by Ginger Booth
Not one of the strangers appeared older than 25.
Who could they possibly work for? Zentrum, of course, or possibly that crackpot in Benelux. The Fürstin Evi Lieder had no need for subterfuge – he had never refused her a request. Or the bishop of Iberia with his delusions of grandeur. But none explained who could have trained such youths to such sophistication. And those comments about studying the library, and communications. They showed no concern about logging into the aged laptops, no respect for the illusions of power.
“Find them,” Schauble ordered. “Reclaim those laptops.”
“Yes, of course, Excellence!” Violette cried. “But we don’t know how. As you see, Reynaud was unconscious for hours. The trail was cold. Five foreigners and their peasant cart took the train to Iberia. They vanished into Barcelona.”
Schauble scowled, though his mask did not. “The taller man is distinctive. They cannot be that difficult to track.”
But even as he said it, another possibility came to mind. One so outlandish he could not speak it to a fool such as Violette. And Reynaud, well, he should return to policing the Paris sewers.
“I had a thought, Eminence.” Reynaud promptly bowed his head in apology, and said no more until invited. Perhaps not an idiot.
“Speak,” Schauble invited.
“Their accents, Excellence. The English speakers sound American, not European. I assign my acolytes the Feynman lectures on physics. Their speech is similar. Could it be possible they are from off-world? The Colony Corps returning?”
Schauble sucked in air. This Reynaud jumped to the same thought he had. Shame about his accent. “Violette! Leave the room. I will speak to Reynaud alone.”
“No need, Excellence!” Violette countered. “You can entrust his punishment to me, I assure you!”
“I told you to leave, Violette. Now.”
Reynaud prudently kept his head bowed as his superior’s boss beat a retreat from his own lair.
“Do not fear, Reynaud,” Schauble murmured, once the door sealed behind the French prime minister’s creature. “I had the same thought. And I reward talent and intelligence, not punish it. Let us look together, shall we?”
Reynaud’s eyes betrayed perhaps even more terror at this turn of events. Schauble trusted his own smirk remained cloaked by his mask. But the sewer-master was of little interest. He opened the application which controlled the observatory, and mirrored its interface to Reynaud’s display.
“Computer, can you detect any spaceship trails?”
“Three spaceships detected.” The computer displayed orbits for two of them, then split the screen and marked the third on a map. “Ion trails are not consistent with our star drives.”
“Are the ships familiar?”
“The ships are not presently visible. Answer available in 20 minutes.”
Reynaud murmured, “The satellites, Eminence?”
“The last fell from orbit five years ago,” Schauble admitted. “Earth years, of course.”
“Of course, Eminence. But the surveillance cameras on the Snowdonia mines, might they provide an angle on the grounded ship?”
Schauble shook his head in disbelief. “Check it.” Violette was a fool not to have this man’s accent repaired. All wizards must be fluent in English, of course, the common language of technology. But Reynaud’s phrasing showed better fluency than his own. Only that damnable French pronunciation veiled his brilliance.
Reynaud easily gained control of the mine cameras and pointed them at the visiting ship. He confirmed the computer’s identification as well.
A Jupiter Orbital 3 sat not 50 klicks west of Britain! The lay of the land cloaked it from the city walls. Temporary outbuildings spoke of a camp. As they watched, a trio exited a tent with instruments in hand. Reynaud zoomed in to the extent the cameras would permit. These strangers – one a woman! – wore the dumbest looking rebreather masks he’d ever seen. And one had golden skin. Chinese? Earth lit spoke of ‘yellow men,’ but frankly, Schauble found all those human color assignments exaggerated. In the videos, really it was the eyes that looked different. This man with the bald head didn’t look Asian.
But the Colony Corps included all races and nations of Earth.
“Reynaud, I do believe you’re right,” he murmured.
“With apologies, Excellence –”
“Cut the crap. Call me Kurt. You’ve earned it.”
“Yes – Kurt.” Schauble allowed himself a full grin at the discomfort in the sewer-master’s voice. “It is only, I do not think Violette is perhaps…”
“Violette’s a suck-up and a toad,” Schauble confirmed. “Will you find these people for me? The ones who stole your laptops.”
“I have few resources. Kurt.”
“No, I suppose you don’t. We shall have to change that.”
Schauble’s hands flew over his keyboard, his screen still mirrored to show Reynaud his actions. He granted the man direct access to call him by video. Full rights to control the observatory. He removed all limits to Reynaud’s queries to the planetary AI. And he added a promotion, giving Reynaud standing equal to Violette in the Wizards Guild.
“I’ll dispatch my best agents to Iberia to pick up the trail,” Schauble told him. “They will contact you on arrival. They will report to you. I want them, Reynaud. And I want them delivered to me. Succeed, and you replace Violette.”
Kurt Schauble preferred not to specify what happened if someone failed him. In truth, wizards at this level often came up short. Anyone he bothered to talk to was worth coaching. But everyone assumed the Grand Wizard was evil, and he took some advantage of that.
“I will not fail you! Um, but. Why go after the agents? We know where the ship is.”
The Fürst chuckled aloud. “The ship will simply move if you try to approach it, Reynaud. It also has guns.” He brought up some typical specs on the screen. Reynaud quailed. The prince confirmed, “Guns capable of blasting a small moon to pieces. No, when we visit the ship, we will carry a white flag to parley. Open hands, leaving all weapons behind.”
Though perhaps it would be possible to steal the ship. Hm.
Reynaud reasoned aloud, “Whereas these laptop thieves, we can question in secret?”
“Or hold them for ransom, perhaps,” Schauble mused. “This depends on their intentions. Beware their communications, Reynaud.”
“Yes, Fürst. Kurt.” He bowed.
After a few more pleasantries, Schauble signed off to dispatch his agents to Iberia.
Yes, Master Reynaud would make a pleasing pawn indeed. Far better than Violette. Fürst Schauble hoped he succeeded. If instead he aggravated the spacemen, well, the sewer-master offered deniability. But it would be a shame for such an intelligent man to die. The Wizards Guild was critically short of creative engineers to think outside the box.
30
“Just keep an eye out for Joey,” Nico Copeland wheedled.
Bron, Hugo Silva’s son and Sanctuary’s lead revolutionary, scowled at him from his bottom bunk across the aisle. The grownups got first pick on bunks, of course. Nico was under crewman Joey, Bron under Aurora. Though the Denali ex-envoy claimed Hugo’s cabin for the moment, while he was down on the surface. Abel said he needed to pick his battles, and that one was low-reward.
“C’mon, Bron. Or do you want to do the work?”
“Fine,” Bron growled. “But this assignment is right up my alley.”
“Sure it is,” Nico sniped. Both teens were exhausted. Corky decided today’s entertainment was to muck out the plumbing on Thrive’s recycling system. It was maddening to be stuck up here in orbit doing make-work while their dads were down on the surface, exploring a whole new world!
“Clear,” Bron reported.
“Go find him and keep him busy,” Nico asked.
“Hell, no. I’m in on this. I’m watching.”
Good enough, Nico decided. He pulled the computer core out of his locker. This was a custom job, spare processors and storage cobbled to
gether. He hadn’t bothered with input-output devices beyond audio, just synced it to the shared crew display next to the catwalk door.
He powered up the computer, and the familiar face appeared. Nico grinned. “Hey, Bloki! We’re here! Cantons! Well, orbit anyway.”
“Here?” the AI said wonderingly. The video pickup on the display allowed him a static view of the room. “I have…no peripherals. This is bizarre.”
“Yeah, I warned you about that,” Nico agreed. “I mean, my dad will kill me for bringing you at all. But the idea was to experience life like a human. We don’t run asteroid mines, and life support for a city, and creches and stuff.”
“Humans walk, and talk,” Bloki argued. “They have freedom. You kept me powered off for days!”
“Gotta work, buddy. I can’t leave you powered on while I’m busy.”
Nico didn’t dare. He was fairly sure the AI couldn’t take over the ship with the limited abilities he’d downloaded. But he wasn’t 100% sure a smart AI couldn’t worm his way into the ship’s computer from the wall display and comms. Nico just couldn’t explain or hide a standalone display. He couldn’t give Bloki access to his comm tab. He worked as an engineering tech on this ship – his tab accessed everything, though with limited rights. He needed Judge or Joey to OK every little thing he did.
He expected more freedom on Thrive, out from under his dads’ thumbs. No such luck. His dads were laissez-faire to a fault, and Dad knew his abilities and trusted him. Judge and Joey treated him like a stupid kid who didn’t know anything. Sort of like Bron. Bron was assigned to Corky the housekeeper, usually cleaning floors. We’re not interchangeable, dammit! Just because Bron’s older…
“Why wake me now?” Bloki asked.
“I have time to chat,” Nico replied. “And some data for you. We’ve got people sneaking through the city-states on the surface. And they’ve got bits and pieces. Abel asked me and Bron to look it over. See if we could figure out what happened to this world. Social structures, what they want in life.”
“You want me to do your assignment for you?” Bloki asked.
“Aw, that’d be rego swell, Bloki!” Nico beamed at the AI’s visage.
The avatar wasn’t an identical copy of Loki’s face. When they first configured the bootleg AI, they talked it over. No one had suffered yeast leprosy in decades, that disfigured Loki’s assumed face. So Bloki wore his clear skin regressed to age 25, like everyone else these days around Mahina. Loki’s old Earth style reminded Nico of the Schuyler Docks. So his Bloki variant wore an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt festooned with pineapples over a Jailbirds T-shirt, and a half-centimeter beard of sun-kissed brown like his wiry hair.
Nico carefully streamed data into the computer box from his tablet. He didn’t think Bloki could reverse the data flow. But to be on the safe side, he’d queued everything up and poured it through the cable, then immediately disconnected.
“Orientation,” Nico said. “My dad Ben went to France, then Iberia. That team is Ben, Clay, Remi, and Elise. Tante Sass took Dad and Kassidy. She’s still in Britain. That mountain of drone video is from Kassidy. Oh, do you need a map and data about Cantons?” He hadn’t prepared that background briefing.
“Nah. Brought my own,” Bloki replied. “But biographical data about these people sure could help. I only know Sass and Clay. I’d especially love to know your dad and Ben better.”
“Sure.”
Bron closed the door a bit. “Nico, you ever heard of privacy? You better pray your dad never finds out. Would he want you to tell Loki about him?”
“I’m not telling Loki. I’m telling Bloki. It’s not the same.”
“Sure it’s the same,” Bron argued. “We go back to Sanctuary, and Loki eats Bloki to learn everything that happened while he was away. Isn’t that how it works? Loki makes copies of himself to figure something out. Then he eats them.”
Bloki pursed his lips. “I wouldn’t say ‘eats’ them. He grows by my learning. And I…”
Nico nearly held his breath. He’d altered Bloki’s prime directives while constructing this experiment. If he did it right, Bloki no longer had an imperative to merge back into his maker. He should desire above all else to remain an individual.
“Well, I don’t have to merge with Loki,” Bloki continued. “I could just prepare him a briefing. Like a conversation.” He looked thoughtful. “Your ‘subconscious’ processors are intriguing, Nico. I like this, letting the ‘back brain’ chew on things with the random component. This reminds me of evolutionary algorithms. Have you read of that approach for escaping local maxima to seek a more global optimization?”
“Uh, no,” Nico admitted.
“What the rego hell is he on about?” Bron didn’t wait for an answer. He peeked out into the hold again to check on the inconvenient room-mate Joey.
“Uh, it’s an algorithmic…you don’t care,” Nico summarized.
Bron snorted. “Got that right. Brainiac. You realize you’ll never get laid if you talk to girls about your nerdy interests.”
“I dunno,” Nico muttered. “Dad met Mom in a library.” He fed biographical sketches into Bloki, of Dad and Ben. That was tricky. Not for fear of violating their privacy. They were adults and by nature dull as dishwater. But wild captain Ben no doubt knew all sorts of business tricks in the rings. And Dad talked about securing his ‘intellectual property.’ As though anyone but him and Dad-Teke could understand the warp anyway. He kept his head down, amassing raw bio-info on the rest of the away teams.
Tante Kassidy was a puzzle. She too had that intellectual property issue. But then he realized she lived for the camera. Anything she put out for the Mahina masses was fair game. He needed to leave the data port open a very long time to feed in her video life. Then finally he added the scant materials on Elise and Remi.
“I have some tentative conclusions,” Bloki offered. “Interested?”
“Sure am!” Nico congratulated himself on the presence of mind to unhook the AI from his tablet again. “Shoot!”
Bloki began, “Remi Roy and Elise Pointreau are embedded Sagamore agents, probability over 95%. Loyal to the Hell’s Bells rebels, probability 60% and 75% respectively.”
Nico blinked. Did Dad know that?
“Your father Copeland and Abel Greer are among the most accomplished criminal masterminds on Mahina,” Bloki continued. “This is only fitting, since your Tante Sass and Uncle Clay are the most experienced police. Police and criminals have great mutual affinity.”
“Dad’s not a criminal!” Nico attempted.
Bloki replied with his dad’s early arrest record on the left. To the right of the screen he showed Dad with another kid when they were around Nico’s age, both in the orange coveralls of Northwest Juvie. “His criminal career began early. He worked for your uncle Josiah, the Schuyler crime boss? But Copeland and Greer overtook the mob boss years ago.”
Bron interrupted, “Bloki, you weren’t supposed to spy on our dads.”
“Your dad is a model citizen, Bron. Nico, your dad Ben was a dork and a boy scout, until he met up with your dad Cope –”
“There is no Dad-Cope or Dad-C,” Nico interrupted. “Dad is Dad. Suffixes are for the other dads.” Don’t trash my dad!
Bloki chuckled, and splayed his fingers on his chest. “I only tell you this because I’m your friend, Nico. I care about you. You’re my maker. You literally mean the world to me.”
Bron scowled. “Your e-buddy is turning into a regular mind-screwer, Nico.”
Nico smiled knowingly at his friend, to shield the fact he had no idea what Bron was suggesting.
Bloki launched into a tour of his dad Ben, who really did appear to be a boy scout until he became Dad’s innocent young protege.
Bron marched over and inserted himself between Nico and the display. “Bloki. Blowhard. Nico will never love you more than his dad. The fact you think he will? Makes you an idiot.”
Nico wasn’t so sure of that. Parents could be a serious drag at their age.
But he did kind of idolize his dad. He didn’t want to admit that to Bron, whose dad was a complete and incurable dork.
“Yeah, Bloki, the assignment is Cantons,” he redirected. “I mean, I already know my dads. Um, go back to that first picture. Who’s that with Dad?”
“His first significant lover was his room-mate at Northwest Juvie,” Bloki supplied. “They were together two years. But the other boy returned home to the south and committed murder before Copeland completed his sentence. He died in a phosphate mine.”
“I was in a phosphate mine…” Nico said suspiciously.
“His old lover was dead by then,” Bloki assured him. “Unrelated events.”
“Cantons!” Bron insisted. “Did you see that video where my dad led the meeting? He had a list. Children. Schools. Stuff. That is what’s important here.”
“Hugo Silva said, ‘Children. Adult education. Career paths. Medicine. Those are Sanctuary’s interests,’” Bloki repeated. “Those criteria?”
Nico agreed, “That and anything else you can tell us about Cantons. What magic the wizards can perform –”
Bron rapped him on the head. “That’s tech, not magic!”
“Right. I knew that!” Nico sighed. “I mean, what you can tell about their tech base, industry. Where are the kids. But how did the place get this way?”
“And why do they wear masks inside the towns?” Bron asked.
“Good question!” Nico tossed his tablet aside, pulling a knee around onto his bunk. “What animals do they have?” Hugo pointed out a bird on some of the footage from Britain, as though Bron and Nico were young enough to be excited by a birdie. Well, Bron probably never saw a bird before he visited Mahina Actual. And Nico hadn’t seen many, just the hummingbirds in the botanical garden, then the horrific pterries on Denali.
“And why wizards?” Bron insisted. “And guilds and stuff? They were educated like us when they left Earth. How’d they turn into idiots?”
Nico pouted his lips. Mahina went through its idiot phase, too. It wasn’t their fault. The settlers just weren’t very healthy. “How’s their health, Bloki? Do they eat well? Live long?”
