Noumenon

by Marina J. Lostetter

  Chapter Seven

  I.C.C.: Miscloned

  Eight Months Later

  October 3, 121 PLD

  3088 CE

  It started with chaos, as many shifts in society do.

  A rumbling. An implosion. A severing. Something gone—one of I.C.C.’s limbs, part of its body: a ship, off-line.

  It couldn’t equate the feeling to human pain. Nothing throbbed, nothing hurt, nothing sizzled or stung. A thing had to be present to hurt. The ship had snapped away from the convoy. Gone. Lost.

  Loss, I.C.C. noted, was far more terrifying than pain.

  Sirens wailed of their own accord, beyond its conscious control. It could not stop them, and was surprised by its desire to.

  It didn’t want the convoy members to know. Because the people—there had been a full crew on Bottomless—were gone.

  I.C.C. knew what people did when tragedy struck. It’d seen it in the archives, in the movies and documentaries. Occasionally, it’d seen it when loved ones died aboard unexpectedly. Human screaming was worse than any siren.

  And there were so many gone to scream for.

  It went through the crew shift logs, double-checking the names of all on Bottomless at the moment they’d shifted into SD.

  Three hundred and forty-eight on duty. No visitors. All adults. Sixteen apprentices, in their first week on the job. Twelve soon-to-be retirees in their last week on the job.

  It had failed them. The ships were supposed to protect them, shield them from the extremes of space and subspace. I.C.C.’s body was meant to be a haven.

  How could this have happened? What exactly had happened?

  All of these thoughts and more ran through the central computer’s consciousness in the millisecond between the tragedy, the warning signal triggering, and the captains of all eight remaining ships demanding information.

  The signal for two other ships waned and cut out.

  I.C.C. instructed the navigational teams to surface, then went to work reconstructing the events.

  SD drive malfunction. Part of Bottomless had been caught outside the bubble, tearing it in two, causing the diving portion to collapse in on itself and the stranded portion to spin off wildly into space. Debris littered the travel SD. Some wreckage had been flung toward the rest of the convoy, tearing into Holwarda and Shambhala. Two greenhouses and one exercise room had been breached. Nine more crew members had been sucked into the void. Twenty-eight hundred and sixty-seven potential servings of food had been lost.

  The Nest was unharmed.

  The two damaged ships dropped out of SD travel almost instantaneously, losing the connection with I.C.C.’s main servers. This left them with personality fragments for their computer interface, and they temporarily went dark ship-to-ship, but no other main functionality was lost.

  For those two ships, the primary problem was not repairing the damaged sections. It was simply getting back to the convoy. Luckily the rest of the convoy had heeded I.C.C.’s instructions promptly—only a million kilometers separated the wayward ships from the whole.

  The screams were few and subdued. And somehow that was worse. The crew slipped into a hyperlogical state that I.C.C. had never observed before, channeling their loss and grief into work and reconfiguring. They mourned by planning. They lamented with repairs.

  Redundancy has always been a hallmark of voyaging. If something is lost or broken, it must be compensated for because it cannot be replaced.

  The convoy could limp along without Bottomless, especially since they had already completed the primary portion of the mission. It had been fondly known as the “janitorial closet,” filled with all of the replacement parts and extra chemical cleaners and spoons and such. If your quarters needed new carpeting, the carpets came from Bottomless. It made living better, easier—but few things it stored prevented dying or mission failure. Much of its absolute essentials were backed up by redundancies on Solidarity, the manufacturing ship. The biggest loss was in raw supplies: iron, nickel, carbon, etc. The fundamentals.

  Conceivably, they could continue on without it. Ration nonconsumables and consumables alike—rationing that would not end until the mission was complete and they were safely back at Earth. But the accident posed a secondary problem, one far removed from being a ship down.

  Since the implosion had occurred during transition into SD travel, and the problem was thought to have originated within the SD drive, the question had to be asked: Was subdimensional travel no longer safe? If they proceeded toward Earth as planned, who was to say they wouldn’t lose another ship? Perhaps one more populated? One more essential to processing the data gathered at LQ Pyx?

  Many crew members initially blamed the Nest. What if it had created some sort of imbalance in the bubble? What if, like the Seed, it could exert forces or send signals they could not detect?

  I.C.C. rejected these summations immediately. No, the fault lay within the drive on Bottomless, it was sure, and it made that point emphatically. It wanted to be sure no drastic action was taken against the alien artifact.

  Until they could pinpoint and solve the cause of the problem, they resolved to use their antiquated ion engines only. They wouldn’t risk one more dive—not one, not for anything. They had to return to Earth, which meant ensuring their survival came first. No convoy, no mission. But that also meant they were no longer less than one hundred years’ travel time from their home planet.

  Who knew how long it would be before they could get back home?

  Thirty-Nine Years Later

  April 1, 161 PLD

  3138 CE

  The pseudo-sun was bright on his face, warm. And the grass—soft and springing beneath his boots. Rail had heard about this place, but never before been allowed to visit. It was a little piece of Earth, a reminder of something he would never see, or feel, or touch himself. He took a breath, held his chin high, and closed his eyes.

  For a moment he could pretend. For a moment, he was really there.

  Crack!

  The sound split the air.

  The ropes creaked.

  Never would he see Earth.

  He opened his eyes, fearing the baton. Twelve hooded figures hung from the gallows, each dressed in a white jumpsuit, each with their hands tied behind their back. The bodies swayed in the artificial wind, beneath the artificial blue sky, upon an artificial farm field, within an artificial container of metal suspended in space.

  One thousand figures—dressed in the same white tunics—stood aligned in perfect rows and columns on the green field. Like an army at attention. Hundreds of black-clad security guards surrounded them. The officers wore glimmering black helmets with dark visors.

  Rail had rarely seen a guard’s face. He had never seen the Master Warden’s eyes.

  A figure climbed onto the stage next to the dangling bodies that slowly spun and swayed. He too was dressed in black, though wore no helmet. He was calm, purposeful, and deliberate as he gazed upon the dead.

  Master Warden. His dark mustache lay thick above his white, polished teeth, and his hair had been neatly slicked back. The artificial sunlight glinted off his mirrored sunglasses. Those glasses served one purpose, and it wasn’t to protect his delicate eyes.

  When he spoke, his voice boomed from the speakers hidden in the sky.

  “Witness the fate of those who attack the convoy. Terrorists have no place in my mines. These seven men and five women planned to murder hundreds of convoy children. Innocent children. Babies still in their growth tanks, to be blown up and desecrated. Look closely.” He pointed a shock baton at the nearest corpse. “Here are the remains of heinous criminals.

  “Let this be warning to all of you. The plans will cease. Sabotage will cease. Murder and attempted murder will cease.” His gaze scrolled from front to back across the crowd as he paced the stage.

  “I will not be so merciful in the future. For every convoy citizen injured, I will choose one of your kind—randomly—for the gallows. For every convoy citizen murdered, I
will round up ten of you for the gallows. For every act of sabotage, I will round up twenty of you for the gallows. You will be treated as a single unit. If one is guilty, you are all guilty, and you will be punished as such.”

  The last words echoed over the silent crowd. “Are these new laws understood?”

  “Yes, Master Warden!” the crowd roared in unison.

  “Good. I am glad we’ve come to an understanding.”

  With the bodies still swinging in the breeze, Rail and the rest of the miners shuffled off toward the shuttle bay.

  Today was supposed to be the first day of Diego Santibar’s apprenticeship, but it had been postponed due to something with the Discontinueds. They’d hightailed it out of the Pit and spent hours on Eden for some unknown reason. He’d asked, but no one would tell Diego. Made him feel like they didn’t see him as a graduate—like they still thought he was a kid.

  Maybe he’d ask one of his moms about Eden when they got home in a few hours—they were both on the convoy board. One had been elected from the computing department (the fifth in her genetic line), and the other was the head of Communications (and the sixth in her line), so they knew about stuff. Unlike him—he’d been stuck in his quarters all day, looking over hydroponics data on ‘flex-sheets.

  One thin page flopped onto his face, startling him awake. He’d sprawled out on the futon an hour ago, and his eyelids had gradually become heavier and heavier. The family tabby cat had curled up beside him, and he gently shoed her away.

  “I.C.C.?”

  “Yes, Diego.”

  “Can you turn on some music? Something to keep me awake, please.”

  A twenty-second-century percussion piece blared through the living space. The heavy bass timpani, coupled with the occasional chimes and cymbals, chased away his weariness.

  The cat didn’t care for the noise at all, and bolted for his parents’ bedroom.

  Satisfied, Diego refocused on his work. He ran one dark hand over his eyes, chasing away the rest of sleep, and sat up.

  Technically his job was on Morgan, not Eden, but his focus was sustainability and balance, so part of his job took him to the garden ship. If a previously innocuous bacterium or fungus started eating away at the soy or other legumes, he’d have to engineer a way to keep it from destroying the entire stock—a prospect that, secretly, bored him to retirement.

  He wondered if it had been like this for all iterations before his. He’d never met the previous clone in his line, as an accident had ended the man’s life decades before retirement. That was why he’d been grown early, out of sync, causing a few other crew members to shuffle positions.

  Had all other Diego Santibars been unsatisfied with their work? He’d never told anyone. He didn’t dare. They’d send him to the shrinks, run him through tests—maybe call him unfit for duty. How could anyone be unsatisfied with their job? It was in their blood, in their genes, in their very essence. If you were out of sync with your essence, what did that make you? A freak. A mistake.

  It could make you up for discontinuation, the ultimate shame.

  The high-pitched beeping of the door’s keypad alerted him that someone was home. He checked the clock—neither of his parents should be back for hours.

  But one of his moms came bustling through the door—Vega. Her ice-blond hair was pulled into a tight ponytail, and her thin frame vibrated as though she’d received a sudden shock. “Oh, good, you are here,” she said, as though she’d feared he might be elsewhere. She started to say more, but paused, her eyebrows knitting together. “Interesting music choice.”

  “I.C.C.’s pick. Helps me, uh, focus. Why are you back so early?”

  Her mouth smiled sweetly, but her eyes portrayed tension. “I . . . I wanted to . . .”

  She was being weird, even by mom standards.

  “Vega was concerned that you might have been asked to clean up on Eden,” said I.C.C.

  “Why?” Diego stood and put his work aside. “What happened?”

  She looked up at the ceiling, clearly annoyed with the computer. She didn’t answer her son.

  “Come on, Mom. No one will tell me what they’re doing over there.”

  With a huff she brushed past him and made for the kitchenette. Since his growth spurt he’d come to appreciate just how small she was. At six-foot-one he could scoop up her four-foot-seven and pack her around like a child. It was strange remembering that she’d once given him piggyback rides.

  “You don’t want to know,” she said. “I wish I didn’t.”

  “Now, Vega?” I.C.C. asked.

  Mortification crossed her face. “No. Not now.” She made herself a cup of tea. “Did you do any coding today?” she asked Diego, her tone far too cheery to be sincere.

  A combination of worry and excitement swirled in his chest. This was why Diego thought that if he were to reveal his secret—his distaste for botany—to anyone, it would be his mom. She was I.C.C.’s caretaker, and thought it would be nice if Diego shared her love of computers. And he did, so much so that he wished his genes had been brought on board for the AI.

  He wanted a job that wasn’t his, and he knew that was wrong.

  “No,” he said, “I have to finish these pages first.”

  “All right. I’ll be in the back for a little while. Tell me when your madre gets in, will you?”

  He wanted to ask her more about Eden, but kept quiet. “Yeah, okay.”

  With her brow furrowed and her face unusually pallid, she shut herself in the bedroom.

  He continued to go over the data with the music blaring, rushing through the last few sets, eager to have time at the terminal. Finished with the agonizing part of the day, he turned down the volume and went to the touch screen—but stopped.

  Now that the living room was quieter, he could hear Vega talking in her bedroom to someone else—to Margarita.

  But Madre wasn’t home yet, so it had to be over comms. Not especially weird, except . . . well, Mom’s voice was up there, hitting a range she could rarely reach except when overtly stressed. And Madre sounded . . . disturbed.

  Forgetting his daily tech-treat for the moment, Diego tiptoed over to his parents’ door and pressed an ear to the metal.

  “We promised not to interfere, but . . .” said Madre, audibly nauseated.

  “But this is too far,” said Mom.

  “The captain’s called an emergency meeting, and the Warden will be there. But I don’t think it’ll pass a vote, Vega. We signed a treaty and—”

  “Oh, give me a break. The board won’t let this stand. They’ve got to be just as . . . just as . . .”

  “Scared?” Madre said.

  “They’ve—we have always been scared, that’s the whole point. That’s why they were discontinued in the first place. This is a bad sign, though. This is a breach of trust—”

  “This was freaking murder, Vega.”

  Both women fell silent. Diego shut his eyes, concentrating. There—that might have been I.C.C. in quiet mode. Now shuffling. Blankets maybe. And footsteps.

  Oh, crap.

  He tried to throw himself away from the door, but couldn’t beat his mom to the punch. With a whoosh, the door slid aside, revealing his crouched posture and guilty expression.

  Anger flared in Vega’s eyes, though he could tell it wasn’t really directed at him. “Get to the monitor and practice your algorithms,” she said warningly.

  “Who was murdered?” he asked, standing up straight. Consciously, he knew now was not the time to challenge her, but his subconscious screamed at him to push. He wasn’t a kid—in less than a year he’d be moving into his own single’s quarters. His parents had to know that they didn’t need to protect him—he could help them with . . . with . . . “Mom, who was murdered?”

  She reached out, taking him by the shoulders. Stiff tremors rocked her limbs. Her voice shook, “Don’t say anything to anyone, okay? This can’t get out, not until the board can deal with it.”

  Gently, she turned him around a
nd gave him a guided shove in the terminal’s direction. Before he could once more demand inclusion, she stomped back to the bedroom and shut the door again.

  Rail hated dirt. With a strange, unnatural passion. Dust. Silt. Didn’t matter if he had a space suit between him and the filth, it was there. Clinging. The miner’s suits glowed bright-white even in the depths of the Pit—until they got dirty. Gray and brown and black and flecks of red iron. Chips of minerals, chunks of silica, bits of ice. He hated it all, and hated it hard.

  So hard, it let him forget about other things. Like radiation exposure, falling rocks, misplaced blasts. Today it let him forget about broken necks and limp feet and mirrored sunglasses.

  Because the dirt you could wash off at the end of the day. It was something he hated that he could get rid of.

  The Pit was little more than a man-made hole in a planemo. Besides the mines, it contained the prisoners’ barracks, latrines, kitchens, infirmary, and solitary.

  Rail, like the rest of the prisoners, had only a rudimentary understanding of what he worked for. He knew his primary purpose, of course. He dug for iron, which would be turned into metal alloys and then into a ship. But what was the ship for? The prisoners lived in the Pit while a convoy orbited several hundred thousand kilometers out. Okay—but what did the convoy do and where had it come from? The prisoners were all criminals, but not a one knew what his or her crime had been—just that it was a crime in their genes, not one they’d enacted themselves. They’d endangered the lives of everyone in that convoy, but no one would tell them how or why.

  Mining was their penance—and time and again the Master Warden and subwardens told them to be grateful. Without the mines, they never would have been birthed. Their traitorous genes would have stayed on lock-down, never to be cloned again.

  Rail lived because of the mine, but “grateful” wasn’t the term he’d use. When the subwarden’s shock baton stayed holstered, he was grateful. But living in general—that left him more baffled than anything.

  Only a day had passed since the hanging. One of the dead men had been on his dig team, but had bunked in a different cell block, so Rail hadn’t known him well. Still, the team worked in silence. Their comms stayed on, but no one spoke.