“Thanks,” she said.
“Mick, will you be joining us on our voyage to Utopia?” GR asked.
“I’ll be going home, as soon as we kill this droid and sell the ore. I can T-jump to the time and location of my choice, right?” Mick said, turning back to Sera.
“Your choice Mick. Although with Utopia here and now, I can’t see why you’d want to waste your share going back.”
“My family,” he said.
“Right. Well, Utopia will have them stored there. Archived. Anyone can be summoned. You wouldn’t notice the difference.”
So this is the ultimate product of human evolution: A secluded everything for the wealthy: immortality, all beings, all history, time no longer relevant, the perfection of intelligent design.
“Then why go through the trouble of killing this droid? Let’s sell the load and I’ll be off. You can go to Utopia, find your brother and father there, get rid of these two,” Mick said.
“I said you wouldn’t notice the difference. I would.”
14
Emily sipped black tea from a china mug. Her pale finger fondled a scarf in her lap. A figure strode in from the hall outside her chamber. He stopped at the door, entered as she nodded, and surveyed her quiet maple bedroom.
“Docking request from Sera of Bessel 2. Goods to unload. Permission?”
“Of course. Magnadraw and Hoila, right?”
“So she says,” said the servant.
“Tell her to come to my chamber. I’ve bad news to deliver.”
“Yes, Grand Governor.”
The servant abruptly left and closed the door. Emily turned to pictures by her bed. Seven faces adorned her bureau—the line of the Hussons: all the ones before her who’d died to earn her the right to everlasting life, the noblest goal of a fortieth century family. A soft, round face stared more deeply from inanimation than the others: her grandmother. The dictum was recounted endlessly in the Faith of Energy, a religion grounded in the pursuit of eternal life: Only a generational commitment can secure the UCD and connections required to procure an expancapacitor system. According to the Faith, one must trust that his great, great, great, great, great grandchild will bear the fruit: Eternal life, and now, Utopia, so that a reunion of familial souls may forever assemble.
Emily slipped into a daydream. She remembered from her studies of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, the major religions of the first, second, and third millennia, the idea of heaven: it had been the foretaste of Utopia, man’s ambition set to mysticism because science could not yet achieve it. The only disparity between the old mystical idea and its fruited form stemmed from levels of accessibility. Emily sighed. The romantic notion had been proselytized, and soothingly received by believers despite its unscientific foundation, that death secured heaven. In that ancient model, all people had free access to heaven, guaranteed upon their biological end. Paradoxically, Utopia had proven that only the wealthiest gained access to heaven. She had decided that Utopia should be for everyone, not just the tricklers; her new mission in life was to spread her own wealth. For her rogue desires, and rebellion against her lineage, which had allowed her the eternal life she enjoyed, she’d been forced into exile on Bessel 9. The Coalition of Utopia for All was her purpose: A liberal push to get more people into paradise. Could it still come to be: the old idea and the new one joined? A forever reunion of familial souls for everyone?
A knock sounded at the door.
“Come in Samwell,” she replied.
A figure returned to her door, but it was not Samwell; the figure was human, dressed in a spacesuit.
“Who are—” she said, but could not finish her question. Mick fired his gun squarely at Emily’s chest. She slumped against her bed. He walked briskly toward her, watched her eyes close, turn off. He fired again, a different weapon. He picked her up, slung her over his shoulder, and walked out.
“How’d it go?”
“This is her I hope,” Mick said, striding into the Cozon’s hull bay. He gently laid the body down, half-human, half-robot in appearance. XJ appeared startled.
“My god Mick. Your fugitive dossier said you’d had a violent past, but I didn’t think for a moment you’d kill someone,” XJ said.
“That’s her. And we have to get the hell out of here,” Sera said.
“You said I don’t have a plant, so no worries?” Mick replied.
“You don’t have a plant, but that doesn’t mean Samwell won’t come for us. He’ll report it, then give chase himself. But the delay is all we needed. If you’d had a plant, the alarm would have been raised the moment she was shot. Still no worries though—Samwell’s no pilot.”
Sera shut the bay door and raced to the helm. Mick followed, and GR and XJ began to inspect the new creature, still warm, lying on the cargo bay floor.
15
“Here he comes,” Sera said. Her wrists twisted, fingers working in mechanical wonder. Two viewscreens displayed a silver-blue dot chasing the Cozon.
“What kind of weaponry does he have?” Mick asked.
“Not enough,” she said. She flipped a cap on the throttle in her left hand, pressed a red button. The Cozon vibrated. Two streaking plasma missiles ripped from the Cozon’s stern, through engine fission toward Samwell’s ship.
“Missed him,” Mick reported. Sera glared at him.
“I can see that. Take this,” she said, putting Mick on the piloting rod. She ripped off her jacket, revealing finely corded shoulders, and ran to the weaponry console, tapping her fingers in quick patterns. Mick glanced to the rear viewscreen again.
“Keep your fucking eyes on the front!” she yelled.
Who is this girl? She’s filthy. Strong. A take-no-shit bandit.
The Cozon vibrated again—Samwell had hit them.
“He’s trying to blow us out of the sky,” she said.
Wouldn’t that make sense? I just stole a planet’s worth of hardware.
“Doesn’t that idiot know we have his Grand G?” she said.
XJ and GR walked into the room bearing Emily Husson’s arm.
“We’ve conducted quite an experiment, and look Mick—we’ve revived your victim!” XJ cried.
“Jesus—shut them down Mick!” Sera said.
The longevity of Christ—his names bears the same thoughtful disdain that it bore when I was a child.
Mick yelled at the droids, unable to look away from the front screen—they’d started to pass into Bessel 9’s wide planetary ring of asteroids.
“I don’t know how to pilot this damned thing—XJ, GR, help me here,” Mick called.
They dropped the arm to the floor and Emily’s fingers began grasping at thin air.
A dogfight a thousand years in the future. Feels about the same as it used to.
XJ took the pilot rod from Mick and steadied the ship as an asteroid whizzed by. GR turned in circles along his hip, his feet somehow stuck in place, confusion imitated upon his robot face.
“Got him,” Sera exclaimed. Mick looked: exploding yellow light filled the viewscreen. Samwell’s ship was in a million pieces, shards and vapor on trajectories away from the Bessel system.
“Poor Samwell,” XJ said.
“He was a good-for-nothing parasite,” said Sera. “Who’s hungry?”
The Cozon crew gathered at the mess hall. Sera drew out the giant pot and shoveled stew for her mates. Mick watched her under the table—she’d changed into her night gown, cut high above the knees, and her muscular thighs relaxed in front of him. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how cool she’d been during the dogfight. Something about it turned his thoughts from home.
“This haul will get us in, don’t you think Sera?” XJ asked.
“XJ, you want to play me after dinner?” GR asked.
“Chess?”
“No—cards tonight.”
“Always avoiding chess. You were never much of a thinker.”
“It takes more brains to play cards than it does to play chess. Chess is calculation—poker requir
es exercising human faculties of deception, a much more CPU intensive algorithm.”
“Hah! What an outrageous claim, from a model whom I should expect nonsense from I suppose,” XJ replied.
“The Magnadraw and Hoila will fetch forty thousand UCD.”
“Forty thousand?” squealed XJ.
“That’s right. Enough to get us in.”
“Into Utopia? What’s it cost?” Mick said, snapped from his fantasy.
“Thirty-five if you know who I know.”
“And five will get me a T-jump?”
“T-jumping isn’t expensive Mick. You know why?” Sera asked.
Mick met her eyes.
“Why?”
“Because no one wants to T-jump.”
“Why not?”
“Because why would you want to leave M82 in the year fourteen? This is where everyone wants to be. You won a god damned lottery to get here, a freak wormhole, and all you can think about is going home, to some distant, archaic, dumber past?”
“What’s to like about fourteen in M82? Seems as chaotic a hell as where I’m from. People killing each other, breaking the law, trying to buy a ticket into tinfoil salvation.”
“Do you know what Utopia is?”
“Yea, a place where the rich can enjoy eternal happiness with each other.”
“Right,” Sera replied, staring hard at him.
“Well let me tell you, a man can find his own peace wherever he is. And mine’s nine hundred years ago, on Earth.”
“You think you’ll find your wife and family, start over, somehow right the wrongs of the past?”
“Yea, I do. I love my wife. I love my boys.”
Wife, ex-wife. What’s the difference though? Just time and place, that’s it. Nothing else. A location in spacetime. Ex-wife, wife. This hard bitch in front of me.
“How much do you love her?” Sera asked. She bit her lips and moved her thighs, peering into his soul.
“So everyone’s after Utopia, and how many get in that try? One percent? It’s the same as the rat-race was in the UCA. The American dream. A race to the top with no map to get you there,” he replied.
“You’re a good soldier Mick, stay that way. We’ll get you home,” she smiled. XJ and GR left, tired of attempting the sludge in their bowls, heading for the game room.
“What was the best you could do back then?” she asked, extending her arm over the table into Mick’s space. Her finger picked at a knot in the wood.
“I could raise my sons, relax in my yard, drink a beer. Romance my wife.”
“Romance?” She smiled. “What’s that?”
Sarcastic. Has this cold woman ever known it though?
“You’ll have your romance, grow old, and die. Five generations later, no one will know a thing about you, your wife, or your sons,” she said.
“And what’ll you have in Utopia?” Mick replied. She caught his eyes wandering momentarily to her calf. She brushed her leg against his.
So warm.
“I’ll have my family. Forever. And everyone I’ve ever known and cared for. Forever.”
“Forever’s too long. I wouldn’t want it.”
“Really? Then maybe you should get back there. Because here, civilization has finally learned that the only thing worth achieving in life is permanence. Families dedicate generations to getting what we have now, and you’re stuck on a gap of time a thousand years ago with a death sentence waiting at the end of it.” She withdrew her arm and leg. “I’m going to bed. We’ll get to Carner’s Post tomorrow and unload the M and H. Then you can make your jump.” She left the table and half her bowl of stew.
She’s walking slow. Deliberate. The apple of her ass before me, and all the sin of man—only ask for forgiveness, and you shall have it; wasn’t it that easy at one point in history? There are two heavens—one here, identical to the ones people longed for in those hooky religions, and I can have it, or the single lifespan I knew. One seems more real than the other—should it?
16
The Cozon descended upon a red-powdered world of sickles and canes, shrouded in clouds of flashing sapphire: Carner’s Post. A line of metal divided the sugared iron mounts. Specks of dust fell on the crew as they exited the ship, alien snow coating the glass of their helmets.
“Unload the ore XJ,” Sera said into her com. Mick watched her, let her lead him to a steel hangar.
What kind of cut is she getting? I could go home rich. She’ll give me just enough to cover the jump. It’d be easy enough to kill her and take all the money—stuff her in with Emily Husson. Together they’d make a good project for XJ and GR.
Sera walked powerfully through the hangar door. Carner’s worn leather face glanced up, then returned to his viewscreen.
“What brings your pretty ass to these parts?” he asked. He saw Mick enter after. “Oh—who’s this?”
“We unloaded the M and H. You good for the market price?”
“I wouldn’t have let you land if I wasn’t,” he replied. “Give me your plastic.”
Sera handed a slim wafer to Carner. He stuck it into the grimy computer in front of him. A beep issued from it and he returned it to her.
“Forty thousand, check it.”
“I will,” Sera said. She put the wafer into a rectangular attachment on her belt, then nodded. Mick looked around: Carner’s building wore the red shade of decay. Rotting steel reminded him of home. The smell of coffee drove into his nostrils.
“Can I have some?” Mick asked, spotting a pot on a table.
“Help yourself. Sera’s latest toy?” Mick ignored the comment, only half-realizing it had been directed at him.
“Okay, we’re good. Thanks,” Sera said. “Come on Mick, get some on the ship.”
“Let him have a cup, Sera. Tell me about yourself, young man.” Carner said. Mick turned to the weathered man. He looked human enough, but one of his eyes was black marble with a dot of dimly lit pearl at its center. His clothes bore the same signs of wear as his home, rotting together.
“I’m a friend, a smuggler. Just working.”
“Work! Hah, I’ll bet! With forty thousand UCD? You won’t be looking for work for a long time son,” Carner said.
“It’s not my money.”
“The hell it isn’t. She may make you earn it, but you seem fit—up to the task.”
“Drop it Carner,” Sera said.
“Oh come on hon, I get lonely here. I like the company.”
“What the hell are you on about?” Mick asked, growing curious. He poured his coffee down.
“Sera is a fine young woman, but she’s tough, so don’t think you have to be gentle with her.”
“I’m a married man, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Mick replied. Sera looked back to the metal runway behind them. XJ had finished unloading and turned on the medium thrusters, awaiting their return in the cockpit. Behind the Cozon was a bleak, sand-red horizon ripped by blue clouds: a crystal sky set against a mudstone world.
“Well, what is that now, marriage . . . a convention of UCA culture, if memory serves me,” said Carner. He stood up and walked close. He seemed singularly interested in Mick, inspecting the lines of his face, lips, eyes, muscles; evaluating his height, weight, spirit, virility, scent.
“He’s not for sale, he’s a human,” said Sera.
“I know, I can tell now that I’ve stood up. But what’s a human got to do with being for sale? What’s the difference, the way they make ‘em now?”
“How do you come by so much money?” Mick asked.
This rawhide sack coughed up forty thousand like it’s nothing, and he’s not jumping to get to Utopia.
“I flip elements and molecules boy. I’ll reel in sixty thousand for this M and H, easy. That’s a clean one-third profit.” A small brass droid came into the room.
“Magnadraw and Hoila has been unloaded and stored, boss,” said the droid.
“Thanks Ringle. You’re dismissed,” Carner said. His servant rolled away into t
he dust shed beyond.
“So why don’t you—” Mick started; Sera cut him off. She placed her arm on his shoulder.
“Don’t Mick. We’re out of here, come on,” she said.
“Real protective of this one,” said Carner. “Let him ask. Seems he’s not from around here.”
“Why don’t you go to Utopia then? Surely you can afford it,” Mick asked.
Expose her lies. Tell it like it is old man.
“Couldn’t if I tried boy. I have the taint. I’m a felon. My plant’s as good as cancer. But I tell you what, I’m saving for an expancapacitor system. So I expect I’ll have my own little Utopia, right here on his blood rock.”
So Utopia is forbidden to the felons, no matter their wealth. How the hell is Sera clean?
“You can stay here then,” Sera said coldly, walking away.
“Listen to me boy. You watch out for her. Married you say? That won’t keep her at bay. You keep yourself locked up at night,” Carner laughed. Mick frowned at the old man.
“Why do they call it year fourteen?”
“What?” said Carner, his devious smile disappearing. “My, you truly aren’t from around these parts, are you? AM maybe? I did think you looked like one of the new models, but AM on one as new as you, dear Christ.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“It was a joke, son, calm down. I know you’re not a cellbot. Were you serious?”
“I was.”
Black Hull Page 5
