Lost Harvest: Book One of the Harvest Trilogy

by Joe Pace

  “How does it work?” she asked. “You, Pratt, explain it to me.” She moved to a stack of crates and sat lightly on top, crossing her legs. “And does it have to be so damned hot in here while you do it?” One of the crewmen laughed and much of the tension went out of the room. It was another of the able starmen: the short, handsome Latino, Matias Quintal. Fletcher undid the buttons at the cuffs of her duty shirt and rolled her sleeves up above her elbows. Pratt, his hand still rubbing the back of his head, performed a sort of half-shrug.

  “Not much to it, really. If you come up through the Navy down here belowdecks, sir, you learn it pretty early on.”

  “You are stalling,” she said. “I’m not going to report you, Pratt, unless you disobey me. Now, how does it work?”

  “It’s simple.” Quintal stepped forward, grinning. “Sir.” Fletcher watched him. There was something of the islands in his movement, something fluid and seductive. Careful, she thought. This one is a charmer and he knows it. Fortunately, she had long experience with the type, and was far more amused than aroused. “You know the Machrines are programmed to train with human sparring partners in a variety of modes – boxing, wrestling, judo, even some alien forms of martial arts. And, as you mentioned earlier, there are safety protocols. Among these are the basic codes that prevent our metal friends from seriously injuring one of us. Isn’t that right, Luther?” For the first time, the robot spoke.

  “Yes, Matias.” He turned to face Fletcher, his rectangular optic apertures flashing. Fletcher had not spent years in space with these machines the way Pratt, or Quintal, or so many of the others had, and she was still unused to the perfectly human voice coming from Luther-45’s flat plastic faceplate. It was a pleasant voice, with the accent of London itself, not even the hint of static or electronic origin, and it was unnerving. “All Machrines are programmed not to harm our crewmates.”

  “True enough.” Quintal patted Luther on the metal shoulder, the way one might a friendly dog. “What he’s not telling you is that those codes are designed to be overridden.”

  “They are?” Fletcher asked. “Why? Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “Makes sense,” replied Pratt, with a grunt. “Have to be able to instruct them who their hostile targets are. Each member of the crew is digitally topo-mapped and input into each Machrine’s database as friendly, and then they can evaluate potential targets from any distance, instantly. We call it painting. You were painted like that when you came on board, sir; we all were. It’s routine.”

  “And what is painted can be unpainted.” Quintal had not stopped moving, and he was at her side, now. “So when we play robot roulette, we introduce the element of true risk to the game. We take turns engaging the machrine in whatever type of hand-to-hand combat we choose. In the first round, we alter his programming so that there is a five to ten percent chance that his safety protocols disengage.”

  “Meaning there is a chance he will try to kill you.”

  “Yes. And in each subsequent round, that chance increases by ten percent. So, the second round is a fifteen to twenty percent chance, the third round twenty-five to thirty, and so on.”

  “And when does the game end?” The room was still overly warm, the way a gymnasium might be. Without really thinking, Fletcher loosened the neck of her shirt. She did not fail to notice Quintal’s eyes drinking in her cleavage before flitting back to meet her eyes.

  “It ends when someone gets hurt, or when no one will dare to fight.”

  “And what round are you boys on now?”

  “Five,” said Pratt. Fletcher did the math quickly.

  “So there’s an even chance that whoever goes next is risking their life.”

  “Yes, sir.” Quintal’s dark eyes glittered as he smiled. “And there’s the fun.”

  “Who’s next?” she asked, intrigued despite the shouting of her conscience that the line had long ago been crossed. This risk to crew members was why regs prohibited the sport. That, and those accustomed to withholding one secret from their commanding officer often found it habit-forming to do so.

  “I am.”

  Fletcher had thought there were only male starmen in the bay, but it was a woman who stepped forward now. Her mistake was understandable, as Peggy Briggs was at least as much man as woman. She was as tall as Pratt, and damn near as strong. She was wearing a sleeveless white shirt, tight across a flat and masculine chest, the arms it bared corded with muscle. Her eyes were a striking gray-green, and she might have been pretty once, but she had gone out of her way to change that, with close-cropped spiky blond hair, black anchors tattooed on either side of her thick neck, and a perpetual scowl. Pratt and Quintal were leaders belowdecks, but nobody messed around with Peggy Briggs.

  She stepped forward, lean body tensed for combat, those eyes fixed on Luther.

  “Peggy, I strongly recommend against this. There is now a significant chance you may be injured or killed.” The robot’s voice was as mellifluous as ever, but Briggs said nothing, merely beckoning with what must have been a pre-arranged signal, because in a heartbeat, Luther was on her. Fletcher had never seen anything, man or machine, move so fast. Somehow, Briggs was just as quick, and dodged, turning aside the swift strike that Luther had aimed at her face. She drove her shoulder into its midsection. Even though it had no human organs, no vulnerable soft belly, Luther was programmed, as all Machrines were, to mimic reactions within human tolerances. So Briggs drove it back, momentarily, before the robot’s hands smashed down in a single combined blow to her back. Falling to the floor, she rolled, avoiding the groping steel fingers that sought to entrap her, then sprang to her feet a meter or so away. Slowly, the combatants circled one another. There was no way to tell whether the crewman was merely fighting, or fighting for her life.

  Fletcher was so absorbed by the spectacle that she didn’t notice when William Pearce walked in.

  ****

  Bill Pearce certainly noticed his first officer.

  A few minutes earlier, he had been in the star cabin, his tiny office adjacent to the command room they called the Quarterdeck. As the stars zoomed past the windows behind his cramped desk, he tried again to record a vid-message to Gordan Rowland’s widow.

  “Mrs. Rowland, your husband died to save his ship.”

  For the fifth time, Pearce deleted the message. It was such a trite, empty sentiment. He tried to imagine Mary receiving a message like that from some commanding officer of his, and knew that she wouldn’t give a damn how heroic his death had been. All she would know, all Elaine Rowland would know, is that her husband, the father of her child, was never coming back. Pearce forced himself to look again at the screen of his monitor, where Rowland’s file was on display. One of the embedded images, in sharp clarity, showed Rowland and his wife, smiling, their three-year old daughter, Rimi, laughing in their arms.

  Damn, he thought. That little girl is never going to know her father. El-Barzin’s message had been easier. The man had left no close relatives behind, so it had been a simple matter of entering the details of his death into the log, along with recommendations to the Admiralty for posthumous decoration. This was different. There’s not a thing I can say. But it was his duty, and he did it. Once it was finished, necessary and hollow, he placed it in the transmission queue.

  They were sailing under restricted deep-space communications protocols, which meant all ship-to-shore correspondence was reviewed by Pearce prior to the weekly message he would send back to the Admiralty with all approved content. For newcomers to the Navy it was a bit of a hassle, but the career hands were used to it. It would take several days for the signal to reach Earth anyway, a lag that would only increase as they traveled farther from home. After recording and sending a status report to Banks, Pearce was finishing his review of the handful of vid-letters that had been submitted – fairly standard “hi mum” stuff, or bland sexual innuendo for a distant partner, a stray reference or two to Hitzelberg he had to redact – when his door chime ran
ge.

  “Enter,” he said, and the door slid open to reveal Charlie Hall, more white-faced than usual. “Come in, Mister Hall.”

  “Sorry to bother you, sir.”

  “No bother. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s…well, it’s some of the crew, sir.” The midshipman was looking at the floor, scuffling one foot, and his voice was a barely audible stutter.

  “What about them?” demanded Pearce with mounting impatience. “Look at me, for heaven’s sake. You’re an officer.” Hall’s eyes jerked up, and were so filled with discomfort and indecision that the captain felt a brief pang of pity. He softened his tone. “What is it, son?”

  “Sergeant Crutchfield brought it to my attention, sir. Some of the machrines are showing signs of unusual wear. Scratches, and the like.”

  “Unusual, as in more than would be expected from normal training use?”

  “Y-yes, sir. So I poked around a little, asked a few questions, and…”

  “Robot roulette,” spat Pearce, his thick brows knitting together.

  “I think so, Captain.”

  “Lead the way, then.” Pearce rose from his chair, feeling his anger begin to rise within him. He did his best to control it, to master it rather than submit to it, but he could feel the tightening knot in his belly, the involuntary clenching of his hands into fists, and the grinding of his teeth just the same. Robot roulette, he thought as he followed Hall through the Quarterdeck and into the lift that took them down the command tower, past the engine room and toward the cargo bays. A practice as old as the machrines themselves, dangerous to real and artificial crewmen alike, and long since specifically prohibited by Navy regulations. With the losses of Rowland and el-Barzin so fresh, he had no intention of recording any more condolence messages, particularly for stupid and unnecessary self-inflicted casualties.

  Pearce strode through the cavernous main bay, past the empty vats, toward the door Hall indicated with his hand. With a touch of the panel it opened, revealing a tableau not unlike the one that Fletcher had seen not long before, with the exception that his first officer was among those watching the forbidden sport, with all appearance of benign interest. Something burst inside Pearce. He had been as forbearing of Christine Fletcher, as tolerant of her diffidence toward rank and procedure, as he could possibly manage, and she repaid him not with loyalty, but by allowing insubordinate behavior right under her nose; indeed, even participating in it.

  “What the devil’s all this about?” he shouted, though of course he knew, and five pairs of eyes all oriented on him at once, their owners paralyzed with shock and dismay. Luther-45 stood stock-still, arms at his sides, though his chin dropped just a little toward the floor, as though he, too, were embarrassed to be caught in wrongdoing. “This isn’t the damned merchant marine! You, there,” he barked at Pratt as his rage began to boil over. “What do you mean by this?”

  “Beg your pardon sir, but there’s been robot roulette on His Majesty’s ships as long as there’s been robots.”

  Not on Captain Baker’s ships! thought Pearce, but what he roared instead was “Not on mine!”

  Pearce felt a hand on his elbow, and he rotated his neck slowly to see Christine Fletcher, the ship’s master and his first mate, looking at him calmly, with the hint of a smile. Her hair was unbound, and she wore no duty coat over her uniform shirt, which had the top three buttons undone. The swell of her cleavage was clearly visible, and images, unbidden, of her nude breasts in St. Kitts flashed in his mind, adding fuel to his wrath.

  “Unhand me, Lieutenant Fletcher,” he snarled. “You forget yourself.” She moved her hand as though she had touched a live fusion engine, all traces of amicability swiftly gone.

  “Bill, there’s no harm done here. Some of the crew were simply having a bit of fun.”

  “A bit of fun?” He rounded on her now, his chastisement of Pratt forgotten. “No harm? This is a blasted King’s ship and we’ll have some damned discipline. We will be starmanlike!” He made a show of looking her up and down, and his lips curled into a sneer. “Though who can blame them if they lack discipline? Look at you, woman. Out of uniform. Cavorting with the crew belowdecks. And you an officer and a noblewoman.”

  All color drained from Fletcher’s face, and she backed away, expressionless. Later, Pearce would wonder if that moment, that exact moment, had been the one from which all the others followed, if events had inexorably been set in motion. But in that instant, the hot pressure throbbed in his temples, and the betrayal and isolation crushed down on him, leaving no room for nuance or consideration.

  “Mister Hall, summon Sergeant Crutchfield, if you would. Please instruct him to bring the other three machrines here with him.”

  Midshipman Hall had been lurking unobtrusively in the open doorway, and now the human heads in the small secondary bay swiveled, fixing on him. Pearce was not so enraged that he could not see the hatred and contempt radiating from those faces, and when Pratt took a single step in the direction of the junior officer, he wasted no time in reacting.

  “Stand fast, Pratt. You’re in enough trouble as it is. Luther,” he added, and the robot, animated by the use of his designation in a command tone, stirred.

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “Take Crewman Pratt into physical custody, if you please.”

  “Yes, sir.” Luther-45 moved nimbly behind Pratt and took hold of the starman’s wrists. Pratt began to struggle, but winced as the machrine applied greater pressure, irresistibly moving his hands behind his back.

  “Give it up, Isaac,” muttered Briggs. “You’re only going to get hurt.” It always startled Pearce that such a soft, gentle voice could come from such a physically imposing woman. Probably why she never talks.

  There was silence for long minutes, as they waited. They stared at one another, not moving, not speaking, scarcely sharing the same space at all. Pearce could all but feel the distance yawning between him and the crewmen, growing larger with each passing moment. Isaac Pratt, held firm in the grasp of the robot, no longer resisting, sullen. Mathias Quintal, inscrutable, smirking. Peggy Briggs, carved from unfeeling rock. Tom Churchill, near to tears with fear. He could not bring himself to look at Christine Fletcher.

  What could have been two lifetimes later, Sergeant Orpheus Crutchfield blotted out the doorway like an eclipse, his looming, ebony form casting a shadow that filled the small hold. Behind him were three machrines, duplicates of Luther except for the nameplate designations on their chests. Ogden-92. Victor-11. Ambrose-226.

  “Captain?” Crutchfield betrayed nothing more than a slight perplexity.

  “Take these jacks into custody, if you please,” Pearce ordered evenly. “You may detain them in one of the other adjunct bays until the crew has been mustered for punishment.” Never taking his eyes off his offending crewmen, Pearce addressed Hall. “Assemble the crew, Mister Hall. A taste of the Cat for these four, I think.” With no questions and no wasted motion, the sergeant directed his synthetic squad to escort the four crewmen into an adjoining chamber, and Hall scurried off to carry out his commander’s orders. The door closed behind them, leaving Pearce alone with Lieutenant Christine Fletcher.

  “Captain…” she said, not looking him in the eye, her voice soft. “You can’t mean to flog them.”

  Pearce glared at her. The initial heat of his wrath had ebbed, but now her arrogance brought it rushing back. With difficulty, he swallowed his first, caustic response. Instead, through grinding teeth, he said, “I can and I do. And if not for regs concerning penalties for officers, I would lump you in with them. Damn, Christine! What can you have been thinking?”

  She paused a moment before answering, and Pearce wondered if she were pondering her response, or if she was, like him, laboring to manage her temper.

  “As I said, Captain, I thought it a largely harmless pastime. The crew needs distractions on a long voyage like this.”

  “Harmless? It would seem you and I have different i
deas about what a crew needs!”

  “Yes!” Fletcher was flaring now, her resentment spilling over, shouting across the chasm between them. “That’s why you brought me, remember?”

  Pearce knew there was some truth in that. Wrong as she was about the particulars, wrong as she was to flaunt Navy traditions and to treat his authority lightly, she was right that he had brought her specifically to bridge that gulf between himself and the crew. The realization only made him angrier. At her, at himself, at the situation, at the fraying thread that held their shared enterprise together, the fraying thread connecting his son to a future.

  “Enough,” he said. “The men will be flogged. As for you, Lieutenant Fletcher, you are relieved of your duties as executive officer of this ship. You will now report to Lieutenant Pott, who will assume those duties. Is that clear?”

  Fletcher did not speak. She looked at him, her mouth hanging open for a long heartbeat before she snapped her jaw shut and thrust it forward.

  “Yes…sir.”

  “Good. Muster in the main bay with the rest of the crew for punishment. Dismissed.”

  She stalked past him without another glance, without another word. In the empty room, Pearce finally faltered, leaning heavily against the stack of crates. It was only then he noticed the gouges his fingernails had dug into his palms, and the sheen of sweat on his face. He had always known that commanding officers were isolated, but for the first time, the stark truth of it came crashing down on him. I am alone out here, he realized. And it terrified him.

  ****

  As he had ordered, the entire crew was assembled in the spacious cargo bay for the administration of punishment. The Harvest herself was in an autonomous high-altitude orbit around the gaseous sixth planet of the Korin system, helium and hydrogen dancing orange and red across the massive, arcing surface below. Officers and ables alike stood at attention in their dress uniforms while the machrines, under the supervision of Sergeant Crutchfield, brought out the offenders. Mathias Quintal, Isaac Pratt, and Tom Churchill were all naked to the waist, as was Peggy Briggs, though she wore a bandeau of thin black cloth where breasts would be on other women. Each of the four was attended by one of the robots, who lined the starmen up in the center of the bay, with a space of a little over a meter between them. The guilty wrists were bound with plexisteel manacles, and a cable dangled from each, reaching to the floor. Swiftly, with ruthless and programmed efficiency, the machrines affixed the other end of each cable to an eyebolt in the floor. Briggs had no expression on her broad face, staring straight ahead past her crewmates. Pearce wondered if she had been flogged before. Pratt certainly had, telltale hairline scars crisscrossed the man’s massive, muscle-knotted back, and his face bore a look of hardened defiance. Yes, he’s felt it before, and more than once. Churchill was the only one of the four who betrayed any fright; his beady little eyes darted about from one side of the bay to the other, as though he were seeking out a friendly face among the rest of the crew. Finding none, he eventually fixed his gaze on the floor, though he continued to tremble, and Pearce thought he saw sweat on his shoulders and back. Was Quintal smiling? No, Pearce thought. Quintal was an experienced enough starman to know what was in store. That was just his damned smirk, the one he always wore, as if he was the only one in on a joke. We’ll see if that’s still there when this is over.