Gravity of a Distant Sun

by R. E. Stearns

  “Now, Pel Mel, what the hell have you been up to since I talked to you last?” asked Iridian.

  Pel shrugged while keeping a hand between his eyes and the temple entrance. There must have been high priority messages inside the temple entrance as well as on the wall outside. “So, I got here and realized, ‘Oh shit, my money’s no good.’ Well, some guys tried to rob me and then they told me the money’s no good. This temple is where people with no money go, so that’s where I went too. No money, no robbers, right? I slept in here the last couple of nights, because one of those holy phrases outside is ‘Shelter the homeless,’ and when somebody tried to turn me out, I called them on it.”

  Iridian laughed. “Nice.”

  “Anyway, some people spend all day here. There just aren’t any beds for people who don’t work here.”

  “But you couldn’t find anyplace else we could all stay?” Adda asked.

  Pel looked down and shuffled his feet in childlike guilt. “Sorry, Sissy.”

  “Pel, you knocked everything else out of the damned park,” said Iridian. “We wouldn’t be here without you.”

  Pel smiled, but he was still making a pitiful puppy face at Adda. “She’s right,” Adda told him. “You had a really big part in getting us here, and we made it.” The conversation had gotten awkward quickly. “Way to not fuck up.”

  His pitiful expression gave way to a boyish grin. “Yes! The highest of reviews. All the stars. Meet the new, non-fuckup Pel!”

  “This place is a good find, anyway.” Rio pushed aside the beads that hung in the empty doorway. Iridian looked surprised to see her, and Rio shrugged. “It’s a little awkward in there, with me being the only ZV and Major O.D. being the one who did her in. I’m sure he had a good reason. The Casey too, after a fashion.”

  “What the hell would Casey have against her?” Iridian snapped. “How did Casey even know she existed?”

  “Who knows?” Rio said. “But AIs don’t do spite, so it must’ve known how connected she was, or something.”

  Iridian glanced at Adda, but Adda had only guesses, not evidence. If Casey had wanted her and Iridian imprisoned, it would’ve investigated Sorenson ITAS once it became clear that Iridian would be sent there. Collecting information on the prisoners and employees would’ve been simple enough, but it would’ve been difficult to draw accurate conclusions from the information, and it prioritized avoiding human attention.

  Casey would’ve waited until it saw that Tash had left with Iridian, then dug into Tash’s background. It must’ve prioritized Tash’s elimination, because of her previous experience in Jovian stations or because it found Tash’s history easier to exploit than anyone else’s. And then it’d done something entirely new, using Major O. D. to kill Tash, and stopped there instead of continuing to turn the ZVs against Iridian’s and Adda’s new allies.

  That was a puzzle Adda would need much more information to solve. She wasn’t confident enough in her analysis to put it in terms Rio and Pel would understand. Starting an argument with Iridian that Adda couldn’t finish wouldn’t help anyone either.

  The routines she’d outlined on Ceres while she was waiting for Iridian would provide some of that information. She’d had to discard most of the prospective functions in the interest of actual functionality. Once the Not for Sale returned to a reliable route with Patchwork buoys, the copilot would launch the trackers and delete records of their having existed on the ships’ systems. Then they’d begin searching for the awakened intelligences. They might be collecting all sorts of useful location data on them, and Adda couldn’t download their reports.

  She’d missed whatever the others had been saying while she’d been considering the tracking routines. The dim light, rhythmic chimes, and pillows made this room easy to think in. “I never thought we’d spend time in a religious place.” For once, her voice was perfectly pitched in this peaceful space, not too quiet like it was everywhere else. “I would’ve read more about the station’s prominent belief systems, if I’d thought of it.”

  Rio turned slightly sideways to make it through the door with her helmet cradled under one massive arm, and eased herself onto a pillow beside Pel. “Looks like a lot of Hinduism and Buddhism,” she said. “Oh, there’s Jesus and Mary, and a Star of David in the front by the door.” Iridian, Adda, and Pel all shared the same surprised expression. “What?” said Rio. “There’s more to life than what you can mod onto a killing machine. I mean, everybody likes a good killing machine, but that’s not what life’s about.”

  “Huh,” said Pel. “What if we don’t like killing machines?”

  “Then this is a good place for you.” The woman in the red robe stepped past Rio to sit gracefully on one of the pillows. A man in a white robe with two sleeves took her place near the door to greet visitors.

  Iridian wrapped her arm around Adda’s waist and pulled her closer. “Thanks for letting Pel take up space,” she said.

  “Providing a refuge is what we’re here for.” The woman smiled. “I’m called Mie Shingetsu.” Iridian introduced them, including Wiley and Noor, who arrived while she was explaining that Pel was Adda’s little brother. “Come with me,” Shingetsu said. “We should talk about Tash.”

  They all stood and followed Shingetsu into the hallway and to one of the few working doors in the temple. The room it opened on was as small as the one they’d been talking in before, but intricate carpet covered the floor and more narrow windows showing Jupiter provided most of the light. At some point, this place must’ve had a halfway decent textile printer.

  A woman in a sari and two people in street clothes were sitting cross-legged on threadbare pillows in silence. “Excuse me, Sister,” said Shingetsu. The woman in the sari stood and led the other two out. Shingetsu gestured for Iridian’s crew to sit while she shut the first door Adda had seen in the place and palmed its lock.

  Adda shifted closer to Iridian. Nobody could leave without Shingetsu now. She sent a message to Noor. What do you know about locks like those? His comp buzzed almost too softly to hear, even in this quiet place.

  When everybody was arranged and the crescendo of a hymn being sung in a nearby room had passed, Shingetsu said, “So, you are Tash’s last crew.”

  “How do you figure we’re talking about the Tash you know, and not someone else who goes by the same name?” asked Iridian.

  Shingetsu smiled gently. “I was told to expect you.”

  “A god told you?” Rio leaned forward in an eager clatter of armor. “Like, in a dream or a vision?” Pel and Wiley both looked hopefully at Shingetsu too. Adda took Iridian’s hand and held on. The nearly omnipotent force most likely to talk about them was not a celestial being.

  “No, no.” Shingetsu laughed. “An anonymous message, here.” She waved her comp hand in its yellow glove. “Tash’s crew would bring her here, it said, and it would be in my best interest to make you leave the station.”

  Adda’s eyes widened. There was no reason for Shingetsu to lie. Casey had learned a lot about communicating with humanity without exposing its inhuman nature. And it wouldn’t have sent Shingetsu that message unless it’d tracked Adda and Iridian to Yăo Station.

  At least the message confirmed that it’d kept the ship it was installed in well away from Yăo Station’s hazardous orbit. The ITA would learn where Iridian and Adda were whenever Casey wanted them to, and they’d act whenever Casey convinced them that Adda and Iridian’s presence constituted a sufficient threat. It hadn’t done that yet.

  The ITA trained its members to avoid killing whenever possible, so Casey wasn’t hiding Adda and Iridian’s location from the ITA to keep them alive. It could’ve been having trouble manipulating the ITA. Maybe it didn’t want the ITA to recapture them at all.

  “But we’re here now,” Iridian pointed out. “If you were planning to follow that message’s orders, I figure you’d have kicked us out already.”

  “Other people can’t decide what’s best for me.” Shingetsu’s smile was as comforting a
s her words.

  “But it’s not a—” Adda interrupted Pel by reaching behind Iridian’s back to poke him in the side. He yelped and left his sentence unfinished. Maybe foreboding messages from anonymous senders didn’t intimidate the holy woman, but an awakened intelligence might.

  “You said something about debts,” said Iridian.

  “Yes.” Shingetsu became more serious. “At the interfaith center, we know almost everyone on the station, and we know somebody who knows everybody we don’t. You see?”

  “Tash would’ve loved that,” Wiley said softly.

  “She did,” said Shingetsu.

  “So, you knew her?” Wiley asked.

  Shingetsu nodded. “I met her while working on my pet project, which she appreciated too, I believe. I connect people who were separated during the war. Some here have been written off as dead in all the official records, but they still have loving families who want them to come home, if they can.”

  “There are a lot of things that’d keep a person from going home,” Iridian said.

  Shingetsu raised an eyebrow. “Such as prison?”

  Noor straightened up on his cushion, and Iridian’s hand slipped out of Adda’s to rest on the hilt of one of her knives. “Yeah.” Iridian sounded much more cautious than she had before.

  Adda’s comp buzzed. She opened a message from Noor. Got the lock. She nodded minutely without looking at him.

  Shingetsu raised both hands and waved them toward the floor, a pacifying gesture that rocked her whole body on the pillow in Yăo’s slightly too low gravity. “We scan for nannite cultures, and we tell no one of our findings. That way we know what to expect, and when to call for help.”

  “And you didn’t call for help when the six of us showed up with ITA cultures?” Iridian’s incredulity was obvious in her voice. Adda and Pel weren’t infected, but the exact count of infected individuals wasn’t Iridian’s point.

  “We did,” Shingetsu said.

  Everybody tensed. Any official law enforcement agent could activate the nannite cultures, which meant that the activation mechanism was available for purchase somewhere and anyone with Patchwork access and determination would find out how to do it. People on this station might not have reliable Patchwork access, but the functional port meant that people with sufficient resources could fly to the nearest Patchwork beacon and bring back whatever they wanted. Most people Adda had seen on the station didn’t appear to have those resources, but somebody must.

  “Not for violence,” Shingetsu added quickly. “We also saw how you treated your departed friend. We notified a local clinic. I only want to talk.”

  “We don’t have time for a confession, or whatever it is you do,” Iridian said. “And nobody’s hurt or sick here.” Everyone nodded their agreement except Rio, who frowned like she would’ve appreciated either a confession or medical attention.

  “I was actually hoping to propose an exchange,” said Shingetsu. “I believe we can help each other.”

  “If it’s sex, I volunteer,” Pel said cheerfully. Adda glanced at him in alarm and he shrugged. “What? It’s what I’m best at.”

  “Ah . . . no.” The expression forming on Shingetsu’s face suggested she’d gotten herself into more than she’d bargained for. “I need something done that former members of Sloane’s crew should be able to accomplish.”

  “Captain Sloane has incredible sex,” Pel grumbled. Iridian and Rio groaned and Adda shushed him while trying to think of something other than the many and varied noises that came from the captain’s rooms.

  “So you know who they are,” Wiley said, which was a much more useful point to make.

  “Well, yes,” said Shingetsu. “I should think that everyone knows Iridian Nassir and Adda Karpe.” On Vesta their notoriety had had some advantages, since most of Rheasilvia Station saw them as heroes. Now it was on Adda’s list of challenges to work around, a list that had grown since she’d recovered from Casey’s influence.

  If they failed to find a way onto Dr. Björn’s expedition before it launched, then they’d need to be ready for whatever Casey was planning. And now it wasn’t just the two of them, but a whole crew Adda had to consider. In any case, readiness started with money. “What do you need stolen?” Adda asked.

  Shingetsu blinked, then smiled like the question was a relief. “You understand. I need drones.”

  Now Rio looked profoundly disappointed. “You’re supposed to be a priestess or something, aren’t you?”

  “And we have worked for much worse, so this is great.” Iridian gave Rio a warning look. “Where are the drones?”

  “I won’t be using them to download the latest celebrity gossip, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Shingetsu said. “The war separated many people and isolated many more. My goal is to bring them together, to help people find loved ones they’ve lost.” This seemed to mollify Rio. “And I can’t do that without a link to the Patchwork.”

  The difficult Patchwork connection was a major reason Casey and the other awakened intelligences were staying away from Yăo Station. Between drones and ships coming in and out of the port, some connection was possible, at the whim of pilots. Increasing connection reliability would make the station more inviting to Casey, but only if the drones consistently carried a significant volume of data.

  “We’ve tried launching buoys,” Shingetsu said, “but we don’t know much about shipping lines or orbital dynamics.” Unless they were properly protected from the adverse effects of being this close to Jupiter, none of the conditions Shingetsu was worried about would’ve mattered. “The ones we managed to keep track of for more than a few days got shut down and the Odin Razum sent us threats. They seem more aggressive and organized lately.”

  “The what?” asked Pel. The rest of the crew was exchanging worried looks. That was the person or group who’d somehow heard about Iridian, Adda, and the rest of them before they’d even arrived on the station. Adda had assumed that Pel told someone they were coming.

  Shingetsu sighed. “Water is as essential here as anywhere else. Perhaps more so, with our money tied to it. The Odin Razum, a gang of the most lost among us, have taken over the water treatment plant on level two. They’ve also captured the station drones, which can fly into range of the Patchwork. They sell the drones’ trips to connect to the Patchwork for prices I can’t pay with my donations. We get updates from spacefarers, sometimes, but pilots rarely trust anyone here well enough to carry messages back with them. They don’t want to be associated with something terrible.”

  “How many Odin Razum are there?” asked Rio.

  “It’s hard to say.” Shingetsu looked at her folded hands. “Thirty, perhaps? There seem to be more of them than ever lately.”

  “So we get some drones and you get as many messages out as you can before the Odin Razum take them back,” Iridian said. Once again, an isolated station was relying on an intelligence to carry their messages to the rest of the universe. That parallel to Barbary Station was unsettling.

  After Adda had enough information, the six of them should be able to recover the drones. If they needed to use the drones to reach the Patchwork, like Shingetsu planned to do, then they could do that at the same time she did. They couldn’t defend the drones against a whole gang, so it was good that Iridian had limited the deal to retrieving the drones once. Allowing the gang to take the drones back would maintain the current limited connection that discouraged the awakened intelligences from approaching Yăo Station without isolating Yăo Station’s residents more than they already were. Somewhere along the way, she also hoped to learn why the Odin Razum had been talking about the six of them before they even got here.

  “I suppose they would want them back, wouldn’t they?” Shingetsu sighed. “But yes, I have many messages ready to send, and addresses that won’t keep forever.”

  “How much does this pay?” Adda asked.

  Shingetsu’s expression spoke volumes, and Adda didn’t like any of them. “We rely on do
nations, you understand.”

  Noor stood to leave, and Iridian glared at him. It was his right, but maybe it was rude as well. “Does it look like I do charity work?” he snapped. “If it doesn’t pay, I’m out.”

  “I can offer a little water, and I know someone who can cleanse you of your nannite cultures.” That stopped Noor before he reached the door, and Shingetsu’s eyes lit with hope. “All of you. No additional charge, no official updates to the record.”

  Iridian couldn’t get anywhere near the port where Dr. Björn’s expedition would launch with ITA nannites broadcasting her location. In the short term it would’ve been better to earn money to live on Yăo Station with, but they would’ve had to pay for nannite removal eventually. And if they were going to build a reputation on Yăo Station that might lead to more lucrative jobs, this seemed like a good place to start. Adda nodded her approval.

  “How much water, in addition to the nannite removal?” Iridian asked.

  “Two purified liters per person per day, while you’re retrieving the drones and after if we can’t find you another way to earn it,” Shingetsu said. “We all wish we had more.”

  That was, if Iridian remembered her survival training, just barely enough if none of them sweated too much. “That works for me.”

  “Why not?” Noor asked, by way of agreement or possibly despair. Rio and Pel nodded, and Wiley said, “Yeah. Sure.”

  Iridian thumped Pel on the shoulder, rocking him sideways. “Looks like you got us another iffy job on another iffy space station. Thanks, I guess.”

  Pel did not look remotely repentant. “Beats running around full of ITA nannites, right?”

  Shingetsu’s small smile had returned, but she wasn’t as happy as she ought to have been. “I do have to ask for some assurance that you’ll return. I can’t take the chance that you’ll sell the drones and find another place to have the cultures removed.”

  “I’ll stay here till you get back,” said Pel. Before Adda could even find words to yell at him for offering, he added, “Seriously, what good am I going to be out there? Maybe I’ll see something useful?” He widened and contracted his bright yellow pupils, since both the color and amount of light he let into his pseudo-organic eyes were under his conscious control when he wanted them to be. Even though using him as collateral made Adda’s skin crawl, he’d be safer here than where they were going. “Besides,” Pel said, “the tea here is really good.”