Thrive Earth Return (Thrive Colony Corps Space Adventures Book 1)

by Ginger Booth

  Clay tested a tiny corner of the butter on his bread, and skipped the rest. The yellow spread wasn’t butter, and he was a purist. “When will the attaché be along?”

  “Any moment now. I could retire to the hall in the meantime?”

  “Please!” Sass pounced. Clay made more appreciative noises and considered the woman’s perfect high derriere on the way out.

  Sass reached over and scratched the wall with her stainless knife. She snuggled it under Fidget, trying to tempt her to find a way to plug herself in somehow. But after a few cautious sniffs, the exhausted mink batted the knife out of the way and lay her chin down again, morose.

  The captain, after a moment to cram her mouth full again, considered her tools. Then she picked up the knife again appraisingly. She hadn’t felt any shock when she scratched the paint.

  Clay offered, “Darren figured there were control lines in the smart walls. But his scrapings didn’t include a sample.”

  Control lines made sense. Sass pulled her chair closer, and shoved the table a bit away from the wall, Clay adding a power assist to each effort as he realized what she was doing. In a line below the tabletop level, she chipped away at paint as far as she could reach. Clay took over at the midpoint, curious. This gave her the opportunity to inhale the remainder of her salad and grab another roll. Clay had her knife, so she scrubbed the roll into the margarine bowl.

  “Ow!” Clay whispered, flinching. “Oh! Fidget, what about here?”

  Sass pushed the softly furred dishrag across the table, earning a mopey glare from the mink. But Fidget obediently touched a paw digit where Clay indicated. That made her perk up in interest.

  But the captain preferred that they not advertise they were recharging their pet. “How did you persuade them to let you bring her?” She considered her napkin, the water goblet, the salt shaker. The cloth napkin was woven. She pantomimed tearing a strip off of it with her teeth.

  Clay interpreted this as begging for the next course. He rose to ask the waiter which course was next? He dragged this out and turned it into an intimate little flirt-fest with the woman, who naturally entered to serve them. The main course Sass had never seen before, nor even heard of. Tender roast beef swam in a gravy of mushrooms and onions, nestled in puff pastry. Succulent grilled potatoes and vegetables joined the main course even faster than Sass could devour it. She knew why she quit growing winter squash – the vines required enormous space and endless months to produce one or two fruit. But Pontiac Dome still grew them, and the cook compensated for any deficiency in flavor.

  And when the server exited again, Sass found Clay had slipped her a bit of ribbon, filched from her uniform. Sass grinned, forgave him most of his trespasses of the day, and dunked the ribbon in her water goblet. He shifted Fidget out of the way while Sass salted the ribbon and lay it over the edge of the table. The mink pounced, placing both feet on the conductor to the wall power. She nodded in excitement.

  Clay shoved the table back where it belonged. Then he leaned in and whispered in Fidget’s ear. She stuck her muzzle into his ear in return. The first mate’s brows flew up. He shot Sass a beaming thumb’s up.

  “I wonder how the crew is doing,” Sass mused, in fact wondering if a recharged mink could talk to them.

  “I’m sure they’re fine,” Clay confirmed, settling back to their feast. “This Beef Wellington is perfection.”

  Sass raised her water goblet, delighted. “To Beef Wellington. And a safe and happy crew.”

  “Hear, hear!” After drinking the toast, Clay came around and kissed her forehead, and whispered in her ear. “I told them how much your mink meant to you. That she’d help you heal.” He kissed her forehead again and returned to his seat, having said nothing he couldn’t have said aloud over the table.

  She shook her head, smile pushing her cheeks up to max. The rich Fed could be awfully wonderful sometimes. “So what did you learn from Melkor? Wow me.” She happily stuffed herself while Clay recounted his interview. Occasionally she offered what she remembered of what she’d divulged herself. The meal trolley included some raw meat paste with a dog biscuit on top. They assumed that was meant for Fidget.

  They’d devoured every crumb of dinner when Melkor rejoined them, taking the end chair opposite Fidget, whom he eyed curiously. “My apologies for the delay.”

  Clay suggested, “I understand your people don’t enjoy food as we do?”

  A webbed hand waved away the concern. “I was born to it. No, I had work to tie up before our trip. The Ambassador decided I shall accompany you to your next stop. Captain, do you believe you will be recovered enough to travel by tomorrow?”

  Sass awarded the man brownie points for not peeking under the table to ogle her feet and resting hand. Though perhaps he was looking through other means. So far, her wrist, thumb, left knee and shin had pinged ready for business. Her right foot seemed closest to useful, with several of the long bones having reported completion. “I should be fine sometime tomorrow. Excellent food helps. IV glucose and salt, not so much.”

  “We’re grateful to have a friendly face along,” Clay schmoozed. “And where are we going?”

  The attaché poured himself wine. Sass accepted his offer to pour her some. Clay had already tested the burgundy without ill effect. “Hakone, in Japan. Beautiful this time of year.” Muscles tightened around his mouth.

  “Melkor,” Sass crooned, “could you possibly sketch the nations of Earth for us? I mean, governments, big corporations, populations? Entities that have armies? I remember Japan as an island nation near China. But I don’t understand what it means to visit Hakone. Or Pontiac for that matter. It’s very impressive that we have the attention of an important aide to the Ambassador, such as yourself. But Ambassador to what? Other than your boss, what is he?”

  28

  The ex-USA goal was to cull its population from 340 million to 200 million by a deadline. They missed the mark, but supplied military vehicles and materiel.

  “Ah.” Their host Melkor tapped his fingers in thought for a moment, then began to answer Sass’s question. “First the Ambassador. You may recall the role as Minister of Foreign Affairs, or Secretary of State in the southern provinces – the old United States. The Ambassador handles international affairs for America – the Western Hemisphere under the Northern League. Under the Tyrant, ruler of America. Perhaps a third of the population lives in Northern League domes. Anyone else, boat people such as my birth family, the submarine peoples, and you met a straggler, yes? The Ambassador’s office interfaces with them, and between the regional League powers.”

  “Which are not created equal?” Clay suggested.

  Melkor’s smile was wintry. “There are four with substantial power, others without. Samara, Hakone, Oslo, and Pontiac are the major players.”

  Sass had no idea where Samara was, nor Oslo. “A map?”

  “Of course.” The attaché caused the smart wall above Fidget to come alive. The mink instantly arched her back, and her eyes flew wide. Sass suspected her power feed surged from its passive state. Clay reached over to scratch her ears and dribble more water on her power wick.

  Sass stared at the world map, unsullied by national borders, only natural features, with the coastlines retracted from her youth. Samara appeared to lie smack in the middle of Russia somewhere. Maybe she should have known Oslo was in Scandinavia.

  After a moment distracted by the mink, Melkor added a second sprinkling of smaller dots to the map, mostly north of the subtropics, but one lonely marker along a skinny spine toward the bottom of South America. “These are in practice dominated by the other four. For instance, Pontiac doesn’t concern itself with South America’s internal challenges, only its affairs on the world stage.”

  “Few dots in China and India,” Clay noted.

  “Hakone dominates Asia south of Russia,” Melkor noted blandly. He didn’t explain why India, Australia, and everything between lay dot-free. “Pontiac policy is to stay out of Eastern Hemisphere affairs.�
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  “Which are ugly?” Clay suggested.

  Melkor shrugged slightly and lidded his eyes. “We have no stake in their quarrels. They in turn leave our hemisphere to us.”

  Sass couldn’t put her finger on why she felt he was trying to tell them something, without being seen to do so. “And what other powers are there? Besides the Northern League.”

  “No one has power compared to the League. They do have population, however.” The diplomat rose to indicate regions with a finger on his wall map. “The Florida, Bahamas, Caribbean and Gulf mess is my specialty. I was born there. Sargasso and Grand Banks. The East Coast is several communities. Each Great Lake has its own boat nation, plus another six strung along the West Coast.” His finger encompassed Alaska to Central America on the Pacific side.

  He switched to Asia, tapping the Philippines, or Malaysia or Indonesia for all Sass knew. “Marine and land communities merge in this region. I’m not familiar with their politics. But a third of a billion people still live here.”

  “Does that include Australia and New Zealand?” At least Sass knew which those were.

  Melkor hesitated, then waved a hand over the map to disappear it. “We have time on the way to Hakone.”

  Fidget made a small ‘aw!’ sound and arched her back. Hesitantly, the attaché touched two fingers to her back, ruffling her fur toward her head. She shrunk from his touch in consternation, flattening her chest to the table and extruding her butt into the air. “She’s exceptionally soft. Was the food acceptable for your pet?”

  “Very thoughtful, thank you!” Sass purred. “But she has a tummy ache tonight from all the excitement.”

  Fidget liked this hint. She rolled up her belly to tempt petting fingers. Clay chuckled and obliged, showing Melkor how to please the little beast. The mink purred appreciatively.

  He withdrew and took his seat. “We don’t keep pets. Is this common on your world?”

  “No, she’s very precious,” Sass replied. “If you could leave the map up?”

  Melkor shrugged and complied. “I had one more issue. Then I’ll leave you to rest. During your…interview…in medical, you shared that you were an AI?”

  “Not a typical AI,” Sass hazarded. “We do have artificial intelligence in the colonies. I don’t have any on my ship.” Because her only AI was sopping up attention here on the table.

  “How do you differ from a ‘typical AI’?” he probed.

  “Oh, in every way!” Sass laughed. “Truly, we assumed we were still human until recently. What we normally use AIs for is, um.” She frowned for Clay to field this one.

  “AIs are for massive computation and big data, industrial automation and surveillance,” Clay offered. “Our personal AI functions are designed to pretend we’re human. Although I think we have an unusually strong moral compass. That was Belker’s justification. Belker’s the man who invented our unique nanites. He feared that a quarter million Earth refugees might attempt mutiny on the Vitality en route to Mahina. We were the cops charged with maintaining order. But police had a bad reputation at the time.”

  Sass regarded him sadly. The rep was well-deserved. And the two of them had done their share to earn that mistrust. “We changed. I didn’t realize at the time how much we changed. But returning to Earth, we remember more of what we did. What we were like in those days.”

  “What we did to survive,” Clay pointed out. “And compared to the people we worked with, we were good cops. It’s just very difficult to swim with –” He self-edited that analogy. “Keeping evil company tarnishes you, no matter how hard you fight it.”

  Melkor nodded microscopically, gazing at his webbed hand on the table. “But the functions of an AI. You excel at fighting –”

  “No,” Sass cut him off. “I mean, yes, we can fight. But we aren’t weapons. And if you’ll forgive me, the guards in medical were a joke.”

  Clay huffed a laugh. “I’m a data analyst, as a specialty. Never once have my nanites kicked in to help me massage data. I’m simply a human with extensive experience to draw on. And no brain fog from aging. I noticed that first, after the nanites resurrected me. No brain fog. Negative emotion that used to distract my focus fell away. Even my sense of smell and taste revived from the dead.”

  Melkor studied them with unusual intensity throughout this explanation. “Then I think you should not label yourselves AIs again. I’d avoid the terms android and cyborg as well. You’re human beings with exceptional medical nanites. Yes?”

  “Exactly,” Sass encouraged.

  “You must stick with that story in Hakone. A few decades after you left Earth, we suffered what we call the AI Wars. The League developed cyborg soldiers.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “The wars lasted a dozen years before the AI mutiny was resolved,” Melkor continued. “AIs are strictly forbidden here now. Especially cyborgs in human form. And you are in fact cyborgs. Are you not? Physically enhanced fighters with an AI assist.”

  “No one ever intended us to be that,” Sass clarified, “and we’re not suited to it. We’re not soldiers. Or rather I was, but only as a human teenager. Fighters…only in the bar-room brawl sense. A cop needs to disable a perp, and protect bystanders.”

  Melkor gave an exaggerated nod. “I understand. My point is, Hakone would not. Pontiac doesn’t intend to tell them. Which is on us. But if you let that slip in Hakone, your lives are in danger. Or your mission, at least.”

  “Oh.”

  Clay probed, “Pontiac seems tempted by our nanites.”

  “Pontiac, no,” Melkor clarified. “But our Tyrant is aging. Only 60, but he’s suffered two recent heart attacks. Some seek to curry favor with him. They have samples of your nanites now. But the League forbids medical treatment for life extension past age 50.”

  “Because?” Sass prompted.

  “Earth is overpopulated.”

  Did Melkor agree with that statement? Sass doubted it, but he was smooth. “Are we speaking to the right people? The League?”

  “You have no choice. You’ve already engaged our space defenses, our jets, a casual dome patrol. To deal with anyone else, you must gain assent from the League.”

  Sass noted he hadn’t mentioned the subs. “The Sargasso?”

  The attaché’s gaze grew abstracted, then amused. “Yes, there was a League sub involved.” He spread webbed fingers. “A case in point. When the League has clarity on who you are, and where you are permitted to go, misunderstandings are averted. Please note that submarines, jets, satellites, and ordnance are expensive.” He paused and glanced at both of them to underline this point. “Cost is a potent argument against you.”

  Melkor rose. “Everything else can wait, I think. Please enjoy your rest. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Clay escorted him to the door, then returned to the table. Fidget ignored her recharging wick, busy grooming her back, a comical contortion.

  “He’s not our friend, Clay,” Sass murmured, eyes on the yoga mink. She twirled her wine dregs thoughtfully.

  “No one here is our friend,” he agreed. “And we’re a tempting tool to assorted factions. We should be leery of those agendas. Melkor may become a friend. But first and foremost, he serves Pontiac.” He added a tiny head-shake as he said that last.

  Sass sighed. She got the same impression. Melkor served Pontiac because he was taken as a child and groomed into the man he was now. Who was remarkably talented, if his rank lay only two rungs below the Tyrant of the Americas. It seemed to her he’d mentioned his origins with the boat people a few too many times.

  “Shoot! I forgot to ask about the stragglers.” She scowled in vexation. “Remind me tomorrow.”

  Clay shook his head. “Sass, I don’t think he’ll answer. Because we’re stragglers ourselves. Aren’t we.”

  She sat back to stare at him, registering his insight. “All of us. Everyone in the colonies. Is the descendant of stragglers. What a mess.”

  She kneaded the pads at the base of her regenerating l
eft fingers, still wooden, though the thumb had pinged its restoration. “Do you think they’ll let me fly Thrive to Hakone? I don’t like Darren doing that.” Earth’s weather was problematic. And ordinarily an engineer only piloted the ship around port, at dead slow.

  “I think they’ll divide and conquer,” Clay confirmed. “Keep us separated from the crew.”

  Sass scratched the table to beckon her mink. “C’mere, Fidget. What’s the word?”

  The mink obediently crossed and stood on her hind legs to nuzzle her ear, tickly and warm. A whisker probed and mated to Sass’s embedded ear bug, a necessity for a captain who must remain in constant contact with her crew. “This building is shielded. Dead to outside signals.”

  Sass nodded understanding and stroked her pet. “And are we feeling all better now?”

  “Fully charged. I’m sorry I let myself run down. I’ll be careful now.”

  “Shh, sweetie. You’re a good girl.” The walls could overhear only the captain’s side of this conversation.

  Fidget responded with a contented purr.

  “I sure wish I knew what was happening on my ship.” For that, Fidget had no answer.

  29

  China attempted to cull its population to 300 million, but started from 1.5 billion. They failed and lost control of the ensuing civil wars.

  Sass grew antsy by the time their transport landed in Anchorage. True to Clay’s prediction, they were not allowed to fly to Hakone on Thrive One, or even communicate with the crew.