Dreaming of Atmosphere

by Jim C. Wilson

  “Just left the Argessi Station. Artemis wouldn’t let anyone but Max and Crege go ashore. I’m sure she can fill you in when you’re better. We’re headed towards the inner system, something about going around a planet. You don’t need to worry yourself, you should be fine in 30 hours. Just get plenty of rest!”

  She made to leave.

  “Wait!”

  “You need rest!”

  “Don’t I get a kiss?” She stood and crossed her arms, I could tell she was pissed at me. I pouted and her resolve crumbled. She pecked me on the lips and then left the med lab shaking her head at me, but she was smiling.

  18.

  The next ship day was strange. My body was undergoing changes, I could tell, but I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on. I asked Zoe about it at one point when she came in to check on me, but all she said was the proto-ship was growing. I was too young to remember when I got my overlay proto-chip, so I didn’t know what I was in for.

  Maxine came down to see me a few hours after I awoke. She was all smiles and small talk, but I could see there was some stress she was working out. When I asked her about it, she just shrugged it off as the trials of command. She assured me everything was all right.

  “I’m sorry if I caused you all to worry. It was kind of thoughtless of me to inject the proto-chip without supervision.”

  “It’s okay, Donny, I’m just glad you decided to do it at all. How does it feel?”

  “Not sure. When this headache goes away it might feel different, but at the moment I just feel ill.”

  “I read that within hours of waking up you should start to notice things a little differently.”

  “I remember in one of the vids you gave me it was described as having broader senses. Like you could suddenly reach out to things without using your hand and touch them.”

  “I’ve given Zoe all the information that Doctor Shale gave me, she has enough data to put together a training program for you. I’ve paired her up with Fel, they’re both very excited about running you through some gruelling tests.”

  “What kind of tests?”

  “They’ll help measure your control and something about managing burn out. You’d have to talk to them some more about it.”

  “How did your shopping run go on Argessi Station?”

  “Good, we got the cryo-nanite package, and a few other bits and pieces. I also got enough gear for Fel to put together another scrambler for you. I asked around about Koveli-Xue and their interest in Argessi System, as well as their connection to Gossamer. I couldn’t get much, mostly just business interests. I couldn’t find any links between them and Jenner either, so I don’t know what kind of beef they have with him.”

  “Which way are we getting through the system?”

  “We’re in luck, there. Vengnashi is going to pass right through our optimal trajectory to the Eridani Jump gate. The plan is to swing through its orbit and pick up a few days’ worth of velocity over an hour or two, and then shoot off towards the Jump Gate.”

  “The Cooper sling shot?”

  “Ha, I didn’t come up with it, it’s an old trick. Using the gravity and the spin of heavy objects for extra speed is always a good way to shave a few days off your travel time.”

  Vengnashi was a large planet in the Harakiwa System, the third world from the Harakiwa star. It was right at the far enough of the habitable zone, though, and was very cold. The planetary government was an interesting one. They were known as the Demarchy of Veng, and had no permanent ruling body. Instead, citizens were chosen at random to be poled via their overlays on various topics and decisions. All the answers are fed into a giant AI Core deep in the planet that correlates the data and comes to a decision based on the responses. It then relay commands and directions to government agents and officials. It seemed too much like a computer controlled world to me, though. From what I hear, it’s not too bad a place to live, but a little too heavy on the security at the expense of people’s freedoms. They were big on their AI though, and some of the best Artificial Intelligence designers and manufacturers were Veng.

  I’d been to Vengnashi a few times before. They’re not on good terms with the neighbouring planet of Kanto Prime. Much like Kanto Prime, Vengnashi is an ecunomopolis, a city spanning the entire planet. Geothermic heating makes the city planet habitable, and solar reflectors increase the effects that the distance star have on the world. This kind of low scale terraforming is common in worlds that teeter on the edge of habitable zones, but there are many other methods available for more extreme modifications to a planet’s temperature and other living factors.

  Vengnashi, and Kanto Prime, are considered Inner System planets. These worlds are relatively comfortable to live on, and their populations combined make up over twenty billion sentient beings of various species. By far the most common species is human kind. The other two most common species are the Garz’a and the Orlii. The proliferation of these three races is so great, that the Galactic Protectorate uses their ratios to the rest of the species on a planet to gauge their demographic. The Human - Garz’a - Orlii Index is a method of cataloguing the species demographics of a planet or population centre. A HGO Index of 50% means that approximately half of a population is either Human, Garz’a or Orlii, while the remainder are classified as ‘Other’. If the remainder makes up more than 25% of the population, it is listed after the index for clarity; HGO Index 30% Argen, for example, means 30% of the population are Human, Garz’a or Orlii, while at least 25% are Argen. The system works for well enough for most of the galaxy, although where the Protectorate holds little sway it is not used. Indigenous species tend to ignore the index as well, but for travellers such as me it is a useful way to find out what kind of people live on a world or habitat.

  The galaxy includes well over a thousand star systems, and although the most common origin of an inhabited planet is through colonisation by the Protectorate, about thirty percent of the inhabited worlds held indigenous sentient life. The Votus-Eridani Network is the birth place of four distinct species – the Argen from Argessi System, the Frikk from Tantis System, and the Ghantri and Jaani from Gossamer. Vengnashi had a HGO Index of 62%, while Kanto Prime had an Index of 59%.

  Zoe, I knew, was from Kanto Prime. She had family on the planet, and although we were not going to get close enough to visit, she would be able to get off some messages even though no real time communications can occur. I wondered if she was going to tell her mother about me.

  Our trip through the Harakiwa System was scheduled to take almost five weeks of ship time, and this was plenty of time for me to get used to my new system, hopefully. True to her word, I was good enough to leave med lab after nearly a full day of rest. I was restless for the last half and bored out of my mind, but I did get a lot of reading done about the exercises I was to perform to get used to nano-proliferation.

  The first big change that I noticed was a sensation of building pressure around my augmentations. Zoe said this was normal, and that the computer systems that governed my Augs should compensate for the added equipment being built with them to incorporate the nanite factories.

  My appetite increased exponentially, and I was fed dozens of protein bars and something called black meal. I’d read that this mixture was high in iron and other trace elements that were needed to accelerate nanite growth. The documentaries recommended I take up a steady diet of the cereal-like food. I didn’t mind, it was rather pleasant to eat, actually.

  I didn’t have to have large amounts of nanites in my body to be able to perform the effects I was capable of, but once the nanites left my body they could create more in the blink of an eye from particles in the air. Even though some of the things I read sounded terrifying, I was committed now and that determination made me put aside my fear and work on mastering myself anew.

  When I was up and about, I was immediately brought down to the cargo hold sparing area by Fel and Zoe. There was two exercise mats placed on the deck with three dark spheres sitting between them
. Zoe placed a few electrodes on my forehead and began gathering readings from my vitals, or the nano controller in my head. Fel’negr sat down on one of the mats and indicated I should join him.

  “Today’s lesson is designed to teach you control. Not of your powers, but of your senses. Being able to sense the world around you through your nanites is the first step in being able to manipulate matter and energy.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m going to teach you a technique used in The Way, a way for you to meditate on a problem and consider nothing else.”

  “You’ve been trying to get me to follow The Way for years. Looks like you finally get your way, huh?”

  “Focus, Seth. I want you to clear your mind of all other things except these three balls.”

  That was better said than done. I’d been kept out of the command loop on board for days, and there were projects going on that I needed to be a part of. I had a hundred worries and woes, and then there was Zoe who still filled many of my waking thoughts. I could smell her faint perfume that she still insists on wearing even though we were stuck on a space ship.

  “The balls, Seth.”

  “Right, sorry Zoe, your perfume is distracting me.” Had she told Fel about us yet? Surely, he knows by now, we’ve hardly been hiding our relationship. I’ve never discussed it with Fel or Crege, so I don’t know how they feel about it. Not since they had tried to dissuade me against attempting such things.

  “Zoe, perhaps Seth is right, I’ll take good care of him and you can still monitor him remotely.”

  “Okay, but don’t try anything dramatic just yet, all right?”

  “Yes, Maxine.” I said, grinning. She threw a workman’s glove at me that she picked up off a supply crate. I ducked it and she left giving me a smirk.

  “No excuses now, Seth. Clear your mind.”

  I gave it a solid effort now. I stared at the three balls and tried not to think about anything else.

  “Breathe deeply, and imagine that your breath is a tangible thing. Allow your breath to drift over the balls. Your breath settles upon the balls and becomes part of them.” Intoned Fel.

  Suddenly, I caught my breath in a gasp. I could feel the balls. It almost felt like I had them in my hands. My concentration slipped, and they were just balls sitting in front of me again. I looked up at Fel who was studying my face intently.

  “I could almost touch them.”

  “Your nanites are gathering information for you. That data is being interpreted by your brain into something it finds familiar. You sensed them through touch?”

  “Yeah, like I was holding them, or resting my hands on them.”

  “Good, we’re going to try again, only thing time I want you to try and taste them.”

  “Taste?”

  “Synaesthesia is the overlapping of senses. You nanites can collect any information it needs and your implant will tell your brain how to utilise it. Same again – focus, breathe.”

  I meditated on the balls again for several minutes, slowly breathing deeply as I did. It was very relaxing, and eventually I began to envision myself tasting the balls, as if they were pieces of fruit. They had a bitter rubbery taste to them, as if I had licked a squash ball. I said as much.

  “Smell them.” It became easier then, each time I attempted to sense the balls it took a little less time to do. I heard the deep vibrations between their molecules, smelled their rubbery outer coating, and delved deeper into their substance, their matter. I tasted the earthy wood that was the core of one, and felt the hard cold metal that was inside another. I even saw a small measure of what it looked like inside the third when I closed my eyes. I was entirely relaxed, exploring the three balls, learning all I could about them. I was so relaxed that I started to get very sleepy.

  Zoe came down again, and I wasn’t sure how long we’d been doing this for.

  “That’s enough for today. His charge is in the yellow, time to recuperate.” She said.

  “My charge?” I said sleepily. I remembered the icon on my overlay and accessed it. Sure enough, I was down to about 65%. “Is that why I’m so tired? I feel like I’ve been exercising for a while and I’m now resting.”

  “That’s your body using up its energy to power the nanites. You’ll need to go eat something and then get some rest before we do any more. I’m monitoring your charge, so I’ll come get you when you’re in the green again and we can try some more stuff.”

  “Okay, doctor.” I said groggily.

  “How was it?” asked Fel.

  “Mind blowing, it’s almost like I was inside the balls. Like I was part of the balls.”

  “Fascinating.” He said, and rubbed his chin in contemplation, “You did well.”

  Zoe slung her shoulder under my arm and nearly carried me to my cabin. I slept and had more strange dreams about whales swimming in dark oceans of data.

  19.

  A lot of the time in space is spent travelling, going between space stations, Jump Gates and planets. That and asteroid mining or gas giant farming, neither of which we do. There’s quite a bit of time where we’re just drifting along, minding our own business. You need a certain measure of patience, perseverance and social graces to survive such times cooped up in the ship with the same people. The Dreaming had a communal area that was the focal point of most social interactions – the mess deck. It was an unwritten rule, or social contract if you will, that said if a crewmember wished privacy they could retire to their cabin and close themselves off. We all do it, some more than others. The mess deck, however, was always considered an open invitation to anyone wishing to interact with other people.

  I found Eric sitting by himself, the next day, sipping a coffee and reading an old-fashioned book. The tattered cover was barely legible, the edges frayed and tattered. Besides the fact he was reading a book, I knew that he wouldn’t mind if I joined him and sparked up a conversation.

  “Who’s…Rama? Some girl?” I asked, trying to make out the words on the cover.

  “Rama is an alien space ship that drifted through ancient Earth’s star system.”

  “Aliens visited us before we made Jump Gates?”

  “No, this is a work of fiction.”

  “Wouldn’t it be more interesting to watch the movie instead?”

  “No, and there is no movie.”

  “So someone went to the trouble of writing thousands of words on paper, when it would have been so much easier to just tell a holo-generator to create the movie?”

  “Well, when this was written they didn’t have artificial intelligences to create movies. They had to do everything manually, using real people as actors and so on.”

  “I’d almost forgotten how old you are.” I said, smiling mischievously.

  He smiled at me over the top of his book, “Still young enough to kick your arse. Besides, books have so much more character to them than a movie. They stimulate your imagination more.”

  “You’ll go blind, reading all those tiny words. Why don’t you just scan it with an app on your overlay and have it read it to you?”

  “I read faster than a person can speak.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You should try it.”

  “No thanks, I’ll stick to regular entertainment. I barely have time these days anyway.”

  “How is the new implant?”

  “Strange.”

  “That’s it? Just strange?”

  “I don’t know, Eric. I’m still concerned that I may turn myself into some kind of techno-freak.”

  “Your father felt the same way about biological augs, did you know?” he put his book down, turning a corner on the page. Talking about my father always interested Eric, and myself of course. Eric had been close friends with Caster Donovan, and a member of the Dreaming for longer than anyone else. Eric had been a deck hand under Hieron Donovan, one of the last of his Crew to serve with him before he retired.

  “Did he ever change his mind?” I asked.

  “Yeah, took h
im a while though. He only ever saw them as a cosmetic upgrade, right up until we had a crewmember go EV sans-helmet.”

  “What?”

  “A chap by the name of Frendril. Smug bastard, even for an Orlii. Started gearing up for a space-walk to go repair a loose sensor housing when an intern screwed up and activated the outer ‘lock. A malfunction took out the safety interlocks and pop! Out he went.”

  I shuddered. I’d had enough extra-vehicular activities to have a healthy fear and respect for the hostile environs of naked vacuum.

  “We got out there in a hurry, dragged what we thought was his corpse back in only to have him sputter and curse at us all as soon as we had oh two on him.”

  “He survived? How?”

  “Secondary organs, oxygen gland and reinforced lungs. The most he got was a mild case of frostbite around his lips that left him with a scar that made him look as if he was always sneering.”

  “No shit?”

  “Your dad was so spun out, the next port he went window shopping at the local bio-clinic. Maxine had to talk him out of it - the guy wanted to get a pheromone gland.”

  “Ha, ha! That’s my dad, always thinking about his libido.”

  We shared a chuckle, then sat in silence for a few moments. The loss of my father had hit me hard as a child, and it was Eric who’d always been there for me. At the time, Eric was tasked with my technical education, taking me through the engineering spaces regularly. After my father had passed, Eric took it upon himself to almost foster me to young adulthood. If Maxine could be called my closest maternal figure, Eric could be called my closest paternal figure. Between the two, they’d put up with my tantrums, mended scrapes and cuts, hugged and wiped away my tears as a child and given me all the advice and confidence I needed to succeed through to my early twenties.

  Eric must have noticed I was getting maudlin, thinking about my father, and tried to cheer me up.

  “Want to know something funny about Max and your dad?”

  “From when they were an item?”

  “Did I tell you about the time they got arrested on Bastor Station?” He had, but I liked the story so I shook my head, “They were on a sting to catch this thug by the name of…er…” he started clicking his fingers trying to remember.