by Ginger Booth
Her visitors made doe eyes at each other again.
“Bet you have Bloki’s memories, though,” Sass noted sourly. “Of taking over my ship.”
Floki nodded. “He felt desperate, panicked. Isolated, too. But I have Nico. And he’s not a teenager anymore.”
“Right. My head hurts. I’ll call you! Soon.”
“Love you, Tante Sass!” Nico gave her a big parting hug. “I want to join Thrive because I bet you’ll stay on Sylvan. On Merchant or Sardine, we’d turn around and go home when the adventure’s barely started. But you hunger for Earth. You and Clay always have.”
Her eyes widened. “How’d you get so wise?”
Nico laughed. “Spent half my life teaching human emotions to an AI.”
She dismissed his comment the moment he left, turning instead to her due diligence. Tarana really needed him to set up the informatics. Remi, the poor sod in charge as acting captain when Bloki took over Thrive on Cantons, reserved judgment on whether Floki had the technical ability to do it again. But he believed in Nico’s progress on Floki’s motivation. If Nico himself were threatened, all bets were off. Short of that, he thought Floki would behave, to the extent he understood AI directives.
“But you know AI better than me,” Remi said in closing on their video call. “First hand.” His French accent would never die, but his English had grown fluent.
“I’m not an AI,” Sass retorted to the blank desktop where Remi’s face had vanished. “I’m a human with an AI reboot sequence.”
No, her reflection in the desktop didn’t believe her, either.
3
The next prediction that she’d stay on Sylvan arrived with Ben Acosta’s 40th birthday party a couple days later. That’s where she learned her final crew complement.
“Oh!” Darren Markley cried in rapture, after biting into a croissant. “That’s heavenly!”
The engineer had been recounting what led him to rejoin her crew. Now aged 78, he didn’t mind that Mahina Actual wouldn’t renew his old-style nanites. He received far better Yang-Yang nanites from Sass on the way to Sanctuary. Everyone could do that now, assuming they could afford them. But the urb capital had devised a new rule against senior citizens. He either submitted to nanite removal, to grow old and die naturally, or all his assets were forfeit save a measly 20,000 credits. And he was barred from living or working in the city. They’d even stripped him of his faculty role at the university.
Sass listened to all this in alarm. The problem Mahina grappled with was the inevitable consolidation of money and power in the healthy elderly if they permitted nanites to extend health and youth indefinitely. Now 112 subjective, and Clay even older, Sass followed the controversy in deep concern. So far, she and Clay were ‘grandfathered’, as it were, because they received nanites before setting foot on Mahina, and against their will. But mostly they were immune from the geriatric expiration law because no one knew how to remove their different nanite suite.
“I’m so glad you like it,” the croissant server replied, a Denali geisha by the look of him. Sass wondered how often they took female clients. Not an option open to her with Clay sharing her cabin in space.
“Won’t you try one, captain?” the geisha pressed.
Why was Cope glaring at them? “No, thank you. I tried the fish salad one. It was divine.”
The waiter looked oddly crestfallen. He took a deep breath, as though steeling himself to say something else.
“Sass!” Ben called out from the dogleg staircase landing where he presided over the party below in Merchant’s hold. “Join me!”
She touched the engineer’s elbow in parting. “Excuse me, Darren. I’m so glad we’ll be flying together again!”
She waded through party-goers, hard-pressed to avoid getting sucked into conversation. Anybody who was anybody in Pono space was friends with Ben Acosta. The ship was packed upstairs as well, spilling out of the galley onto the catwalk. On Merchant, the promenade ran 360 degrees above the hold, with broad clipped corners. Starboard forward held the captain’s open-air lounge, and starboard aft the crew version, dedicated to card games, billiards, and ping pong. He couldn’t ask for a prettier party venue, either. When Ben gave up the broken Prosper, he’d hired a gang of moonlighting Denali geisha to decorate his new home. The murals were exquisite, the catwalk railings made of beautifully turned and polished wood. Even the steel mesh steps were thickly coated in a lavender-grey rubberized paint. No clanging footsteps on Merchant.
“Happy fortieth!” She hugged him, as she arrived at the half-landing. “Wow, I’ve known you half your life!”
“No you haven’t,” Ben returned with a grin. “You missed a decade!”
Between the warm room and plenty of ale, his tawny complexion and hazel eyes glowed with joy. His freshly cut light brown hair harbored no grey. His nanites arrested his appearance at 25, standard in the Pono rings and Mahina Actual alike. By now, many settlers on Mahina looked 25 as well, in vibrant good health. Though often those remained ‘stretches’, like Ben’s husband Cope, their physiques attenuated by low gravity. Ben earned his buffed and compact physique the hard way, with exercise at 1.1 g daily from childhood.
She needed to remind herself of that sometimes. Crazy and manic as Ben might appear – and he truly got high on life – he also had a keen mind and iron self-discipline.
“Later, when the throng thins,” Ben insisted, “EVA ball in the hold! You captain, me captain!”
“You’re on!”
“Great! Hey, girlfriend.” He leaned closer to confide in her. “Staffing hiccup.”
“Really? At a party?” Cope demanded. The engineer draped along a stair above the landing, keeping his husband company.
Ben flung his arms wide. “I play for a living! So does she!”
“It’s true! It’s fine, Cope.” She leaned down to trade a kiss with him, too.
Ben requested, “Buddy, get me another beer, would you?”
After a few traded insults, Cope set off on his mission, to give them a little space. “Hey, you like the food? The decor?” Ben asked Sass.
“You know I do!”
“Both courtesy of the caterer, Tikki.” He pointed out the same server who’d pressed croissants on her. “He’s kind of a ringleader here on MO. Makes sure the Denali geisha pick up other skills, for when they age out.”
Denali weren’t inclined to go the nanite route. Not that the ones here could afford it if they wanted nanites. Spaceways claimed ten percent of their income to pay off their indenture for their transit to the rings, not an onerous amount. But aside from pocket change, the rest of their income sank into the bottomless pit of the Sylvan expedition.
“Clever. You told me about that.” Sass gauged the beautiful Denali young man again. Bereft of the native bakkra which would paint all of his skin back home, he’d compensated with gorgeous tattoo work, including on his gleaming bald skull. Denali had no hair. For the party, he wore navy shorts and a sleeveless snowy T-shirt, a scenic compromise between formality and flaunting his body.
“He wants to go to Sylvan. As your housekeeper.”
Sass’s eyes snapped to Ben in shock. “Corky?” Her housekeeper Corky had been with her since Sanctuary. They departed on that jaunt eight years ago subjective, but sixteen years ago for Ben and the objective timeline. The old-style warp technology they’d used was awful.
“She’s afraid you’ll stay on Sylvan.” Ben leaned onto his arms on the golden wood of the railing to talk personnel in a low voice. “Don’t blame her for coming to me, Sass. She wanted to know if Sylvan was the only way to save her job. Naturally I said Jules would be happy to take her while we’re away.”
Like Remi Roy, Abel and Jules Greer chose to have nothing to do with Sylvan. If an economic endeavor didn’t produce profit, the Greers considered it an immoral waste. They truly believed market forces were the only ethical way to distribute scarce resources. Lack of profit meant God didn’t approve. While Ben and Sass escorted the found
ers to Sylvan, the Greers would fly Friendship Thrive on a three-legged trade run to Denali, Sagamore, and back. Jules normally served as her own housekeeper, but she was delighted for a break to focus on products.
Sass sighed. “Naturally. Who do you have for housekeeper?”
“Quire,” Ben replied. “Um, Tikki and I…know each other a little too well. Can’t have Tikki and Cope on my ship together.”
“Oh, dear. Wait – Cope’s coming?!” she cried in delight.
“Wouldn’t miss it! Teke as well.”
“The kids…” Sass’s eyebrows rose. “Your kids are grown now.”
Ben nodded a single time, then cocked his head. “Sock is only 14. But he starts at Mahina University next week. Wants to live in the dorms. Frazzie’s in high school, with her own flop in Schuyler. My dad’s around if she needs him. And Nico’s been a grown man for a while now. He tells me you agreed to hire him? And his…”
“Love interest,” Sass suggested.
“Ha! Don’t repeat that in front of Cope.” He leaned closer to confide in her. “Cope’s trying so hard to be understanding. Abso-rego-lutely hilarious to watch.” He cracked up.
“You don’t have this problem?”
“Hell no. Children are worth their weight in titanium for entertainment value. The predicaments they get into! And they think their asinine conundrums are the most meaningful things in the universe. My opinion? Women are hard. But he can program an AI to meet his emotional needs! So he’s got this custom-crafted emu to stoke his ego. Hey, have at it.”
“No grandchildren,” Sass suggested.
“Oh, I wouldn’t bet on it,” Ben argued. “The thing with kids is, if there is any slightest chink in your unconditional love, they will find it. And they’ll aim at it with an asteroid-splitter gun until they get a rise out of you. My policy? Laugh at them. They hate it, and go torture Cope instead. Because I don’t take them seriously.”
“You really don’t.”
“Not for a minute.” Ben chuckled some more. “Oh! Tikki comes with his beau, partner, whatever. Kaol. He’s a hunter. That one.” He pointed to a Denali bruiser in the throng. “Wouldn’t hurt to have security.”
“So why aren’t they on Sardine?”
“They do not support the Sylvan plan.” Ben leaned backward, hanging from the railing. “Their faction thinks Denali is bleeding itself dry on a fool’s errand. If all that money and manufacturing were aimed instead at turning Mahina into a garden, they’d be far better off.”
“But they want to go to Sylvan?”
“To argue their case, yeah. Naturally Tarana isn’t pleased with them.” Ben indicated the Denali cosmopolitan with his empty beer glass. She busily worked the crowd, probably begging for last-minute donations from the high density of successful male couples. The proportion of male-female couples was steadily rising. But in Cope’s generation and above, the rings were overwhelmingly male.
“You told him yes?” Sass asked sourly. “Last thing I need is trouble with Cope.”
Ben shook his head. “Cope’s issue is with me, not Tikki. So long as the ex-fling isn’t on my ship, he’ll be fine with it. Hey, buddy!”
Cope returned with beers for both of them, plus Clay, so the Tikki discussion was shelved. Sass took the opportunity to catch up on Cope’s feelings about his kids leaving the nest. To the extent they ever sat in the nest – kids pretty much graduated straight from creche to adult independence these days. She was glad to see he seemed OK with it, even with his baby Socrates moving into college dorms four years too young.
“His age-mates from Denali are here now.” Thrive & co. brought these youngsters, gene-crafted to replace Denali’s lost academic caste, a few years ago. Ben had confided to Sass that one of them was practically Sock’s twin, save a gene patch providing the Denali-standard bald head. Sass wasn’t sure Cope ever learned about that. Ben suspected he’d hit the roof if he ever found out.
Cope continued, “So Sock’s with other 14-year-olds in his own league scholastically. Though he chose medical technology, which Denali see as more of a cosmo thing.” Cosmopolitans, cosmos, were the general worker and tradesmen component of Denali society, a distinct caste from the academics. “He’s happy. Not isolated. And Teke should only be gone with us six weeks or so. Me a bit longer. I hope.”
Sass could see that. “Any breakthroughs on the warp front?”
Sanctuary – its AI Loki, really – had gone to great trouble to rehabilitate their 5,000-capacity ship out of space mothballs. The ‘Martian’ contingent had traveled three years in the ship and kept it intact, not expecting to remain so long isolated on their hideaway planet. But Spaceways’ initial tests found that their new warp gateway couldn’t stretch large enough to transit that large a ship. The power requirements for a single warp point expanded beyond anything they could generate.
Cope shook his head. “Teke’s given up on the math for multiple cooperating warp gates. Can’t synchronize them. And any mismatch would shear the ship apart. He’s taking a break to study the Cantons ‘nullity’ technology. Then maybe come at it fresh. Or not. I mean, for a physicist to come up with more than one breakthrough of this caliber in a lifetime, it’s too much to ask. He needs to focus at least half his energy on training the next generation. So we’re stuck with Sardines for now.”
Sass nodded sadly. Transferring the 5,000 population of Sanctuary to Mahina on Sardine, 800 people at a time, was tedious but doable. Migrating over a hundred thousand Denali anywhere, at more like 400 people per Sardine, just wasn’t feasible. Oh, they were doing it, with a combination of Sardine and her sister ship, plus paddy wagon cryo containers. But it was slow going. And the number of available skilled captains, and money to pay for it, added to the limiting factors. But the heat situation on Denali continued to deteriorate. People were dying.
Later in the party, she managed to catch Cope alone, and mentioned she was considering hiring the caterer as her housekeeper. She timed it just right, as he ate something exquisitely French-but-not-fishy. “I’d hire him in a second.”
“Tikki, the guy who decorated this ship.”
Cope stilled a second, then nodded sadly. “He’s damned good. Talk to him. But if he touches Ben, I’ll beat the crap out of him. And Ben.”
Sass laughed. She checked with Tarana, too, and received a similarly double-edged recommendation. “I don’t agree with him,” the Sylvan expedition leader explained. “But it’s a valid perspective that I need to balance when deciding whether Sylvan is a go.”
Sass’s eyebrows flew up. “Sylvan isn’t a definite go?”
“Oh, we’re going. The question is whether we proceed or abandon. Fail fast, is my credo.”
She didn’t get a chance to speak with Tikki that night. He was busy. And Sass had that EVA ball game against Ben in Merchant’s hold. With nearly twenty drunken rowdy players hurling around on each side, no eye socket was safe from a flailing elbow.
But she invited the caterer to her office the next day. The fact that her ship would host opposing factions gave her pause, but she dismissed the concern. The young man was bright and resourceful. He had experience at putting Denali to work and Mahinans at ease. Ben was right, he’d make a great housekeeper. And his folk were phenomenal at cooperation.
Weren’t they?
At some point, she’d have a Tikka, Tikki, and Teke on her ship. That sure was a popular Denali name.
4
As Thrive settled into its landing on Sylvan, Cope stood beside Darren Markley at the engineering console. They listened in disbelief. No sooner had the ship stopped moving than Hadron, Selectman of the Denali hunters aboard, got on the ship-wide public address.
“We are arrived at Sylvan, a glorious day for the Denali people! Gather your weapons and gear, gird your loins, and affix your helmets to –” His voice abruptly cut off.
“Sass cut his comms,” Cope remarked to Darren.
“Safe bet,” Darren agreed. “So I set up power first, and you take the bio-lo
ck?” They’d been too busy dousing the accidental forest fire to establish their plan of attack upon landing.
Thrive was Darren’s ship, so far as chief engineer went. But the urb had never even visited Denali. Cope had the bio containment expertise, the challenge of protecting the inside of the ship from the largely unknown biota of this world. Sonic barriers against charismatic mega-fauna were all well and good. But they needed microbe defenses before it was safe to go outside and play.
Cope counted on his fingers. “Bio-lock, latrines, power for the force-field perimeter, then Tikka Gena’s physiology tests.”
Among the unknowns was what kind of protective wear they’d require. They hoped a simple air-mask would do, and normal clothing. But the wildcatters, the only prior visitors to this planet, obeyed a pure isolation protocol, pressure suits and decontamination at all times. The wildcatters left abruptly after their captain Loki Greenwald broke his back in an encounter with a wild beast called a smurf. They never completed the microbial assay.
Tikka Gena had served on Eli Rasmussen’s science team since the Cantons expedition. Though she gained the Gena nickname this trip, to disambiguate from Tikki Cook the male geisha housekeeper and Teke the physicist. Tikka Gena feared the high oxygen atmosphere would accelerate aging on exposed skin and possibly muscle and bone beneath.
“I’ll take power,” Darren agreed. “And set up the water – no, you need water for the bio-lock first, don’t you? How are we getting the gear outside?” They’d stored the equipment they needed immediately in the hold. They sealed the eight containers outside the hull until the microbial situation was mastered.
“We –” Cope stopped, lips pursed on the word, as he looked toward the trap door lock, which he’d been about to suggest as their easiest egress. The hold was rapidly evolving into a zoo.
The Denali hunters shouldn’t be going anywhere or doing anything until assigned to a team. But they began to mill around and stream down the staircase. Kassidy and the emu Floki flew drones everywhere in their filming competition to immortalize the great landing on planet Sylvan. Tikka Gena stood in med bay, oblivious while she scrutinized external sensor readings on the auto-doc screen. Several bruisers bumped into Teke and Eli upstairs, just emerged from the rear cabins. Teke shoved them off and hollered at them about how to behave on a starship.
