by Ginger Booth
Ben steeled himself and looked the other man in the eye. “You step in. And step out. Good luck.”
Clay began by kicking the metal hamper lid to cross the nullity threshold. This resulted in nothing much. They could see it simply lay there unchanged. Then he nodded and stepped through. And immediately stepped back out.
Ben grabbed his arm and drew him into a hug.
“I’m fine, Ben,” Clay objected. “Going in.”
“Hell with that,” Ben told him. “We’re both going in.” He left the working comms tab on the emu, though, plus his grav generator. Clay ruefully pulled out his own grav, which he hadn’t thought to leave outside.
“It works!” he exulted, hopping a good two meters into the air. Ben grabbed his foot to speed him back down.
“There’s hope then,” Ben murmured. “Ready?”
They stepped through the olive glow skin together. Ben hadn’t realized until that moment that it was indeed a skin. His heart seemed to skip a moment at the threshold, but nothing worse than that. “We’re still thinking, Clay. And I feel my fingers.” He flexed them. “That’s electrical.”
“It is?”
Ben nodded and his eyes fell to the wreckage of the containers. Abel spent millions stocking the cargo for these things. It was just dumb luck that all of their old-style star drive fuel was currently in Thrive’s containers, not Prosper’s. Ben already burnt through his powering the double warp jumps to Sanctuary and then to Cantons and landing. Otherwise with all the damp ground and ruptured fuel barrels, Prosper would have exploded on landing. Nothing electronic about water on fuel pellets.
The lower two front containers were pancaked, the rest ruptured. Don’t think about that now. He strode up to the airlock door and automatically flipped his grav generator and hopped. This resulted in a cute little bunny hop. He ruefully reached up for the extendable ladder and hauled on it.
Unused for possibly nine decades – because who bothered – the ladder wouldn’t budge. Probably cold-welded by now. He gave up and made a hand saddle for Clay to clamber onto the broken containers. Once his companion had a head start, Ben hunted for his own foot holds. And instead his hand fell on a packaged soccer ball, one of the big child inflatables. Abel packaged those with a quick-inflate tube. Ben eyed the distance he had to climb, and shrugged. The balls weren’t completely round, having flat top and bottom. He quickly inflated three, and stacked two.
“Toss it up,” Clay invited. Ben threw the third ball upward. He was right. The three balls filled the vertical gap from ground to the little step under the airlock. Clay was able to clamber around and up the ball for the last bit up to the step, which was tricky from the broken containers, inset under the ship. Ben scaled up behind him the same way, using a combination of container and balls. Clay hauled him up the last bit.
“There’s a crank on your side,” Ben told him. “Pop that round cover.” That emergency equipment didn’t stand a prayer of getting cold-welded from disuse, not with John Copeland as president. Clay’s first crank moved the door an inch, breaking the seal. From there Ben could work his fingers in and add his strength to push things along. “Far enough.” He slipped through the crack, and Clay after him.
He popped another cover and cranked the door closed. A little tell-tale, a bubble in a glass tube of liquid, showed when the seal was airtight. Fortunately Ben still had the lighter in his pocket from the candles, and used that to see. There was no way to evacuate the foul rotten-egg air, so he simply nodded to Clay to open the door into the hold. The inner one wasn’t power-operated.
But Zan opened it first. “Damn glad to see you!” The Denali hunter, never demonstrative before, folded first Clay, then Ben into a hug. “Will she fly again, cap?”
“First things first,” Ben murmured. “Get everybody out of here. Spare air canisters, too. Cope’s tools. Any injuries?” He gazed around the hold, vast and dark, lit only by a couple candles up on the catwalk, and one on the engineer’s sit-down podium by the ramp cargo door. Zan must have walked down with it when he heard them cranking the lock.
“Quire is limping. Flo broke his arm. There was a sudden drop a while back, maybe a half hour? Whole lot of crunching underneath.”
Ben nodded. “That’s when you landed.” He took in the fact Zan was wearing a rebreather slung around his neck. The captain still wore his Pinocchio outdoor mask himself. “Air integrity?”
“Slow leak. The rotten egg smell started seeping in after the crash landing.”
Ben nodded. “I’ll get everybody down here. I need to visit my cabin.”
“Quire won’t want to leave,” Zan warned. “We considered opening a door but…” With no electronics to the cameras, he couldn’t see outside.
“I don’t blame you,” Ben assured him. “Clay and I spent the past ten minutes working up the nerve to cross the barrier. You still feeling OK, Clay?”
“Good enough.”
Ben himself felt uneasy and light-headed. But hyperventilating could explain that. Prosper was his home. To see her in such straights nearly broke his heart. Priorities. He forced himself to breathe deep and calm down. “Cope is probably going mental outside now. Zan, help Clay rig a ladder down. Then report to Cope and join Wilder on security.” His people outside were far from safe, either.
The captain strode into his strangely pitch-dark ship, to find and hug his crew, and move them toward the door.
The bunnies and frogs and crickets would have to stay behind. And Quire’s crops and the trees, and Ben’s worldly possessions. But at least he could get the people out to safety.
48
Meanwhile on Thrive, Remi tugged his cropped bleach-blond hair in exasperation. “Computer, lock navigation and life support to this station. Accept no commands from anyone but me, through the bridge control panel, until further notice.”
The computer understood his French perfectly. “Acknowledged. Helm and comms locked to bridge access by chief engineer.”
“Computer, lock guns and comms the same way.” Remi figured it was worth a try.
“Cannot comply. Those systems are locked by Captain Bloki.”
“Computer, there is no Captain Bloki. The AI Bloki is a mutineer.”
“Captain Bloki is fully authorized by Captain Collier.”
Remi considered arguing further, but figured that might result in Bloki locking him out of the controls entirely. The computer called Bloki a captain and Remi an engineer. That tended to suggest he’d lose a conflict.
He quickly laid in a course to get them out of line of sight of any problem cantons as quickly as possible. Scandia hasn’t pissed us off yet. He veered the ship to starboard, lowered altitude, and cranked the speed.
That attended to, he sighed, and decided to check these outgoing comms messages.
“Queen Elizabeth of Britain! This is Admiral Bloki of the Colony Corps, the interstellar fleet now visiting your world. Your evil Wizards Guild and Enchanters Guild have betrayed us! They took hostages from my people, sexually violated my Captain Sassafras Collier, and now have seized one of our starships! Reprisals will commence in two minutes with the destruction of the monorails serving Deutschland.”
Check, the rogue AI already made good on that promise, four of the rail lines anyway.
“I demand you repudiate and condemn the wizards and enchanters immediately, and demand that they return our hostages and our ships! If you fail, I will lay waste to one wall of every canton! You have thirty minutes before destruction of Britain begins!”
Merde…
“She answered,” Aurora pointed out on the comms log. “Someone from Britain.” At a nod from Remi, she played it.
“Unknown admiral! We are unable to reach the Prince of Wizards! Britain has done nothing to your ships or personnel! Leave us out of your quarrel!” The harried man in Elizabethan frilly collar looked as aggravated as Remi felt. “Britain met your forces in honorable combat. We thank you for the pink bubblegum, and concede your triumph in our contest. We s
hall hold an air pressure drop of contrition on Beltane’s next full moon.”
“Pink bubblegum and acts of contrition,” Remi muttered. “There’s a circuit breaker on comms. Bron!”
“Aye, chief!” Remi never ordered him to go away, so naturally the teenager lingered in the corridor to eavesdrop on the excitement.
“Pull the bulkhead panels on the forward hold, below the ventilation grille.” Remi belatedly thought to pull up a schematic. “Here. Get it done quick, and call me. Go.”
One of the Thrive’s quirks that Copeland shared with him, was that during – ha! – its attack on Sagamore, Cope installed comms breakers in the forward ventilation ducts. He never removed them, just in case anyone tried to take over the ship AI again by remote control.
“I can fly the ship,” Aurora offered.
“The ship can fly itself. I entered the course.” Then again, he needed to focus on gaining control of the ship again. He shrugged and told the computer to add Aurora as authorized to control life support and navigation from the bridge.
Then what? “Computer, can you open a comms channel to Bloki?”
“Admiral Bloki invites you to leave a message.”
Remi offered the console a middle finger salute. Nico. “Carp, bring prisoner Nico to the office. Leave Elise locked in the closet.”
He’d no sooner sat in Sass’s office chair when Aurora hailed him. “Remi, the ‘admiral’ revoked our navigation rights. Thrive seems to be looping back to destroy Deutschland’s southern monorails.”
“Acknowledged,” Remi replied bitterly. He hailed Ben to report, but couldn’t reach him. After several tries, he reached Wilder, who passed him to Abel after conveying the good-news, bad-news on Prosper’s status. “Abel! Bloki’s taken control of Thrive. I remember Cope’s comms shutoff. But the AI, he’s shooting the railways! He called the cantons and threatens to lay down their walls!”
“Thanks for the report,” Abel attempted. “Fat lot we can do about it from here. Or wait. Loki wanted Cope as a friend. And Nico. But what he wants most is Sass. I don’t know about Bloki.”
“Genius,” Remi agreed. “Thank you!”
Nico arrived, hands tied and Carp steering him via a painful grip on his bicep.
“Sit!” Remi ordered. “Carp, untie him.” He quickly filled in the youth on their current status. “How do we force Bloki to stop and relinquish control?”
A dismayed Nico gazed at him with big brown eyes. “Well, what does he want?”
Remi parroted off his demands to Queen Elizabeth of Britain.
Nico shook his head. “Let me talk to him.” The boy opened his own channel on the desktop. “Bloki? It’s Nico. You have to stop.”
Bloki appeared, wild-eyed and wilder-haired. “But my Sass has been sexually violated! And Prosper is trapped in an orb of nullity!”
Due to his new cell-mate, Nico knew roughly what the AI was talking about. “But Britain doesn’t know how to fix that.”
“Someone does!” Bloki insisted. “I threatened them all! Only one needs to actually repair the damage and –”
Remi interrupted. “Sass escaped. We have the wizard Schauble prisoner, and his assistant. The nullity projectors are off. But Prosper is still caught in the green field.”
Nico suggested, “Yeah, if you want to help, figure that out. How to turn the green field off so Prosper can reach safety.”
“But what about Sass?” Bloki demanded.
Remi sighed. “Sass, can you spare a minute?”
“I’m running through a pitch dark street heading for rendezvous.”
Remi nodded a fair-enough. “Bloki took control of Thrive. He’s using the guns.”
The sound of Sass’s footfalls died. “What is Bloki?”
“A small copy of Loki,” Remi replied. “Crewman Nico brought him.”
“Crewman Nico is guilty of mutiny,” Sass noted in passing. “That’s a capital offense.”
Remi shared, “Nico and Bloki are on the comm line with me. And I am a chief engineer working a problem. The problem is I am acting captain. But the ship, she is in Bloki’s control.”
Sass sighed massively. “Understood. Hi, Bloki. Hi, Nico.”
“It’s so good to hear your voice again, dear captain!” Bloki gushed. His halo of wild hair began to settle downward. “And the rapists, have you killed them?”
“There were no rapists, Bloki. A medical exam just got a little personal. We’re offended. That’s not a capital offense.”
Nico slumped downward at the second reminder.
“But they hurt your feelings!” Bloki argued.
Remi cut in, “Captain, we suggest Bloki help discover how to release Prosper from an egg of nullity. And earn redemption.”
“OK, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sass agreed. “But Bloki, Remi is acting captain of Thrive. The only way you can escape execution is to make him not want to kill you. So release control of the ship and do what he asks.”
“But I was trying to save you, dear captain!” the AI wailed.
“Yes, that’s very sweet of you. Thank you. Um, Nico, you too. But obey Remi or I’ll kill you. Remi, does that cover everything?”
“Bloki?” Remi asked.
“But Sass –”
“Bloki, obey or die!” Sass reiterated, in acid tones. “Yield now, or you will never return to Loki, and I’ll tell him why.”
Nico’s eyebrows climbed, looking suddenly illuminated. Remi couldn’t imagine why.
But Bloki moaned. In melodrama, he reached forward, then dropped his head in surrender. “Yes, Sass. I will do as you ask, to return to my maker with my learning.”
“Good. Sass out.”
“But you must allow me to redeem myself!” Bloki pleaded, hands steepled prayerfully, tears flowing down his cheeks.
Remi enjoyed weepy appeals as much as the next engineer – not at all. “Computer, confirm ‘Admiral Bloki’ has no command authority on this ship.”
“Confirmed.”
“Computer, the ban is permanent. Never, ever accept a command from Bloki again.”
“Except for queries,” Bloki suggested, suddenly restored to normal updated appearance and looking chipper. “For information. And comms channels to Nico and Sass and dear Copeland. Bron, too, and yourself of course, Remi.”
“Computer, Bloki is allowed to query information. He may receive but not initiate comms. Permanently.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Aurora, resume last programmed course to nowhere,” Remi ordered.
“Aye, sar!”
Nico hazarded in a small voice, “Remi? Is Tante Sass really going to… My dads wouldn’t…”
“Earn your keep, crewman,” Remi recommended. “You are not dead yet. Both of you, focus.” He got busy with the desktop, retrieving his sensor logs on the phenomenon which held Prosper in thrall.
Bloki suddenly sported skinny reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. He peered through them, as though at an immense desktop which didn’t exist except in his fecund imagination. “But this is fascinating! Remi, you must drive the ship back in range for further readings. You have no imagery from Prosper’s side of the city wall.”
“Captain Acosta ordered me to leave.”
“Well, he’s not very bright, is he?” Bloki countered. “And he doesn’t understand –”
Remi spoke right over him. “Captain Acosta is in command! I obey him. And I agree. Because we cannot risk the same thing happening to Thrive.”
Bloki rocked his head so-so. “We could afford to lose Cupid. And its captain.”
Remi countered, “Or you obey orders. I keep score, Bloki.”
“It would be helpful if you kept score digitally so I can gauge my behavior against objective metrics.”
“I take under advisement,” Remi growled. “Shut up and work.”
“But I have already reviewed all available data!” Bloki cried. “This is gibberish! It explains nothing! The data I need is simple views acr
oss all electromagnetic spectra from the outside of the city wall!”
Nico offered, “Those are the limits a human works within, Bloki. Incomplete information and outdated beliefs. You wanted to experience life like a human.”
Bloki threw up his avatar hands again in further melodrama. “So what would you have me do?”
“Guess!” Remi growled. “And keep guessing until you find one that explains something! I’ll try to find you more data.”
“I’ll need my box online.” Bloki’s demeanor suddenly switched to penitent this time, hands folded meekly. “To spin proper hypotheses, I need access to the data I brought with me, specifically past experiments with dark matter and dark energy.”
“The nullity is bright,” Remi argued.
Bloki nodded solemnly. “So is every other illusion cast by the wizards. They like showy.”
“I’ll work with him,” Nico promised. “And keep an eye on him. Please, Remi, I need a chance to redeem myself. Or Tante Sass might ask my dads to k-kill –”
“The box doesn’t go online,” Remi ruled. “Bloki, you ask Nico, he retrieves data. That box stays air-gapped.”
“Aye, sar,” the pair intoned piously, live and avatar.
Remi scowled at them. He found this deal far from reassuring. But he stepped into the hall and tried to remember what else he needed to clean up.
Oh, yeah, data. He made another call. “Eli, Remi. I need data on this anomaly.” Once he got that rolling, Remi remembered all those other calls Bloki made, to heads of state. Sadly, he needed to review those, and the anxious responses. Bron and Aurora made perfect assistants for that busywork.
49
“What the…” Sass breathed, stopping dead. A deep black something, the size of a tank, sat in the middle of the street. She and Kassidy had reached the wall, now bearing push-brooms they’d talked some of the local women into relinquishing.
Women were out in force on the streets, all wearing rebreathers, sweeping broken bits of dome off the sidewalks onto the streets. Britain and Benelux featured no sidewalks, nor was there any obvious reason for Deutschland to have them. The only vehicle they’d seen was the army transport that carried them in. Storm drains were hardly necessary under the dome. Yet sidewalks they had, and shopkeepers kept them swept.
