn and she was startled by the appearance of a bizarre and ancient-looking wheeled robot, somewhat reminiscent of a laboratory bench on wheels, trundling up the road with its camera mast pitifully outstretched. She watched as the robot stopped outside the shop opposite and cautiously extended a probe to knock upon the closed door. Fornax jumped as the robot suddenly spoke in coarse metallic tones.
“Photographs!” the robot warbled. “Please print my photographs!”
“Weird,” muttered Fornax.
She turned to continue her own mission and accidentally stepped into the path of a young Chinese woman bustling towards the BBC office ahead.
“Whoops!” said Fornax. “Sorry about that, kid.”
“I should watch where I am going!” apologised the woman. “Clumsy me!”
“Hey, no problem,” said Fornax. She nodded towards the robot. “What’s with that hunk of junk?”
The woman smiled. “A friend told me it’s an old rover some jokers lifted from Mars a few years ago. They fixed it up and programmed it to roam the city taking photographs.” She gave an apologetic grin and stepped away, then hesitantly followed Fornax to the door of the BBC office. “Are you a reporter? I mean, do you work here?”
“Yes and no,” Fornax replied. She held out her hand. “Felicity Fornax, from Weird Universe. You may have seen me on the hit holovid show Cosmic Cooking?”
“Err... no,” the woman admitted. “I’m Ostara Lee, private investigator.”
Fornax raised a surprised eyebrow, then gestured towards the door. “Shall we?”
Ostara was blocking the doorway. With a nervous smile, she pushed it open and held it for Fornax, before following the reporter up the stairs beyond. At the top was another door, upon which a simple sign read: ‘BBC ASCENSION’.
The first thing Fornax saw when they entered the office was the holovid screen. An entire wall was covered by a single expanse of illuminated glass, dwarfing the man who stood before it with his back to the door. The screen displayed a variety of moving images, text documents and photographs, which the man was scrutinising and rearranging by waving his hands in front of the motion-sensitive screen. The tiny room was otherwise furnished with a desk by the window and a couple of easy chairs that left little space to stand. Fornax tried not to look too disappointed when the man turned to greet them, but there was no denying she had expected the BBC’s only outpost in the Barnard’s Star system to be a tad more impressive. The reaction of
her companion took her by surprise.
“Wow!” exclaimed Ostara. “The BBC newsroom! How exciting!”
“Can I help you?” asked the man. He was a twitchy, pale-skinned figure with thinning dark hair, who stood short of both Fornax and Ostara. He wore an uninspiring brown suit that did not quite fit. “Are you here to fix the molecularisor?”
“Do I look like an engineer?” Fornax remarked sarcastically. “I’m a journalist.”
“What’s up with the ’risor?” asked Ostara. A faint mechanical voice, warbling ‘Reboot me!’ over and over again, drifted through a nearby open door.
“Does it matter?” Fornax said, irritated. Her days on Cosmic Cooking had instilled in her a hatred of food molecularisors, which were able to produce a wide variety of food and drink almost instantly. In her mind they were to blame for the unimpressive ratings for her so-called ‘hit’ show, for she never really believed her producer’s assurance that there was a big difference between wanting to watch cookery programmes and actually wanting to cook.
“It won’t make hot beverages,” the man said sadly. “I really miss a nice cup of tea.”
“You don’t need a ’risor for tea!” chirped Ostara. “Allow me!”
She stepped gaily through the open doorway and moments later the sound of running water and rattling crockery filled the office as she got to work with the materials on hand. The man’s look of bemusement became one of curiosity.
“A journalist?” he asked Fornax. “With Five Systems News?”
“No, I’m not,” Fornax confessed. “I’m a roving reporter for Weird Universe, here to do a piece on the Bradbury Heights archaeology department.”
Ostara returned to the kitchenette door. “She’s a proper holovid star!” she exclaimed.
The man rolled his eyes. “And you are?”
“Ostara,” she replied. “Are you Teiresias? I sent you a message, asking to speak with you about the Dhusarian Church. We arranged to meet for lunch?”
Paw-Prints Of The Gods Page 13
