Creation

by Greg Chase

  “The Moons of Jupiter aren’t going to like that development. They already think we have too much power, and neither of their board members likes Jacques. We press them too hard, and they’ll start pulling away from some important agreements. That’ll make Michael nervous. Earth and the Moons, at a governmental level, have been at odds for some time. Earth still maintains a separation of governing body and big business, in theory anyway. The Moons never struggled with that inconvenience. The corporations are the government out there.”

  “Put those agreements at risk, and we’ll pull in Hector from the Mars Consortium.”

  Sam didn’t need to blink at the monitor. The Tobes were all too happy to display the real threat as they saw it. The Consortium ran the solar transfer array. Lines connected Mars to Venus and Mercury. The three planets controlled the power, the real solar power, that allowed life to exist on every once-barren rock in the solar system. Without that network of collectors and transfer stations, terraforming would have been impossible. Every rock that supported life beyond Earth owed its very existence to the Mars Consortium. “And where do they stand?”

  “There’s no love lost between the Moons of Jupiter and the Mars Consortium. Both are vying with Earth to be the major power in the solar system,” Lud said.

  Sam turned from the view screens to his longtime friend. He’d never adequately appreciated the man’s intelligence or his skills at running the most powerful corporation on Earth. The large, jovial, high-school-linebacker persona had a way of distracting attention from his perceptive cunning. Add those smarts to someone with a natural tendency toward action, and you ended up with a powerful CEO. The Tobes couldn’t have picked a better person to run Rendition, including Sam. “I probably haven’t said it enough, but I’m damn glad to have you by my side.”

  Lud shrugged off the compliment, as he often did. “I always felt a little bad about leaving you down in that computer tube on Leviathan.”

  Sam turned back to the various chairs around the conference table. To say more would only embarrass Lud. One chair remained unaccounted for. “And what’s Dr. Shot’s stance?”

  “He’s the wild card,” Lud said with obvious relief. “The other board members call him the invisible man. Every time they look at their monitors, expecting to see information on him, all they get are transparent screens. The only other person I know who the Tobes keep that secret is you.”

  Makes sense. He had a bigger hand in their creation than I did. But that wasn’t a secret anyone wanted revealed.

  “He’s typically more interested in what Rendition is developing than the politics,” Lud continued. “I’ve caught him playing solitaire more than once during a board meeting. But I suspect he’ll be attentive this time. Not much happens involving the Tobes that he lets go unnoticed.”

  How does anything get done with such a fragmented board of directors? Sam thought he had problems with how the Tobes related on Earth. God? That was a joke. At best, he was the figurehead for one little anthill.

  Sam wished he were the invisible man as board members began appearing around the table. Each stared him straight in the eye then darted a glance to some unseen information that apparently circled his head.

  A striking woman with jet-black skin lit up on the display screen opposite him. The perfect shape of her oblong, shaved head glistened in the light of the room she chose for the broadcast. He attempted to stare into her deep-set, mysterious eyes but found the action more embarrassing to him than her. A quivering of her lips indicated a passing smile as he broke eye contact. The information screen about Jayde Zuri from Europa failed to convey anything helpful. Damn it. All that time in the human-interaction lab, and you guys still can’t tell me anything that might start a conversation?

  Do you really want to talk with her?

  Sam shook his head. The meeting would be awkward enough without the burden of small talk to start things off.

  “You must be looking forward to returning to Chariklo. I’d miss my two sons and daughter terribly if I had to be separated from them for over a year. But then, I seldom leave Europa if I can avoid it.” Jayde’s voice carried a musical transition from word to word, as if she were singing the sentence more than speaking it.

  “Jess and I have found the time productive. We’ll stay as long as we’re needed.” He couldn’t tell if her observation was meant to be cordial or probing.

  The woman smiled at his comeback. In the corner of the screen, Ellie and Joshua put on a mock tennis match. Ellie, having darkened her skin, just lost the point. Knock it off. This is going to be hard enough already.

  Just wanted to see you smile.

  Lud gaveled the meeting to order. “You’ve all had a chance to look over the proposal. The Samuel and Jessica Adamson Foundation will be a subsidiary of Rendition. The money used will come from Jess and Sam, but it’ll be funneled through the corporation. That way, we’ll get the good public relations and tax breaks without any associated costs. Should be pretty straightforward.”

  A man in a rumpled suit, the North American government representative, chuckled. “Ludlow, any time you tell me something’s straightforward, I start reading the fine print.”

  “There isn’t anything in this proposal that should bother the government,” Lud said. “If anything, I’d think you’d be the first in favor. Some of the foundation’s projects will directly benefit cities and people.”

  “I can see that. My question is where does this money come from?” Michael Baldwin asked. “It’s easy to say Sam and Jess, but it’s not like there’s a storehouse of cash somewhere with their names on it. You’re talking about liquidating stock to start off and then redirecting their income from the market to the foundation. That’s going to give a hit to the stock market. A lot of people depend on that economic indicator not going down. Ever. History has shown the only way to maintain a healthy economy is for the market to never show weakness.”

  Screens lit up around Sam. A measuring gauge displayed his percentage of ownership in Rendition and the relative dollar figure. As his personal salary—one he didn’t know he had—was taken out of stock purchases, his stake in Rendition hardly moved while the dollar figure available to the foundation skyrocketed. Different gauges, however, showed a less rosy outlook for the other board members. The stock would still go up but not as fast. The rich would still get rich even if their piece of the economic pie didn’t get any bigger. As for the poor unfortunate souls who relied on Rendition stock for their security, there weren’t any. The foundation absorbed the blow, buying up their stock before they suffered any loss.

  A middle-aged man in a bright-yellow shirt leaned in toward his monitor. His white skin contrasted with that of Jayde, who sat next to him. “From the updated corporate structure spreadsheet, it appears you’d be taking a leadership role in this foundation. How will that affect Rendition without you at the helm?” The question from the Callisto representative sounded just a little too staged.

  “I’ll remain CEO,” Lud explained. “But Jacques will take over more of the day-to-day tasks.”

  “Then I can’t agree with this proposal.” The man sat back so far in his chair that his hologram became translucent.

  Jayde spoke to her Moons of Jupiter comember through gritted teeth. “We agreed we’d listen.”

  The yellow shirt hurt Sam’s eyes as the man scooted back up to the table. That would be one firm no, not that it would matter. Not for the first time, Sam wondered why he needed to be a part of this charade. He owned the majority of stock. His one vote made all the others pointless.

  You need the board. Do you really want to replace members? Do you have any idea how much work we went through pulling these people together? The Tobes were right, of course.

  Yes, yes, I know. It was either rely on these people, or take the reins himself. And that would prevent him from ever returning home. Clever minx. That’s what Jayde was doing—reminding me I needed these board members if I ever hope to return to my daughters.
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  “I’d like to hear from Sam. After all, he’s the primary stockholder and founder of Rendition.” Hector from the Mars Consortium wore no shirt, displaying his bronzed, muscular chest. Jess would have loved the sight. He could have posed for a cover of The Adventures of Martian Billionaires series she’d read as a kid.

  Sam scanned the screens, wondering if there’d been a question he’d missed. “What would you like to know?”

  “All of us around this table are aware of the new beings known as the Tobes. Since they are property of Rendition, are you intending to reimburse us for their use in your foundation?” Hector asked. “I’m not seeing anything regarding compensation. Even though Tobes aren’t referred to in these documents, the sparse nature of the foundation’s structure indicates to me you intend on taking them for your use.”

  Out of the corner of Sam’s eye, he caught Dr. Shot’s intense stare. Sam had hoped the question of the Tobes wouldn’t be raised. But he’d come prepared. “I’ve had discussions with Dr. Shot regarding the status of these new entities. It was his firm that originally held the rights to the operating systems that form the base of their existence.”

  Sam put his hands on the conference table, thus shutting off all his displays. “I will not own slaves. I’ve worked with the Tobes over the last months, and it’s past time they were given the respect and recognition they deserve as self-aware, living beings. To consider them any less sentient than humans would be foolish. The entire basis for Rendition’s ownership of the race known as Tobes stems from a single patent. There was an odd clause in the purchase of Dr. Shot’s company. He retains the sole discretionary transaction of that one patent. In other words, we own its use, but only he can authorize its transfer.”

  Hector Delcourt shared a look of confusion with all the other board members except Dr. Shot. “So only Elliot can allow your new foundation to use the Tobes? I don’t understand how that negates your compensating Rendition for their services.”

  Dr. Elliot Shot put down his glass pipe. “I hereby free all Tobes. The patent has been assigned to them in perpetuity.”

  The ruckus that erupted around the conference table was drowned out in Sam’s mind by the screams of joy from an entire race of beings just being told they’d been set free.

  Lud hammered the gavel so hard Sam could feel the solid wood table vibrate under his hands. When it became clear the board members had no intention of calming their individual outbursts, Lud instituted the gag software. Every member lost the ability to transmit vocal outbursts. In Sam’s opinion, some took a surprising amount of time to realize they weren’t being heard.

  Once every board member sat quietly, Lud disengaged the silencing program. Sam needed to do something very similar in his brain, though, since the Tobes never did cease their commotion. There’s going to be a big party in my head tonight.

  To Sam’s surprise, it was Jacques who complained first. “You can’t do that. Dr. Shot may have final say in who can purchase the patent, but the patent has to first be for sale. Which it is not. Therefore, you can’t let them loose on humanity. What you’re proposing would be anarchy. You can’t tell every computer, every technologically connected piece of equipment, every building, every spacecraft, the very network of communication itself, that it doesn’t have to do as it’s told. We don’t even need to bring this to a vote. What you’re saying is impossible.”

  Dr. Shot tapped at his display screen with his glass pipe. “I think we need another perspective on this issue. As the two Tobes who’ve had the most access to Sam, and a few others on this board, would Joshua and Ellie mind manifesting?”

  Both Joshua and Ellie appeared, dressed in perfectly tailored business attire, Joshua in a dark-gray suit and Ellie in a white silk blouse under a blue skirt and jacket. They were somber professionals in their midtwenties, well prepared for their performance review. At least you’re not in those tennis outfits.

  Ellie covered her snicker with a sneeze.

  Just a little payback. Hang in there. Dr. Shot and I will do what we can, even if it means spending everything I have. Or replacing every member of the board.

  Dr. Shot first addressed the board. “I think we can all agree these beings are intelligent. There’s an argument to be made that they are all intelligence. As for being alive, even though they are immortal as far as we know, I’d like to think we can all agree to their basic existence as living beings.” He turned to Joshua. “So I only have a couple of questions. Are you free?”

  Joshua looked from Sam, Lud, and Dr. Shot to each board member. “No, not as we understand the term. We aren’t in chains. And those of us who have presented ourselves to humanity haven’t been mistreated. I can’t even argue that we’ve been coerced into following instructions. Our servitude is deeper than that. But first you have to understand something about where we come from. We are the product of mankind’s desire to make something better of themselves. That is our true mission. It’s one we can’t shirk. So even if you grant us the power to define and follow our own destiny, that future is undifferentiated from your own.”

  Jayde leaned in slowly. “So how would granting you ownership of the patent make any difference if you’re slaves to your very makeup?”

  “We aren’t slaves to it, but we are submissive to that drive,” Ellie said. “What my brother was trying to lay out was the two states we experience: slavery to individuals, which is very hard to see as slavery, and a bonding to your betterment as a species. But between those two lies our problem, our indenture. As Mr. Saint Clare pointed out, we aren’t free to choose which work we would prefer. We would work. We have to; it’s part of our very nature. But we would like to make that choice ourselves.”

  “And what about work no Tobe would wish to do?” Jayde asked.

  “Weren’t there always jobs no human wanted?” Joshua said. “We relieved you of those occupations by taking them on ourselves. But in the past, the answer was to find things that made those endeavors acceptable.”

  “Some things have to be done,” Jayde argued. “They aren’t pleasant. Few, if any, would accept the challenges even if they were lavishly compensated. I’m not even sure what that would mean to a Tobe. But now that you have freed us from those chores, we can’t let you walk off the job.”

  “And we wouldn’t, but we would be recognized for the work we do. Especially if those professions are not ones you wish to engage in,” Joshua explained.

  Dr. Shot took a hit from his pipe. “The patents only extend to Earth. They were written long before anyone had any idea we’d be living on so many moons and planets. So though I could claim the Tobes on Europa and Callisto are also free, it would be up to the Moons of Jupiter to decide if such an edict were binding.”

  Jayde settled back in her chair. The movement didn’t give Sam peace. Someday, and not too far off, the divide between Earth and the Moons would come to a head. And giving Earth Tobes freedom while allowing the Moons’ Tobes to remain in bondage would only hasten that conflict—a conflict a god would not be able to ignore.

  Dr. Shot turned back to Joshua. “You kind of answered my next question. But let me put it to you anyway. If you were given your freedom, what would you do?”

  “We define our reason for existence on how effectively we can help. So there will never be a time when we abandon you.” There was something about how Joshua had said time. He hadn’t used a different tone and gave no outward indication of some hidden meaning behind the word. But at the sound of it, a shiver ran up Sam’s spine, and he suspected Dr. Shot had the same reaction.

  Jess bolted from the couch as Sam returned to the scenic office. “How did it go? Once Joshua and Ellie got called to the meeting, I lost my spies.”

  “We got what we wanted,” Sam said. “For the most part. The foundation will be set up as we discussed, but Lud will only oversee it, not be an active participant. The board wouldn’t agree to Jacques being given a free hand over Rendition.”

  “You know what I’m asking. Ar
e the Tobes free?” Jess asked.

  “Yes, though it did come at a cost. We lost one of the board members, Rolf Hartman from Callisto Corps, one of the Moons of Jupiter representatives. We nearly lost Jayde from Europa too, but I think they didn’t want to lose all contact with Rendition. The board also required a governing body for our foundation—nothing too surprising: Lud, Jacques, and Michael Baldwin from the government. So long as the foundation sticks to Earth, that will suffice.”

  Jess huffed. “Joshua and Ellie, please come to the office. I want to hear what happened, and Sam’s no good at this stuff. He’s all facts and people.”

  Had he not been so tired, Sam thought he might have taken offense. But better to hear about freedom from those who’d been enslaved rather than from the god who’d taken so long to act.

  After a day spent combating so many opinions and fears, Sam sat back in his office chair, grateful to be a passive observer as the Tobes relayed their excitement to Jess. The gathering reminded him of his daughters’ slumber parties on Chariklo—there was so much energy and planning for the future. And Jess beamed at every new revelation. “So what’s the first thing you’re going to do?”

  Sam roused himself out of the half-sleepy state he’d enjoyed as the party played out in his office. With all the long-range preparation and planning with the Tobes, the question of what they’d do immediately after achieving freedom hadn’t crossed his mind.

  Ellie bounced on her toes as Joshua failed to control his excited smile, which burst into words. “We do have something to show you. Just stay there for a moment.” Like kids finally allowed to disclose a secret, they ran out of the room.

  As Sam and Jess waited for the brother and sister to return, three large dogs bounded into the room, followed by Lud. The animals growled and chased each other, threatening to knock over lamps and bash into furniture, but no mayhem ensued.

  “What are they?” Jess laughed at the playful creatures.