Warp Thrive

by Ginger Booth

  Ben reached the door to the living section. He paused and swallowed, taking in the condition of the children within. “Air bomb report,” he demanded.

  “Three of them should be enough,” the tech left behind reported. “Plus an hour or two for the scrubbers.”

  “Do it,” Ben decided. “Setting off second one here.” He dumped an air bomb off someone else’s grav lifter, and blew it a few meters back from the lock. “Everyone left is with me. Huddle.”

  They were practiced at this maneuver by now, and soon through the door. Ben didn’t bother to construct another airlock here. Instead, the instant he was through the door, he scouted with his eyes for a clear spot, then set off another air bomb between a pair of empty bunk beds. The kids on top were terrified, but he grasped their hands and smiled.

  “Hi, I’m Ben. And that’s just air. Does it taste better?”

  The girl on the left made a show of breathing deeply, and nodded blissfully. Hypoxic, Ben noted in passing. The girl across the way didn’t rouse. “Check her,” he instructed the next volunteer in line. She was a librarian with Waterfalls IT, if he remembered correctly. Or maybe this one was in shipping. He couldn’t keep track of them all. But the woman swiftly checked the silent girl’s vitals, and shook her head. She drew a black X on her forehead, and paused a moment in prayer.

  Ben picked up the girl still alive and carried her with him, rather than leave her to gaze at her dead friend. Her sheets were soiled. Ben decided to ignore any and all bodily fluids today. They meant life.

  He found Eli in the next dorm, checking vitals bed to bed. “How many?”

  “The adults are non-responsive,” the botanist replied. “So far I’ve got 32 live children, 2 live adults. None able to walk out of here.” He paused grimly. “Dr. Tyler says to leave any adult who can’t rouse to open their eyes. But bring the children.”

  Ben swallowed. “Her call,” he acknowledged. “Where do we stage the children to pass through?”

  Eli straightened to look at him in surprise. “Don’t we treat them here?”

  “Is that your recommendation, doctor?” Ben pressed. “I’m the mechanic.”

  “Yeah, and I’m a botanist!” Eli retorted. He cast his eyes around the dim dormitory, silent except for the rare weak cough.

  “My orders are to rig an airspace through from here to the portable bio-locks,” Ben replied. “Eli, you’re my front man. Is that the right play? We’ve got plenty of adults in the next dome. They’d be happy to replace these teachers and get the fuck out of here. They’ll help carry children.”

  “Without air masks?”

  “That’s the plan. Should have an airway through the collapsed corridor in about an hour. Saggy bubble chain probably. Could have that in an hour.”

  Eli’s face crumpled. “I have no idea.”

  “Then we follow my orders,” Ben declared. “Meet Chelsea.” He pointed to the woman behind him, possibly a secretary.

  “Dina,” she corrected him.

  Ben nodded and handed her his frail 6-year-old. “Dina will start staging the children by the exit route. Help her find them. More helpers will come.” Thrive lifted from Waterfalls with nearly 70 sturdy volunteers packed in hammocks throughout the hold. He hoped they realized it was a one-way trip for the foreseeable future.

  “L-C-1 breathable,” a tech reported on their coordination comm channel.

  “Acknowledged. Collect volunteers from L-C-1 bio-lock to carry children and bring them through to L-C-2,” Ben ordered him. He turned back to Eli and clasped his shoulder. “Hell of a job, Eli. Kassidy will arrive in a few minutes to immortalize you, alright?” He grinned.

  “Kassidy can shut off her cameras and play medic,” Eli replied, but returned the grin. “I’m alright, Ben. Go do your own hero thing.”

  “Is the air worse any farther back?”

  “I don’t know yet if there’s anyone alive back there.”

  Ben pointed at his last remaining minion, a hunter teen. “Go with Eli. Carry children to Dina.”

  And Ben headed back to the broken corridor to figure out how to thread a sturdy airtight passage through it.

  He passed through Kassidy’s newly-sealed airlock into the space, and kicked a few glass bricks out of his way, thinking. He did have a couple flexible umbilicals back at the ash plaza. But he hoped to use them to marry his container bio-locks to the dome and ship, and they’d be hell to transport through the domes.

  Or, he could use a bucket-brigade system through this bottleneck with air masks and tanks. But he sure hated to put an air mask on a sick child, and it would be awfully slow. The bubble-chain, just a series of the Sagamore bubbles all the way through, would work. But the balloon-like material wasn’t tough enough. One stumble, and he’d lose air integrity. That might get people killed.

  But what if they’re not inside the bubble? he thought, glancing up at the buckled ceiling. Can I turn this problem inside-out?

  Far more dexterous than Eli, especially because he wore face-mask and tank rather than a full pressure suit, Ben scampered up and down the corridor studying the ceiling. His first bubble he used on the boulder incursion itself, and yes, the gummy stuff stuck to the the ceiling glass rather well. The next two bubbles he used to reinforce the seal against that bottleneck, and tug the material more snugly against the rock for as wide a thoroughfare as possible. Beyond that he simply teased the bubbles to cover as much broken dome as possible, out of reach of pedestrians. To escape captivity on Sagamore, he and Copeland and Abel had practiced all sorts of strange bubble formations before they figured out how to create a bubble-head air system, leaving them perhaps the Aloha system grand champions at manipulating the material.

  All three remained ardent fans of the silly stuff. Abel brought tons along to sell in Denali, manufactured by Hell’s Bells on request. The locals enthusiastically bought it all. Then they gave it right back to Thrive for this evacuation emergency. Ben had bubble-stuff to burn.

  He plastered the final bit of bubble snug above Kassidy’s new airlock, and kicked away the little platform of glass bricks he’d used to stand tippy-toe.

  Now for the test. He set his air gauge for its most sensitive readings, and told it to remember this baseline. Then he yanked out his air feed from his tank and let it spew, watching the oxygen and nitrogen and pressure readings rise. When he felt the first symptoms of hypoxia, he reattached his supply, and waved his arm around to help the gases disperse. To kill another minute or two, he calculated out how much good gas mix he’d allowed to escape, the approximate volume of his highly irregular space, and the expected air readings if his patch held.

  He was off by 10% – on the low side. The net air improvement was better than his numbers projected.

  Encouraged, he tried an air bomb. Ridiculously over-powered for this small volume, he modulated the gas escape portion by hand to preserve most of the bomb for use somewhere else. The cleaning filter gizmo needed to crank its little heart out.

  The damned thing mobilized every mote of ash into a swirling maelstrom. Which cleared faster than he expected. Huh. The floating ash stuck to the bubbles.

  The air in here was rapidly improving, and visibility as well. But the chemistry worried him. What was that ash doing to the rubbery material?

  He blew a bubble in an out-of-the-way corner, and tried his best to foul it with ash. So far as he could tell, the main effect was to toughen the balloon.

  Well, it would either work or it wouldn’t. The ash in the corridor could be spritzed down with water, and shoveled out. He had plenty of unskilled hands to do that. “I need six helpers to the broken corridor. Bring brooms and dustpans, water and spray bottles, and trash containers. Ash removal. Stat. Who’s coming?”

  By the time his volunteers found their gear, arrived, and set to their task, the air quality was definitely on the mend. He lugged the remaining air bomb, minus its filtration unit, to Dina’s waiting survivors and gave them a bonus dose. He wouldn’t care to sleep here, but
with the amazing resilience of childhood, the kids looked better already, blue lips fading to pink.

  Before he escaped to find another engineering challenge, Eli strode up to him. “All beds accounted for. We’re checking closets now. But this is probably it, 47 survivors. No adults.”

  Ben gave him a firm nod in salute. “Well done, Eli. Should be another 20 minutes. Then your crew can start carrying them from here directly into the next dome. Pick up the air filter on your way out and keep moving that with the kids, OK? You should have a clean air path straight onto the Thrive.”

  Eli stared at him. “You have breathable air? All that way? Already?”

  “Those were my orders.”

  “Regular chip off Copeland’s block!”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Ben replied, grinning. “Kassidy!” She’d just arrived, and finished laying a sick child among her classmates. “Stick with the kids, lend a technical assist where needed. But cameras free. Live children only.”

  She nodded, eyes moist and glowing. She flopped onto her butt among the children. She arranged her vigilant camera drones to share their story with the entire Aloha system, live.

  “Who’s been through a bio-lock before?” she asked them, charisma oozing out on full. Another helper quietly took a seat behind her to offer Denali local expertise if needed.

  And Ben was off to his next job.

  29

  Clay waited for Cope to finish yet another call for a consult. Then he confiscated the sagging engineer’s comm and set it to ping him every 20 minutes to drink something. Starting now – he pressed a cup of metabolic salts-laden flavored water on him.

  Inside the Denali skyship, freshly blown out of the ash, the temperature pushed 110 Fahrenheit. The air was sort-of breathable, at least. They could pull back their face-masks to drink, or wipe away the sweat dripping into their eyes.

  No crew survived in the ship. One found dead in the airlock, a woman who didn’t quite make it. The airlock’s outer door seal was compromised, a repair job Clay easily completed when Copeland was interrupted the second time. This last was his sixth call.

  “Where was I…” Cope murmured.

  “Life support, temperature control,” Clay supplied. “The external sensors are all broken.”

  “Right.” Copeland leaned into his control pedestal by the big cargo doors. The ship’s fundamental architecture matched Thrive’s, the same old Jupiter asteroid miner, modified over nearly a century of use. He found the right configuration, and clicked a final button. Apparently the screen was mouthing off to him, because he muttered, “Computer? No one cares.”

  Instantly, the fans came on at maximum. Both men tilted their heads back to savor the breeze a moment. Clay even pulled off his mask.

  “You’re running on fumes, Cope,” Clay pointed out.

  The engineer hastily brought up the fuel status screens. “No, the tanks are full. They were readying for evacuation, I bet.” He glanced up to the containers secured up the rear wall of the hold, all the way up to the catwalk. “I wonder if that’s fuel.”

  Clay clapped his shoulder. “I meant you’re tired.” They’d worked through the night. Sunrise arrived an hour ago, with the heat starting to mount.

  “Got that right,” Cope said vaguely, checking something else. “Batteries are at max. Fuel at max. I wonder if –” His comm rang again.

  Clay held his wrist before he could answer. “Wonder if what?”

  “If the sky drive is alive but sleeping. If they’re running third gen fuel,” Cope got out in a hurry. Then he accepted his call. “Reza, what do you need?”

  Reza needed an engineering design for a water tank kit, by the sound of things. Demand was high.

  Clay tuned him out and headed for the engine room. It looked different from Thrive’s, of course, since Sass pioneered making them serve as grow rooms. This one tended to the popular workshop model, with tables for steel and plastic printers, and metal craft projects strewn about. He ignored all that and checked the sky drive itself, a sheathed black column at the ship’s mid-line. Even against the heat of the ship, it was warm, still alive.

  He shifted to check around the fuel hopper, hoping in vain to find a stray fuel pellet. He wasn’t surprised to find none. So he headed back out the door to pry a suspected pellet container off the wall, and open it.

  Even he could tell by the color that this was third generation fuel, and quite a lot of it. He resealed the barrel but left it down.

  If the engine was warm, and the batteries were full, in theory he could raise the ship just a few feet – a meter – while Cope still talked Reza through his latest challenge. He stepped over, and murmured, “I’m going to test the thrusters.”

  Copeland didn’t acknowledge he’d spoken, just put a hand over his free ear and turned away. “We can’t spare printer steel for the tanks. What can we do with plastic?”

  Clay climbed to the catwalk and headed for the bridge. The place felt much like stepping into a home where he used to live, now occupied by someone else. The galley was split into two rooms, with the kitchen layout strange. The bridge seats were upholstered in the same soft absorbent skins used for loincloths.

  He brought the ship up on thrusters only, drawing power from the batteries. He hovered a meter, then immediately set the ship down again.

  Sass hailed him. “Great job over there, Clay! But watch where you blow ash, alright? I’ve got people out here.”

  “Right, sorry. Clay out.”

  Cope slipped into the gunner’s seat beside him. “I’m thinking you need to see outside a little better, Clay.”

  He brought up a labeled diagram on the generous gunner’s display, and flipped through the camera feeds. “Bingo. Live cameras and sensors on the underside of the ship. Take notes for me.”

  He reeled off a series of numbers, the ID of each camera still working, followed by a list of where Clay needed them – three to aim the guns, two to see where the exhaust pointed, and a couple on either side to watch out for emergency workers on foot. “Reza can get a tech team over here to do that for you. Then I think you’re in business.”

  “Galley? Heads?” Clay prompted.

  Cope raised an eyebrow at him. “Nice if you got ’em. Sure there’s a bucket around here somewhere. You’re ready to go, Captain Rocha. Congratulations.”

  “Need a gunner.”

  “Not my department,” Cope breathed, rising. They clasped hands for a shake. “Good luck. I’m out of here.”

  “Oh, Cope!” Clay added, before he could get away. “Third gen fuel, second gen engine.”

  The engineer nodded thoughtfully. “Figured as much. Lavelle’s Gossamer never landed on Denali. Nanomage was on the sea floor. I was hoping this was the ship that brought Yang down from orbit. Good news. Oh, hey – your ship’s name is the Koala.”

  Clay huffed a laugh. No doubt the Denali ‘koala’ was murderous, huge, and anything but cute. Copeland probably didn’t know what the furry Earth namesake looked like.

  An hour later, when at last the new-minted captain had visuals outside his ship, a glint of motion caught his eye across the desolate ash fields of Denali Prime. The ground rescue forces were arriving, an armored caravan from Hermitage, 50 km closer to the buried city than Waterfalls.

  Clay celebrated by hailing Sass again. “Hey, honey, the cavalry arrived!”

  “And none too soon,” Sass agreed. “Get back here for some sleep. We’re about to lift the first load of children to their new home.”

  “Aw, and I was getting close to my maiden flight. Still need a gunner.”

  “Gunners need sleep, too.”

  “Be right there. Love you, bye.”

  Clay set off across the ash plaza, eyeing their progress with deep satisfaction. The rescue workers Thrive brought from Waterfalls would camp here, already established in the first dome they entered, now restored to habitable. The Denali would take charge of this show from here.

  He passed the great bio-locks, umbi
licals still attached for bringing in the children. All the people hid within at this juncture, shielded from the scorching noon sun. It was just as well they couldn’t see him. In his simple face-mask, he climbed a rope ladder into the trap door on Thrive’s belly and let himself in. A blast of frigid air rid his equipment and skin of bakkra. His nanites never let them take hold internally.

  When he first came here, he expected to go incognito again, a natural person the same as the rest. Instead the entire world – no, the whole star system – would see him as he was, a cyborg above the need for the bio-locks mere humans required. Thrive brought the advanced satellites to link the worlds. They brought Kassidy, Mahina’s very finest publicist. Now an entire star system could hang glued to their displays to follow the rescue of Denali Prime.

  He tried to tell himself he was just tired. If his exposure saved even a single child’s life, it was worth the price, and he’d do it again.

  But he still cringed internally that they knew. Of all the places for his masquerade to be torn away, he’d lose his secret to this alien volcano-buried city. He wondered if his son Hunter would be kind, would explain to his kids that granddaddy never meant to be a robot.

  Sass met him at the trapdoor and gave him a hug. That consolation helped more.

  “Come to bed with me,” he pleaded, tugging her.

  “I’m driving the bus. I’ll join you in Waterfalls. Promise.”

  “Selectman Gorey,” Sass greeted him, coming into the bridge for takeoff. The man awaited her in the seat next to her pilot’s chair. “You cannot be here. I need a gunner in that position.”

  Gorey smirked. “I’m your gunner for this run.”

  Sass pursed her lips at him. “My bridge, my ship. I believe we’ve covered this ground before.”

  “I’m qualified,” Gorey argued. “Used to work the skyship route between cities. Not much of a pilot. But my hunters are clearing the pterries between here and Waterfalls to expedite the evacuation. Requires careful communication with the ground forces.”