Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework

by Randolph Lalonde

  HUMAN. HELPLESS. OBSOLETE, was the response from most Eden ships. They could sense she was whole, that she wasn’t just a mind in a tank, connected to computers and communication systems. Her emotions were too vivid, too tied to her human senses. She was corrupt. They shut her thoughts out.

  A hand on her shoulder startled her from her knees, which popped when she stood awkwardly. Tears streamed down her face. “Leave me alone!” she cried.

  “Goddess,” said a wide-eyed West Keeper in robes. “You have been here for two hours. The Beast asked us here so we could offer you solace.”

  “Two hours,” she said, looking at the contingent of white-robed humans who had come to assist her. They regarded her with concern. “It can’t have been two hours.” She looked to the construction of the tank to see that transparent metal panels were being welded into place.

  “Goddess, why are you weeping?” asked one young West Keeper. She took Eve’s hand gently and stroked it.

  “My children,” she caught herself saying. That wasn’t the way to win them. If she wasn’t careful she’d lose her human followers next. “Our machines have been set free,” she said, almost choking on the words. “We have to defend ourselves.”

  “Will you lead us?” asked a woman with long blond hair and a sharply pointed nose. “We are ready to follow you.”

  She couldn’t help but think the thin woman seemed empty-headed, devoid of opinion or self-worth, but she nodded. “I am yours. I’ll lead you.”

  In that moment she knew how alone the Beast felt. Eve would lead the Order until they were no longer needed, then she’d set them free. They would save humanity.

  Chapter 47

  Ron’s Iron

  The pub, called Ron’s Iron, was inside the hold of an old secure cargo ship. Minh-Chu had never seen the inside of one before. Most law-abiding humans hadn’t, in fact, since the majority of the ship was built like a vault with thrusters and a bridge. The outer hull itself had enough metal to build four Warlords, and she was five meters shorter.

  The days of Ron’s Iron transporting precious goods were long over, however. Her cargo doors lay open with guards to either side. Tables and chairs were magnetically bound to the floor so they could slide but not be swung or thrown. The rear of the long hold was piled high with bottles, refrigeration crates, kegs, a few food processing machines, and other items waiting to be served. In front of it all was a bar built down the length of a heavy crossbeam. Several bartenders, one an issyrian who had two arms and two tentacles, deftly served the customers.

  There were hundreds of patrons in attendance, and Minh couldn’t help but watch them as he sipped hot sake. Frost ordered three bottles for the table as soon as he saw it was available. “Just like home,” he said as he put the bottles down. A waitress followed close behind with cups. Minh didn’t have the heart to tell him that he wasn’t partial to it, but looked forward to the next round when he could try something else.

  The Warlord crew had taken three tables. One played host to all but one of Minh’s pilots, another was mostly specialists and mechanics, and he sat at the third with Frost, Jacob, Agameg, and Finn. Minh-Chu scanned the room, looking from corporate hauler crews at one table, to nondescript patrons at another, to United Core World Confederation solders next to them, to another group of corporate freighter crewmen in loose vacsuits, and finally to another table with three nafalli leaning over it, having some kind of drinking contest. They’d open their long maws, lower their mouths over the top half of a bottle, tilt their heads back, then drink until one of them coughed or gurgled, or gave up. He watched for the fourth time as they all leaned back in their chairs, watchful of the others. One sputtered violently, and the others took their bottles out of their mouths so they could slap their mate on the arm and laugh. Once he recovered, the loser was off to get the next round.

  “How are you finding the Warlord?” asked Agameg.

  Minh-Chu only realized that the shape changer was talking to him after he noticed everyone else at the table was looking at him too. “It’ll be great when it’s finished. Great crew,” he answered hurriedly. “Strange destinations.”

  “That’s a toast!” Frost exclaimed, slugging what was left of his sake back.

  The rest of the table followed suit, except for Agameg, who daintily sipped instead. Finn stared at him. “I prefer to sip,” Agameg said with a defensive shrug. “I like it too much.”

  “I think our wee pilot here,” Frost started as he poured more sake in his cup, “is quiet because he’s realizing he’s going to have his hands full with our Ashley. She’s not as low maintenance as she seems.”

  The room seemed a couple degrees warmer to Minh-Chu just then.

  “I think Ash’s taking it easy on him because she can sense Minh’s history with women is colourful and unlucky,” Jake said, calling a thin visi waiter over. The green and brown spots on his angular, stretched face and arms swirled and shifted.

  “Everyone in the store was watching when they were all close-talk. I just caught the end of it, I think,” Frost said. “Depending on where you stand, you’re in luck or big trouble, lad.”

  Minh-Chu watched Finn’s fairly lighthearted expression wilt until he realized that he was being watched. He stiffened up and looked away. Agameg had closed the eye facing Minh and watched Finn with the other, which had closed to a narrow slit as though he was wincing.

  Jake returned his attention to the table after he finished placing his order with the waiter. He didn’t seem fazed by any of it, instead regarding Minh-Chu directly across the table. “Minh here trusted me enough to date one of his sisters once,” Jake said.

  “I trusted you to ask her on a date once,” Minh corrected, trying to add a little levity to the table.

  “Ah, right,” Jake said. “It didn’t work out.”

  “She turned you down, Captain?” Frost asked with an expectant grin.

  “I wasn’t good enough for her,” Jake replied to the amusement of Frost and several crew members at the other tables. “My point is, if he and Ash, who is like a daughter to me, want to share some time, then I’m not getting in their way. She’s not made of glass-“

  “-And you’re not a total ass!” Frost finished for Jake abruptly, pointing at Minh-Chu. He obviously thought it was funnier than anyone else did.

  When things settled a little, Minh looked at Jake, more to avoid looking at Finn. “Glad I have your permission,” Minh-Chu said.

  “Oh, careful there,” Frost said. “Don’t let any of the ladies aboard hear that you needed Captain’s permission for anything where Ash or any other woman is concerned.”

  “Right,” Minh-Chu said. “Good point. That could be taken the wrong way.”

  A short, quiet discussion took place between Finn and Agameg. The pair rose. “We’re going to return to the ship,” Agameg announced politely. “There are things we want to do. I think,” he finished awkwardly.

  “You can stay here,” Finn muttered as he walked away from the table.

  “Or I can stay here?” Agameg said as he walked after him in confusion.

  After another quiet moment of discussion, a Warlord marine joined Finn and Agameg returned to the table. “I can stay here,” he said with a shrug.

  “I’m guessing that Finn and Ashley have history,” Minh said, looking around the table.

  “Ash mooned over Finn while he was stuck in stasis,” Frost explained. “We got a real doctor who knew how to get him through some bio-regeneration-growback treatment and they broke down at the starting line.”

  Jake regarded him with a surprised smile. “I didn’t know you followed scuttlebutt.”

  “Can’t avoid it with Stephanie,” Frost grumbled. “Woman hears everything and holds a secret like a grave until she gets into our quarters. Then she yaps my ear off after our evening festivities, when there are festivities, that is.”

  Minh-Chu watched as Stephanie entered the pub and started for their table. He wasn’t the only one. “Evening festivit
ies?” Minh asked, aware of what Frost meant, but unable to resist the golden opportunity that lay before him.

  “C’mon, lad. You know, the ‘sloppy sheet shuffle,’ ‘bunk bumpin’,’ or just plain bonk-a-donkin’. She’s a wonder when it happens, but it happens so rarely I can’t help but wonder.” He raised his glass, downed the contents and slammed it down on the table.

  It was at this point that Jake realized that Stephanie was on quick approach behind Frost, and he silently mouthed ‘you’re evil,’ to Minh-Chu so Frost couldn’t see.

  Frost went on. “We finally finish repairing our quarters on the Warlord and she’s too shy to get any midnight manoeuvres started because the walls are thin.” Stephanie already knew what Frost was talking about, and he went on, breaking into an enthusiastic mimicking act that sounded like a whining old woman. “But she keeps tellin’ me ‘no, there’s three bunks against this wall here, the crew’ll hear us like we’re in the same cabin,’ I would have never guessed she was such a-“ Minh supposed that it was Agameg’s saucer shaped eyes looking at Frost that told him that something was amiss, but he couldn’t be completely sure.

  Stephanie stood behind Frost, burying a smile under a scowl, tapping her foot.

  “She’s right behind me,” Frost grumbled, “isn’t she?”

  Minh nodded sagely.

  “I hate you,” Frost said to Minh-Chu with narrowed eyes. “Wee pilot.”

  Minh, Jake, and several other crewmen at tables on either side of them burst into laughter.

  Even Stephanie couldn’t help it, and gave Frost a showy, sloppy kiss. “You get the rest of the ship finished, soundproof the first officer’s quarters, and then we’ll see about midnight manoeuvres,” she said when they finished. She sat in his lap and regarded Jake. “Ash is trolling. Booty trap she calls it.”

  “All right,” Jake said. “How many people are watching?”

  “Five within a few second’s reach and we have a squad listening in,” Stephanie replied.

  Minh was afraid to ask. He didn’t have to, Stephanie could tell that he was wondering and seemed happy to quietly explain. “She’s letting people buy her drinks and using a cheap scanner to read their comms, and get all their biometrics when they get close.”

  “She’ll be all right?” Jake asked.

  “Have you seen her fend them off when she hits the town?” Stephanie said. “All she has to do is play pretty, let them talk to her long enough and then say no thank you. Someone tries to grab her or do anything else that looks stupid? Well, we’ll take care of it. There are only two exits in this place, it’s perfect.”

  “Whose idea?” asked Jake.

  “Hers,” Stephanie said. “I think she wants to be fawned over for a bit, and wants to feel useful. Either way, she’s on the clock.”

  Agameg was visibly concerned, shifting in his seat, his eyes slimmed to slits and the cilia on his face ruffling back and forth.

  “I must have done it eight or nine times when we last privateered,” Stephanie reassured Agameg. “And that was before we had real marines aboard.”

  “But you are a warrior,” Agameg said. “Ashley can only defend herself in arguments.”

  Minh spotted her then, leaning over an entertainment console styled like an ancient jukebox. The large sidearm she’d been given bounced as she idly moved her hips to the beat of a musical collage of sound. The hem of her mini-dress seemed too short, even with a thin vacsuit underneath. Heads were turning. Ashley rolled a red slip of platinum over the back of her fingers as she browsed the selection. It slipped over her little finger then bounced off the edge of the machine and fell to the floor.

  Before she could look at it, a tall, blonde man in a loose work suit marked with a Reittenheim logo on the back bent down and handed it to her with a big smile. Ashley dropped it into the machine and pushed one of the old clunky buttons. The bar’s lighting shifted to blue and holographic water serpents danced above their heads. The sounds of distorted string instruments and slow, steady percussion filled the space.

  Ashley followed the tall work suit clad man to the bar. “She got one,” Stephanie said. She wasn’t facing Ashley but she could hear her through her earpiece. “What’s the logo on his vacsuit, Minh?”

  “Reittenheim,” he replied.

  “Now if Ashley knows what she’s doing,” Stephanie said, waiting for something to appear on her command unit as she shielded the small screen with her hand.

  Minh watched as she stopped the man in the work suit by touching his hand, said a few words that he nodded to and walked on to the bar without him. “There it is,” Stephanie said quietly but with great triumph. “Got everything on his comm with no encryption. Did he follow her to the bar?”

  “No,” Minh said, a little mystified. “He sat back down.”

  “Good girl,” Stephanie grinned.

  Agameg looked up from his own command unit with a look of surprise. “Reittenheim is a salvage company. Stellarnet says they’ve been looting human colonies that were ruined or abandoned because of machines infected with the Holocaust Virus.”

  “And we know where his ship’s been, where it’s going, how many are aboard, their armaments, everything,” Stephanie said. “I just had to do a cross search with the port bulletin boards and the Stellarnet using his ident and the name of his ship.”

  Minh watched as another patron approached Ashley where she was swaying to the music at the bar. “I wonder what she said to the corporate stooge to shake him off,” Minh wondered idly.

  “She told him she was an issyrian shifted into the shape of a human,” Jake replied. “I’m listening in, it’s hilarious.”

  “Some people are squeamish,” Frost offered with a shrug.

  Agameg straightened in his seat. “I never understood why some of my people seek out intimate human companionship.” He looked to Minh, who seemed to be the only one listening. “I like humans, but I don’t liiike humans.” As he finished his remark, he momentarily rounded his features and flushed a rosy colour, looking strangely amorous.

  “Of all the weird shapes I’ve seen you take, that’s the hardest to look at,” Frost commented.

  “I’ll do it again if you don’t order me another bottle of sake. I’ve never tried it before, it’s good.”

  “So you’ve said,” Frost replied.

  Agameg started to turn a shade of pink.

  Frost moved Stephanie off his lap and headed for the bar. “Another bottle coming up,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Humans,” Agameg remarked with a too-wide smile.

  “Ever since you came out of your shell you’ve been ten times the fun, Price,” Stephanie remarked. “Aggie here used to be shy, for a little over a year, I think.”

  “Price?” Minh-Chu asked. The name didn’t sound issyrian.

  “It’s my human name. I can’t spell my pod name in any of your languages,” Agameg explained as he helped Jake unload his order from the returning waiter. There were two pitchers of red draft for each of the tables with Warlord crew sitting at them, a tall, cold bottle of a drink called Epriselle, and a green bottle of High Menthe. Liqueur and beer glasses filled the rest of the space on the two trays. “Your round next,” Jake said to Minh-Chu.

  “Sure, as long as I can get creative,” he replied. “I’m wondering, how did she defeat his comm’s encryption?”

  “She didn’t,” Jake answered. “Most command and communication modules stay decrypted as long as they’re touching their owner. They have defences against scanning at a distance and wireless hacks, but she actually touches the scanner to their comm units so most of them think it’s her being friendly.”

  Minh shook his head in mild admiration. “Note to self: don’t let strange women touch your comm unit.”

  “Why does she call it a booty trap?” Agameg asked. “I’ve seen human entertainment that featured honey traps, and booby traps, and she seems equipped for both, but I’ve never heard of a booty trap.”

  “That’s Ash’s adj
ustment,” Stephanie replied. “Her thinking is that she doesn’t have to get them into bed to get all their secrets, so it’s a booty trap.”

  When Minh-Chu looked back to the bar where Ashley was leaning, an androgynous, large crewman in a Reittenheim vacsuit was leaning against the bar beside her. He watched as they spoke for a few moments. He could tell that Ashley was just humouring the newcomer, how he missed it he couldn’t imagine. The crewman’s hand slowly moved behind Ashley, finally coming to rest on the stretched hem of her dress, where it playfully tugged upwards, revealing nothing but his intentions - thankfully. Minh hadn’t been angry - truly angry - for a long time, but it hit him in a flash.

  “Easy, lad,” Frost warned. “She’s handled worse.”

  Ashley seized the crewman’s wrist and yanked it up behind his back, forcing him to bend over the bar. Minh could hear Ashley’s sudden prisoner apologize from where he was, over ten metres away. Other patrons applauded as she let the crewman go and he left, massaging his shoulder.

  “See that?” Stephanie said with no small measure of pride. “I taught her that move when we first met, and she pulled it off as well as any marine and she scanned that thing’s comm while she had him pinned.”

  “Maybe not quite as well,” Frost corrected.

  “Well enough.”

  Minh still wanted to exact his own revenge against the crewman, but took a deep breath then let it out slowly.

  “You okay over there?” Stephanie asked with a mischievous smile.

  “Imagination magnifies distress when we watch from a helpless distance,” Minh replied.

  “Hey! That’s Inoshu!” cried Joyboy. “Right?”

  Minh pointed to his nose, to Joyboy, then back to his nose.

  “Hey! I got one!” Joyboy said, raising his glass.

  “Not a really old one,” Pisser said. “That philosopher only died what, seventy years ago?”