The Jovian Sweep (Asteroid Scrabble Book 1)

by Martin Bourne

  Ben and Lilybeth volunteered to bring the first of these emergency pre-packed meals to the dorm cluster. Josie, Celene, Packer and Marilyn were in the middle of an involved discussion on final exams when they returned. The aura surrounding the two was palpable. Lilybeth had an expression of horrified patrician outrage. Ben just looked resigned.

  “So did you get them?” asked Marilyn.

  In response Ben extended his arm out to shoulder height and dropped a long thick tube onto the table. It landed with a dull thud on one end, and then slowly collapsed, or rather flowed, under its own weight, until it lay fully stretched out.

  There was a shocked pause. Packer was the first to recover.

  “What,” he said very slowly, “in the name of all that is Virtuous, is that?”

  The outer covering of the tube was a semi-transparent silvery sheath, with a strange dial arrangement half way along. Inside they could just make out a thick, gnarled brownish object. It had a faintly glistening surface, covered in bumps, ridges, and what appeared to be small clumps of hairs. The thing exuded a positive air of malevolence. If it had been Human it would have been scowling.

  Josie took a vidscroll from Lilybeth’s nerveless hands and scanned it quickly. “It claims to be a DelectaGourm Corporation mark III self-heating sausage.”

  “Self-eating?”giggled Celene.

  “Self-HEATING,” Josie repeated. She read on. “’Provides emergency warm nutritious food in circumstances of power outages or hydroponics failures. No external heating element or cooking device required. The sausage cooks itself by means of…’” she peered closer, “’…an intense, self-contained, short term radiochemical reaction’?”

  “Radiochemical?” interjected Marilyn.

  “That’s what it says.”

  There was a pause. Everyone stared at the object on the table.

  “It sounds hideous,” said Celene at last.

  “Hold on,” said Ben, “you said this was a mark III self-heating sausage?”

  Josie checked the vidscroll, “Yes.”

  “I wonder what became of the mark I and mark II?”

  “There are some questions it’s probably best not to know the answers to.”

  Packer circled the table, his head bobbing up and down, trying to examine their meal to be from every possible angle. “How does it work?” he said at last.

  “Well,” said Josie scanning over the vidscroll, “as far as I can make out, the instructions basically boil down to ‘light the fuse and retire to a safe distance.’”

  “Gimme that!” said Packer, snatching the instructions from her. “Lessee. 'To activate the sausage self-heating capability, unhook the safety clip and twist the activator clockwise ninety degrees,” he read, making hand motions to emphasise his points. “Then take hold of the blue activation pin and pull sharply. Caution: cooking will commence immediately and will last approximately two minutes. Do not touch the sausage during the cooking procedure. Check to see if cooked throughout and discard whole sausage if any part is cold. Warning: Do not eat uncooked. Do not reheat. Do not freeze. Do not add water. Do not expose to radiation. Do not expose to a magnetic source...'”

  “Magnetic source?” said several people at once.

  “'…If you feel burning sensations in the mouth or stomach, or develop any vivid rashes, seek medical advice immediately.'”

  Everyone paused to stare at the sausage.

  “I’m frightened,” said Celene.

  “Oh, come on! It’s hardly going to be poisonous.” Josie reached out and tugged at the safety clip. At her second attempt it clicked open. Instantly there was a long, low whine. Everyone recoiled.

  “What was that,” asked Lilybeth.

  Packer checked the instructions again. “It doesn’t say.”

  The whining stopped. The sausage lay there, balefully.

  Josie squared her shoulders and approached it. “OK what next?”

  “Turn the activator.”

  “This thing here?” Josie motioned to a flat piece of white plastic on the cylinder with a switch, also in white. On the top of it was a blue tab.

  “Yes, ninety degrees. To the right.”

  Josie turned the switch. When it was in line with the length of the sausage there was a click and the blue tab sprang out.

  “That must be the activation pin,” said Packer, perusing the vidscroll.

  “Look closely,” said Celene. “It doesn’t say ‘armed’ now does it?”

  “Hah ha,” said Josie. “Ok I’m going to pull it. Everyone ready?”

  Nobody replied. Josie took this as a sign of acceptance and tugged at the plastic blue tab. It didn’t move. She tugged again, and succeeded only in dragging the entire sausage half way across the table. Taking hold of the flat piece of white plastic with her left hand to keep the sausage in place she tugged again. The tab came out with a pop.

  Instantly there was a faint, fizzing sound. It grew rapidly in volume to an odd griddling noise. Josie looked round. Everyone had involuntarily stepped back. When the sausage began to writhe on the table, she did the same. The sausage juddered as fearsome chemical reactions coursed through it. There was a collective gasp from everyone as its movement turned into a sinuous undulation. Quick, sharp jets of steam began to spurt out at odd angles. Everyone drew back even further, except for Lilybeth, who dived beneath her sheets with a squeal.

  “The slagging thing is alive!”

  The griddling noise rose to a high, tortured screech. The sausage positively rocked on the table. Pulses of orange and red flowed up and down its length. The screeching rose to a dramatic crescendo and the sausage gave a sudden violent jerk that lifted it completely a noticeable distance into the air.

  Celene clutched at Josie’s arm in semi-mock fear. “I want my dam!”

  There was a chorus of forced laughs. Then the chorus of sound slowly began to decline, in an erratic, almost grudging way. The wayward jets of steam became less common. The erratic twitching continued, but became less frequent, less wild. It was like the sausage was fighting a rearguard action, slowly subsiding, but occasionally turning to flail at some imaginary assailant. Finally it went still. There was a pause, which lasted just long enough for everyone to regain their composure. Then, when they were least expecting it, there was a sharp unzipping sound. Everyone jumped.

  The silver foil had peeled back, revealing a gently steaming, stodgy brown interior.

  Nobody moved.

  “I think it’s done,” said Marilyn after a while.

  “I think we’ll be done if we eat it,” said Packer.

  Lilybeth peered over from behind her bunk. “I’m not going anywhere near that until I’ve seen an autopsy report!”

  “Oh come on Lilybeth,” said Josie as she pulled a serrated utility spork out of her mess kit. “You can’t just judge by appearances.”

  “Oh don’t worry, I’m not.”

  Josie, eating utensil raised like a weapon, approached the now immobile sausage.

  “Careful Jose,” said Celene. “It might go for you.”

  Gingerly Josie reached out and used the serrated edge of her spork to slice open the top skin. A thick, grey, sludge-like gruel, knobbly and freckled with black and red, oozed slowly and thickly out.

  “It's like you've burst an alien's cyst,” said Packer. There was a chorus of feminine disgust at the analogy.

  Josie carefully loaded some of the gruel onto her spoon. Lilybeth watched with a horrified expression.

  “If you eat that Tallion, I’ll take back everything I ever said about Callistoans.”

  “Then the honour of my homeland is at stake.” Josie took a deep breath, very conscious of being watched by everyone, and then quickly delivered the chunk of sausage into her mouth and began to chew.

  “That is incredible,” she said at last.

  “It is?”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yes,” said Josie. “Seriously. I have never eaten anything like it.”

  Celene too
k her own all purpose eating instrument, dug out a piece of the sausage, popped it into her mouth, and promptly let out a squeal.

  “URGH!” Celene raised a hand to her open mouth and dropped a ball of half-chewed sausage into it. Her pretty eyes were wide and filled with alarm and tears. “Thatsh ish awful!”

  Josie grinned. “When I said it was incredible, I didn’t mean incredibly good.”

  “Yoush might have shaid that before I atech any!”

  “I wanted you to share the experience.”

  “What’s it like?” asked Packer.

  Celene gave another yelp of disgust, followed by several decidedly undignified pitting sounds as she strove to remove bits of sausage from her teeth.

  “It has utterly and absolutely no flavour whatsoever,” said Josie. “Honestly. None at all. I don’t know how DelectoGourm has managed to do that. I mean everything should taste of something, right? But this is just utterly bland.”

  Packer sliced off a lump with his own utility spoon, placed it into his mouth, and chewed gingerly. “You’re right. It’s like eating liquidised styrofoam.”

  “Right,” said Josie, “plates everyone.”

  “Not me,” said Lilybeth.

  “I’ll pass too,” said Marilyn.

  Celene signified her agreement with an ominous series of retching sounds.

  “You haven’t got much of a choice,” said Josie, spooning sausage onto a plate for Ben. “There’s nothing else to eat.”

  “I don’t care,” said Lilybeth. “I was looking for a good excuse to kick-start a diet and this is the best one I’ll ever come across.”

  Marilyn, looking miserable, eventually accepted. Ben was already chewing stoically away. He was making hard work of it.

  “What do you think Ben?” asked Josie.

  With an effort Ben swallowed, paused, and then looked at his plate sadly. “I think it’s going to be a very long war.”

  “It’s not that bad,” pronounced Marilyn.

  “Yes,” said Packer, his lips twisting. “It is.”

  That would have been the cue for the traditional social ritual of one-upping each other in describing the vagaries of navy cuisine, but it was cut short by an electronic squeal from the ship-wide comms system.

  “Stand by for broadcast, stand by for broadcast. This is an important announcement concerning duty rosters. The new training timetables for Link Warrior cadets have been completed and downloaded. They are now available on your personal computers. Be aware that substantial changes have been made. You are advised to check your new schedules carefully. These changes are an essential part of our new training strategy. End of broadcast.”

  Submission to authority, even if it was represented by a disembodied voice, had been drummed into Josie from an early age. Callisto worked that way. Fear caused parents to conform; children naturally copied parents and the ultimate result was a culture of deference that meant the reason for fear rarely had to be confirmed. Josie was an adult now, but early conditioning was hard to overcome. She waited politely until the broadcast completed. When she turned to discuss this latest development, she found that the others, native Couragers all, were already pounding at their perscomps and expressing surprise and consternation.

  “I’ve got advanced sensors two for six hours straight tomorrow!”

  “Comms followed by a rest period and then a turn on the simulators for me.”

  “Lucky!”

  Celene considered her perscomp. “It’s not too bad.” She noticed everyone’s expression, realised she had broken the social rule of dissatisfaction with anything navy, and recovered. “Well, it could have been worse. What’s your schedule Jose?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Josie found the downloaded file, pressed accept, and got a profound shock.

  Each day had a maximum of five two-hour lesson slots. That made thirty-five in total over a week. She was starting three of the days with a two hour systems engineering course, and everything else was marked “private study”. There wasn’t even a single simulator session. Stunned, she turned the perscomp around so Celene could see.

  “Wow that is one easy schedule!”

  Exasperated, Josie jerked her arm back.

  “I don’t think they are taking it easy on me. Quite the reverse actually.”

  Celene’s eyes widened. “You mean…they can’t do that!”

  “There doesn’t seem much to stop them.”

  “You have a Cadet contract! They have to train you!”

  “My contract is a bit more restricted than yours.” Or anyone else’s for that matter. She hadn’t been able to afford anything more than the very basic requirements. Several times the navy had put upon her by invoking some obscure ruling she had no defence against, like delaying paying her for the first ten months of her service for example.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Contacting Mohan. This might be a mistake.”

  “You shouldn’t be going through him…” Celene’s voice trailed away.

  She shouldn’t. But she had a feeling he would be able to enlighten her faster than anyone. Her perscomp established the link.

  “Tallion? Why am I being disturbed by you?”

  Josie bit back a retort. “Sir, I have a query about my new schedule, it seems…”

  “Talk to your personnel officer.”

  “…it seems, sir, that I have lessons in only one of my subjects, and no simulator time at all.”

  “Simulator time is valuable on this ship Tallion. So too are instructor hours. We have to prioritise both.”

  It was nothing more than she expected, but she felt the blood draining from her face.

  “I’m not quite sure I understand sir.”

  “It’s very simple Tallion. We only have so many instructors and simulators, and therefore it’s essential we concentrate on teaching the best students first. The weaker ones, like you, will have to wait their turn.”

  “I’m likely to remain weaker without any training.”

  She heard a collective mass of indrawn breath. Looking up, she was conscious of everyone staring at her.

  “That insubordinate comment just earned you a demerit Tallion. Now stop whining. The schedules have been set. If you had bothered to put more work into your studies you wouldn’t be at the back of the queue.”

  The perscomp vid link dropped. All that was left was the stares of her fellow cadets.

  “What a complete vacuum head,” said Packer at last, breaking the tension.

  “Mohan, or me?” asked Josie.

  “Mohan of course,” exclaimed Celene. “Josie, you study harder than anyone.”

  “I do?”

  “Sure! Well you’re going for four majors aren’t you?”

  Josie slipped off her perscomp. “Well, it seems I have three systems engineering classes and a lot of free time this week.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Ben brightly.

  “We’re on Belofte,” Packer pointed out.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Celene put her arm around Josie. “Never mind Jose. I’ll lend you my notes. You’ll be able to keep up with the written theory stuff at least.”

  They both knew that was no substitute for practical simulator experience. Josie forced a smile.

  “Thanks Celene.”

  **************************************************

  By the end of the third day Josie had just about memorised the vid notes. Her few advanced systems engineering lessons had been disappointing. They were very theory-based and definitely sleep-inducing. Her classmates were all techies and ignored her. As soon as the lecture was finished they all rushed out, leaving her alone to ponder what she had been told on her own.

  None of it made much sense. It was all too abstract. Perhaps if she went back through the Tech sheds she might bump into Dinjer. He could tie the theory to reality, if anyone could. Buoyed by the idea, she threw all the class vidscrolls into her carryall and hurried out.

  It turned out to be rat
her quiet in the Tech sheds. She ambled through. There was no sign of Dinjer. As nonchalantly as she could, she checked what was going on. One group of techies was arrayed around a drinks machine, laughing and joking. Another was involved in a head-scratching session around a partially disassembled “Classic” drone. A middle-aged man was machining something on a workbench.

  Disappointed, Josie was about to walk out, when something caught her eye. A continuous strobe of light, it was coming from a series of circuit boards nestled in a drone containment rig. The strobing seemed oddly familiar. It looked like the starting signal for a link tie in. As she peered closer, she realised the boards were part of a stripped down drone. The unfamiliar orientation had confused her – it was being held upside down in a rig. Intrigued, she leaned forward to get a better view. It looked like a sensor interface, but it was huge - certainly not one she was familiar with. If she could get hold of a multiscanner maybe she could…

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

  Josie’s head banged hard on the drone rig. Through watering eyes, she saw a beefy red-faced chief bearing down on her.

  “Yes! You! Don’t try and hide!”

  The sudden pain and the obvious injustice of the accusation left Josie standing and staring, open-mouthed.

  The Chief bustled up to her. Burly, self-confident and very much in his own kingdom, he obviously wasn’t going to take any nonsense from her.

  “Clear out! We got enough problems without some rookie link warrior messing around with the equipment!”

  “I’m doing systems engineering Chief,” she stammered.

  “Don’t make me laugh. Link Warriors operate drones. Link Warriors break drones. They don’t need to know anything else. Get out of my sheds, before you break...”

  A deckhand skidded to a halt to one side of them.

  “Chief? You’re wanted.”

  “What?” The Chief looked around, saw something out of Josie’s eye line, and pursed his lips. “Stay right there,” he said, and strode off. “And don’t touch anything.” Josie shifted from one leg to another, all the time rubbing her head. She chanced a quick glance round. The Chief was in a cloud of weld smoke, stood very straight, making clipped monosyllabic answers and saluting. She couldn’t quite make out who he was talking to, but it looked like...