They ate around Taras’ table. She made a point of saying it was nice to see all the seats filled again, which brought another prolonged silence. After they ate, they sat in the main room watching one of Taras’ shows as she explained the various cultural meanings in the odd dialog. Andy started a game with Tim where they pointed out various items that hadn’t changed in seven-hundred years.
“Spoon!” Tim shouted.
“I already said silverware,” Andy said. “That’s cheating.”
When it was finally time to sleep, Andy left Brit with Taras and herded the kids off the bathroom to get ready for bed. If they were talking again, they maintained their own channel. He didn’t hear their voices. In the spare bedroom that had also served as Jonathan’s study, Andy and the children spent a half hour looking at his collection of printed books. It appeared that Jonathan had liked them for being actual books rather than any specific subject. One book he had opened carefully was a novel, while another was a technical manual describing hydraulic systems. Tim and Cara loved the pictures.
The next day they went to a local cafe for breakfast since Taras didn’t have any food. Andy suggested visiting a grocery and Taras didn’t seem to care. Brit said no, which seemed to suggest that buying groceries meant they would be staying.
After breakfast, they caught another train to the outer rim and the chapel where Jonathan’s ceremony had been held. Luna was only a white sliver this time, but they could make out the glowing cities on the dark side and the kids argued about which was New Austin until Andy shushed them. The view was still impressive and the kids had a good time pressing their faces to the wall-to-ceiling windows that made it seem like they were falling into space.
As the kids ran around, Andy scanned shipping schedules over his Link, checking for jobs.
Brit had been gazing out the windows, arms crossed. She turned to face him with tears in her eyes.
Andy moved closer and wrapped his arms around her from behind. He kissed her neck.
she said. He knew immediately she was talking about 8221.
He sighed. It was a conversation they’d had many times.
Her voice resonated with such vitriol that he didn’t know what to do. Should he hold her tighter, or push her away and pull the kids into a hug to protect them from her anger?
She didn’t respond. Eventually Andy let go and walked over to the kids, raising his arms to make a monster reflection in the black window.
* * * * *
Brit was distant on the train ride back to the shuttle terminal. Taras had given them weak hugs when saying goodbye. She had patted Andy on the back as he picked up the bags.
“I’m glad you came,” she said, “It was good to see you,” in a way that made him wonder if he would ever see her again.
The bags were heavier with Jonathan’s collection of printed books. When Cara expressed interest in them, Taras waved a hand and said, “Take them,” as if they had been talking about kitchen scraps.
Andy stopped at a kiosk to pay the berthing fees as Brit took the kids to the shuttle. He experienced an unsettling feeling as he watched them walk away from him, growing more hidden in the crowd as people crossed between them. Brit was holding Tim’s hand with Cara following behind, but she never looked down at Tim. Her gaze was fixed ahead as if the children were no different than the bags she carried.
A fear rose in him that he couldn’t explain. He fumbled with the payment options as he rushed through the menus, grabbing glances over his shoulder so he wouldn’t lose them completely. When he finally completed the transaction, he turned back to the crowd and they were gone.
He slung the book-heavy bags over his shoulders and pushed his way through the crowd, heart pounding, not caring who complained as he shoved them out of his way. The combat-control overcame him. He was ready to break the neck of anyone between him and his family. It was an irrational feeling, he knew, but he couldn’t free himself of the fear that he was losing them.
Andy was sweating when he reached the shuttle. The door opened to his token and he rushed inside. Brit looked up from the pilot’s seat and gave him a concerned smile. “You all right?” she asked.
Tim roared like a dinosaur and grabbed his legs. “I’ve got you!” he shouted.
Andy took a deep breath and nodded. He dropped the bags and hugged Tim against his leg. Cara dragged the bags to a cabinet and pushed them inside.
“Books are heavy!” she said. “No wonder they’re obsolete.”
Brit took his hand as he slid into the co-pilot’s seat and the kids buckled into two of the jump seats on either side of the center aisle.
“Off we go,” she said and gave him a smile.
Andy faced forward, unable to completely shake his sense of dread.
* * * * *
When she left that night, Brit’s message said only, “I have to help them.”
She had written the words on a piece of paper torn from one of her dad’s books. He found it lying on his pillow after putting the kids to bed.
He immediately tried to reach her over the Link but got no response. The shuttle was still on-board. He checked the ship’s logs and found where Airlock One had cycled in response to her EV suit. After that, nothing.
Andy sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing the paper between his fingers until it grew soft. He could only assume ‘them’ in the message were the kids from Fortress 8221. Innocent kids whose minds had been pulled somewhere else, leaving only their empty bodies attached to a network, or thrown into cold storage when they expired. Like Kylan Carthage.
He knew it wouldn’t do any good to call Taras. He looked around the bedroom, the center of the world they had made together, the clippings and trinkets collected as they had crisscrossed from OuterSol to InnerSol.
A ping came through from the company offering the bonus to ship their cargo within four hours. The destination was Ceres, a good two-week trip. He had the fuel and supplies. The money was good.
He set the torn page on the shelf next the bed and rubbed his temples, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He squeezed his eyes closed and let the despair roll over him, let the pain rise in a hard sob that shook his whole body. Tears burned the edges of his eyes. He held the sides of his face and dug his elbows into his legs until it hurt. His face tightened in a knot, ragged lines filling his closed eye-lids.
Then Andy sucked breath through his nose and straightened. He dropped his hands, blinking away the tears and let the breath out slowly, composing himself.
She wasn’t gone. She was only taking a trip. The story came together in his mind. She had a task to complete and when it was done she would come home. In the meanwhile, they had to keep working, keep taking care of Sunny Skies, finishing the kid’s lessons, keep being a family. They would be he
re when she came home.
Andy took another deep breath and let it out, feeling better, like he had a plan. He accepted the job.
Chapter Forty-One
STELLAR DATE: 09.05.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sunny Skies
REGION: Approaching Mars, Mars Protectorate
Andy couldn’t sleep. He walked the empty corridor of the habitat ring, listening at Cara’s door and then Tim’s, comforted by their even breathing. Petral and Fran had taken separate rooms on the other side of the kitchen near the hydroponic garden.
While he had never considered taking on a crew, the number of empty rooms in the habitat ring alone made him realize he had the space for more people. Maybe Fran was right that he’d been spinning his wheels for no reason, trying to plug every hole on his own when there was no reason for it. A crew could mean more cargo, longer runs, less stress. He could spend time with the kids. With Starl’s money, he finally had the startup funds for a real freight operation.
Petral had already said she was going to leave and Fran still seemed on the fence. How else would he go about finding people he could trust around the kids?
Without meaning to, he found himself at the access shaft to the center of the ship. Andy dropped toward the airlock and had to stop himself from reaching for the cabinet holding the EV suits.
“Never getting used to heating the whole ship,” he grumbled to himself. “It’s a waste of energy on principle, if anything.”
Andy cycled through the airlock and kicked off into the zero-g section. He followed the long curve toward Airlock One, which Fran had just finished piecing back together, asking him with a grin, “What are you going to blow up next, Captain Sykes?”
As he pulled himself along with the bulkhead ribs, he passed several of the kids’ old drawings, split by replaced sections of plas, and wondered what he could do to get them down here drawing again. Cara would complain she was too old now and Tim couldn’t seem to focus on anything for an extended period—except for the poetry book. Andy considered using reverse psychology by taunting them with his own weak drawing skills.
When he had nearly reached the external airlock, he paused next to one of the old sections of the bulkhead and braced himself to push against an overhead portion of the nearest rib. The alloy fought him for a minute, scraping his knuckles, before sliding to the side to reveal a shallow access panel. Reaching inside, he pulled out the TSF rifle, plasma pistol, and two pulse pistols he’d used to fight the Weapon Born three days ago.
Andy found himself talking like his dad when he interacted with Lyssa, trying to draw her out, keep her talking. Mess with her, basically. So far, she sounded like a teenager: petulant, irritable, impatient. But there was also a hint of a weight she carried that he couldn’t see. She was afraid of something. She understood something about the things that chased her that she wasn’t ready to share.
For now, only a few days out from Mars 1 and the hunt for new cargo, Andy didn’t need to concern himself with what might scare her. He had already plotted a preliminary drunkard’s walk between Mars 1 and Proteus that would take them deep into the Jovian Combine and ultimately Neptune.
Andy sighed. He let the weapons float next to him as he slid the panel back into place. When the bulkhead looked as he’d found it, he slipped the rifle’s sling over his shoulder and plucked the pistols from where they hung spinning in slow circles.
He checked the charge status on the plasma pistol and verified it was dead. He didn’t have any way to recharge it on the ship, so it was little more than a souvenir now, like one of his dad’s tchotchkes. It was going to stay that way for a while. It wasn’t like he could walk into a TSF armory and ask for a recharge or replacement.
Andy said as he slipped the pistols inside his ship suit.
Without meaning to, Andy found himself thinking of his dad and the woman in the convenience store. She’d called him dumb and had tried to laugh at him, and Charlie had just grinned at her, his face all pain and angst and slick, silent fuck you. Andy’s dad had kept his cool. That’s what he remembered about Charlie—he kept his cool. He kept talking. He found a way out.
She paused again. she said finally.
Andy cleared his throat.
Andy reached the cabinet where he’d secreted the TSF weapons crate and tapped the lock mechanism. The door slid to one side and he activated his mag boots, clicking to the floor. Settling down on his haunches, he pulled the crate out of the cabinet and settled it down on the corridor floor, activating mag locks to hold it in place. He ran his hands over its battered gray exterior before accessing the lock token and lifting the lid.
Sliding the rifle off his shoulder, Andy fit it back into its place in the storage foam. He replaced the dead plasma pistol and the two pulse pistols, then cursed when he realized he’d forgotten to grab the pulse pistol from his room. He stared at the empty space in the foam.
There was a pause as Lyssa ran into the security token. Andy applied his access protocol.
Andy blinked. His heart had started racing as he realized who had to have made the recording.
Kalyke. Whoever had made the message had been on Kalyke at the same time. So, the crate had come aboard then.
Andy took a deep breath and let it out, willing himself calm. It didn’t come.
There was a moment of silence, followed by several clicks from a recording device and the shuffling of what sounded like someone hunched in a closed space.
“Andy,” Brit said.
Her voice caught him like a punch in the solar plexus. He couldn’t breathe. Andy opened his mouth, gasping, and looked up and down the corridor as the world warped around him.
“I saw you today. I saw you with the kids.”
Andy clenched his eyes closed, unable to stop the burning tears.
“I’m close, Andy. I’ve learned so much in the last two years. More than anyone suspected.” She laughed bitterly. “The TSF doesn’t have a clue. SolGov, they know. But they aren’t going to do anything about it. They’ll sit back and let all this play out and exploit whatever weaknesses they can. This is bigger than Mars or Terra or the JC—It’s bigger than Sol, Andy.”
Lyssa's Dream - A Hard Science Fiction AI Adventure (The Sentience Wars - Origins Book 1) Page 31
