I pondered the Commander, and came to the conclusion he was the sort of military martinet who expects order and rigid adherence to orders, especially his. He was completely out of his element here, and with zero authority, could do nothing about it.
When Jeeves took his empty plate away from him without warning, he practically fell out of his chair. He settled himself, mumbling under his breath.
"Something to say Commander?" I asked him.
"No sir."
"My mistake. I could have sworn I saw your lips moving."
"Nothing important sir."
"I take it you've never had any experience of butler droids before?"
"No sir."
"I guess you'd prefer human servants?"
"Ah, yes sir."
"Feel free to volunteer Commander, no-one else is going to."
He went red. I swear I saw Jeeves wink at me.
We managed to finish dessert without any further problems. Angel jumped down into my lap, and then to the floor, where she shot out the door. We all moved into the Rec Room, where Aline had me throw the next lot of 'Who' episodes to the entertainment system. The first episode was full of explanations for those who hadn't seen 'Who' before. Pyne made it through ten minutes before heading for his suite, mumbling to himself again as he went. I guess to his orderly mind, we were all mad. The thought had me chuckling for several minutes.
After the second episode, I told everyone the next jump was at six fifteen in the morning, and everyone should feel free to sleep through it. I said goodnight, and headed back to my suite. The hobble was almost a limp now, and I'd accepted I needed to exercise to get proper movement back.
My bruises were aching much more so than they had been all day, but considering I'd not needed a pain shot at all, I was doing very well. Angel was asleep in her cat bed, so I left her alone, and went into the bathroom. I stripped off and dropped into the spa, intending to soak for a half hour or so, and get an early night.
About five minutes later, Aline walked in, silently stripped off, and dropped in beside me. Several minutes later, Alison did the same. And predictably, a few minutes later, so did the twins.
No-one said anything. We soaked in silence.
The silence became uncomfortable.
Eventually Amanda cleared her throat, breaking it.
"Um," she said, pausing, "Jon, what's been going on between you and the Queen?"
"Going on?" I asked innocently.
"You don’t do the raw prawn very well Jon," said Alison. "Fess up!"
"We know something was going on," said Aleesha.
"And it's your business because?"
"We care about you Jon," said the twins together.
"I get that, but what's the worry?"
"A Queen can have anyone she likes. We don’t want you used like a play toy, and thrown away."
I laughed.
"It wasn’t like that."
"How was it then?" asked Aline.
"Alison knows."
"Me?" said Alison. "Why would I know?"
"Because the situations were identical."
"Oh."
I could see the wheels turning in four heads. 'Thank you for saving my life sex' was something they understood.
"What about Miriam?" asked Amanda.
"We parted on good terms, knowing it could be a long time before we see each other again. We both recognized any attempt at a long distance relationship wasn’t going to work. She has her dream job, in her dream ship, and isn’t going to leave it for anything. I have responsibilities now a long way away. It was fun, but that’s it for now. In the meantime, when a Queen says jump, one says 'Yes ma'am'!"
They giggled.
"It's sweet you all care," I went on, "but it's not as if anything is happening with any of you at the moment. Your code doesn’t seem to allow it."
"Only true for Alison now Jon," said Aleesha.
"Oh? What changed?"
"The new rank structure," said Amanda. "Alison is the only one under your direct command now. In separating out infantry from fleet and pilots, and establishing a command group outside them, you no longer are our direct boss."
"I told you that last time we had this conversation."
"It was different then."
"No it wasn’t."
"It was Jon," said Aleesha. "Then it was you, Annabelle, and us. Direct command line. Now, Annabelle is the head of the Infantry arm of your organization, while you're head of the command staff arm."
I shook my head. It was too subtle for me to see. But if it was going to make them happier, I was all for the distinction.
"Fine," I said. "Where does that leave us then?"
"Horny," said Aline.
We all laughed.
Forty Three
I woke up with Aline draped over me. After the others left, she'd proved that good things come in small packages. She was the shortest of the merc team, owing to her Oriental forbears. I didn’t feel like I’d had much sleep. Jane whispered the time in my ear, I extracted myself without waking Aline up, and headed for the Bridge.
We were fifteen minutes to jump. I made myself comfortable. There was no real reason for being here, but I felt the need in case something happened.
"Man overboard," said Jane, in a matter of fact voice.
"What?" I responded incredulously.
A pop-up screen showed a white mass roughly the size of a man, outside the ship, and falling behind rapidly.
"Stop," I said.
"Confirmed."
"What or who was that?"
Another screen popped up. It showed the inside of a suite. A man was sleeping. Three butler droids entered, put a belt around the man without waking him up, proceeded to strip the bed with the man still in the sheets, bundled the sheets up, and then carried it all out. Cams followed them to the nearest maintenance airlock, where the bundle was pushed in, and the airlock cycled.
Laughter exploded out of me, at the same time I was shocked at what had happened.
"Pyne?"
"Confirmed."
"Why didn't you stop them?"
"And spoil their fun?"
Droids having fun was a new concept for me, and I boggled for a moment considering it.
"Did you intend leaving him out there?"
"Of course not. An SR droid is launching now."
"I assume that belt was programmed to protect him, since he won't have had it installed properly?"
"Confirmed. It actually went space suit mode before the airlock was opened. But he's going to be a bit breathless before the SR droid can get to him."
"Intentionally I assume."
"Confirmed."
Another pop-up was showing the SR droid's view as it matched velocity with the white mass, and captured it. A suit tube punched through the sheet, and connected to an SR droid air point. The droid turned to follow us back.
By the time it caught us up, the ship was stopped and waiting for it. I told Jane to send her avatar to escort him to see me.
As soon as he was aboard, we continued on to the jump point, and jumped through. Once again, there was a line of ships on the other side, and 266 squadron were heading away from us at full speed.
We were now in the Sanctuary system. It's a fairly standard system with five jump points. On the right side of the system as we headed, was a jump point which led to Miami, three jumps away. Had we not had to go to London first, I'd have come that way, and rejoined the spine here.
Time to the next jump point was eight hours.
I waited.
Pyne staggered onto the Bridge with Jane behind him, looking like he was being forced to come here. He was still wearing a belt. I waved him over.
"What the hell are you playing at?" he snapped at me, obviously very angry.
"What the hell are you playing at SIR!" I snapped back at him. "I may be inactive, but I'm still your superior officer. You will come to attention Commander."
I could see his reluctance, but he braced as or
dered.
"Jane, remove the belt please."
"Confirmed."
She sent it a command, it detached itself, and fell away into her waiting hand. She moved away from Pyne.
I let him stand there for several minutes.
"So Commander, what have you learned?"
"Your ship is trying to kill me!"
"Rubbish. If it was, you'd be dead."
"I don’t understand."
"Obviously. Exactly what don't you understand?"
"Why is this happening to me?"
"You know nothing about AI's, do you?"
"Ah, no sir."
"And yet you voice opinions denigrating them."
"They're machines. Why should they care what's said about them?"
"Commander, you wouldn’t know it if an AI stood in front of you, would you?"
"Stood? That’s impossible. AI's are computers. They don’t stand."
"Show him," I said to Jane.
She took him by the throat with her right hand, moved him so he could see her fully, and her suit shifted to a belt. In the blink of an eye, a security droid stood there holding him by the throat with a skeletal, and obviously metal, hand.
His eyes went wide and he fainted. Jane continued to hold him up, but shifted back into her avatar form. She moved him to the helm seat and let him flop into it, letting him go and moving away. Jeeves came in and waved his magic potion under his nose, and he recovered. He looked around, seeing Jane well away from him.
His eyes sought mine, wide with horror.
"AI 101 Commander. The butler droids have a medium level AI, and are quite capable of taking offense. Jane here is a top of the line AI, with the full range of human emotions. Your access shaft experience yesterday was because you insulted Jane. Your trip out the airlock just now was because you insulted the butler droids. On a ship controlled by an AI, insulting it is a very stupid thing to do."
"Ah, yes sir. But they nearly killed me."
"You still don’t get it, do you?"
"Get what?"
"Your complaint was, AI's couldn’t be trusted to look after the interests of people first. Was it not?"
"Yes sir."
"And yet, Jane didn’t hurt you in that shaft at all, when it was completely possible to just let you fall to your death. Jeeves could have burnt your face badly, but the water was just hot enough to be unpleasant, not hot enough to burn. And before they threw you out the airlock, the butlers not only made sure you had a suit on, but it was functioning fully as a space suit before they opened the airlock to space."
He looked at me blankly.
"Commander, if they wanted you dead, or if they didn’t care about keeping you alive, you would be dead now."
He didn't get it. I suspected he never would. Some people are so lost in their own little world, nothing you say gets through to them. Pyne was one of them. I'd have to talk to Price about how to re-educate him.
"Commander, go back to bed. Think before you open your mouth in future. Better yet, keep it closed. Dismissed."
He saluted me, and ran out.
Jane and I both chuckled for a few minutes, she updated me with Zippy's activities gathering more cargo for Australian planets, and I followed him out.
I went back to bed.
Aline was still asleep.
Forty Four
We missed breakfast. Partly because I slept through it, but even when I did wake, I found Aline had started without me. It's very distracting to wake and find a gorgeous naked woman on top of you. It was just as well I hadn't needed breakfast. At best, by the time we were out of the shower and presentable, it would have been brunch.
Alison gave me the sort of look which needs no interpretation. She knew exactly where I’d been and what I’d been up to, and obviously wished it had been with her. I wondered if we had a problem developing.
We ignored the time as if it was nine, instead of eleven.
By twelve, I wished I'd stayed in bed. Treaties were written in the language of gobbledygook, and gobbledygook required an interpreter. I sent the lot off to David Tollin in an encrypted email, asking him to find someone who could brief me in words with less than six letters in them, with all the ifs, buts, and hitherto aforementioned whereas removed.
Lunch started to turn into a goodbye party for Slice and Eric, until Slice invited us to his home for dinner. As much as I wanted to speed on past, I recognized the need for some diplomacy, since he was in effect, a head of planet. Besides, I was curious.
Everyone was on the Bridge for the jump into the Apricot system. It was uneventful, just like the previous ones. Before 266 could get out of range, I opened a channel, and re-routed them to Apricot, telling them to dock with the Orbital station.
I was about to rise to move into my Ready Room again, when Walter spoke.
"John, why Apricot?"
Slice sighed, and I laughed. Everyone looked at me.
"What?" I said. "I bet he gets asked that question all the time, and is sick of answering it."
Slice nodded.
"It goes back to my rookie fighter year," he said. "I was always eating apricot desserts at meals, or asking for them when they weren’t there. It's been my favourite fruit since I was a kid. Pretty soon the mess staff made sure they were on hand for me. Well I had a mission where things went wrong almost from the moment we launched, and instead of getting drunk afterwards, I binged on apricot slices." We all laughed. "So next thing I'm in a rookie call sign ceremony and dubbed with the name. When I left the service, I was casting around for a company name, and put what I intended to do, with the fruit I love, and the Apricot Mapping Service was born."
"How did you end up with your own planet?" I asked.
"It's classified I'm afraid. Let's just say, I did the sector a big service, part of which was nearly doubling the number of systems in the sector through my mapping work, and Apricot system, called something pedestrian beforehand, was awarded to me in lieu of a credit payment, much like your systems were awarded to you." He waved in my direction and I nodded. "The system had a habitable planet, but for some reason I've never been able to find out, it was never claimed. Mind you, the habitable area is very small. At most, the planet can only support about fifty thousand people. Not without extensive terraforming of the especially expensive kind. I guess no one wanted to spend the credits. It’s a much better base than an Orbital station ever would be. Anyway, I'll give you the tour when we arrive."
On that note, everyone went about their own business. But I buttonholed Slice, and we spent the next few hours talking about how his system was run. I was looking for any tips he could offer. His model wasn’t going to work for me, as it was corporate, but the structure might be useful in general terms. While the system was his, it was leased and fully administered by his corporation, of which he was CEO. His decisions though, were all subject to board oversight. His rationale was it was necessary to avoid being a dictator. Becoming a Duchy or some other entity had never been a possibility, as his system still paid tax to the Sci-Fi sector. I wasn’t really sure what the distinction was, but I didn’t press him on it.
Before leaving, he asked me something I hadn't expected.
"Can the AMS rent or buy some space on your new station in Nexus?"
"Sure. Why would you want to though?"
"I'll be sending Eric to represent us in the Australian sector. We make a pass through there every two or three years, which isn’t often enough. The Wolf planetoid for one, needs a lot more monitoring than it gets."
"Why do you keep remapping the same space all the time?"
"The detectors we use to find jump points are always being refined. It's my main area of R&D. As the tech advances, we need to re-cover known space in case a jump point has been missed. There are a lot of systems out there along the spine which we can't reach yet, and it's fair to assume it's only because we haven't found the jump points. We don’t find them very often, but when we do, the sector tends to be very grateful about
it."
"Fair enough. Send me the specs of what you need, and I'll have a suitable space made up for you. There will be one condition though."
"Which is?"
"You've never received permission from Outback to survey that system, have you?"
"No, it’s the only system we're denied. Isolationist policy I understand. Didn’t you say you're from there?"
"Yes. And yes, the isolationist policy is the reason. But it's not only you. Mining companies and prospectors are also denied access to the system. The last thing Outback wants is for someone to find anything at all in the system which attracts people there. It was chosen because there was nothing there anyone else wanted at the time, and because it’s at the end of the spine with no reason for people to pass through. And that’s the way we want it to stay."
"I don’t have a problem with it. I've kept on asking for permission each time I sent someone to the Australian sector, but it's always been denied, so it's no shock you'll be continuing it. Will Outback be joining your mini-sector, do you think?"
"I won't know before anyone else does I suspect. It has to be approved by the Australian sector first, and who knows how long it'll take for a decision."
"Oh, one last thing, you'd all better come with me on Apricot One to the station, and we can take a shuttle down from there. The shuttle can bring you back here after dinner. The station isn’t big enough to dock a ship this big."
"Fine with me."
One of those random thoughts popped in, which I often wondered if they were mine, or from someone else, like Kali. It didn’t feel like one of mine. But it also wasn’t Kali's voice.
"By the way," I said. "Can your station accommodate everyone on the planet?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
"The whole two isolationist cultures coming up with the same dire prediction thing. If the darkness or Ragnarok is really coming, you're going to want to escape it if it comes here. That either means enough ships, or a station you can move everyone to, and bring with you."
"You think it'll come to that?"
Hail the Hero (The Hunter Legacy Book 5) Page 24
