Fool's War

by Sarah Zettel

  “Well, that’s something anyway.” Resit opened the bathroom door. “I will be talking to you in the morning, Katmer.”

  “You will.” Al Shei held the door open for her. “I promise.”

  Resit crossed the bathroom into her own cabin through the opposite door.

  When she was gone, Al Shei sealed the door to the hallway and touched the key beside it to signal anyone who might be walking by that she was not to be disturbed. No matter what her door said, she was always on immediate call for engineering. The Pasadena itself could summon her if any of half a dozen emergency switches were tripped.

  With her door sealed, she finally let the weight of the day pull her shoulders down. That brief conversation with her cousin had robbed her of most of the calm that prayer instilled. She ran her fingers through her hair, fluffing it out and letting the slight breeze from the ventilators dry the film of dampness near her scalp. Unlike Resit, she had no cloud of long hair to shake down. She’d kept hers cut to a bob that would not get in her way. She stripped off her work clothes and debated a moment before tossing them into the laundry drawer. She slid her forest green kaftan over her bare shoulders and sighed contentedly. The kaftan had been a gift from Asil. It was real Earth-grown cotton. Cotton was grown only by permit on Earth. Most textile fibers came from vat-bred clones.

  As she smoothed the kaftan down, Al Shei studied her face in the mirror. It was a good face, all and all, she admitted. Her brow was wide and clear, even though the worry wrinkles were beginning to etch themselves in deeper every year. Her aquiline nose was not too big, and her chin was not too pointed. She had an expressive mouth with lines around it that spoke more of smiles than of sorrows. Resit teased her that the real reason she wore the hijab was not just to hide the fact she’d cut her hair, but to emphasize her wide, almond-shaped eyes. Asil sometimes said it was her eyes were that had bewitched his heart.

  Vanity, vanity, she chided herself with a small laugh and turned away. What are you doing? Seeing if the news about Tully has added any new lines?

  Al Shei folded her bed down from the wall and sat on the emerald faux silk coverlet, crossing her legs. She opened her hot box and detached the fork from the cover.

  “Intercom, playback,” she said to the walls as she dug into the chicken curry and rice. “Asil Day Book, entry one.”

  There wasn’t even a beep in response. Al Shei had taken them out for this command sequence. Instead, her husband’s, clean, deep voice filled the empty spaces between her in-flight possessions and her inmost heart.

  “Good morning, Beloved. Not much to report from yesterday, Katmer. It’s a week before the rains are scheduled to begin and we had six hours of outside time left in the ration, so we had dinner on the terrace…”

  Al Shei set the fork down, closed her eyes, and let her mind drift with the recorded voice. Her imagination was so trained for this that she could see every detail. The low wooden table on the clean white stone, surrounded by piles of blue and green cushions that would have been tossed into place by Muhammad and Vashti. The children would have taken the opportunity to inflict an impromptu pummeling on each other, halted by mock threats from Asil. He would have set down the broad dish of imam baldi and flat bread. Asil was a traditionalist as far as food was concerned. The children, their hair blowing in the gentle breeze scented with the smells of living trees and roasting garlic would scurry to the table and be told to calm down before helping themselves. They would, for about thirty seconds, then they’d begin digging each other in the ribs…

  “…Vashti told me she wants to try out for the soccer team next semester. Muhammadis talking seriously about summer classes for his astronomy. Looks as though the banks are going to lose another one, Katmer…”

  Al Shei smiled and let the voice wash over her. This was how they kept together. Everyday he made an entry in the verbal diary, just as she did. When she came home to stay, of course they talked. They told each other everything, delighting in conversation. But on the last day, before she left again, they would solemnly exchange diaries. At home, in his own room, come back from his prayers, Asil would be listening to her voice reeling off an account of the first day of her previous flight. Although she knew, by now, that Vashti had made the soccer team and that Muhammad had been accepted to an academic camp in Tel Aviv, the Asil in the recording did not. His voice made it all new again and gave her those days that were the other half of her life, as Asil would have hers.

  They could have used video, of course. They could have even each carried a small camera with them, but Asil had preferred imagination from the beginning. After the first trial, Al Shei had to agree. She thought in pictures anyway. With the diaries she had a whole memory full of pictures of her growing children and her steadfast beloved.

  “I live two lifetimes,” she’d told him once. “And both are full of what I love.”

  When the entry faded into silence, Al Shei opened her eyes. She sneaked a look at the door and the intercom. Both were silent and blank.

  I can indulge. “Recall file,” she said, stirring her curry. “Mirror of Fate.”

  In the next heart beat, a blue-line schematic for a packet ship flowed across the wall screen. This was the Mirror of Fate. It was almost twice the size of the Pasadena. Even without the crew, it had a Lennox rating of B. With a good crew, it would be A rated. She ordered the intercom to scroll through the diagram to the family quarters. The ship had room for Muhammad, Vashti and up to four other children, if any of her crew had families to bring along. In the Mirror of Fate, she and Asil would have one lifetime.

  Next to the diagram the wall printed a tidy row of figures. Current savings, projected income from this trip, projected amount to be added to savings, remaining balance before they could have Mirror of Fate commissioned.

  She had designed the ship. Asil had designed the payment scheme. With him, money was not just a commodity to be tracked and traded. He saw endless possibilities embedded in what to her were meaningless statistics. Maybe that was how she had known she loved him, when she saw that he found possibilities in accounts the way she saw them in a ship’s systems and that like her, he lived to realize the possibilities he saw in his mind.

  Mirror of Fate represented the grandest of all those possibilities. Freedom. Asil and the children and their possibilities in a home she had made and a ship that worked under her hands and eyes and inner vision. She’d dreamed this ship all the years she was learning her trade. When Asil entered her life, they dreamed it together and together, no matter how long the runs lasted, they still dreamed.

  It was a sweet dream and she savored it slowly, like fine coffee. She sipped it gently and let it roll across her senses and warm her from the inside. It would happen. Another two years’ work, three at the very outside. Pasadena’s upgraded rating would bring in…

  “…so you tell the Ninja Woman I am not going to put up with…”

  The strident voice jolted Al Shei out of her reverie. She started and dropped a forkful of curry onto her plate. “…this kind of crap from a bunch of bigoted…”

  Yerusha. The stun bled away and Al Shei was able to identify the voice clanging through the intercom.

  “And the thunder crashed in a mighty cacophony and all did tremble and shake at the oath that could make the stars ring!” There was a shuffling of cloth and silence. Dobbs. Whatever she had done had caught Yerusha so off-guard she wasn’t able to respond.

  “Intercom to Yerusha,” said Al Shei. “Yerusha. The com’s on and I want to talk to you and whoever you’re yelling at with the Watch Commander.”

  More silence. “Yes, Engineer,” came the answer finally.

  “Intercom to Watch Command,” said Al Shei.

  “It’s okay, Engineer,” came back Schyler’s voice. “I’m the one she was yelling at, myself and the Houston.”

  “Obviously, there is a problem with the intercom,” said Al Shei dryly.

  “Obviously,” cut in Chandra, “unless you really meant this co
nversation to hit the galley.”

  “Walls are supposed to have ears, but tongues…” chipped in Dobbs. “Do you suppose they gossip about us during the night shift too?”

  “All right, all right,” said Schyler. “Obviously we need a meeting, now.”

  “Obviously,” agreed Al Shei. “Lipinski, who’s on comm watch? I want whatever’s wrong with the intercom routing fixed. I’ll meet all of you in the conference room. Intercom to Close.” She looked regretfully at the Mirror of Fate. “Store file.” She stuffed another forkful of curry into her mouth before she closed the box lid and popped it into a drawer. “Why do I have the feeling this is going to be one of my more interesting runs?”

  She changed back into her working clothes and wrapped her hijab back around her face.

  By the time she reached the conference room, Schyler, Lipinski and Yerusha were already there. So was Dobbs, Al Shei noticed as the hatch cycled closed. The Fool, disdaining any of the available chairs, sat cross-legged in the corner, resting her elbows on her knees. Al Shei suppressed a sigh. According to contract, the Fool could not be excluded from any crew meeting, including disciplinary hearings, but Al Shei really could have done without her presence.

  Yerusha sat with her arms folded and a look of studied blandness on her face. Lipinski was frowning at the pilot and giving her a look that could peel paint. Schyler had one hand laid on the table-top and was dividing his attention between the two recalcitrant crewmembers.

  “All right, Watch.” Al Shei leaned rested her hands on the back of one of the chairs. “What happened?”

  Schyler turned towards her. There was an odd light in his eye that Al Shei couldn’t quite interpret. “Pilot Yerusha was found to be working with an unregistered hardware/software interface using the ship’s systems…”

  Yerusha sat up straighter in her chair and unfolded her arms. “I was testing a wafer stack to make sure it was intact,” she countered. “In my own cabin, on a secured, internal…”

  “You were letting an AI loose in my system!” thundered Lipinski.

  Yerusha started to her feet. “You have no right to spy on a secured…”

  “It’s my job to make sure there’s nothing here that’s not registered…”

  “So what made you decide to keep a special eye on my line, you ground hugging…”

  “Enough!” Schyler slammed his hand against the table. The pair subsided.

  “Thank you, Watch,” said Al Shei. She turned a little so she could face Yerusha but still keep her eye on Lipinski. “Have you got an artificial intelligence rated wafer stack with you?”

  Yerusha bridled. “You do not have the right to question me about legal possessions.”

  Al Shei inclined her head. “You’re right, of course.” She turned towards Schyler. “Has she got an AI wafer stack?”

  “I saw her carrying something that could have been an AI. From the stats Houston showed me, it’s very probable she had it cabled into the system.” Schyler answered blandly.

  Al Shei nodded and faced Yerusha again. The woman’s cheeks were starting to pale and her hand clenched into a fist at her side. “Is it your foster?” Al Shei asked.

  Yerusha jumped like she’d been stung. “What do you know about our fosters?”

  “It is one of the Freers’ more…publicized goals.” Al Shei kept her voice level. “I know they’re AIs assigned to, sorry, adopted by, individual Freers who want to have a go at creating an environment which could hold a human soul. I know a departed human soul making a home in an AI environment is considered to be the root cause for the AI breakouts like the ones on Edgeward and Kerensk. I also know there’s some sort of lottery involved in who gets to be a ‘parent.’” I also know you’ve never had a single success with it, which is why you’re still sitting here talking to me and not confined to quarters with the thing in Lipinski’s hands. She let her eyes narrow. “It’s not a very popular program in some circles.” She very deliberately did not look towards Lipinski.

  Yerusha’s knuckles were turning as white as her cheeks. “I have a right under my contract to bring aboard any legal piece of software that I choose, as long as I don’t infect the ship’s systems or go over my allotted weight limit.”

  Al Shei waved her hand and suppressed an urge to laugh. “Oh, stop bristling, will you? I’m not interested in taking it away from you, or saying you broke contract by bringing it aboard. But I want to know if you were really going to let it loose?”

  “Here?” Yerusha snorted. “You joke better than your Fool. I would never expose my foster to a crew of complete paranoids.”

  “Good,” said Al Shei. “We don’t have room in the system for it anyway, do we Houston?” She cocked her eye at Lipinski.

  “Hardly,” said Lipinski to the floor.

  “And because it is a legal program and we’ve all got plenty to keep us busy on shift, there’s not going to be any more ideological shouting matches. Right?” She looked straight at Schyler.

  “We’ve already discussed the matter,” he replied.

  “Glad to hear it.” Al Shei lifted her hands off the chair back and smoothed down her tunic sleeves. “Because I’d really hate this to be the first run where we docked anybody for violating the courtesy and privacy clauses in their contracts.” She glanced first at Lipinski and then at Yerusha. “Is there anything else?”

  Lipinski got up. “I guess not,” he said. “I’m going to see how Rosvelt’s doing on the intercom problem.” He left without another word or look to anybody.

  The hatch cycled shut and Yerusha leaned forward.

  Al Shei made a slicing gesture across her throat. “Before you say anything, I know Lipinski is a paranoiac. He may also be a bigot. Deal with it. You have to work with everyone else, and they have to work with you. If you can’t get your job done because of behavior problems, you talk to Watch. If I catch you shouting names across the bridge again, I may decide to pitch you off of here as soon as we get to The Farther Kingdom. And before you feel too picked on, I may decide to do the same to Lipinski.” Her mouth twitched. “It’s hard being one of a kind. I know Freers consider Muslims barbarians…” Yerusha had the grace to look away at that. “In fact, they consider all us groundhogs barbarians and you’re pretty much not allowed to like any of us.” Rebellion surged across Yerusha’s face but she was bright enough not to say anything. “I understand what it’s like to be set apart by your beliefs. I also understand this gives you a great temptation to lie, and cover up, and hide. I’ve done it, so I know that aboard a small ship that only leads to trouble. Maybe disaster. That I won’t have, just as I won’t have personal prejudices getting in the way of my crew getting our mutual job done. We are all here and we can’t rely on one Fool to keep us from each others’ throats. Do your job, Yerusha, and stow the stack until we get to port, all right? And rest assured that now that we’ve been alerted to the problem, Watch will make sure Lipinski doesn’t interfere with anything that doesn’t interfere with the ship or its cargo.”

  “Aye-aye, ‘Dama.” Yerusha got to her feet. She cocked an eye at Schyler. “Can I go?”

  Schyler nodded and Yerusha left. As soon as the hatch cycled closed, he folded his arms and looked at Al Shei. She waved a weary hand at him. “Don’t say it, Tom,” she fell into Arabic. “Just don’t.”

  He shrugged. “All I was going to say was this time you may finally have found the one who refuses to make it easy on herself.”

  “She’s proud, she’s scared, and she’s totally on her own. It’ll make you act funny.” Al Shei stood up. “She is not, however, totally stupid, and I do believe she needs this job. She’ll behave.” She made sure her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes. “Who knows? In time she might even be likeable. It’s happened before.”

  “Are you talking about me or you, Mother?”

  “Impudence,” she snorted. “Go get some supper. You’re no good to me starved and sleepy.”

  He grinned. “The hell I’m not.” He cycled the h
atch open.

  “And don’t swear,” she said to his back as he strode out the hatch.

  “Nice job.” Dobbs stood up in the corner. Now it was Al Shei’s turn to jump. She’d completely forgotten the Fool was even in the room.

  Dobbs grinned. “Believe it or not, we get training in unobtrusiveness. I got an A in the course.”

  “That much I do believe.” Al Shei smoothed her hijab down. “I hope I can count on you to keep an extra eye on Yerusha and Lipinski. A holy war is not something I need aboard my ship.”

  Dobbs snapped to attention and saluted briskly. “Yes, Ma’am!”

  Al Shei waved her away. “Aren’t you off-shift too?”

  Dobbs relaxed her stance and grinned. “Cooks, owners and Fools. We’re never off-shift.”

  “No, I guess we’re not.” Al Shei cycled the hatch open. Dobbs bowed deeply and gestured for her to go first. Al Shei did. The Fool took off in the opposite direction, maybe on her way to her own cabin or to catch up with Yerusha and find out how well she took Al Shei’s lecture.

  As she remembered the anger flashing between Yerusha and Lipinski’s eyes, Al Shei suddenly felt very glad the Fool was aboard.

  Chapter Three — Faster Than Light

  Dobbs watched the clean, white side of the unnamed tanker fill the square of her view screen. The tanker would top off Pasadena’s fuel and reaction mass and send the ship on to the jump point. The Pasadena gave itself a final nudge sideways. Far away, Dobbs heard a faint clang reverberate through the hull as the two ships hooked together.

  Dobbs, fastened to her desk chair by her freefall straps, found herself admiring Yerusha. The woman’s skills were certainly not over-billed. Hooking up with a re-fueling tanker could be a rough ride if one or the other of the pilots weren’t spot-on with their calculations. As a result, it was standard operating procedure to have the crew strapped into their seats during re-fueling.

  Usually time in her straps made her restless. She had never quite mastered the art of sitting still. This time though, Dobbs was glad of the chance to think.