“Basic hashes are enabled. Should help you organize your visual inventory.” Skregs seized Thwip’s tether through their remote hardhood connection, and Thwip grunted in thanks.
After waking him an hour ago, Skregs had guided Thwip to the ship’s hybrid PT lab and medica module. There the techs fitted him into his new gear. His first foray into trepid consisted of following Skregs down the corridor outside the lab. After only a few steps Thwip felt woozy.
Skregs saw Thwip’s strained expression through their hardhood connection. “Yeah, it feels like that. Damn, I nearly forgot—my first time in trepid, better than sex.”
“Just as clumsy anyway,” Thwip grunted, and as though to prove it, accidentally misaimed his next step and crashed his shoulder into the wall. His suit kept going, dragging against the ship’s structure—Skregs pulsed Thwip’s tether, stopped him before he damaged the Vesper.
Another face melted in on his innerface peripheral, looking curious. The washed-out light in the hardhood’s IF caught on a sharp jawline and cut cheekbones. Thwip’s IF momentarily hashed him as WHECK, and in his stats Thwip saw that they were of similar height and build. Feathers is slimmer than I am. He must be Hurricanes.
Wheck pressed an amused smile, sharpening his angular face. “Wheck. Specialty: aero and astro tech and piloting. Don’t fight with it. Give over. Trepid requires give and take. You’ve read Baroqui’s Cygnus Dialogues? Yes, you would have. Everyone does at the academies.” Greyscale overlaid Wheck’s face on the peripheral of Thwip’s IF, removing the color and signaling that he’d muted Thwip.
Baroqui’s philosophy was that humanity’s expansion through the universe is destined, but only if we mind the cosmos and its creation as Pre-Cygnus humans failed to do on Earth. She thought all soldiers should be required to have a philosophical mind attuned to logic and moral reasoning. It became a requirement of Novas. Give and take—
Skregs released the tether without warning. Thwip reacted, pulsed his index finger to allow for lower mobility, and took a shaky step, slightly better than the last. Skregs coaxed him to keep walking; “I have you on half-tether; when you’re ready, I’ll release it in full.”
Thwip managed a few more steps, half bent and slow as a 160-year-old miner from Creis, while Skregs walked backward, facing him, guarding Thwip from falling while also guarding the ship and crew from being injured, and infodumping Thwip on the Vesper’s specs as he went. “The way to the sleeping module is toward the Vesper’s aft and through the lower hangar deck, then inside our ship within a ship, the Vesper-Oh. Do you remember the way to the PT lab and medica module from the Vesper-Oh?”
“Exit the lower hangar deck. Two rights and left toward the bow…”
Thwip took a step with his right foot, timing the pulse command he made with his fingers, the sway of his body, the shifting of his weight. On the orientation grid on his IF, he saw himself tipping. He pulsed quickly and leaned in the opposite direction, righting himself. Although he’d barely moved at all, he felt light-headed, as though he were breathing thin air at a high elevation.
He caught movement on his IF that he hadn’t noticed before; he watched it, trying to interpret it. The words CHEM BALANCERS arrived and departed, and the associated area magnified itself.
Fuck me, the trepid IF is reading my eye movement and responding!
Thwip felt more present, his mind cleared. RL suits contained emergency medical mechs only, and most of those mechs and meds could only be activated by RL trainers. Arrow suits contained more day-to-day varieties of meds, and their emergency meds were automatically administered. Meanwhile the mechs for trepid chems looked to be as complex as the human body itself. Thwip watched the chem balancers slide again—hundreds of them, on multicolored lines paralleled by tiny numbers and symbols, their nodes moving up or down like a thousand-times-more-complex version of the aural sound mechs and filters.
There were so many that they were layered, and there weren’t enough distinct colors to differentiate them. He didn’t know what the majority of them were, but they were all activated and working at will, like a breathing, flexing rainbow.
“Novas need a clear mind at all times, so adrenaline, aches, pains, wounds, everything around and between, are managed or healed, from slight to extreme. Your suit can seal a wound internally. It can vent the blood and anything else unnecessary in a matter of seconds.” Skregs brought up the med sys manual on Thwip’s IF for him, and Thwip skimmed through it.
Trepid suits were self-sanitizing. The atmospheric and air blend systems were precise yet flexible. The suit managed liquids so that in microgravity they wouldn’t inhale them and drown. Viewing the intricacies of the technology, Thwip felt a sense of awe, then was almost moved to tears, then became jealous that he’d never invented such a thing, but his chem balancers slid slightly—he could see them reacting on his hardhood IF—his heart rate slowed to normal and his emotion subsided.
The rainbow blurred, snapped into a steeper rocking movement. Disar, the PT lab, Kevlin, Disar… Thwip’s mind drifted to disconnected images, as though he were falling asleep. I left despite our agreement. Will they tell her why? Will she think I washed out? Lines flexing up and down in waves moving over his IF, bending and glowing, everything warm, delightfully warm, and dark. He could see the small lumped shape his feet made under the blanket of his childhood bed where he was tucked in, his mother and father’s shadows gently receding as they quietly sealed his door—
“You can pulse ahead to skip to that story, or stay with me now.”
Thwip opened his eyes to blackness. That’s the news. Dad’s in the kitchen watching the news.
“Earlier today on Denizen a group of academics staged a protest in downtown Harlione. The crowd was expected to number in the hundreds, but swelled to over fifty thousand, overflowing the city’s Agora Plaza, where many media companies make their home.”
Thwip heard the sound of a crowd chanting far away.
“Our own Urielaeli Thrane spoke with one of the protest organizers, an activist and recent graduate of Harvatii Academy…”
That’s the voice of newsbreaker Armeise from Altrio Prime Top News. Dad likes the way she banters between stories. He says, “She’s the only newsbreaker with any sense of irony and life is better if you grin with the joke.”
Thwip blinked, oriented himself—he was not at home on Altrio, he was inside his new trepid suit. Is the corridor dark? Why isn’t my hood presenting visuals? He moved his fingers, but his suit was inactive and wouldn’t take commands.
The news capture cut to a man’s voice. “We live in a gerontocracy, ruled by a minority of leaders who are far older than the majority of the UNP’s adult population. Meanwhile the military has become its own caste. Their children inherit advanced training and power positions, and intermarry. Secrets are kept. Authority goes unchallenged. They have their own courts that are separate from civilian courts. They enjoy unprecedented political power that puts influence behind legislating violence in the universe. Today’s protest isn’t about any particular new policy or legislation, but rather about making sure all citizens are aware of the data, about the true state of the Nativity, especially anyone under one hundred. It’s younger citizens, including myself who—”
The man’s voice and the crowd chanting underneath it stopped. From somewhere nearby Skregs muttered, “Antipatriotic academics.… Where’s the general’s statement?” Thwip heard him in his aurals, but his IF remained black.
Newsbreaker Armeise’s voice returned.
“—and Denizen’s local lawmakers have distanced themselves. The protest was timed to coincide with General Aitith’s statement on the progress of the war, delivered as one of the opening statements to Council Chief Hazeriel’s Sunstars of the Nativity address.”
Thwip remembered to tap his fingers the way Skregs had showed him and pulsed his suit live; his hood’s face mask changed to transparent and he saw that he was back in the medica module, leaning forward in a standing position on a
trepid service incline. The module was busy with crew.
“We’ll show you the most important moments from the address next. You can pulse ahead to that story or stay with me now for an exclusive firsthand account of the Leto Cross crisis and the story of one Denizen family with two children, ages fifteen and sixteen, who survived the harrowing ordeal of a pirate siege—”
Newsbreaker Armeise’s voice ceased as Skregs leaned into Thwip’s view. “It’s a ride, isn’t it? Part of me actually envies you. Getting to start at the beginning.”
Thwip failed to stand on his first attempt.
“A small part,” Skregs amended, watching him struggle. “Very small.”
Movement required too much concentration for Thwip to laugh or banter. On the fourth try, he stepped backward and stood successfully. A different tech than the one who’d sealed him in—JANUSI BLYKU, HEAD MEDICA AND TECH SPECIALIST, his hood informed him—rose to her feet from where she’d been seated at a flat arc, nodding encouragingly. She wore a silla suit, and a half mask cupped the right side of her face from temple to chin, curving over her ear and around the back of her head, where she’d tied her sleek black hair out of the way, giving her stable IF functionality without a hardhood.
“Your levels are normal for your first hour in a personal trepid suit.”
It took Thwip an awkward thirty seconds to figure out his aurals so he could speak to her through his hood. “I blacked out for the first time in my life.” He pressed his eyes shut a moment, woozy. “Am I going to black out again?”
Her laugh was merry and high-pitched, like jingling bells. She made sloping gestures with her pulse gloves, controlling various lab flat arcs and arc wall in succession. “Your suit’s getting to know you. After it gets your measurements right and levels you out, you’ll adjust the mechs as you prefer them, and you won’t have any issues. In fact, you’ll have fewer issues than ever before.” She glided to another flat arc, and her left hand conducted over it a few centimeters from the surface. “I don’t know why they didn’t issue you your own trepid suit when they trained you on trepid. I’m sorry that happened. I’ve put in a report to Captain Vedra for P2, stating that it’s unadvisable to change the Nova-trepid workup training structure that way. Novas should train in their own suits, not generic trepids.”
Thwip’s IF rippled with incoming data from Skregs, a capture image of a man with a long beard: UNIT HANDLER. LEO TO US. CAPTAIN VEDRA TO EVERYONE ELSE. HE’S IN A MEETING. AFTERWARD I’LL CONNECT YOU. EXCEPT FOR LEO, NONE OF THE CREW KNOWS YOU HAVEN’T YET GONE THROUGH ANY TREPID WORKUP. BLYKU JUST THINKS IT’S THE FIRST TIME IN YOUR PERSONAL SUIT.
Thwip nodded. Assuming he was nodding conversationally toward her, Medica Blyku continued as she worked over the arc. “So, trepid.… It is and has many things. Such as a personalized secondary neurological system.”
A capture of her face spoke from the many arc walls in the hybrid medica-PT module. She moved from arc to arc, working, and it looked as if the arcs’ capture scan points tracked her and adjusted the display of her face to be stabilized. It was a neat IF trick, but what made it great—and baffled him—was that her full face appeared, without the half mask she wore.
She must have the entire lab hashed to her personal design and control. It responds to her movements the way my suit responds to me.
He looked around, taking in the way her disembodied face dominated the space. The effect made the lab seem like a temple, and she its god.
“Inside trepid is the safest place any human can be. And you’re one of the few who wears the honor.”
She inclined her head to him from all sides.
“I’ll be watching your chems until you level out. Then the system will kick me out, but you can always grant access if you need me.” She magnified Thwip’s body map and chem balancers on a flat arc, and nodded to herself, pleased.
Specialists wove in and out of the peripheral of his scan, and his IF presented their names momentarily. Thwip watched Medica Blyku’s pulse gloves. She wore a pair of veinys: translucent, modifiable, and suited for the delicate and experimental work of a high-ability user.
“I’ve never seen a tech half mask like that,” he said.
She smiled, her eyes angled downward on her work. “I tailor my own tech.”
“Blyku… Janusi Blyku. Blytech. You’re the best PT inventor alive!”
She looked up, and inclined her head to him again. “Proud to serve, sir.”
“Are you a military officer?”
She stood at attention and again inclined her head. “Yes, sir.” He noticed the pattern of hashes on her suit’s sleeve, indicating her rank.
“Medica Blyku is the highest-ranking PT officer in the entire military,” Skregs said in passing, sifting through muted news captures on an arc wall to the right.
“I’ve secretly been military since Blytech expanded into Blytech Interplanetary. Joined under one of the war acts that allows the military to offer highly skilled civilians recruitment terms that are more… enticing. Some of what I create for the military is available in downgrade iterations for the public, and some of what I make is public-only, since the military has no exclusive need for such commercial devices. Typically I work from P2 and Denizen. Came aboard with Captain Vedra for this mission. It marks the first unification of medicas and personal techs into one team, something I’ve wanted to implement for years. But it was the mission package itself that was too exciting and groundbreaking to refuse.”
Thwip looked at Skregs, hoping he would expand on the mission, but instead he drifted farther away, to a larger flat arc desk under an adjoining arc wall, his gloved hands sliding across the grid of numeric data he summoned to its surface.
“Commissary menu again, sir?”
Skregs turned to look at Blyku, then back to the data, then to Blyku again. “Culinary specialist served carvotis yesterday. I’d rather eat thinbents. I hate the smell of it.” He turned back to the flat arc, grumbling, “Used to the service crew knowing that.”
“It’s naturally protein-rich,” Blyku said.
Skregs deleted carvotis from the menu rotation, closed the dining menu, and returned to his news captures. “So are blood clams, but I don’t eat them.”
Thwip chuckled. He expected his chem balancers to slide in reaction, but they didn’t.
“Why does the suit balance my adrenaline, but not whatever physical reaction causes laughter?”
“They tried that; it turned out not to be very healthy in the long run.” Blyku gestured toward a group of techs. “DMTS Sanders can get you the studies if you would like to review them. DH Aaiane informed me that your specialty is PT.”
“I’d be interested in anything you can give me about trepid systems. Any and all data.”
Specialists in arrow suits marked with PT and medica hashes broke from their tasks and scrambled to various flat arcs.
Wait, are they reacting to my request?
A blond man with a short beard and his own unique tech mask crossed the lab. As Thwip’s eyes tracked him, his IF hashed him: DEPUTY MEDICA AND TECH SPECIALIST STEVE SANDERS.
Blyku removed her half mask and set it aside, and her face left the lab’s arc walls. She leaned over the work of a nearby tech specialist, then drifted to another and provided her security swipes. Sanders turned and pointed to Thwip with his pulse glove. Thwip accepted the connection and his innerface rippled with incoming data on trepid systems. As Sanders worked, the intel package grew.
“It’s not a priority,” Thwip added. “It can wait in lieu of priority tasks.”
Blyku smiled again. On the arc wall his chem balancers were sliding and she was watching them, reading them. She knew exactly how he was feeling. “Anything to do with a Nova is a priority, sir. And to have a Nova who chose a specialty in PT… forgive us if we are overexcited here in the lab.”
“She’s waiting for additional instruction. Dismiss her already,” Skregs said privately to him through the loop.
“That will b
e all. Thank you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Cosmos, I just issued a command dismissal to Janusi Blyku!
Blyku wove her way to the back of the lab, running techs to different stations and tasks. Thwip split his IF between his body map and Skregs. The faces of the four outer-ring generals filled the flat arc Skregs drummed on. Pixeler, Madingo, and Ixiom were together in one capture, but Aitith broadcasted from a separate location.
War zone’s too dangerous for him to enter or exfil Ridrain, even for the Sunstars of the Nativity address.
All of the generals were fit and intelligent, formidable people. General Aitith stood out among them as the sharpest and fittest, yet also the most worn. He holds the Golden Gate. He’s perpetually at war. The things that politicians, newsbreakers, and P2 upchainers talk about, he executes. While the others wore their formal dress uniform cloaks and sashes draped over arrow suits, Aitith wore an undecorated standard-issue suit with Ridrain markings, like an infantry deckee.
Skregs dismissed the image on the arc wall and flicked a finger, moving the captures onto his hood’s IF to finish later.
He noticed Thwip watching him. “Scenario fulfillment—in other words, seeking to fulfill a goal and ignoring evidence to do so. You want to attack an enemy, so you see signs that they’re about to attack you so that you can justify your attack, that sort of thing. Crave avoids being polluted with possible misinformation or one-sided presentation so as to avoid scenario fulfillment.”
A shadow seemed to pass in the silence that followed. Thwip still wasn’t used to receiving explanations, and devoted his IF to Skregs as he continued.
Astral Fall Page 9
