Home Planet: Arcadia (Part 3)

by Sedgwick, T. J.

  Before our eggs had arrived, I explained that the Hawaiians had found a much-needed source of titanium. Several ancient aircraft and a spaceplane stood somewhere under the reforested area that was once Lihue Airport on the island of Kauai. We’d need the element to produce alloys needed for Project Phoenix and a brief hop to the island, one-hundred and five miles to the northwest, would get us there. I explained that, to save time, I’d need Laetitia to strip down the old planes once we’d located them. She could do it far quicker than any human could. Reichs would just be a bystander. His enthusiasm for Project Phoenix brought his support, and he wanted to come, too.

  “Now, cowboy,” he said chuckling. “You know I can’t be away from my lady wife.”

  “Why not? She’s been here with me on Earth since last week.”

  “Right,” he said, thinking. “But I don’t yet feel at home in this here place. I’ll be rattlin’ ‘round like a pea in an ol’ tin can.”

  “Okay, that’s fine, but I think they have some important work here for you,” I said to him taking another forkful of scrambled egg.

  That piqued his interest.

  “Oh, yeah? Tell me more, young peasant.”

  Then right on cue, Aulani joined us. Four chairs, four people, two separate invitations for Reichs and Laetitia.

  “May I?” she asked politely.

  “Since we have become acquainted, you may,” said Reichs, nose held high.

  Despite his dark side, I couldn’t help but smile. He was a parody of himself sometimes.

  “Thank you,” said the diminutive councilor, graciously. “We have a busy day planned for you, Mr. Reichs.”

  “Oh yeah?” he said, scratching his wild gray mane.

  “Indeed,” she smiled. “On behalf of the people of Hawaii, we are most honored to have such a distinguished expert here.”

  He beamed proudly, his chest all puffed out, his chin up.

  “Well, very kind of you. What’s your name, again?”

  “Aulani. Aulani Ito, Councilor for Science and Technology,” she said, pleasantly.

  “Oh, yeah. Okay, carry on. You were right at the part about me being a distinguished expert.”

  “Yes, that’s right and we need you to be our chief expert on Project Phoenix. Our first meeting is today, over at the Town Hall.”

  “But, I… I—”

  “Don’t worry Mr. Reichs; you don’t need to prepare anything. Just come and allow us access to your genius insight. We have all of our best people there to meet you.”

  “Well, when you put it like that, I’d be willing to share my knowledge. What time did you say it was?”

  “The meeting starts at eight o’clock,” said Aulani, smiling admiringly.

  “Perhaps I should accompany you,” said Laetitia.

  Reichs turned and patted her on the shoulder patronizingly.

  “No, no my darling wife, you need to help the big cop scavenge his titanium. It’s vital for Project Phoenix. And you heard the lady; it’s me they want to see.”

  “Well, we are most privileged, Mr. Reichs,” said Aulani, getting up as Reichs started tucking into his breakfast, no longer looking at her. “I must get going now. I have some preparations to make.”

  Reichs just waved her arrogantly away and she left with a curt nod to Laetitia and me before he could change his mind. His obsession with Project Phoenix and his overinflated sense of his own brilliance had blinded him. But it wasn’t a done deal. Several moving parts still had to work perfectly. I regarded Laetitia’s perfectly proportioned face as she looked loyally at Reichs shoveling down his eggs and toast.

  What is the nature of this beautiful android? I asked myself. How much free will does she possess? But most immediately, does she smell a rat?

  ***

  Aulani returned to collect Reichs at just before eight, Laetitia and I bidding them farewell. A wave of relief washed over me as he left without a fuss. He seemed to like Aulani—or her deference to him, anyway. Laetitia and I stood outside of the lodging house. I watched her watching Reichs. She said nothing, just kept her eyes fixed on him. He turned to look over his shoulder on reaching the square. A smile crossed his face when he saw his replacement wife gazing longingly at him. He faced front and kept on going before disappearing around the corner.

  “Come on, let’s go,” I said enthusiastically.

  She turned and stared absently, something approaching sorrow etched on her face.

  “Yes, let’s go,” she replied, quietly.

  We made our way through the geothermally warmed air of the busy morning streets. Most of the foot traffic seemed to be heading to the town square and beyond. These were the locations of the big city-based employers. No traffic, no noise, little stress. A gardener holding a hose moved aside to let us pass before continuing to water the eucalyptus tree overhanging the walkway.

  We left the warmth of the rainless dome city and traversed the short interval of cold Hawaiian air. The clouds seemed even lower than usual. A fine drizzle permeated my shirt in the space of the half-minute’s walk to the shuttle.

  On entering the shuttle, Laetitia had said nothing since we’d set off. She closed the front passenger door, looking pensive and dark. Orders were orders, but she clearly had her misgivings. Obedient she was, stupid she wasn’t. I’d just have to keep her mind occupied.

  “You’re better at this than me—can you plot our course to Kauai Island, please?”

  “Of course, Mr. Luker,” she said, moving to the terminal up front.

  I shadowed her, looking over her shoulder in the small alcove. She turned to look at me in the confined quarters, but said nothing, instead powering up the touchscreen and bringing up the nav screen.

  “How far is it?” I asked.

  “Our flight path will be,” she said tapping in the last waypoint, “… one-hundred-five point four miles.”

  “Flight time?”

  “Approximately twenty minutes,” she said, turning to face me just a foot away.

  She looked up as if trying to read me with manufactured eyes looking every bit human. I watched her pupils dilate as her eyes narrowed slightly, her head tilted to the side.

  “What’s up Laetitia?”

  “Why all the questions, Mr. Luker?”

  I held her gaze and forced an easy smile.

  “Just interested, that’s all.”

  She spun back around without a word, completed the flight plan and initiated thruster start-up. We took our seats beside one another as the shuttle ascended into the cloud. A minute later, we were powering forward at jetliner speed at three thousand feet. The cloud remained thick, so no sooner had we turned the display surfaces on, we shut them off again. No point using the additional power, no matter how marginal.

  “How much titanium do they think is in the aircraft and spaceplane?” she said.

  “I don’t know—probably not enough for reworking of the Juno, but it’s a start,” I said.

  “Why are we sending the shuttle when one of the Hawaiian’s fishing boats could’ve shipped it back?”

  “I guess it’s because they need you utilized as much as possible and they can’t spare the labor. You can do the work of ten laborers and you have the blueprints for the planes in question, so we’ll find the right parts quicker. Then with the shuttle they can get your help on solving other problems.”

  She nodded at this explanation. “That is logical,” she said.

  Our flight path took us to low altitude above the ocean as we approached the island from the east. The thrusters had eased off to half power and I went up front and activated the visual display surfaces to see outside. The low cloud hung like a ceiling above us as the sea rushed past beneath. I observed the terminal map and then looked outside. A few miles ahead was the roughly round volcanic island of Kauai. The old airport at Lihue lay on several square miles of flat land bordering the ocean. Behind it, green-covered slopes rose into the gray-white strata above. A flock of white birds traversed just inland, contra
sted against the dark greens of nature’s verdant domain. Forest hid signs of the former airport—most signs, but not all. Something geometrical, covered in vegetation, stood proud of the canopy less than a mile inland.

  “Switching to manual—gonna take a look at that structure over there,” I said to Laetitia.

  “Are you sure you know how—”

  “I’ve done basic shuttle training, let me have a practice.”

  “Okay, Mr. Luker.”

  I slowed the shuttle and vectored toward the structure, passing over the coastline, then the forest. Looking down, I could see there were still treeless patches where only bush and long grass dwelled. I guessed they were places where humanity’s hard surfaces of concrete and blacktop had yet to fully yield. It was a welcome site because it’d give some choices over where to land. On the other hand, I didn’t want to land too close to the old planes if the plan was to work.

  Laetitia joined me up front.

  “Looks like the old control tower,” I said as we crawled toward it, now just three hundred feet away.

  “Yes, it is in the right location according to my maps.”

  We drew close and hovered a shuttle’s length away, level with it. Only three skyward-pointing window frame pieces remained. The advance guard of climbing plants’ tendrils had even claim most these. However, the boxy outline of the perhaps four-story tower remained.

  “Look, down there is a clearing. We should put down,” I said.

  “But Mr. Luker, the old spaceplane will contain much of the titanium and this is some distance away from it,” she protested.

  “Yes, but the directions from the locals are referenced to the control tower—so finding it and the other planes will be easier,” I countered. “Come on, we’re wasting fuel and time.”

  “It is your call, Mr. Luker.”

  I gave a tight smile and nodded before taking the shuttle down in the clearing. Even on manual, most things were automated. The anti-collision envelope was active, so even a novice pilot with bare-bones training wouldn’t end up felling the surrounding trees.

  “Your flying skill is reasonable,” said Laetitia.

  “So not great or good, but reasonable,” I said with faux-offense.

  “Yes, reasonable,” she said and sat back down, strapping herself in before touchdown.

  The legs sprouted from the fuselage and we eased into the long grass pushing down thickets of flimsy bush and immature saplings. The thruster noise receded to idle and I shut them down but left them extended. I switched off the terminal and opened the front door. It whirred open, forcing its way groundward past the vegetation of the last few feet.

  “After you,” I said, showing Laetitia the way.

  She nodded and stepped into the forest clearing of long grass, saplings and thickets of bush. I joined her, pushing grass out of the way and taking in our surroundings. She looked at the shuttle door, open to nature and the elements. No rain fell, but the clouds looked pregnant with precipitation.

  “May as well leave it open,” I said. “No one here to bother us.”

  She said nothing and continued surveying the gloomy forest scene.

  “The first plane—a small cargo jet—is outside the cargo terminal half a mile to the southwest,” I said. “Let’s head there first.”

  “I will go inside and get the tools,” she said.

  A minute later, she returned carrying the two metal cases and a toolbox. The stainless steel cases each contained a compact plasma cutter. The yellow toolbox, a power drill and an assortment of hand tools.

  “Let me help,” I said and she handed me one of the silver cases.

  “Once we have cut out the titanium-rich components on each plane, we should move the shuttle closer in order to load it,” she said, efficiently.

  “Okay, sounds like a plan. Let’s go.”

  We started clearing a path southwest toward the old cargo terminal. Once we’d left the clearing and entered the forest, walking became a lot easier. Here the trees hogged the sunlight, leaving far less for grasses and bush, which had impeded our way. Five minutes later, we set eyes on remnants of the old cargo warehouse. Only the outline remained—rusted footings of corrugated steel walls mingled amongst trees and bushes. We walked along the three-hundred-foot-long side of the rectangle, its shape betraying its former purpose. But it was the ancient hulk of a jetliner a hundred feet away that we’d come for.

  “It’s amazingly well preserved,” I said as we walked closer.

  Despite the centuries of weathering, the largely aluminum and graphene fuselage and wings had stood the test of time. The paint had long gone, to be replaced by a covering of green lichen and mosses. Some small shrub-like plants and grasses had established themselves in the nooks where soil had accumulated. Climbing plants wove their way around the tail of the plane, I guessed due to the lack of trees overhanging the rear of the plane.

  “We must first bring it to ground level by cutting the wheel struts,” said Laetitia, eyeing the front undercarriage.

  “Make sense. It’ll help us access the fuselage more easily,” I agreed.

  ***

  We cut all three sets of wheel struts and, with the plane teetering, I lifted Laetitia up under the port wing. She pushed with tremendous force and the plane toppled to the ground with an almighty crash. I did my best and helped with the plasma cutter, but Laetitia was a machine—literally. She moved unbelievably quickly and stopped for nothing. Several times we’d almost collided when I simply couldn’t keep up with her as she dashed around from place to place. I went to work, taking apart the port engine and trying to extract the blades and some other parts she’d identified from blueprints. Brilliant light from the cutters illuminated the woodland gloom. We dumped the scavenged parts in a pile in front of the wing—longerons, stringers, fan blades and more—all containing titanium. After an hour, I’d worked up quite a sweat—even in the dank, cool conditions of twenty-sixth century Kauai. I made a show of it as I called Laetitia to halt.

  She stopped, her plasma cutter still burning in her android hand.

  “Yes, Mr. Luker?” she asked expectantly. “Is something wrong?”

  I exhaled and wiped sweat from my brow. “No, we’ve made good progress. You’ve made good progress, anyway,” I said with a chuckle. “Look, I’m gonna take five at the shuttle and grab some fluids. How you doing for charge?”

  “The plasma cutter or me?” she said.

  “You.”

  “Still above fifty percent, Mr. Luker, in spite of the heavy work rate. I will continue.”

  Perfect, I thought.

  “Okay, see you in a while, after my rest break.”

  I returned to the shuttle to the sound of her plasma cutter eating lines through the plane. Halfway there, I heard a clang as she threw another piece onto the pile. Walking briskly, it took seven minutes to reach the shuttle. I didn’t run, but I wanted to. Doing so might alert her prematurely. Up the small flight of steps and into the control alcove in the nose, I went. I brought the terminal to life and within seconds fired up the thrusters and switched on the display surfaces. As the relatively quiet thrusters spun up, so did their high-pitched hum. With the door still open, the noise was far more noticeable than expected. I’d need to move fast. Getting back to the shuttle had taken me seven minutes at a brisk walk. I tapped the command to raise the door, and then vectored the thrusters for vertical take-off, selecting full power. Like a shackled giant pulling at its chains, the shuttle felt the resistance of tangled bush on its hindquarters, sending the nose up first before snapping free at the rear. With the door two-thirds shut, the gyroscopic stabilization went to work, leveling the craft before recommencing its lift off. With the shuttle now flat and level, I looked down through the floor surface display as the craft began to climb from ten feet. And that’s when something caught my eye. With the door three quarters closed, a figure, no more than a blur came racing through the undergrowth.

  “Damn!” I muttered, willing the door to sh
ut and the shuttle to rise.

  I looked down at the terminal to see if I could send more power to the thrusters. The shuttle was never designed to ascend quickly and after gyro stabilization. It took things slow and steady.

  Another glance up and she’d eaten up the ground, the shuttle now thirty feet off the deck.

  I sighed with relief as she neared, but my calm was soon replaced by dread as she leapt inhumanly high, grabbing onto the last inches of open door. With determination written all over her face, she maintained her finger hold, keeping them wedged in the gap between door and fuselage. The shuttle rose to fifty feet then sixty as she edged he feet up and begun bucking back and forth, trying to overcome the door’s servos. The door gave a little but remained mostly closed. Her hands were now inside and she repositioned her body to the side of the door, squatting at an angle to the door top. She began yanking hard, pulling the door open with every try. I quickly switched to manual and grabbed the flightstick, flipping down the seat to sit on and steady myself.

  If I don’t act soon, she’ll be in, I thought as I disengaged auto-stabilization.

  I shoved the joystick left then right, fore and aft in a random series of moves. It halted her assault on the door, her priorities changing from ingress to hanging on. Not daring to stop the evasive moves, the shuttle rose further, individual trees now blending into the green canopy. I built forward speed but continued rolling the shuttle port and starboard, left and right. And then she fell and my stomach lurched. It was part relief, but part sadness at the sentient being I’d probably just killed. I went back to a hover to take a breath. The shuttle now floated at over three hundred feet from the ground. But something wasn’t right. I’d been looking at Laetitia when she let go. She fell, but as I’d struggled to level off the shuttle, I’d glanced back but had seen nothing fall toward the forest. The outside noise died when the door shut—good, no repairs to fix. Out of harm’s way, I got up and looked down through the floor display surfaces showing the view of the forest below. Instead, I saw something completely unexpected. Hanging from the forward, port leg strut was Laetitia. She’d wrapped her limbs around it like her life depended on it and was looking up, knowing I‘d be looking. She no longer looked determined or angry—more like vulnerable and somehow valiant. The cynical part of me told me it was an optimally constructed expression to elicit maximum sympathy. And once that sympathy translated to help she’d end up turning the tables. From this altitude, even Laetitia would sustain at least some damage even if she survived.