Do No Harm

by Chris Kennedy

  Vern put on his rubberized suit—a modified one, based on the original design that had allowed him to first work with electricity—crawled into the VASPer, and connected it to the suit, just like a Human getting into a CASPer would connect his or her haptic suit. Well…not exactly, he knew—Humans didn’t connect up hoses to allow water to circulate through their suits, but his version of the haptic suit also had plugs allowing him to connect his pinplants to the systems like many members of the Human mercenary companies used. With four pinplants, he could even control one of the Golden Horde’s suits…if they ever hired him and let him look at it.

  Once the water was flowing and his pinplants were connected, he opened the exterior door to the shop and started the VASPer. Unlike CASPers, his suit could be started without any exterior assistance. Within a couple of minutes, he had the suit running, and he walked out of the building, careful to push the button on the door remote that would close and lock the shop door behind him. The Humans always got angry when he forgot it, so he had included it as the last item on his startup checklist.

  Almost without thought, he turned toward the spaceport and began walking. He wanted to use the jumpjets, but decided not to, for a couple of reasons. First, he knew they often made some of the Humans…overly excited. They saw the flash of flames and assumed something was on fire and freaked out, as they liked to say. While the Humans undergoing this transformation never seemed to change their appearance—and Verne wasn’t sure what a freak looked like in any event—he knew they got excited in a negative manner, which was not conducive to good relations with his neighbors.

  Walking was also indicated because—truth be told—he still was not very good at it. The first time he’d taken a step in the VASPer, he had fallen flat onto his face, damaging several of the suit’s components and bruising himself quite ferociously as he bounced around inside it.

  He had added restraints, so the second crash—and those following it—were not as damaging to himself, and he’d learned to catch himself—mostly—with his arms so the crashes weren’t as hard on the machinery, but he still did not have the software for walking completely resolved to his satisfaction. While he could now make the suit move forward and backward without falling, it was not as smooth as a Human’s normal walk, and that irritated him more than when particulate matter got into his moistening tubes.

  One of the reasons he liked to pilot it at night was he didn’t have to answer questions on whether he was drunk or if the VASPer was being piloted by Frankenstein. As if any of the Humans or Wrogul—who also made fun of him—could build anything better. And he didn’t see where any of the Wrogul had a right to criticize—none of them could walk at all.

  Flying using the jumpjets was easy—it was more like swimming—and had been easy to program. But having a sea creature who had never walked program an eight-foot-tall metal suit to do it was proving…challenging. Someday, he would look back and pulse in laughter at these struggles, but that was a long time in the future.

  He stumbled his way to the starport just in time to see a shuttle land. He had never seen this version of shuttle, and he wanted to check it out; there might be new machinery inside. Also, it might have the weapons he had purchased for his VASPer, which would be very exciting. Finally, the people onboard may have news from the galaxy—and his latest rounds of merc organization job applications—so he followed the crew to Base Operations as they exited the shuttle.

  He had learned that looking at other beings’ equipment without their permission led to less than satisfactory results. While sometimes it was “better to beg forgiveness afterward,” as the Humans said, he found getting permission prior to touching someone else’s machinery often alleviated much hate and discontent and allowed him to get back to doing what he wanted sooner, without having to be lectured. Again.

  Realizing it would take longer than he could stand to get there, he toggled his jumpjets and roared into the sky. The best thing about flying was he could use his pinplants to guide the VASPer, and he brought it to a hover in front of the building, then dropped lightly to the ground. Verne flashed irritation as he shut the suit down and exited, wishing he could pilot the giant mech that easily on the ground.

  He kept his rubber suit on in case he needed to get back into the mech quickly and opened the door to operations. Both shuttle pilots were tall and dark haired, and they stood at the counter talking to Jim Sanders, the on-duty representative. Based on the age differences and the similarities in looks and how they held themselves, they appeared to be father and son.

  “Holy hell!” the younger one exclaimed as he turned to see who had followed them through the door. His hand went for the laser pistol at his hip. “What the hell is that thing?”

  “Oh, that’s just Verne,” said Sanders. “Don’t worry, he’s harmless.”

  “Are you sure?” the man said, his hand still on his pistol. “Is that…a diver’s suit?”

  “Yeah,” Sanders said. “He’s a Wrogul; they’re aquatic. He wears the suit to stay hydrated while he’s out and about.”

  “If you say so,” the younger pilot said. “It looks like a damn octopus or something—there’s too many damn arms.”

  “I am not an octopus,” Verne said, using his pinplants to connect to the building’s comm system. The man jumped, obviously not expecting Verne to be able to communicate. “Like Mr. Sanders said, I am a Wrogul, not some semi-intelligent cephalopod.”

  “Can I help you, Verne?” Sanders asked.

  “I saw the shuttle land,” Verne replied, “and I came to see if they had the weapons for my suit onboard.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Sanders replied. “The ship in orbit was only here to take on some reaction mass. The crew wasn’t planning to stop and don’t have anything for us.”

  “Oh.” Verne radiated disappointment, though none of the Humans could see his lights, or would understand them, if they could see them. He’d really hoped to at least get the laser. “Do they have any messages for us?”

  “If they do, you’ll receive them automatically through the comm system like normal. They didn’t bring any hard copies.”

  “Oh.” More disappointment. “Can I look at your shuttle then?” Verne asked the pair.

  “No, stay away from it,” the older man said. “It’s the only damn thing on the ship that runs the way it’s supposed to, and I can’t afford to have that get broken, too.”

  “You have broken things on your ship?” Verne asked. “Can I look at them?”

  “Yeah, too many broken things,” the younger man said, clearly more comfortable with Verne now that he knew Verne wasn’t dangerous. “That’s why we’re still here. I’m hoping one of your maintenance folks here at the starport can come help us with our environmental system.”

  “I know a bit about environmental systems,” Verne said. “I would be happy to take a look.”

  The older man chuckled as he looked down at Verne. “I’m sure you would.” He turned back to Sanders. “So, do you have any qualified personnel that can look at it?”

  Sanders smiled. “I hate to tell you this, but Verne is probably your best bet to fix it. He’s a genius with most mechanical things, almost like he was born to it.”

  “Some kind of mechanical savant, are you?” the man asked, turning back to Verne. “What do you know about the environmental systems on a Maki Vine-class cargo freighter?”

  “If you have the digital manuals, I will know everything,” Verne replied. “Environmental systems are one of my areas of study; I needed them to design my VASPer.”

  “What the hell’s a VASPer?”

  “It’s my version of a CASPer,” Verne said, his lights pulsing proudly. “It’s just outside if you’d like to see it.”

  The older man walked to the door and looked outside. “You built that?” he asked, incredulously. “That’s a freaking CASPer!”

  “Well, not entirely,” Verne replied, a little sadly, “but it’s very close to one.”

  “Did
you have the blueprints for it?”

  “No. Unfortunately, Binnig wouldn’t let me have them. I asked. Something about proprietary information, they said. So, I did the best I could with the drawings and Tri-V videos I had from the GalNet.”

  “Well…shit. That’s impressive.” He turned back to Sanders. “He isn’t pulling my leg, is he? He really built that?”

  “From scratch,” Sanders said. “I saw it in the fabrication plant when it was just the frame.”

  The man shook his head. “I’ve transported a number of them, and it looks like the real thing to me.” He paused, considering. “Okay, I’ll give you a shot at my ship,” the man said. “My name’s David Steele, and I’m the owner of Leaf. This is my son, James, who is also my operations officer.” He nodded to the younger man then turned back to Verne. “Are you space-qualified?”

  “No, but I built a spacesuit for extended space operations once, so I understand what is required. Unfortunately, Nemo took the suit and is using it, and the other one I built—the prototype—is in three pieces. Still, the VASPer works, and I can go up to your ship in it. The VASPer will give me two days’-worth of life support. Three if I don’t mind the water being a little…stale.”

  “Well, if you puke in it, I guess it’s on you to figure out how to breathe it,” David Steele said. “I can’t be flying the shuttle back and forth all the damn time; it’s expensive.”

  “I understand,” Verne said, “but I do not believe it will be a problem. Typically, sea creatures do well in zero-G environments, and I am confident I will do the same.”

  “All right then,” the man said, holding the door open for Verne. “Time’s a-wasting, and time is money. Let’s get going.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Five

  Verne crawled outside, pulled himself into the VASPer, and started it up. “Ready when you are,” he said through the external speakers to the two men waiting for him.

  “Follow me,” David said.

  Verne stumbled after him, his normal motion even more jerky in his haste to keep up and his excitement at going to space! He was so excited he fell forward and had to go down to one knee to catch himself.

  “Umm…Dad?” James jerked a thumb toward where Verne was trying to stand up and walk forward at the same time. “Are you sure about this? I don’t know if taking this…thing…into space is such a good idea. He doesn’t seem like much of an engineer—that thing can barely walk!”

  “We don’t have any better ideas,” David said. He moved to stand in front of Verne, who stumbled awkwardly to a stop, happy not to have run over the spacer. “Are you okay?”

  “I am just excited to be going to space,” Verne said. “Also, while I am an excellent mechanic, I am still learning how to walk on two legs instead of eight. It isn’t something my race has ever done before.”

  The older man laughed. “I guess that might be a bit of a challenge if you’ve never done it before.” He sobered and added, “Just take your time and try not to break anything, okay?”

  Verne said he’d try, and David led the group to the back of the shuttle and put down the ramp. Verne walked slowly into the shuttle’s cargo bay then stopped and looked around. There were so many new things to play with! Well, not new, but new to him…and they would be just like new when he was finished!

  “Stay in your suit and don’t touch anything,” David said. He had Verne maneuver the mecha to one of the bulkheads, where he strapped it in. “The trip to the ship isn’t long, and I don’t want you getting into anything back here. I need James to help pilot the shuttle and can’t spare him to babysit you.”

  Verne didn’t say anything; he just pulsed his annoyance at the Humans’ propensity for inefficiency—again!—while he stayed strapped in. He saw at least three systems he could fix or optimize before they reached orbit, and that was without using any of the suit’s optical magnification features. The cargo ramp had also been slow to deploy, which was something he could easily have upgraded, too. And then, when the port engine came on, the harmonics! Obviously, the motor was out of tune and in need of an overhaul. Or at least tweaking. So many systems for him to work on, all within just a short crawl of each other, and he couldn’t touch any of them!

  It was so frustrating, he almost got out of his suit…and then the G forces hit. He was pinned in his straps, unable to move, while the unseen forces tried to use the straps to force him into an unplanned budding. He had read about G forces, but he never realized it would be so painful!

  After several minutes that seemed to last an eternity, he was free of the invisible crushing force, and he went from being bound in the straps to floating lightly within them. This was better! No, this was awesome! It was almost like swimming, but without the water. He thought it might be fun to try it without the VASPer suit, and he was removing the straps when a red light started flashing, and David’s voice said, “Stand by for maneuvering as we dock.”

  Maneuvering meant random forces as the pilots jockeyed the craft into position and—with the experience of G forces recently in mind—Verne quickly strapped back in again. He had no desire to be a squishy ping pong ball bouncing around the cargo bay. The G forces, when they came, were not as strong this time, nor as painful, and ended with a thump. A few moments later, David drifted into the cargo compartment.

  “I’m not sure if you want to bring that suit onboard or whether you want to just come out. Up to you, I guess.”

  “I will bring the suit,” Verne said, “as it has my life support; however, I will probably need to exit it to see what is wrong with your ship.”

  “That’s fine.” David quickly unstrapped the suit. “Okay, follow me.” He turned and pushed off toward the cockpit and the docking collar.

  Verne went to take a step, and the suit floated away from the floor. He quickly moved the legs several times, but that only served to make him float further from the floor as a feeling of anxiety came over him—he had no control! He took a deep breath, sucking in a large amount of water, then exhaled as the suit bumped into the ceiling. What was he going to do? He couldn’t move!

  Magnetic boots.

  It came to him in a blinding flash of the obvious, and he would have slapped himself in the forehead if he had one like the Humans did. Some of the diagrams he had seen had shown the CASPer suit as having mag boots, so he had designed them into the VASPer, but he had never thought about why they would be needed.

  “Are you coming?” David asked, coming back into the cargo bay.

  “Yes,” Verne said, not wanting to sound like an idiot. “I was just experimenting with the suit’s capabilities in zero G.” He activated the magnetic boots and gave himself a gentle push off the ceiling. The mag boots clamped onto the floor as they came close, and Verne was back in control, even though he now had to learn a new way to walk.

  But that was just a simple matter of programming, and he did it on the fly through his pinplants. When the arm pretending to be a Human leg lifted, turn off the magnetic effect; when he set the arm back down again, reinitialize the magnetic effect. It was simple, and after a few steps, he was walking like a Human did in the suit—and it was far easier than walking planetside.

  He was having so much fun actually walking that he was not watching where he was going. He strode past the docking collar and forward to the cockpit, where it looked like the younger Steele was going through a checklist on his slate.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “No, uh…” Verne said, realizing his mistake. “I…uh…just wanted to thank you for the smooth ride to orbit, but I must be leaving now.”

  He turned to find the elder Steele behind him. If he could have tapped his foot in the zero G, the look on his face said he would have been. “Are you finally ready to leave?” he asked.

  “Yes. Sorry about that,” Verne mumbled as he followed Steele from the craft.

  The tunnel to the ship required some extra maneuvering, forcing him to go headfirst and pull himself along, but the VA
SPer was up to the task. It was a simple matter of putting the suit’s hand on an object and giving the mental command to close on it, then pulling back the arm. Easy peasy, as the Humans said. In fact, maneuvering in zero G was far easier than doing it in a gravitational field, and Verne pulled himself through the tunnel nearly as fast as Steele had and re-attached his boots to the floor of the freighter.

  “Do I need to ask for permission to come aboard?” Verne asked. “Like they do in the movies?”

  “No,” Steele replied. “You’re my guest, and this isn’t a warship.” He nodded to where Verne’s boots were clamped to the floor. “Besides,” he said with a chuckle, “you’re already aboard.”

  “Yes, I guess I am, at that.”

  “I’ll take you to the environmental system,” Steele said. “And this time, please try to stay with me. This ship isn’t that big, but I don’t want you getting lost, okay?”

  “Okay,” Verne agreed, and he tried, hard, to keep his eyes on Steele’s back as he pushed down the passageway, but things kept sparkling in his eyes. A pipe that was not at the optimal angle. A door seal that was obviously not pressure-tight. So many things that needed to be fixed! How could they let the ship fall into such disrepair?!

  He finally saw something he could not live with—two cables that were poorly joined and likely to come apart during maneuvers—and was going to stop and fix them—they were a safety hazard, after all—when Steele stopped at a doorway.

  “The environmental system is inside this hatch,” he said.

  Right. Doors on ships were called “hatches.” Verne made a mental note of it, wondering what other ship terms he did not know.

  Steele opened the hatch, and it was like the Human had opened the door to paradise. The entire room was full of machinery, humming along. No, Verne thought. Some of it was straining, emitting a slightly lower-pitched noise than it should be.

  He had to fix it. Without conscious thought, he evacuated his rubber suit, shut down the VASPer, and exited it. He pushed off toward the machinery making the weird sounds.