“Sir!” Keller stepped up, drawing his sidearm.
“Take mister Coffee here, escort him to an airlock, and release him into space.”
“Sir!”
“NO!” Coffee screamed in terror. “Please!”
“Visili,” Miracle’s weak voice drifted up from the gurney. “Don’t.” Everyone’s head turned in surprise.
“Miracle,” Visili started, “he killed Hysom … he nearly killed …” He stared down at Miracle in confusion.
“Coffee’s not worth it,” Carson interjected with a smile. “Let him stand trial. Dragull’s lawyers will throw him to the wolves before paying any fines to save his sorry ass.”
“But …”
“Think what a lifetime on Pluto will do to him. I’ll consider the tab paid in full.”
“How long did it take you to get to me?” Carson asked, reclining on the gurney. Carson and Visili were finally alone in the station medical bay. The Marines and the crew were back on the Hercules and the doctor was getting some chow in the mess hall.
“Four hours,” Visili said flatly, taking a sip of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. He’d decided to break out the good stuff.
“Then they saved me,” Carson whispered with awe. He stared down at his own scotch and contemplated the possibilities. “Think the little buggers knew what they were doing?”
“Looks that way,” Visili replied quietly. “The Fed scientists think they’re intelligent … and telepathic. And there’s more.” Visili smiled and Carson’s raised an eyebrow.
“The Feds named them after you.” A glowing red shard shot through the wall, darted between them, danced before Carson’s eyes, and then disappeared through another wall. Visili smiled. “Meet Sol Crystalis Miracalis.” Both Marines smiled, raised their glasses to celebrate the memory of Jack Hysom, and toasted the newly discovered life form.
17
“Rudy, port shield’s gonna glitch! One more blammo and boss-man will need to dopple me!”
17’s fingers danced over the nav-console, causing the heavily modified transport, The Baboushka, to heave violently to starboard. It nosed towards the Korami space station, only a glimmering speck in the ship’s main view screen. His fingers danced more, and the heavily laden cargo-carrier slid to the right, going into a tight spiral towards Korami. His eyes flicked to a side-screen showing what was aft, and The Baboushka lurched as several blasts from one of the fighters on his tail hit the rear deflector. A stream of blaster fire dotted past him in the front view-screen, sailing away into space as he maneuvered out of its path with another violent turn.
“Port shield stabilized,” Rudy said, his high-pitched, artificial voice sounding very much like a small, overly happy boy. “Getting to work on the aft shield, chief.”
17 reversed the spiraling descent towards Korami as two more streams of blaster-fire traced past his view screens. “Gotta trim these assholes, Rudy. Dump juice to the gravplates and switch all ergs to the forward array on my mark!”
“Wilco, chief … on your mark.”
“NOW!” 17’s fingers hit a maneuvering macro and the star field spun wildly, shifting 180 degrees in the blink of an eye. Simma Prime—the cosmop world he’d just left—and also one of his solemn charges—flashed in the view screen, then there was nothing but stars as his HUD acquired rapidly shifting target locks on the inbound fighters coming straight towards his cockpit.
17’s senses blurred for a few seconds as his mass, caught by its own inertia, struggled to rip itself free from the ship’s gravity field and fling him around inside the cockpit. The HUD locked onto three small planetary corsairs whose rate of gain doubled then tripled as The Baboushka’s drive took a bite out of the space behind the ship and started a rapid deceleration.
17 hit two more macros, popping open the missile-bays dotting the nose of the ship and spewing a hailstorm of guided missiles while turrets above the command deck erupted in a blaze of intense red and green pulsar fire.
All three fighters opened up on The Baboushka’s inbound missiles, but it was too little too late. 17 watched with a satisfied grin as their blaster-fire caught only a handful of the missiles locked onto them. The dimmers on his screen dulled the flowering explosions, and the remainder of his volley, along with his pulsar fire, hit home. All three corsairs blossomed simultaneously in magnificent explosions. His drive-system had finally stopped his momentum, and the ship began accelerating towards the expanding field of debris. He made a quick course correction, veering off to starboard and heading out towards deeper space beyond the gravity well of Simma Prime.
Rudy spat out the coordinates for home and 17 hit the shift generator.
“Prime, I’m not sure I approve of 17’s behavior …,” 2 said sourly as he powered down the replication console and stepped out of the holoterm. “… or his appearance.”
The faint blue cylinder displaying bio-readings, cranial pressure, inputs, outputs, theta waves, REM sequences and other miscellaneous data pertaining to 22 flickered out of existence. Prime could now clearly see 22 suspended in the support-tank that held it.
‘It’ would soon be a ‘him,’ Prime thought.
Prime and 2 were identical in appearance, save for a “2” tattooed on 2’s neck. Bulging, red environment suits—minus helmets and gloves—encased their considerable girth. In the event of an emergency depressurization, temporary force fields would enshroud their heads and hands, allowing them to get to a pressurized chamber within the station or a storage locker where standard equipment could be found.
Both men had thick, white flowing hair and long white beards.
The thickening, pasty body of 22, suspended in the tank before them, twitched once within the synthiotic fluid. The shroud of filaments feeding its tissues from head to toe undulated in smooth waves. The filaments sustained its life and connected countless data-feeds, making it look like a giant, translucent cocoon waiting to be split open by the new life within. There were still a few days until its birth, so no hair had yet formed across a ruddy, bulging epidermis.
“You’re just jealous, 2,” Prime accused, but there was no malice in his voice. He tried not to smile as he pushed spectacles back from the tip of his rosy, bulbous nose to rest more usefully on its bridge. He examined some logistical data on a holopad held in the pudgy fingers of his other hand. Based on the numbers, he was convinced that they would need one more clone to make this year’s deliveries to two more of Earth’s latest colony worlds.
“I most certainly am not,” 2 said defensively.
Humanity’s obsession with reaching the stars had borne fruit and given rise to a population explosion across the stars. Prime was able to keep up with need, albeit barely, in no small part due to the advent of clones. His maintenance and support personnel had clone tanks of their own to fashion new workers and administrators as needed to keep up with humanity’s expansion.
Prime pressed his fingers into a sequence of displayed commands suspended in the holopad field to request maintenance on the next tank to be filled. Keeping his eyes on the current logistical data—data that didn’t take into account the additional clone—he addressed 2 with a fatherly tone. “I know that deep down you always wanted to be a rabble-rouser.” Prime was certain this wasn’t the case, but it was fun to yank 2’s chain. “You take this job way too seriously, you know. We’re supposed to be jolly.”
Prime added the new clone to the data, ran through all the numbers again, and saw that with the advent of an additional carrier they would meet quota. They’d never missed a delivery in the fifteen-hundred years he’d run the operation, and they never would, not on his watch anyway.
“But sir …” 2 started, his rosy cheeks going crimson more with frustration than traditional cheeriness. “I just don’t …” He turned his back on Prime and stared out through one of the clear shielding panels that separated them from the cold vacuum of space. The main-sequence star that held them in
its grasp burned a bluish hole in the black of space.
SW3, Prime’s one and only space station, maintained a 1200 AU orbit around Dhruva Tara, also known as Polaris and more formally referred to as UMi A. The station lay cradled in a static, oppositional orbit from UMi B—Polaris’ sister star. Even with the best image enhancing satellites, neither Earth nor any of its colonies would ever be able to detect the station in the bright halo of Ursae Minoris.
“Stuff it, 2,” Prime scolded as he made a discrete summons in his HUD. “Keep this up and I’ll force you to go on a vacation!” Prime punctuated the jovial threat with a hearty, staccato laugh. “How about one of those Vegas worlds with nothing to do but gamble, drink, steal fire trucks, and fend off hookers? Frankly, you could learn a thing or two from 17. He knows the job and the populace of each of his charges. They love him as a result of his behavior and appearance, not in spite of it.”
Prime and 2 turned their collective gaze towards the chamber door that cycled open like a great iris. Having received Prime’s summons through the station-net, three small humanoids wearing green environment suits entered the replication chamber and started working on the second of the three clone-tanks. They started pre-paring it for the imminent creation of 23’s protogenome, whistling quietly as they worked. One of the three technicians opened the tank and began cleaning the inside with a sterilizer, while another followed with a clear synthetic protein that would serve as the placenta for 23. The other humanoids ran through a complex series of diagnostics on a panel at the side of the room, insuring that once impregnated, the clone-chamber would be a suitable womb for the new addition to the family.
“There’s no need to discipline me, Prime. I’m only trying to express my concerns. He just doesn’t seem to maintain the spirit of the season.”
“And you do?” Prime guffawed. “You sound like a mother hen with all that worrying.”
“He doesn’t even wear the uniform when he works! And he’s lost all the weight. The last time I saw him he looked like a mercenary.”
2 stepped up to another console and fiddled with the filter levels of their shielding. He dialed it down ten percent to let in more of Polaris’ bright, blue light.
“They don’t want the uniform on his route, and you know it. Those worlds abolished cellulite with the advent of artificial bodies. He gets all the cosmop worlds where the populations are mostly cyborgs, remember? Think about it, those folks have no more use for archaic symbolism than they do a combustion engine … but they still want our product.” There was a clatter from within the second support-chamber that drew everyone’s attention. The technician, blurry behind the chamber’s cylinder, leaned down and picked up the protein-sprayer that had slipped from his hands. “Careful, son,” Prime admonished gently with a cheery smile. “We can’t afford any mistakes if we’re gonna make our deadlines.”
The small technician bowed slightly within the cylinder, “Yes, Prime. I’m sorry, sir.” Both his voice and appearance were distorted by the curved plexi-shield in front of him.
“It’s alright,” Prime said just as a bright flash of light filled the chamber. A klaxon sounded three times throughout the station.
An old woman’s voice, full of a palpable, cheery brightness, broke in over everyone’s implanted comm-links. “Attention all personnel. Prepare for docking with incoming vessel Baboushka. Teams seven and eight, please stand by in bay twelve for cargo off-load.”
“He’s here,” 2 grumbled, his tone barely on the cheery side of dejected. He stepped up to the window and stared out at the approaching starship. “And look at that rig of his … it looks like a sports-car,” he added under his breath.
“What was that?” Prime asked. He’d heard 2, but he wanted to see if 2 would own up to the bitching.
“Oh … nothing,” 2 muttered. He hit the shade command on the panel before him and shut out the view of Polaris and the offending ship. The internal lighting of the replication pod compensated, bathing them in the soft, artificial light of the panels in the ceiling.
“Come on, 2. Let’s go meet 17 in the bay. I suspect he’s not staying long.”
Prime and 2 left the replication pod and made their way to the central lift complex, cheerfully greeting the small passers-by in their tiny green suits. Everyone smiled, and most were whistling happy tunes full of joy. The entire station was as busy as a kicked anthill, with every soul getting ready for the big night that was only two weeks away. As the lift door closed, a jazzier version of one of Prime’s favorites came in over the speakers. It reminded him of a friend long-passed who had helped Prime find his way centuries before during a particularly nasty blizzard in the Arctic back on Earth. He couldn’t help but smile at the memory and took a moment to reminisce.
2 looked at Prime and noticed the distant look on his face. “How long as it been since you lost him?”
“Hmmmm … must be about nine hundred years now. I wish you could have met him. He had the purest heart I’ve ever met. You would have liked him. You two were a lot alike in some ways.”
2’s face filled with pride. “Thank you, sir.”
“No, I mean it. He was all about the mission. Dogged and relentless.”
The lift came to an almost imperceptible stop, and the door cycled open. The two men stepped out into a massive docking bay, the curve of the outer hull of SW3 bending away to the left and right for hundreds of meters. Most of the bays were empty, but some held large, ungainly-looking cargo vessels tethered to the main hull via dozens of umbilicals.
An array of these snaked their way out to latch onto the more streamlined and racier-looking Baboushka that had just nestled into its docking cradle. Off-load crews gathered around the still-closed cargo-hold door waiting for the umbilicals to finish latching on and equalize the pressure. The starboard passenger hatch of The Baboushka opened before all of the umbilicals had attached themlselves—against regulations, 2 thought to himself—and both Prime and 2 watched a trim figure in a black environment suit step out onto the still-extending platform that slid slowly out from beneath the hatch. He lifted his visor, placed his finger against the side of his nose and disappeared, quickly reappearing below the hatch on the deck-plates of the main bay. He lowered the visor again as he started walking over towards his brothers.
The off-load teams cheered for 17 as he walked through their numbers, and they raised hands to him that he slapped as he went by. Prime smiled at the sight, but 2 frowned.
17 strode jauntily across the deck heading straight for Prime and 2. As he approached, he lifted his hands and flipped the latches at the back of his neck. With a flourish, he lifted off his helmet. 2 gasped in horror at the sight, but Prime only smiled. 17 had shaved the sides of his bushy, long, white hair, leaving a Mohawk that popped straight up like a predator once released from the confines of his helmet. He’d trimmed his beard into a bushy goatee, and he now looked more like a hardcore biker than he did Prime or 2. With his helmet tucked under his left arm, he used his right hand to free his long beard and a long pony-tail that he’d tucked under the rim of his neck-ring. Additionally, he’d had his eyes replaced with cybernetic implants: small cylindrical lenses that glowed with an internal light. The left one was blood red and the right one bright emerald.
“Cheeno, Pops! 2!” 17 said cheerfully as he walked up to them. His smile was as bright as Polaris as they moved in unison to the lift. “Scans square?” he asked as they stepped in and the door closed. A harsh, rhythmic version of Noel Blanc from the French colony world, Versailles, filled the chamber.
17 hit the actuator for the top level of the station.
“I’m fine, 17,” Prime replied jovially. “How about you?” He could feel 2 doing his best not to hyperventilate at the sight of 17.
“Seven up … jump drive on the sleigh needs a tweeker or three. It’s been a bit glitch and hay-o the past week. I’m sure the techs’ll get it mashed before I gotta rescind.”
“How’s your run looking?” 2 asked tersely.
“Also seven up. With what I brought in, quota for all four cosmops should be square as long as I don’t run into too much trouble on the way back.”
“Trouble?” Prime and 2 asked simultaneously.
“Yeah. Tech pirates. Standard jackers around Simma Prime and Jericho. It’s nothing me and Rudy can’t blammo. You know Rudy. Dogged and Relentless.”
“No doubt,” Prime said. “I always liked the name you picked for your AI.” There was distant pride in Prime’s voice. “It’s good luck. He’ll never let you down.”
“He never has,” 17 agreed. “2, could you make sure they stack The Baboushka with those new seeker missiles.”
“Of course, 17,” 2 replied with a dry, business-like tone.
“Nice work on those, by the way.” 17 slapped 2 on the back heartily. “You’re a genius! They really pack smasho!”
2 looked at 17 with a mildly surprised look on his face. He hadn’t expected a compliment from his so-very-untraditional younger brother. “Thank you, 17. That means a lot to me.”
“You make ‘em, I break ‘em, right, 2?” 17 put a hand on 2’s shoulder and squeezed in a brotherly fashion.
2 couldn’t help but smile. “I guess so, 17.”
The lift doors opened and 17 stepped out. “I’m going to go see mother-hen, you guys coming? I bet I can convince her to make some Bûche de Noël for us. I know you want me to put on some weight, 2.” 17 winked with the green eye and smiled at them with rosy cheeks.
“No thanks, 17.” 2 replied a bit more warmly. “We have to get back and make the world ready for 23’s arrival.”
“Marv!” 17 blurted. “I can’t wait to meet him!” The lift doors started to close, but 17 stuck his hand out and it opened back up again.
“Oh, and 2?”
“Yes, 17?”
A great big smile spread across 17’s face and he stared 2 dead in the eyes with those red and green oculars. He took a deep breath, held it, and let out a huge belly-laugh, “HO HO HO ho ho ho!!!”
Out Through the Attic Page 8
