Spaced

by Greg Curtis

  Carm resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands, but only just. He was beginning to realise he had made a tactical error in having the computer's voice turned back on.

  “Of course you should never let him speak to a woman either. Any woman.” The ship carried on happily, completely oblivious to Carm's embarrassment. Or perhaps enjoying it. “I don't know what it is but they all seem to want to kill him shortly after meeting him. Kendra, Del, Detective Samara and Captain None of your Damned Business. It's his gift. I think he has the exact opposite of what you organics call a winning personality.”

  “This could take a while,” Carm told the Provost with a small groan as the ship continued. “I'm going for coffee if there's nothing else.”

  Unexpectedly he felt comfortable doing that, even saying it to the Provost who looked like he had the beginnings of his own headache forming. These people were mutes. And yet he was beginning to realise that they were people as well. Except for Del.

  With that and a nod from the Provost Carm left the bridge while the ship continued its diatribe of his many faults. He even managed to ignore the smirks he could see on the mutes' faces as he passed by.

  If there was one thing he was beginning to learn it was that there was no point in arguing with the sharding computer. Women, androids, AI's, pretty much anything that could talk; there was no point in arguing with any of them. He would be better off with a cat! A cat with no vocal cords!

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Hospitals! Annalisse was beginning to hate them. Which was unfortunate since she was spending so much time in them lately. She detested their flat white ceilings, their stainless steel equipment and perfectly white ceramic tiles. She loathed the smell of antiseptic. It was more than a woman should have to stand.

  She doubted she was alone in her dislike. The ward was full and many of the other patients were still forced to lie flat and stare up at the boring whiteness above. Her injuries were bad but nowhere near as serious as some others.

  After the warbots had finally been instructed to release the battlefield, the bodies had begun to be pulled clear. Not all of them were dead. People who'd been hit directly by the pulse weapons had, but many more had been grazed. That still left people with severe crush injuries, broken bones, amputations, internal injuries and burns.

  It had been estimated that seven thousand people had been on the march including two and a half thousand officers. Somewhere between one and two thousand of those had died – the exact toll had not yet been determined and might never be. Probably another two to three thousand people had been injured to the point where they needed hospital care. The rest were missing, saved ironically by the weapons used against them. The pulse weapons had stirred up so much dust and created so much smoke and flame obscuring the battlefield that many had been given a chance to run.

  Even so, two to three thousand seriously injured casualties was simply too many for the medical services to cope with. Hospitals were overflowing. They’d never been designed to cope with such numbers of emergency trauma patients. It was something that just didn't happen, neither on Aquaria nor in the Commonwealth. The worst accidents they knew were the odd floater crash every once in a while. One or two people might need treatment, but certainly not thousands all at once.

  So she found herself crammed into a ward with eleven others which was only meant to have four beds in it, and which normally only had one or two patients. More were lined up in the hallways. Medbots were everywhere, with doctors and nurses running around looking panicked and no end of worried faces. Resources and treatment facilities were scarce. Even now there were queues of beds lined up outside operating theatres. Drugs had run out, monitoring equipment was in critically short supply, and even the stem cell and cosmetic clinics were swamped as they tried to take some of the load.

  This was a disaster. A medical, military and political disaster.

  The one aspect she couldn't figure out was how the Navy had got things so badly wrong. They were saying nothing – officially. Most of their people had retreated to the bases, shutting the gates immediately. More had fled once the Commonwealth blackout had been lifted, and once people had seen what the Navy had done.

  However the truth of what they'd done had got out and whoever had released the scandal onto the mesh had saved a lot of lives. The Navy would never have let anyone on to the battlefield before it had happened. The Navy denied that their plan had been to leave everyone to die, while claiming that there were still dangerous mutes out there and that it had been a public safety measure. Why, she didn't know.

  They had to have been truly dark side to believe that the plan would work. It wasn't just botbrain stupid, it was an act she could only describe as evil. That was never a term she would use as a detective. She’d been trained in forensic psychology and criminology. She was a rational woman. Evil was a word the religious used. But in this case it seemed accurate. And there was no other word that fitted. It was inhuman.

  Now the entire Aquarian naval detachment was hiding. No one was going in or out and no one was speaking. Probably, she thought, they were trying to come up with some sort of explanation. But whatever the excuse they finally came up with was, it wouldn't wash. The entire Commonwealth had seen the holos. They had no more chance of escaping the consequences of their actions than a snowball had of surviving a trip into the sun.

  She doubted Naval Command would survive either. They’d been covering up the crimes of their detachment on Aquaria, and had ultimately launched a coup. They might still be trying to call it a military emergency but as excuses went that was the worst pile of used floater parts she'd ever heard. It was surprising they could squeeze them out of their throats. Even most criminals would have more sense.

  To add to Naval Command's woes a large number of officers had thrown down their weapons and uniforms, and had left the Navy, wanting no part in what had happened. Others had stayed, but were refusing to accept orders from anyone until some sort of chain of command was re-established. More had just gone dark.

  The Navy was in tatters. Naval Command had disintegrated. And even the Commonwealth was struggling to make sense of what had happened, not to mention what to do. Who did they fire? Who did they arrest and charge? Who did they trust to carry out the arrests? And did they even have enough prisons for the influx that would soon be filling them?

  That wasn't Annalisse's concern though. She needed to contact as many of the people she knew to find out how many of them were still among the living. They were saying that over a thousand officers had been killed, that the warbots had targeted them first. And she didn't even know who among her colleagues had been on that march to begin with.

  “Three forty-two's reporting a major leak!”

  Someone from further down the ward called out, and Annalisse reached for her comms. Strangely, the one item they’d left with her, after taking everything else, was her badge. And perhaps that was a good thing.

  She grabbed it from underneath her pillow, slapped it down on her stomach, tapped it to bring up the comms, and ordered it to show the channel. As soon as she did her mouth dropped open.

  “Doctor Simons?” Wasn't he supposed to spaced? She was sure he’d been. She’d seen him jump. So there was absolutely no way he could be back. But she recognised him. It was him, sitting on the bridge of his ship. He looked tired, older and thinner than she remembered, but it was him. How?

  Curious, she watched the exchange between him and Captain Everson and, while it answered some questions, it raised so many more.

  It was good to know where the leaks had come from – especially the one that had saved her life – but she had to wonder, just how close was his connection with the mutes? Because until then she wouldn't have thought he'd had one at all. Or was it only with White? And what was this whole first generation mute versus rogue thing?

  She understood the concept but this seemed like something new. Did they now have two groups of mutes to worry about, one
of them with highly advanced technology? It did perhaps explain the difference between White and the others. He was a rogue as Simons claimed. But for her it was simpler than that. White was what most people would call a sharding arsehole.

  She also wondered where White was in this entire mess. Perhaps the Navy had killed him – possibly the only worthwhile target for their violence there had ever been – but she doubted it somehow. He was a survivor. He was also a treacherous little worm who’d sell out his own people to save his skin. The man had all the integrity of a black hole.

  If he still lived she realised he had even more power than she'd guessed. Knowledge was as they said, power. And if the bangbot had given these miraculous algorithms to Doctor Simons it must have got them from its true master. White also had the algorithms, and she had no doubt that he would leverage that to his advantage. It didn't take a lot to realise that the Navy and maybe the Commonwealth would give him anything he wanted in return for them. They would no doubt give him his freedom. He would be back.

  But that wasn't right. It couldn't happen.

  For the first time in ages Annalisse felt a new emotion while listening to the feeds. Not self pity, shock or disbelief at what had happened. Not even a feeling of helplessness. Instead it was one that she’d almost forgotten: the feeling of the hunter as her quarry came into focus.

  Maximilian White-Jones was not going to be getting away. He was going to pay for his crimes.

  Chapter Thirty Four

  “Your ship is a sharding mess!”

  Carm was sitting in the galley when he heard Del's voice behind him. He managed to suppress a groan. He'd been trying to avoid her as best he could for the previous week, though it wasn't easy when she seemed to be all over the ship. Somehow she managed to turn up unexpectedly with some cutting remark at least once a day. Why couldn't she just stay on her own vessel? The Journey's End was surely a much bigger and more comfortable.

  Of course he didn't actually know what the mute ship was like, as he hadn't been allowed to disembark. Not that he was that curious to investigate a ship full of mutes, but it did seem a little unfair when those same people were coming onboard his ship at will. They were mostly fixing, tuning the engine and mechanics, getting the Nightingale back into order. He didn't know why, and he wasn't sure he liked it. But the ship was watching them closely and it wasn't complaining.

  For his part he had more important matters to worry about as he scoured the mesh for word of his family. He wasn't sure if his celebrity helped or hurt. Now that he'd been exposed as the possessor of the most valuable algorithms ever known in Commonwealth history and the man who'd released two of the most important leaks ever, he'd become a minor mesh-lord. He was the subject of literally millions of threads, holos and channels. And the fate of his family had been raised on so many occasions. Their names and faces were out there and people were actively looking for them, but still they hadn't been found. That scared him. And the last thing he needed while worrying about them was an annoying mute woman criticising his ship.

  “I know. Jumped wild, remember?”

  “I'm not talking about that.” She came around from behind him to plant herself on a chair opposite with a cup of coffee and a plate with some cake on it.

  Something about that irritated him. Maybe it was the way that she didn't seem so much to be making herself comfortable as claiming ownership of his vessel. He did briefly wonder where she'd got the cake from though.

  “The new bot seems to be taking care of the worst of the damage. And there’re some calibration issues with the drives that our people are fixing. We can't have you blowing up now can we? Though it may still happen. This is a primitive ship after all.”

  Primitive ship? Carm resisted the urge to call her on it – he didn't need the fight. But while he might avoid one fight, he knew he'd bought himself another. Later the ship was going to ask him why he hadn't defended its honour. It heard everything and then it liked asking him difficult questions. He was beginning to suspect it was deliberate. The AI was becoming naturally prickly. The devil of it was that by the standards of the mutes – the Edenites as he had to keep reminding himself to call them – the Nightingale was rather primitive.

  “But the dirt! The mess everywhere! Can't you afford any decent cleaning bots? I mean the ones you've got seem to be allergic to corners and edges. They just take a half-phase run at the middle of the room and then ignore everything else.” For emphasis she ran a finger along the synthetic couch’s leather arm and raised it to show him. Carm couldn't see any dirt.

  “I'll mention it to the ship.”

  Actually he thought he might not. The ship seemed clean enough to him and she was just complaining for her own sake. Del did that – or rather Marshal Delilah Fontaine as she wanted to be called.

  Marshals! He still didn't quite get that. This was a police vessel they were on board. A vessel larger and more powerful than any warship the Commonwealth Navy possessed. And the Provost, which was an administration post, was equivalent to police captain – though Provost Marshal Drummond didn't want to be called Captain.

  At least they were law-abiding. Extremely so. They didn't trust him. Some seemed to openly dislike him or at least regarded him with disdain – he saw the expressions on their faces whenever they passed him. But not a one of them had harmed a hair on his head or had made a comment. Nor would they as he was learning – the law was everything to these people. It didn't seem like a very mute trait to him, but it was a welcome one.

  “How goes the search?”

  She asked politely and there might even have been an expression on her face that looked like concern. Carm doubted she really cared though.

  “Nothing. They're in the void, fallen into a mesh black hole.” He suspected she already knew that. He was sure they were keeping a close eye on him, particularly on any communications he made. The question might be polite, but it was a distraction. He wasn't in the mood for that.

  “You came to bother me for a reason?” He didn't mind being bothered that much in all honesty. But she still must have had a reason for being there.

  “The Provost says it's time,” Del quickly got to the point.

  He was grateful for that. He was also thankful that it was time. In his view they could have done it days ago. That was when the Navy had finally conceded defeat and the Commonwealth had triumphed. But the Edenites had wanted to wait to see how events panned out. Caution was also not a trait he associated with these people, but it was still one he was glad to see.

  “Good. Does he want to go with my suggestion?” It would be a pity if he did since Carm didn't want to go with it himself. He just wanted to bow out of this whole affair and go home to find his family.

  His idea involved opening negotiations between Eden and the Commonwealth, something that had to begin with trust. The best way he could think of to do that was by organising an evacuation: getting the mutes out of the internment camps and jails and onto ships heading to Eden. Do that, he figured, and the Commonwealth could prove to the Edenites that they weren't all homicidal dark side maniacs bent on killing mutes. While the Edenites could show the Commonwealth that they weren't the monsters from history holos.

  It had seemed like the best way to begin, which was why Carm had suggested it. But there was a problem. The Edenites were not going to bring one of their ships in to land at a Commonwealth space-port. They didn’t trust the Navy not to attempt to destroy them or, failing that, to try and steal their advanced technology. And the Navy weren't going to allow that either. They didn't want what could be a battleship landing on their worlds. Trust was also the reason a Commonwealth ship couldn't be allowed to dock either. Which meant that only civilian vessels could be used, and there was only one of those that both parties knew and would trust.

  The Nightingale was going to have to carry out the mission. After everything they'd been through their journey still wasn't over.

  “With one or two alterations. Fo
r a start the technicians are busy adding enhanced security protocols to your data systems.”

  Carm laughed at that. Of course they were. The Nightingale contained the translation algorithms, potentially some of the most valuable equations in the known universe. The Edenites didn't want them going to the Commonwealth. But they’d read his contract for the purchase of Kendra and their best experts were arguing that he had a case for owning them. Others were trying to make the case that White had sold him stolen property – which didn't hold water since they had also given the information to White to help with the underground railway he’d had built. At best they could argue that White hadn't had permission to sell him the information. They were having to content themselves with tying him up in some sort of legal dispute, while making sure he didn't pass the information on to anyone else.

  Maybe he thought, they should be grateful that the ship had them though. It might be mesh-head logic but the very fact that the Nightingale had them made almost guaranteed the safety of the ship. No one would dare attack it. And everyone knew the ship had them. His conversation with Captain Everson had finally been released over the mesh a week before and he was now something of a celebrity.

  If he did ever return to known space he would be a mesh-lord for a while. Carm didn't want that. Unfortunately if his plan had been agreed to, it was unavoidable.

  “Any other changes?”

  “You'll have a full crew.”

  That Carm had also expected. Of course no one was going to trust him to undertake a mission of this importance on his own, especially not if he was carrying a Counsel. He would be relegated to the role of steward, and the ship to passenger liner.

  “Understood.”

  “There will have to be a full and complete admission of all your misdeeds.”