by Mark Wandrey
“And that may well have breached the station,” Aaron agreed, joining them.
“And set off a catastrophic chain reaction,” Kal’at added, indicating through a transparent view port the thousands of huge EPCs only a few hundred meters away.
“My father was nothing if not thorough.”
She moved to extract the other three suits and asked Kal’at and his more technically-oriented soldiers to strip down the modules. The explosives were too useful to leave behind.
“They are set into the modules’ computer systems to trigger after six failed password attempts,” he told her. “In addition, they are linked into the modules’ communication systems.”
“So, they could be detonated remotely?”
“Without a doubt. The charges are also linked to the modules’ structural integrity sensors. Any attempt to force the modules, disable the locks, or cut them open would have triggered a detonation.”
Minu examined the charges, now completely removed from the modules and stacked on the floor. They were C-6, a precursor to the new C-7 used by Ted’s weapons development team. It was a militarized Concordian explosive intended for civil use; humans had become adept at re-tasking commonly available, non-military goods and pressing them into service for the Chosen.
The C-6 was not nearly as powerful as C-7, but, considering there were twenty of the five-hundred-gram tactical charges laid out before her, that hardly mattered. She’d seen a single half-kilo charge used to turn a junked tractor into debris; no remaining piece had been bigger than her hand.
As the others talked, Minu’s thoughts continued to race. These modules were much more than tools or wealth, and she knew it. Her father had left them here for a reason or, more than likely, several reasons, one of which she knew already. “Pip, have you got them all initialized?”
“They’re in transport mode now. They’ll follow anyone you tell them to, but it’ll take some work to make them combat ready. But considering the minor differences between us and The Lost, it won’t take long.”
“Can you access their internal programming?”
“Sure,” he said and tapped his tablet.
Minu moved over to watch.
“They’re fairly powerful. Nothing like the Kaatan, of course.”
“Of course,” Lilith whispered in her ear, making Minu grin.
“But they do have at least a couple dozen petabytes.”
“It might not be large,” Lilith told her, “but it is enough to allow a modest-sized intelligence.”
Minu replied, subvocalizing through the implant in her ear, “You mean you could automate them?”
“That is something The People did not allow. It was considered illegal.”
“Okay, that consideration aside, is it possible?”
“Yes,” Lilith answered, grudgingly.
“Okay Pip, anything in there now, in any of them?”
“A few terabytes of basic information and ROM programming to allow them to operate. Looks like a few hundred additional files concerning maintenance and various operational modes as well.”
“I mean outside that sort of stuff. Anything that doesn’t fit in?”
“How am I supposed to know? I’ve never even seen one of these things in person, let alone dug around inside its brains.”
“Just scroll through the files,” she suggested, watching over his shoulder. She had an advantage over him in that her brain instantly translated Lost script into English. After a few minutes, she had to admit it could take all day. Besides, Pip was right, the files were all ubiquitously named. There was nothing like an X marking the spot.
“How about comparing the units to each other? They should all have the same files, right?”
“I would think so. Give me a minute.” The tablet didn’t have nearly enough memory to copy all the files from the four suits. Besides, even at the tablets’ high data transfer rate, it would take almost an hour to copy all four. Instead, he opened a little note window and zipped through each of them, counting and keeping track as he went. When he finished the last one he looked at her with a wry smile. “There is one extra file in number two.”
“Copy it to my tablet,” she instructed. He did so and kept a copy for himself, but when he opened it, all he found was a string of seemingly random script. Minu took the script and dropped it into the secure files on her father’s special diary chip. The next code unlocked, and a message appeared.
“Very good daughter, almost there. Since you are on Dervish, you must have secured transportation. That is good, because you are now going off the map. Take as many of the EPCs as you can and head here…” The message displayed the coordinates of another star system. “And don’t forget the toys I left you!”
“Well?” Pip asked, having respected her privacy and not read over her shoulder.
“Looks like we have another stop,” she said, reading him the coordinates. Naturally, Lilith had been listening.
“That is only a few dozen light-years away,” Lilith said. “In deep space.”
* * * * *
Chapter 2
April 20th, 534 AE (subjective)
Dervish Star system, Galactic Frontier
It took more than a day for them to load the four suits aboard the Kaatan. Unfortunately, Pip and Kal’at both agreed that using them to move the EPCs was unwise. “These are combat suits, not cargo loader bots,” Pip complained loudly. “While it might be possible to use them, it would take Kal’at and me several days to get even one of them configured for human use. Even though the suits are quite powerful, those ship-sized EPCs are too big for one suit to maneuver, so you’d need at least two.”
It was a logical argument, but it did nothing to quell Minu’s impatience to move on to the next stop. The message said she was almost there. Almost where? Was her father out there waiting for her after all these years?
It seemed improbable. He’d been missing almost twenty years. He’d be what, sixty-five years old? She guessed that wasn’t too old. Bjorn was nearly eighty, after all. There were more than a few Chosen still serving in various capacities who were in their fifties and sixties.
She couldn’t imagine living somewhere on the frontier, year after year, wondering when her daughter would come rescue her. That didn’t sound at all like Chriso Alma. Besides, if she found him, he might not like some of the things she had to say. He had a lot of explaining to do.
Each of the EPCs weighed nearly four tons. “The station is not intended for direct refueling,” Lilith informed them, “EPCs are delivered through Portals to firebases.”
“What if they needed one here?” Cherise asked.
“Then I would guess they improvised.”
Lilith commanded the Kaatan to make a lot of cargo bots. The crystalline technology was beyond Minu’s understanding, and she’d gotten a headache when Pip and Lilith tried to explain it. It had something to do with nano-pneumonic polymers and field-effect control devices implanted in the crystal matrix. She recalled some ancient Earth scientist commenting that any sufficiently advanced technology would appear as magic to a less advanced society. Watching the blue crystal plates extrude bot after shiny bot looked like magic to her.
After an hour of work, the ship’s dozen ‘bot plates’ had produced a total of a hundred and twelve crystalline crab bots, each standing a half meter tall on six gossamer legs that looked like they couldn’t support a kilo.
Lilith assured her each bot, while not possessing the brute strength of a conventional, dualloy crab-bot, could lift more than fifty kilos. Even then, it took at least eighty to move one of the EPCs. She sent the whole army, just to be safe.
Everyone turned out to watch the strange procession. Ants were not common on Bellatrix. Some of the local fungi proved problematic for many Earth-born insects. But a few species had thrived, and Minu remembered watching recordings of an ant swarm cooperating to move a large twig many thousand times heavier than any one ant could carry. The swarm of crystalline bots resembled thos
e ants.
Because of the size of the EPCs, the bots were forced to use the entire width of the corridor and part of the walls. It turned out a hundred and twelve bots were barely enough. Corners required amazing feats of agility as the bots maneuvered the modules around each one with only centimeters to spare.
Minu wondered if it was a coincidence that it was possible to move the EPCs through the station that way. As she watched the four-ton behemoth creep along at a consistent ten centimeters per second, she marveled at the efficiency of the bots. “That is some good programming,” she commented to her daughter over their link.
“They are not programmed for this sort of function. And even if they were, they are not capable of communicating with each other on this level.”
“How are they managing?”
“I am controlling them.”
Minu blanched and gaped at the procession. Her daughter was controlling over a hundred little bots to such a degree that they could orchestrate the movement of a four-ton EPC module, nearly as big as the entire corridor, and do it with centimeters to spare?
She knew the girl’s brain was an exceptionally fine-tuned thing, augmented with at least one computer implanted when she was still a fetus. But this was beyond her conception.
“I’m impressed.”
“It doesn’t require much more processing than I use to fly the ship in combat. The task is only difficult because I have never done it before, and because the bots are so stupid. I have to constantly issue revised orders as the corridor changes.”
Minu watched some more, impressed by how Lilith addressed the task. The bots were stronger at manipulating than carrying. To address this, Lilith had them stand in place and pass the module from one shiny blue set of claws to another. The circular masses lining the walls and floor acted in concert to keep the module suspended between them. The EPC was featureless with nothing to use as handholds.
As the bots passed the module to the last ones in line, they jumped down and moved through a narrow passage underneath, then joined the front of the line. Minu guessed about seventy bots at any one time were stationary, forming the working part of the team, while the other forty-odd were in motion.
“I’ll say it again, sweetheart, impressive.”
“It is nothing, but thank you, Mother.”
They finally ran into trouble while loading the module into the tram that ran from the docking area to the EPC service area. The tram was considerably wider than the hallway, and the bots had difficulty maintaining the module’s lateral stability.
“Stay clear, please,” Lilith warned Minu who quickly passed the warning on to her fellow gawkers. As the module entered the tram, it shifted suddenly and slipped sideways with a sickening crunch. A dozen bots were instantly ground into powder, and a line of seats in the tram was crushed like empty soda cans.
“Oh no,” Minu said and looked at the pile of broken bots. There were no pieces larger than a tenth-credit coin. “What do we do now?”
The tram started up once everyone was aboard, apparently taking no notice of the four-ton module sitting on the floor.
“Once the module is again in motion, please scoop up the remnants of the destroyed bots and bring them aboard.”
The remaining leg of the trip was even slower with fewer bots, but Lilith managed with no more casualties. The ship had modified a room just off the airlock entrance to hold the EPCs, with places for six modules, three on either side. Lilith assured them the ship could take care of them from that point without further assistance of the bots.
Minu and Kal’at took the debris of the crushed bots aboard. They got most of it, but a fine blue powder they had no way to collect covered the tram’s floor. “Now what?” Minu asked.
“Take the remains to one of the bot panels.” They did as instructed. “Now please dump the debris on the floor in front of the panel.” Again, they complied. A second later, a new bot with unusually long feelers extruded. It moved to the pile of debris and reached out with the feelers. On contact, the debris instantly turned to liquid which the little bot quickly absorbed, causing it to increase in size.
“It seems disgusting,” Minu thought as it ate the dead bots. Once the pile was gone, the wall absorbed the bot. A second later, new crab bots began to appear. However, only eleven came out this time.
“Some material is lost,” Lilith explained. “I could replace it from reserves, but making the original number placed the ship at a dangerously low level of material. I see no reason to override the safety mechanism to replace one bot.”
The operation continued for the rest of the day. Most of the other crew members became bored with the spectacle after the second trip. In the end, only Minu and Cherise remained.
Cherise stayed out of fascination and professional curiosity, Minu because it was so damned impressive. Lilith had only one more incident, which cost her a pair of bots.
When they unloaded for the final time, a tiny recovery bot appeared and circled the tram vacuuming up as much blue dust as it could find. Despite the effort, the floor still had a bluish hue.
The EPCs secure, they detached from the station but stayed nearby. Lilith wanted to complete some minor repairs to their shields, which were stressed from their arrival.
Since Pip and Kal’at wanted to tinker with the combat suits, Minu and Aaron retreated to their cabin. She’d intended to catch some sleep, but Aaron was interested in more. Though she wasn’t initially in the mood, under his practiced caresses, she soon had a change of heart. A deeply satisfying orgasm was a much better sleep aid than anything the ship could dispense.
When the ship communicator beeped to wake her up, she was surprised to see it was six hours later. “Minu here,” she reported, extracting herself from under one of Aaron’s well-muscled forearms.
“Repairs are complete,” Lilith announced.
Whenever Minu was in bed with Aaron, she abstained from using the implanted communicator. Its visual functions were something Minu didn’t want in the bedroom. The ability to manually turn it off was something she’d insisted on prior to implantation.
“Great, we’ll be in the CIC in ten minutes.”
“There is no hurry, everyone is sleeping. Pip and Kal’at finally succumbed four hours ago.”
Minu nodded, surprised it was that long ago. Pip seemed to need almost no sleep, and the Rasa were notorious for being able to operate for days without rest, if properly motivated.
She rolled over and gently woke her husband with kisses on his neck. He smiled and mumbled something that sounded like ‘love you,’ which made her smile. Then, suddenly, her stomach turned upside down and tried to climb out of her mouth.
“Oh shit,” she moaned and hopped out of bed. The ship had created more conventional human-style bathrooms since their first trip, and she barely made it through the small bathroom door. If it weren’t for a last-moment dive, and the toilet having no lid, she would have vomited all over the floor.
“That doesn’t sound like fun,” Aaron said sympathetically from the bed.
She choked and retched a couple more times before her stomach was empty, and the spasms stopped. Love her he might, but she noticed he hadn’t come in to help her.
“I think it’s morning sickness,” she said after rinsing her mouth in the sink. “I remember Mom saying she—” she stopped with a jerk, looking at herself in the mirror.
She had bags under her eyes and a look of anger mixed with betrayal on her face. Right, Mother was lying about being morning sick with me, wasn’t she?
“You okay?”
“I’ll live.”
She hadn’t been pregnant with Lilith long, but it was a bout of nausea that sent her to the sickbay on this ship, and she found out about the life inside her. She’d discovered minutes later that she would have to abort the baby. One creative idea and a few months of quantum faster-than-light aging later, she had a daughter.
She stripped off her uniform and pulled a moliplas screen out of its niche in th
e bathroom wall, turning part of the bathroom space into a shower. The cool water helped her clear her mind and at least partially forget about her parents.
As she finished, she found Aaron standing outside with one of the ship’s manufactured towels. It was a lot better than the old blow-dry system. That might have worked well for The People, who had fur, but humans preferred towels. “Thanks, love.”
“Anytime,” he said, stripping and taking over the space. “I heard you mention your mom and morning sickness,” he said gently. “I’m sorry, I know it must be painful.”
“Maddening is more like it,” she said as she towel-dried her long, red hair. “I don’t know what to believe any more. I can only trust my own memories from when I was about five years old onward, I guess. And even then, a lot of what I know was what my father told me. How much of that was klothshit too?”
“Do you still hope we find him?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.
* * *
The departure from Dervish was uneventful as Lilith used the massive stars’ gravity fields to exit the region. In a minute, they were away from the dangerous solar prominences and titanic flashes of radiation. Ten minutes later, they flashed into super-luminal travel and away from Dervish.
Minu watched from the secondary CIC as the three stars fell away behind them with dizzying speed. A few minutes later, Pip and Kal’at appeared, deep in conversation about the combat suits. After listening to them for a while, Minu decided to interject. “What’s the point of contention?” she asked during a brief lull.
“The suits and modern versions,” Kal’at explained.
“Go ahead,” Minu prompted from her command chair.
“They are a mishmash of technological innovations,” Pip took over. “There are things on those suits we’ve never seen before.”
“How is that a problem?”
“I’ve also read about improvements on modern suits used by the higher-order species that aren’t on these.”
