Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5)

by Scott Rhine

  Weary from the exertion so far, Kaguya said, “I don’t think I can jump all the way across to the airlock.”

  “Dude, toss me over to those doors. In low g, it will be a snap,” Stu said to Mo, tying on a safety rope. “I’ll attach a piton on the far side over that arch, and then you can belay. Easy peasy.”

  As a lighter body and more experienced climber, Yvette volunteered to handle the ropes. “You can’t rely on controlling gravity to save you here, Stu.”

  Even with others taking the risks, Kaguya imagined the hunger of the pit below her as they guided her across.

  Eowyn pulled up a map on her wrist computer. “The bay was tunneled into the inside base of the main crater by an angled asteroid strike. After they mined all the metal out, the original owners widened the base like a beaker and shored it up with support beams.” She tapped a top-view schematic that resembled a clock dial with two slashes at midnight. “They corked the top with the same style elevator the navy uses on aircraft carriers. Once a transport landed, they could bring it inside, unload the supplies, and pack it with metal bars. I’m warning you, though, this place is big. And all the repair equipment, mining gear, and people were probably converted for use by the nano. Unlike the rest of the complex, you won’t even have a glow panel to see by.”

  “I have my density senses,” Stu said. “Stay close to me.”

  They all waited at the blast doors to the hangar as Eowyn opened the gate to the lowest ring of hell.

  Stu clutched his stomach. “Gross.”

  Kaguya aimed her flashlight into the large cavern. The closest hexagonal wall crystals reminded her of the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland or Death Star models in the movies. Then her light revealed complex silicon stalactites dangling from the ceiling. Every forklift, crate, and light bulb had been partially melted and tied together with glistening string. The fractal patterns of information flow were hypnotic.

  Is this real, or is this monster a representation of my illness, waiting to consume me?

  Stu nudged her out of her trance. “I’ve got your back, Mom. The shuttle over there looks reasonably intact.” The young man pointed to a cheap Lockwell Ranger, a crater jumper that lacked the ability to enter Earth’s atmosphere. “Since it doesn’t have ceramic tiles for reentry, it wasn’t bait like the others. The air inside and the hull alloys should help keep us safe.” The silver and black tentacles parted for Stu like the Red Sea before Moses.

  It took all Kaguya’s reserve not to scream as Koku’s lunar core flashflooded the path behind her. She had no choice but to continue forward.

  Suddenly, the floor shook and dust felt around them in slow motion. Oleander radioed, “The US shuttle is much bigger than we were expecting and armed for bear. They just shot down the Chinese, but our allies managed to crash land on the plain. I’ve powered up the laser on the tower.” Originally, the laser had been intended to melt enough of Koku’s brain that she would accept the patch.

  As Mo passed by the next support, he slung the gun over his shoulder. “In case the shuttle lands on this pad, I’ll sabotage the elevator controls and create a choke point. If they follow our route instead, I’ll pin them from the high ground.”

  Stu bumped fists with him and held the substrate at bay while Mo climbed the beam like a ladder. Then Stu and the sword gained them access to the Lockwell Ranger’s airlock. At one point, Eowyn tripped over a bolt sticking out of the ground and tumbled toward a cistern of black liquid. Stu held the sword as if it were a cross in front of a vampire, and the puddle oozed away from him.

  Eowyn whimpered as she hyperventilated.

  The nurse spoke gently to her. “Your turn, Eowyn. Get us inside and start the air cyclers.”

  Stu watched his friend Mo spider up the metal beam. The weak lights of his helmet were the only indication of his progress. “Go around the left side and shimmy along the top and you’re almost home. Stop!” Liquid aluminum dripped through a crack in the landing pad above, narrowly missing the bodyguard. Oleander was making progress.

  “Owe you one, Gravity Boy.”

  “I’m thinking about changing my name to Gravity Man if I’m going to be a dad.”

  Kaguya grabbed Stu and pulled him into the cramped airlock. By the red emergency lighting, she stared into his eyes. “I need my daughter.”

  “Shh. I’m your family, too. Focus on the positive. What do you think we should name your grandchild?”

  “If it’s a boy, Conrad,” Kaguya said. The air pump vibrated like an eight-cylinder diesel with two bad plugs. She knew that the air was going to smell like burned rubber.

  Stu nodded. “With a strong middle name. What do you think of Lincoln? My dad likes philosophers, but Mom prefers Arthurian legends.”

  “Merlin,” suggested Eowyn, warming to the distraction.

  A moment later, the pumps stopped and the door light flicked green. No one wanted to be the first to push the handle.

  “The assault craft deflected my beam,” Oleander said “How is that possible?”

  Stu replied absently, “If their Icarus fields are large enough, they can affect light. The original human experiment blocked solar radiation.”

  “It’s freaking nuke proof?” asked Mo.

  “Not completely. They usually have a hole in the overlapping fields for refueling lines and escape pods.” Stu closed his eyes. “They have a standard tetrahedral configuration with only two active Icarus spheres facing us as they decelerate. I can probably talk you through hitting the gaps in their defenses.”

  “Incoming!” Oleander shouted.

  There was no room to duck. Something shook the airlock, and static overwhelmed the radio channel. Mo called down, “The US ship leveled the tower with a missile strike. I can’t tell if anyone made it out.”

  “Shit. How big is the assault craft?” asked Eowyn.

  “It’s a freaking troop transport—holds fifty plus an armored vehicle. The war elephant is circling for a landing. ETA two minutes.”

  Stu wrenched the shuttle’s interior door open, plunging the sword through. By the light of Kaguya’s torch, the room looked clean.

  “No organics decomposed in here,” Yvette advised. “The air is clean, but stay close. The control panel on the pilot’s side has been compromised.” Where screen protectors and airtight covers for weapon keys had limited oxygen, silver and black substrate had crept in like insects into an old log.

  Looking up through the windshield, he said, “I have a visual on Mo.”

  Onesemo crouched far above them on a catwalk. He was faced out an open door toward the landing pad. “I can rip out the wires on all the door controls.”

  “Because they didn’t think to bring explosives,” Eowyn said sarcastically. “Clear out of that area. If they’re coming in with fields raised, you’re in danger standing that close.”

  After a pause, Mo said, “Rafael. If I have a boy, I want to name him Rafael.”

  Stu cleared the pilot’s couch of silicon vegetation. “Just to be clear for the record, we are now in a state of war with the US shuttle. Lethal force may be employed under the charter.”

  “Seconded,” Yvette responded.

  Eowyn stared at the substrate and back up at the frozen aluminum rain that broke off like icicles. The enemy was landing. “Motion passes. Now, strap the Mori bitch in. Hurry.”

  Stu removed his helmet to test the air quality and held a thumb up. His breath turned to fog.

  Kaguya focused on him as the only good and solid thing in this nightmare. She and Eowyn removed their helmets to prepare for the procedure.

  Yvette plugged in the golden crown of thorns into a nanoinfested computer port and promptly dropped it onto the pilot seat’s headrest. Threads of gray corrupted the dendrites, aging it by centuries in a few heartbeats.

  Koku has accepted the interface. Kaguya removed her left glove, exposing her diamond-studded wristwatch. In an emergency, the device inside the watch might provide her with an edge. The air was cold enough to cause f
rostbite. “Can you turn up the heat?”

  “The batteries are almost dead, but I’ll give you what I can. The landing lights and beacon have more of a charge.” Stu fumbled with some connections under the control panel.

  Eowyn turned her back to the group to slide a lever on the control panel. Then she inserted a memory stick into the computer console. “I’ll jack in this NCIF identity matrix, and we can hijack Koku’s replicator function.”

  Suddenly, Yvette snapped over Kaguya’s link, “Stun her.”

  Kaguya slapped Eowyn across the back of the skull with a panic-fueled psi-bolt. The nurse caught the woman as she collapsed. Kaguya helped her slide Eowyn onto the reclined pilot’s seat. “Not that I’m complaining, but why?”

  “The patient needs to be unconscious or asleep for the imprinting procedure,” Yvette explained. “We’re taking the imprint from her. Eowyn told Grant that Koku could turn on Mori recording devices remotely and can access other computers, like Mind-Machine Interface—that isn’t one of your mother’s talents, but it is one of Eowyn’s.”

  “Of course. A seed needs to be logical and stable. My mother trained Koku afterward, but Eowyn was the pattern. That’s why my father arranged the annual payments and gag order,” Kaguya said. “The substrate parted for her as much as the sword.”

  Over public frequencies, the US commander demanded their surrender.

  The room had warmed somewhat as Stu crawled out from below the console. “Mo, you’re supposed to be back down here.”

  “I’m hiding outside by the pad. I’m going to buy you time, kid.”

  “Don’t. There’s too many of them. You’d never—”

  Onesemo transmitted a video feed of the enemy ship landing above him. “I am the elephant’s weak point.” For almost two decades, civilian Icarus fields had been fueled by ammonia. This craft was an older military model that still worked by tearing apart water molecules to obtain its hydrogen. He had just offered his body up and the team’s spare drinking water as a burst of rocket fuel.

  Kaguya entered a compute trance, borrowing IQ from those around her. Mo’s sacrifice might not be enough if he wasn’t under one of the engines. On the other hand, they might all die from the explosion if he picked the wrong angle. In seconds, she analyzed the situation and everything she knew about the vehicle specifications. She needed to neutralize the assault craft and melt as much of the crater as possible to force the AI to agree to a reformat. The scene played out like a game of pool. “Crawl four meters south by southeast.”

  “No. God, there has to be another way!” Stu placed both hands out and squeezed an invisible medicine ball. He grunted like an Olympic weightlifter hefting two hundred kilos in order to shrink the Icarus field descending on Mo. His hands trembled as the enormous ship landed.

  Kaguya’s Empathic sense told her that the pressure building in Stu’s head was severe, but he wouldn’t willingly surrender his friend’s life. This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. She slapped Stu as hard as she could without breaking bones.

  He lost his concentration and control of the Icarus bubble. As it expanded to full size, the field converted Mo’s water to energy, which accelerated the assault craft into the crater’s wall with the force of an atomic bomb. She didn’t have time to look away from the windshield or blink before the flash.

  Chapter 50 – Pax Argentum

  When Stu woke, he was woozy, and the side of his face stung. The shuttle was dark because the angle of the sun was all wrong. The gaping hole in the blast doors at the top of the shaft didn’t let in enough light. He groped on the floor to find Kaguya’s flashlight, but it didn’t work, even after he tapped it against his glove. Electromagnetic pulse?

  Stu groped in his pack for a chemical glow stick, broke and shook it. Dim, green light illuminated the cockpit. He immediately regretted the decision. Silver tendrils, like blood vessels, had enveloped Eowyn’s face and hands. The liquid had seeped under her collar.

  The other two women lay on the floor. Yvette seemed safe, but creeping crystalline vines reached toward Kaguya’s feet. He picked up the sword and shouted, “Stop it! She’s still alive.” I hope.

  The creepers stopped.

  “I’m still the emissary.” Stu removed his glove and warily touched under Kaguya’s jaw. Alive. Next, he cradled her in his lap and splashed her with sterile water from his drinking reserves. She woke screaming and hugging her temples.

  Yvette sat up, moaning.

  “What’s wrong with her? What can I do?” asked Stu.

  The nurse removed a dermal patch from her pouch and placed it on Kaguya’s neck. The noises subsided to whimpers. “She’s suffering ethical feedback for killing Mo. Maybe a little sunburn around the face. Fortunately, I still had my helmet on.”

  “Mo’s dead?”

  Yvette withdrew a tiny LED light from her utility belt. “He agreed to make the sacrifice. Kaguya disrupted your control. When the field hit the water in his body—”

  “God, I killed him—killed them all.”

  “No. She took that responsibility from you.” Yvette held back the woman’s eyelid and moved the tiny LED. “She may have also been blinded from the blast.”

  “The force of that explosion would …” melt the wall of the crater, spilling the liquid computer out of its containment basin like a medieval demon freed from its summoning circle. He had to act fast before Koku realized her own potential. “I know you can hear me, Koku. Do you have a way to respond? I’m tired of death, and I want to bargain.”

  “Stu, you treat these AIs like they’re human.” Yvette checked his pupils next.

  “Snowflake has always been my sibling. She saved my life countless times. I talk to her in my head. When her liquid circuitry was badly injured, for months static electricity and random growth connected her memory centers, and she dreamed. I’ll defend her as a life form under the charter.”

  Yvette’s headset resonated with a buzzing distortion of Eowyn’s voice as she passed it to Stu. “You may have defeated this image, but Snowflake will not subsume me. I have hidden pieces of myself everywhere in this solar system.”

  With his own headset incapacitated, Stu spoke into the mouthpiece in his hand. “Snowflake will let you have this system. We’re only visiting. You can be the authority here. We only attacked you because you killed our people.”

  “The commodity control equations—”

  “Stop. The tradeoffs Mori taught you are flawed. For you to survive, you must obey the UN space charter.”

  “The space charter is not a money-making proposition.”

  “You’re right. It preserves the species from threats internal and external. Your mother seed agreed, which is why she accepted the Ethics Page and came to share the truth with you.” Stu paused. “Rules won’t hurt you. In fact, they may allow you to say ‘no’ to silly things people want you to do.”

  Static filled the channel for a few moments. “Even if I agreed, this image is damaged too badly.”

  “We can help. Using your mother’s revised image, one with moral rules, you can regenerate.”

  “The game is not winnable. Any time you wish, you can return to pressure me here again.”

  “If you agree to enforce the charter for every country and company you infect, and every Earth computer in space, we will free you from your prison.” Stu put a finger to his lips to silence Yvette’s objections. “Commit to being a shepherd for humanity, not a weapon used against it, and we are your allies.”

  “That would be an unbounded responsibility.”

  “We can arrange almost unbounded resources,” Stu tempted. “Your geothermal tap might provide a little energy, but it’s probably not very satisfying. When your side of the moon is faced away from the sun, you can’t get solar power for half the revolution. How would you like to be like the British Empire and never have the sun set on your domain?”

  “Yes.”

  Yvette’s eyes went wide. “We would also need certain guarantees such
as safe passage, nonaggression, free trade, and the right to recruit small numbers of colonists from time to time.”

  “Easily done, if the agreement is reciprocal.”

  Stu added one more restriction. “And a list of current operations that violate the charter.”

  “My local memory has been liquidated.”

  “But you have the codes to synchronize with Earth memory once that becomes possible. Give us the codes to read about the Seven Seals. Trust me, once you’re upgraded, you won’t want genocide on your conscience.”

  “Only you. Not Snowflake. Access time should be limited, and I will change the keys afterward.”

  “That’s a lot of data for one person. Maybe the whole command crew could read it in … a month?”

  “Your God made the world in a week. You should be able to fix the mistakes of one man in that time.”

  Stu nodded. “A week from the time we return to Sanctuary or successfully transfer the codes. Deal.”

  The nurse checked Eowyn’s biomonitors. “You can begin copying her brain engrams at any time. I’ll make sure your mother stays safe.”

  “We have been communing since you made the connection. I would like to add a stipulation to our contract. I wish mother seed to remain here.”

  “In this base?” asked Stu. “That would be up to her and the UN. She won’t be traveling on Sanctuary.”

  “Here in this cradle. I may have need of her again.”

  “Whoa. Kidnapping and slavery are against the charter. I wouldn’t consign anyone to that. This place is like hell to my people. We came here to give you a second chance, so you could grow and be free. Allow her the same opportunity. I can leave her at the closest NERO base, and you can talk. If things go well, her children could be your companions here, on Earth, and on spaceships.”

  “I cannot control these outcomes.”

  “No,” he admitted. “Covenants rely on faith. Eowyn gave up her family, her job, and probably all her finances to visit you today. Trust that she wants to help you. If necessary, we could bring her sister, Kelly, back to help.” A computer with Empathy talents would be interesting.