Pandora’s Crew (StarWings Book 1)

by Gorg Huff

“Mem weighting?” asked a girl’s voice, and another image came on the screen. This one of a young, dark-haired girl, maybe ten, perhaps a bit older than that.

  “Jenny!” Captain Gold said sharply, but there was a bit of a grin on the captain’s face and in his voice. “We were having a discussion.”

  “Memory weighting,” Gerhard said, “is how neural nets carry their understanding—their selves, if you will—in a matrix of weighted values. When you copy the weights, you, for the most part, copy the artificial mind to a new home. And it can get a little metaphysical.”

  “So Pan has told me,” Captain Gold said. “Though she doesn’t agree with you that the self is fully transferred. Is there someone we could talk to about getting the suit-bot repaired? I don’t want to take up any more of your time than we need to.”

  “Frankly, it sounds like an interesting problem, and I could use an interesting problem just about now. Where are you and where is this bot?”

  “We’re on the Pan.” Captain Gold gave the coordinates. “If you’re interested, we could send our ship’s boat to give you a ride.”

  Gerhard sent Sally a request for his schedule and got it back. He had a practically empty class to teach this afternoon, then nothing until the day after tomorrow. It was amazing how many students dropped his class after the Institute’s response to his last paper. So far he was just curious about these people, but it wasn’t like he had a lot else to do.

  “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you send your ship’s boat for me tomorrow morning about eight.” It should be less than an hour’s flight between the Pan’s orbit and Station Seven.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  That night at dinner, Gerhard mentioned the appointment, over potatoes and soybeef fritters. The table was set with a white stain-resistant cloth and the girls were wearing their play clothes. Except for Geri, who was down to diaper pants again. She was always stripping off. It didn’t bode well for her future.

  “Whatever for?” asked Rosita, still in her scholar’s robe.

  “Archaeological interest.” Gerhard smiled at his wife. “For that matter, you ought to come along. There’s a member of the Gold Line who is no longer with the line, and a little girl with an odd accent. Sally, what was that accent?”

  “Bonks stationer, with some Bonks grounder thrown in,” Sally told the table.

  “Can I go?” Angi asked, wearing a milk mustache.

  “Me too,” chimed in little Rosita, followed quickly by Geri.

  His wife was no help at all, and Robert was just sitting there, in an old ship’s jumpsuit, grinning at him.

  “What? Would you leave your daddy here all alone?” Gerhard asked, without much hope of diversion.

  “Daddy can come too. He’s a spacer, after all,” Angi said with seven-year-old finality.

  “So far we don’t have permission for anyone but me,” Gerhard said as repressively as he could manage. Meanwhile his traitor wife was grinning at his discomfort.

  “Sally,” Angi said without hesitation, “call the Pandora and get us permission.” Then she gave Gerhard a smug look.

  Sally reported. “Pandora assures me that the ship’s boat will carry all of you.”

  “Well, in that case, why don’t you come along too, Rosita? Sally says your schedule is clear for the morning, or at least clearable.”

  “No, I don’t think so. The meeting with Professor Dunlavey is fairly important, and he’s just the sort to get in a snit over my rescheduling. You all have fun.”

  Location: Schmitz Apartment, Station Seven

  Standard Date: 06 20 630

  Robert grabbed Geri as she ran by. The carpet was deep pile, forest green, and this far from the core of the station you could barely see the curve of the deck.

  Geri saw little reason for clothing. She was three, and they lived in a controlled environment. It didn’t get chilly unless he told the house computer to make it chilly and when he did Geri whined rather than putting on clothing. At least she was wearing her pull ups.

  “Come on, Geri. You wanted to come, so you have to wear your suit.” The suit was a plastic sack in the shape of a little girl. It had a lavender cartoon cragbeast stenciled onto the plastic, and it had a locator beacon that automatically sent a distress signal if the external pressure dropped below eight PSI. No one on the station would bother with it just to go for a ride on a ship’s boat. No one in the Institute part of the station anyway, except Robert. Of course, none of the “piled higher and deeper” around here had ever been a deckhand on a tramp freighter, either.

  “Why!” Geri more yelled than asked. “Why” was her favorite word at the moment.

  “Because you wanted to go.”

  “Why!”

  “Because your sisters wanted to go.” Robert managed to get the first leg into the safety-suit.

  “Why are you bothering with the suit?” Dad asked.

  Robert blinked and turned to his father just as Geri said, “See,” and started trying to pull off the safety-suit.

  “Because, Dad, I have experience in space.”

  “Of course. We’re in space now. We live in space, Robert.”

  “Daddy’s in trouble again.” Little Rosita giggled.

  Robert gave his middle daughter a look and Rosita subsided. Then he turned to his father. “No, Dad, we live in a space station. Fourteen airlocks from the nearest vacuum. With safety and security systems by the shi—” Robert paused and looked at the girls “—ship load, to make sure that we are never exposed to that vacuum. That has about the same relationship to living in space that living in a garden has to living in the howling wilderness.”

  Gerhard Schmitz snorted, clearly unconvinced. “I need you to run to the storage locker and pick up a crate.”

  “Why!” Geri asked loudly.

  “Good question,” said Robert, looking at his father.

  “Because—” Gerhard looked at the three little girls, then said, “Let’s talk over there.”

  Robert looked at his dad, then at his daughters. “Angi, help Geri and Rosita with their safety suits, while I talk to Granddad.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Once in the breakfast nook, Robert asked quietly, “What’s this all about, Dad?”

  “It’s nothing. Just, some of the testing gear I’m going to need to examine the suit-bot is in a locker near the central core.”

  “Fine. So why don’t you go get it?”

  “Well . . . it’s in your locker.”

  “I don’t have a locker.”

  “Well . . . technically, you do.”

  “I didn’t rent a locker. I never signed for the rental of a locker.”

  “Well . . . I have a limited power of attorney. You know that. I had Sally do it based on that, so it wasn’t actually a forgery.”

  “Dad . . . what are you talking about?”

  “They were going to junk it.”

  “Junk what!” It’s hard to bellow and whisper at the same time, but Robert Schmitz came pretty close.

  “Testing gear, repair equipment, small-scale manufacturing units. All stored away in crates. I need you to pick up one of the crates,” Gerhard explained. “None of it’s illegal. Nothing criminal. Not exactly.”

  “What exactly then, Dad?” Robert might not be an academic, but he had been raised in a house full of them.

  “Well, if I had bought them, it could be construed as a conflict of interest.”

  “So you used your son’s name? Smart, Dad. Real smart.”

  “No. I set up a front company. Several layers of front companies. It’s just that ultimately you and the girls own the front companies.”

  “And how much of the money that Mom is upset about you wasting on me and the girls is tied up in these front companies?”

  “Not that much. Well, some. But I’ve been doing consulting work on the side for years, and that’s where a lot of the money to buy the gear came from.”

  “Dad . . . how long have I owned this company?”

  “Ah
. . . since shortly after you married Angi Farnsik. But you have to understand, they were going to trash the equipment. Anyway, I need you to go get the stuff. You’re authorized to, as an officer of the company. But the important point is that I’m afraid that Tom Ridge is liable to issue a warrant to search my files, or follow me, or something.”

  Robert looked at his father. “You really think Magistrate Ridge would sign off on a warrant?” The Cordoba Combine, as a matter of policy, disapproved of local governments issuing warrants against its stockholders. This was as much a subtle show of force on the part of the Combine as out of concern for its stockholders. If the local government had enough evidence, or the suspected crime was heinous enough, they would make exceptions.

  “Ridge is a barbarian,” Gerhard said. “And he’s been cozying up to the Human First party.”

  Robert considered for a minute. “All right, Dad. I’ll get your crate, but you and I are going to have a little talk this evening about the finances of my companies.”

  “Fine.” Gerhard flicked a finger bringing up the time display. “But get a move on. I’ll get the girls and we’ll meet you at the lock.”

  “Okay, Dad, but if the girls aren’t in their suits when I get there, we’re going home, and my crate from my locker is going out the lock into space.”

  Chapter 13

  When bureaucratic procedures become more important than the people the bureau serves, it’s probably too late to save the society. The only option is to run away and start over somewhere new.

  From The Founding of the Federation by Dr. Angi Schmitz,

  Standard Year 675

  Danworth System, Station Seven Dock

  Standard Date: 06 20 630

  As he walked up to the docking bay, Robert looked through the thick duraglas ports. It was a standard bay, opened to vacuum, but with a floor for shuttles to land on. Once a shuttle landed, the docking arm moved out to mate with the shuttle, ship’s boat, or other small space-going craft, and took the boarding tube with it.

  This ship’s boat was old, and looked as out of place in the university station’s pristine docking bay as a drunken spacer on the university quad.

  The girls were in safety-suits, so the trunk-sized crate his father wanted didn’t go out the airlock.

  The girls wore the least expensive sort of suits, little more than plastic rain suits, but they were airtight in an emergency. Robert still had his work suit. It wasn’t a true flexsuit, but one of the compromises that the modern tailor-bots made. Dad had a safety-suit, a bit better than the girls’, but not a working suit.

  Dad was talking to a golden-skinned man wearing a captain’s cap. The captain turned to Robert and, holding out a hand, said, “Welcome aboard. I agree with you about the suits.”

  “Why!” asked Geri. “You’re not wearing one.”

  The captain shook Robert’s hand as he looked at Geri, and said, “I’ll explain once we get settled into the ship’s boat.” Then he waved at the opened lock to the boarding tube. And they all went through to the ship’s boat.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “Why aren’t you wearing a suit?” the little girl asked after Danny had the boat moving.

  “Because it’s built into me,” Danny said.

  “I didn’t know the Gold Line was adapted to space?” Doctor Schmitz said.

  “Most of them aren’t. I was an experiment. They wanted someone in the family to run the Pan, so they tweaked me a bit. I believe they are selling the mod now.”

  “They?”

  “I’m a remittance man, Professor, and we’re coming up on my remittance now.”

  “Nice remittance,” said Robert. “Dad, how much would I have to scandalize the family for you to buy me a ship like that?”

  Danny laughed at that. “As a member of the Gold Line who had passed all the tests, I was entitled to . . . well, rather a lot. It was better for everyone if I left.” One difference between the superman-builders of Cybrant Five and previous nuts along the same line was that the Cybrant Five variety was perfectly willing to cull drastically. Some were killed and a lot were sterilized, a few had limited licenses, and a very few had full licenses. Who got what was based on a series of tests that themselves killed a certain percentage of the participants. Danny passed them all, which in the normal course of events would have entitled him to a position of leisure on Cybrant Five. The problem was that Danny really couldn’t stomach Cybrant Five . . . and the people of Cybrant Five couldn’t stomach Danny.

  “Aren’t you in enough trouble with your mother?” Gerhard asked Robert.

  “One of us is,” Robert said.

  Danny wondered what was going on, but decided it was probably best to change the subject. “The Pan has thirty-two million cubic meters of internal space. About half that is available for cargo, which is pretty good for a small ship.”

  “Yes, it is,” Robert agreed. “That’s what makes the smaller ships so hard to run at a profit. When over half your space is engines and fuel, you’re spending a heck of a lot toting the ship around.”

  Danny nodded, but by then they were getting close to the gigantic barrel-shape that was the Pandora. They docked and Danny introduced everyone to the crew.

  And he saw Robert’s expression. He knew the young man was displeased by something, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Danny physically looked younger than Robert Schmitz, but looks were deceiving. Danny was probably closer to the professor’s age. Still, Danny liked what he saw of the young man. He was conscientious and he had the feel of an experienced spacer. “Where did you serve, Robert?”

  “I was on the Cordoba merchantman Rickkity Split, officially the Ricardo Silvin. I was an able spacer and turned my hand to most jobs before I met Angi.”

  “I take it Angi is the girls’ mother?” Danny asked.

  “Was,” Robert said. “She was in that dustup with the Drakes in the Conner chain.”

  “I heard about that. Was she Spaceforce ?”

  “A chief petty officer aboard the Gordon.”

  Danny winced. The Gordon was hit by a hunter-nuke not that different from the one that the Brass Hind sent at the Pan. Lost with all hands. Not even bodies to bury, just radioactive gas. And it had all ended in the same stalemate that existed before the campaign. This visit was turning into something of a conversational minefield.

  “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we let your dad have a look at the suit-bot and I can show you and your girls around the Pan. Even introduce them to Jenny, our ship’s girl.”

  “What’s a ship’s girl?” asked the oldest child. Angi, that was.

  Danny explained the duties of a ship’s girl, at which point the three girls all decided they wanted to be ship’s girls too. Danny grinned and shrugged at Robert, and continued the tour. When they got to the gardens, the girls got to meet Jenny, who seemed very grown-up to them with her extra three years. Danny managed to leave the girls with Jenny, with Pan watching out for them.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “You need to be careful of that,” Robert told the captain as they left the girls in the garden. “My dad’s a cyberneticist, and I grew up with his assistant, Sally. But most people aren’t that comfortable with ship brains.”

  They turned a corner into a long corridor with rooms on either side. “Why not?” the captain asked. This is the crew quarters, by the way. Berths for twenty. More, if they’re friendly.”

  “Nice, Captain. But about the ship’s brain . . . there have been incidents of artificial brains ‘going feral,’ “ Robert said. “And before you tell me how rare it is, Pandora, I already know. But, in a way, that makes it worse. Every time an artificial goes bonkers, it’s news all over explored space. And let’s face it, if that artificial controls a ship or a station, it can kill a lot of people.” It was true that Robert was raised by a cyberneticist, but it was also true that he spent a couple of decades among the spacers of the Cordoba chains. And if they weren’t as rabidly anti-artificial as the Drakes, they were getting more so. T
o the extent that Robert found himself uncomfortable around Sally after he moved back in with Mom and Dad—and Robert had known Sally all his life.

  He knew that the Pandora was probably a perfectly nice artificial. At least, he knew it in his head. He was a bit less confident about it in his gut.

  Then they rounded another corner into the lounge. And there was a Parthian. Squatting on a round stool sort of thing, with a computer in front of it and its eyestalks looking at two different screens. For the moment, Robert forgot all about the Pan and stared at the Parthian.

  The captain made introductions. “Robert Schmitz, this is Checkgok. At least, that’s about as close as the human voice can get to the Parthian clicks and whistles. Checkgok is the merchant for Clan Zheck, and our merchant aboard. We’ve gotten good prices for most of our cargo, but we are starting to wonder how good, considering how expensive everything is here in the more civilized part of the Cordoba chains.”

  “What products are available here?” The Parthian turned one of its eyestalks to Robert. “That you are aware of? And do you have any idea why everything is so expensive?”

  “Well, they aren’t. At least, not everything,” Robert said. “We make excellent nuclear batteries here. Danworth has a great deal of farm produce, and this is perhaps the least expensive place in the Cordoba chains to have human-computer interfaces done.”

  “What about Parthian-computer interfaces?” the ship asked.

  Robert saw the Parthian’s . . . mouth, he thought it was . . . scrunch up and assumed that the alien wasn’t thrilled with the idea. “I don’t know, but if it can be done, this is probably the place to do it. Also, if you were in the market for a spaceship, this would be a good place to buy it. And major components for stations and station construction ships are made here.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Pandora continued to monitor and occasionally comment as the captain, Checkgok, and Able Spacer Robert Schmitz talked about trade.

  John Gabriel was running a drone that was repairing a scratch on the stern D quadrant, where a micro-meteor hit. That was something that happened now and then. Pan was observing and running a drone that was fetching tools and holding bits in place so that John wasn’t constantly having to switch between drones.