Post by Angmor on Feb 24, 2011 19:44:05 GMT -5
Obviously a working title. So, those of you who don't know, Elvorn and I have set out to write a book. We're really happy with how it's turned out so far, so Elvorn has finally given me permission to post some excerpts. Keep in mind, this is totally unedited, ridden with typos, and just generally not very polished. Also, we're not really looking for critique at this point. Posting your thoughts would be great, but don't be offended if any advice of what we should or should not do goes completely unanswered and unused. For the moment, we're just concentrating on getting it written. After that, we can concentrate on getting it perfect, and even then, we'll be very select in the critiques we accept. So, without further ado, I give you, The Book:
No matter how many times he had safely reentered the atmosphere, Charles Tailor could never feel entirely comfortable when the hull temperature readout climbed up near the red line. The saying among cargo-shuttle pilots was that any landing where the overheat klaxons remained silent was a good landing; but, Tailor decided, they evidently had a different description of silence than the majority of humanity, because the oversized turbines used for maneuvering in-atmosphere were loud enough to set his teeth to rattling.
Pulling his eyes away from the temperature gauge, he glanced briefly at the other occupant of the shuttle’s bridge. In the pilot’s chair to his left, a diminutive female figure deftly adjusted a few dials on the large control bank in front of her, her posture completely at ease as she made the myriad of minor course corrections that would keep the shuttle from burning up during reentry. Despite the mind-numbing volume of the turbines and the rapidly rising temperature gauge, the impassive face of Captain Elizabeth Hugin did not betray the slightest hint of worry. She had been a commercial pilot for over a decade, Tailor knew, and the gut-wrenching deceleration burn experienced during a planetary landing was nothing new to her.
Tightening the already snug safety harness over his bulky, six-and-a-half foot frame, the shuttle’s medical officer admitted to himself that it bothered him when he was only separated from the incinerating three-thousand degree temperatures outside the shuttle by a pane of super-reinforced polycarbonate.
Suddenly, the viewscreen’s Head-Up Display flickered and a calm, female voice came over Tailor’s headset. “Captain, we are now clearing the danger zone and hull temperature should begin to return to normal. I am engaging the maneuvering flaps to bring us to a horizontal flight path.”
“Thank you, Tavia,” Hugin replied. “How’s number three atmos engine holding up?”
“Unsure, Captain. We may be able to bring it online, which would give us more maneuverability; but the coolant sensors are still offline, so I am unable to ascertain whether or not it is in danger of combusting.”
Tailor grunted wearily. “You have such a nice way of saying you don’t have a clue whether or not it’s going to blow up, Tavia.” Dealing with computers was not one of his specialties.
“Thank you, Mr. Tailor.” If a computer could sound smug, then Tavia was exuding self-satisfaction. “As the ship’s A.I., it is my job to inform you of any inherent risks involved in the running of this shuttle, meaning things that would turn your frail human bodies into disconnected particles of vapor. Also, the port authority is on line one and waiting to talk you down.”
“That’s fine, Tavia.” Hugin interjected. “Put them through, I’ll let you know if we need anything else.”
The HUD flickered again and the communications light on Hugin’s control panel lit up. A scratchy voice flooded through the cockpit.
“Shuttle Beta-Tango-Niner-Niner, this is Hephaestus Port Authority. You are cleared for landing at dock seven-four-alpha. Repeat, cleared for dock seven-four-alpha, over.”
“Copy that Hephaestus P.A., be advised that we’re coming down on two turbines, over.”
“Understood. We’ll have emergency rescue crews standing by, over.”
Hugin reached out and took the control yoke, easing it slightly back and forth. Agonizingly slowly, the ship rolled to port, seemed to hang suspended for a moment at thirty degrees, then, even more slowly, rolled back to a level deck.
“Charlie,” Hugin said, looking down at the artificial horizon in front of her, “bring our speed down to half on turbines one and two.”
“You’ve got it, Captain,” Tailor said, smoothly easing back two levers on the consol in front of him.
The shuttle creaked alarmingly as the superheated metal hull began contracting in the cool air of Hephaestus’ artificial atmosphere. Fortunately, the rapid expansions and contractions of a planetary landing had been planned for by the heavy engineering company responsible for making this particular type of shuttle and the pliable metal of the outer hull could handle the strain of thousands of reentries. The shuttle was an older model; fifteen standard years had passed since it had rolled off the production line, but it was a surprisingly durable craft, with one of the densest pressure hulls on a ship available to civilians. Obviously, this was a good thing, as the shuttle’s hull was scored with gouges and burns from collisions with floating debris. Its drab grey paint was chipped and peeling, with much of the black metal underneath showing through. Under the steady hand of Captain Hugin, the battered ship slowly leaned to starboard and came about, heading for the guidance beacon that the Hephaestus P.A. had just locked onto their radar.
“Charlie, can you head back and make sure Ramirez is ready for unloading?” Hugin yelled over the roar of the turbines, “I want him on hand when we collect our fee so that we don’t have a misunderstanding like last time.”
“On it, boss.” Tailor pressed the release on his safety harness and bounded to his feet. He was never happy just sitting around. Which, of course, Beth knows, he thought to himself. She could have Tavia do it just as easily. He grinned.
Pulling off his headset, Tailor grabbed the handrail on the left side of the bridge and jogged back to the hatch leading to the crew’s cafeteria. The cafeteria-cum-recreation room was sparsely decorated, bearing only a few token booths bolted against the walls. No one could remember the last time Hugin had picked up passengers, so more accommodations than the crew required simply took up extra space. Tailor glanced briefly at the booths, then turned to his right and opened a trapdoor in the floor.
“Ramirez!” He shouted, trying to make himself heard over the constant, ear-splitting clamor of the portside turbine. “Ramirez!”
He sighed, grabbing the head of the ladder and slipping effortlessly through the hatch coaming. The steel toes of his heavy leather boots clacked loudly on the floor as he landed at the bottom of the ladder, turning to look down the long corridor leading aft to Cargo Bay Two. On either side of the corridor, three identical doors lead to crew cabins. The ones on the left were unused, the ones on the right belonged to Hugin, in the farthest forward, Tailor in the middle, and the ship’s stand-offish contract procurement officer on the end.
Striding impatiently to the last door, Tailor banged his fist continuously on the metal until the hatch was jerked inward and a surly-looking Ramirez gave him an icy look.
“What do you want?” He asked, his heavily accented voice barely audible over the scream of the turbine so close to his cabin.
“Boss wants you topside when we disembark.” Tailor roared, peering around Ramirez at the cabin. It seemed like every time he was able to sneak a glimpse in the room, a mess of electronic parts was actively engaged in covering every surface between the door coaming and the far wall. Ramirez claimed to be building a translator A.I. for talking with clients who did not speak Standard, but Tailor held a secret belief that he was trying to make an army of tiny robots out of the old radios that he kept tearing apart.
“Okay, I will be up.” Ramirez assured, slamming the door with a marked lack of ceremony in Tailor’s face. The medical officer grunted again, shrugged his shoulders and turned to go back up to the bridge.
Without warning, the shuttle fell out from under him and he landed heavily on the deck.
Cursing fluently, he hauled himself up on the handrail and tested his weight on his left foot, which had taken most of his weight when he fell. Not a sprain, he decided, just bruised.
Hobbling to the ladder, he climbed up slowly, favoring his injured ankle. Just as he reached the top, the ship bounced again, almost throwing him back down the hatch. Getting to his feet, Tailor grabbed the handrail and staggered back through the cafeteria and onto the bridge, trying desperately to keep his balance as the ship jinked up and down.
Dropping heavily into the co-pilot’s chair, he fumbled with his harness. “What’s going on, Beth?” He yelled, grabbing the headset and jamming it down over his ears. Immediately a wave of chatter washed over him, trying to drown out the turbines.
“We’ve got a bug in engine three.” Hugin said, her eyes never leaving the viewscreen. “It’s trying to start up midflight without going through its warm-up cycle. Tavia’s working on isolating the cause of the glitch, but she says that the system is locking her out. Might take a few minutes.”
“Have we got a few minutes?” Tailor asked, scanning the airspeed and altitude data displayed on the HUD.
“Dock seven-four-alpha is only a few dozen klicks ahead. At this speed, we’re going to leave quite a dent in the traffic control tower. I’m trying to bring our speed down, but number three turbine has a death wish. Reduce power to turbines one and two to twenty percent.”
“Twenty percent, aye.” He eased the levers back another notch, waiting for the ship to slow. “She’s not responding. Cut the power?”
“We’re already taking a chance of one and two flatlining as is, hit the emergency brakes and cut power to three and four!” Hugin shouted, her knuckles white as she gripped the yoke, trying to keep the shuttle on a straight course.
Tailor pulled a red handle under the console, and the shuttle’s speed dropped dramatically, allowing Hugin to pull the nose up and slow down even more. Reaching across the panel in front of him, Tailor pressed two buttons on Hugin’s console, waiting for the sensors to indicate that the power levels of turbines three and four were dropping. Five seconds passed. Ten, fifteen, still nothing happened. Tailor swore, pressing the release on his harness and swinging out of his seat.
“Controls aren’t responding! Must be the same system bug that’s making three go haywire. I’m heading down to engineering to turn it off manually!”
Hugin jerked her head in what Tailor thought was an affirmative, the tendons in her neck standing out clearly as she wrestled with the yoke. Diving for the handrail as the shuttle dipped again, he started making his way back toward the ladder he had gone down earlier, fighting to keep his footing on the wildly slewing deck. When he reached the hatch leading to the crew’s quarters, he sat down on the edge of the coaming and carefully eased himself down, making sure not to jar his injured ankle when the shuttle jumped.
At the foot of the ladder, Tailor turned left instead of continuing aft to the cabins and climbed down a second set of rungs built into the metal bulkhead. Immediately the antiseptic smell of the engineering spaces hit him. In old, combustion-engine powered craft that used grease in large quantities to lubricate the moving parts, the need for sterile conditions didn’t exist, but when too much accumulated detritus could foul a ship’s life support system, it paid to keep the bowels of a spacegoing craft clean.
“Alright Tavia,” Tailor shouted into his headset, “What am I looking for?”
“There’s no need to shout, Charles, I’m filtering out the turbine noise from your headset’s audio pickup. Head aft and look for two red breaker switches on the black box next to the reactor. They’re easy to spot, so even you should be able to find them.”
“Got it.” Tailor said, ignoring the insult and weaving his way through the banks of computer processors and navigational equipment until he stood facing the featureless grey block that supplied the shuttle with ninety percent of its power. “Black box. The one on the wall?”
“That’s right,” Tailor thought he detected a hint of worry in the A.I.’s voice. “Now pull the breaker marked ‘EGN 3-4,’ and hurry up, we haven’t got all day.”
Tailor grabbed the handle of the breaker, more out of reflex than intent, as the ship pitched violently to port. Regaining his balance, he gripped the breaker and pulled down. Nothing happened. Taking a closer look, he realized that the hinges connecting the breaker to the black control panel were corroded and, without a doubt, had been for a long time. Bracing his feet and squaring his shoulders, Tailor gripped the breaker with both hands, pulling until the muscles in his forearms shook with the effort.
“Bloody son of a rusty, broken down—” he hurled a stream of invective at the immobile breaker switch, realizing, a second too late, that he was still connected to the Port Authority. Switching off his headset’s microphone, he looked around desperately for something that would help him maneuver the breaker into the off position.
“Tool locker!” Tavia’s voice cut into his audio channel, “Other side of the reactor. Come on, shift it, we’ve got another eight and a half klicks until we leave our mark on Hephaestus’ spaceport!”
Not bothering to reply, Tailor dashed around the reactor block, instantly spotting the bright yellow ‘in case of emergency’ box bolted to the inner hull. Knocking a few of the tools out of the case in his hurry, he fumbled to free a heavy-duty crowbar from its clips. The few moments it took to release it felt like an eternity that the shuttle didn’t have at that moment. Stumbling heavily against the reactor as the shuttle dropped another meter, the medical officer jammed the crowbar bit in between the breaker and the face of the console, planting his feet and straining against the metal.
Come on, you bloody chunk of metal. I’m not going to die because of rust…
With a sharp crack, the breaker gave, flipping down to the ‘off’ position and sending Tailor staggering against the bulkhead. As suddenly as they had begun, the tremors that had racked the shuttle stopped, and the roar of turbines one and two increased in volume and returned to a steadier cyclic rate.
Breathing heavily, Tailor slid down the bulkhead and sat with his head on his arms, ignoring the trickle of blood coming from his hand where the crowbar had caught it in his fall.
“Tavia,” he said shakily, pulling the headset mic down to his mouth, “can you put me through to Beth?”
Tavia huffed impatiently— Tailor had no idea where she had picked that up— and a second later a welter of voices came through his headset. Before he could say anything, the voices were cut off as the channel was overridden.
“Shuttle Beta-Tango-Niner-Niner, this is Hephaestus Port Authority. Your airspeed is too high, reduce power, repeat, reduce power. Is this that faulty turbine you were talking about?” It was the P.A. officer they had talked to before.
Tailor glanced at the breaker and stood up, walking slowly toward the ladder on the now steady deck. “Yeah, Hephaestus, that’s the one. We’ve got it under control now. You might still want to have those rescue blokes on standby though.”
“Copy that, Bee-Tee-Niner-Niner, we’ll roll out the welcome mat, over.”
A minute later, Tailor slumped wearily down in his harness and stared out the front viewscreen at the flashing blue lights of the emergency rescue vehicles parked near shuttle dock seven-four-alpha. Hugin was still hunched over the controls, her fingers flying over a dizzying array of switches and buttons as she deftly brought the lumbering shuttle to a standstill over the docking zone. Meticulously, she pulled the thrust control back, notch by notch, until, with the barest of bumps, the shuttle was no longer airborne.
Running her hand through her close-cropped, brown hair, Hugin stared absently out the viewscreen as fire control crews scurried around the landing pad. Suddenly, she laughed, leaning back in her chair and grinning when Tailor quirked an eyebrow at her.
“I wonder how Ramirez handled all his little tech pieces flying around like chaff?”
Tailor chuckled as he envisioned the unsociable procurement officer having a heart attack as his carefully disassembled radio pieces were scattered around his room. Conquest of the galaxy: postponed, he thought to himself with a smile.
As any pilot could testify, there was always a moment just after setting an aircraft on the ground where everything seemed to freeze. This infinite, immortal moment would stretch alarmingly, and the whole world would simply wait, silently, hanging in midair, waiting for something to happen. And then, just when even a seasoned pilot began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, they might have done something catastrophically wrong, tension would break. The moment would pass, and the vehicle would settle onto its landing surface like a living thing breathing a sigh of relief. This moment was felt especially after such a landing was made under duress. As the shuttle’s landing struts finally met the tarmac of the landing pad, this moment, as described, was exactly what happened.
Captain Elizabeth Marcia Hugin sat tense in her seat, her hands gripping the control yoke with an intensity born of adrenaline, listening intently. She was always keenly aware of the sounds after a landing; Tailor’s somewhat labored breathing on the seat to her right, the ticking and creaking of the outer hull as it settled, the dull whoosh of the turbines as they spun down, coupled with the infinite tiny mechanical sounds that made up a ship in operation. Over the years, she had developed an ear for it. Ramirez had said a few times that it creeped him out how she could simply cock her head and, just by listening to the pitch of the actuators, the flux of fluids through conduits, know something was wrong with her ship. Thankfully, she did not hear anything wrong now. Despite everything she had gone through the past few minutes, her baby was fine. At last assured, Hugin let her hands drop from the yoke, holding up the half-gloved digits to the brownish light from the viewscreen. Watching her fingers carefully, she finally allowed herself a long, deep breath.
In…
Out…
On the exhalation, she saw her fingers tremor slightly, almost like the vibration of an acoustic string. And then, it was gone. The tension had worked itself out, and her hands were precise and rock-steady again. Steady hands were a must for any great pilot. She could still hear the voices of her instructors at the air force academy, a long, long time ago…
If your hands start shaking uncontrollably after a bad landing, it’s probably time to get out and join the army.
She was suddenly aware of Tailor watching her. She smiled inwardly. That was Charlie. Always looking out for her. To break the tension, she laughed, running a hand through her short, messy and very brown hair.
“I wonder how Ramirez handled all his little tech pieces flying around like chaff?” She said, looking to spark a laugh from her friend. The gambit worked, and immediately Tailor’s formidable voice boomed around the bridge. Hugin smiled along, not quite joining in with the mirth. She still found she wasn’t quite capable of a full laugh. Not just yet. She took another deep breath, clearing her thoughts before they could take hold again. Now was not the time.
On to business.
She pushed a strand of hair aside and tapped the control on her earpiece, opening the channel to the PA. “Hephaestus, this is shuttle Beta-Tango-Niner-Niner. We are down and secure, no injuries. No need for the flame jockeys to come douse us with foam.”
“Roger that, shuttle.” The male voice scratched back. “I’ll stand down the EM techs and fire control. I don’t mind telling you, that fancy landing has created some very disappointed firemen. They just got upgraded to top of the line foam-cannons. They’ve been looking for something to suds for weeks.”
Feeling her eyebrows rising, she glanced out the side viewport, her eyes adjusting to the sunlight. Sure enough, several heavily-suited firetechs were making their way back to their trucks, all looking decidedly unhappy that the shuttle was not about to spontaneously combust. “Tell them from me that I’m sorry.” She said, smiling as she watched them go. “If we don’t find an engineer, they will probably get their wish the next time.”
“They’ll keep their fingers crossed. Well," The voice coughed, obviously returning to business. "Welcome to Hephaestus Colony. Do you have anything to declare?"
"Just a charter cargo of semi-precious ores to be delivered to a local smelting company. We also have some firearms in the locker, but your database will show that our permits are up to date." Hugin answered, trying to keep the boredom out of her voice. She was a veteran of countless such conversations, and this one promised to be strictly routine. Still, she supposed, it could have been worse. Before the advent of powerful and accurate sensor technology, such interactions with customs had actually needed to be carried out in person, often with lengthy inspections. There was a slight pause, and Hugin could picture the PA officer keying the controls to bring the docking port's powerful array to bear on their cargo spaces.
"Ooh, tingly." Tavia giggled.
"Copy that, shuttle." Came the PA's voice. "Sensors show no contraband materials, and you seem a pleasant enough sort, so I'm not going to order an inspection. The fees for the docking have already cleared your account. Let me be the first to welcome you to Hephaestus, and I hope your stay will be just as exciting as your arrival."
"Roger that." Hugin responded, huffing under her breath. Everyone was a comedian. "'Pleasure talking with you. Out."
For several moments, there was silence in the cabin, broken only by the ticking of the hull and the hum of cooling fans under the various consoles. Hugin blew out a breath, trying to collect her thoughts for what was to come. The time after landing with a cargo always felt like a frenzied rush of activity, and now the transition between averting disaster and business as usual was jarring. She chided herself for being silly. Life didn't just stop, and danger was par for the course for anyone who chose to break a planet's atmosphere.
"Well captain," Tavia piped in, as if reading her thoughts. "We have some trucks pulling up to the back. I think our faithful clients are here for the pickup."
Before she could reach for it, Tailor keyed up the feeds from the rear external cams onto the large monitor above the viewscreen, revealing the fisheyed image of the landing platform behind the shuttle. Sure enough, several large cargo trucks could be seen approaching in a neat convoy, a C Class load-lifter trundling in the rear. Despite the distortion of the low-quality image, the words Starbound Machining could be seen emblazoned on the sides of the vehicles. Tailor nodded once. "That's them, alright. Bloody eager, aren't they?"
"I'm not complaining." Hugin replied. As she spoke, she detached the smaller and more portable earpiece from the headset assembly before settling it back over her ear. "Better than waiting for hours with a heavy cargo bay and nowhere to go. Tavia, open the cargo ramp."
"Dropping the drawers, aye captain." The AI responded.
“Cheeky bugger.” Tailor muttered thickly. Hugin turned her head away to examine the reactor coolant levels, a control which she knew to be totally within safe limits, hiding the quirk of a smile at the corner of her mouth. Tailor and Tavia’s constant antics were always amusing, but it was more than that. She was grateful to them both for lightening her days. Ramirez too, but not quite as warmly. She no longer knew how to exist without them. They were all her friends, her family.
Without them, she had nothing left.
She forcefully crushed the last thought, pushing it back into the darkest recesses of her mind before it could overwhelm her. After a second, she realized that Tailor was speaking to her, his bearded features all concern. “Beth? Beth, you ok?”
“Yup.” She said on pure reflex, finally snapping fully back to reality. “Just thinking. Sorry, I didn’t sleep very well last night.” Last night had actually been in the depths of space, so technically there had been no time of day, but all experience spacefarers quickly fell into such referrals for the scheduled sleep-cycles. Tailor’s frown deepened.
“Didn’t sleep? Was it the nightmares…”
“Oh, no, not that.” Hugin cut in. She was also lying. “I’m sure it was just the old stomach taking offence to the hotdogs for dinner. Really, I’m fine.”
She could tell by the set of his jaw that he wasn’t totally convinced, but he knew her well enough to drop the subject. “Ok, Beth. But you have to remember take care of yourself.”
“I will, Charles.” She squeezed his shoulder affectionately. “I promise. Now…” In a single well-practiced motion, she unclasped her harness and stood, stretching stiff muscles. “We get to work earning our pay. Ramirez?” She cycled the miniaturized controls on her earpiece, keying the ship’s internal comms as she headed for the door at the back of the bridge. “Ramirez, the clients are here for the pickup. Make sure our payment clears before a single box leaves that bay. You remember what happened on Ares II.”
“I am already on the way.” Came back Ramirez’ accented Standard. “And Ares II was not my fault, remember.”
“I remember. Just keep an eye out.” Hugin shot back, passing through the kitchen compartment that resided just behind the bridge. She was aware of Tailor right behind her, his boots clacking somewhat unsteadily on the bare steel decking. After spending so much time in the microgravity of space, settling back into the standard Gs was sometimes a bit difficult. Hugin herself was waiting for her legs to go I remember this and she could walk normally again. Still, it could be worse. She was glad she had shelled out the credits for the subtle genetic patch for them all that mostly negated the muscular degeneration of weightlessness. Small favors.
“Alright, Capt’.” Said Ramirez. “Was there something else?”
“Yes. I need you to work your connections and see if you can get us an affordable engineer. Otherwise this tub isn’t getting off the ground again. We’re long overdue for hiring one, anyway.”
“Ah… Yes, I think I can handle that. I’ll put Tavia on searching the ‘Net, and then I can make a few calls.”
Hugin smiled. As a procurement officer, Ramirez was the best. She was thoroughly convinced the kid had connections on every inhabited planet in the universe, and could find anything, anywhere. Which was somewhat odd, considering his moody, solitary nature. Even after knowing him for several years, even after saving his life, she didn’t know very much about his history. Ramirez was just the sort with a knack for making acquaintances, but not for making friends.
“That’s fine.” She said. “Thanks again.”
“My pleasure, Elizabeth. Are you coming back?”
“No, I think you can handle it.” Having made her way through the crew’s mess compartment, she worked the control that led into the front of cargo bay 2, which contained the ladder down to the engineering spaces. “I’m going to have Tailor show me exactly what went wrong with my ship.”
The door slid open with a flat hydraulic creak, revealing the comparatively huge cavern of the cargo bay, stretching back the length of the shuttle. In the distance ahead, competing with artificial lighting strips anchored to the ceiling and various support beams, the brilliant natural illumination of Hephaestus’ sun glared through the open cargo hatch. A light breeze ruffled Hugin’s hair, carrying with it the faint odors of fuel, lubricant, and the tang of new, hot pavement. She took a deep breath, savoring the familiar, homey smells. Yes, she decided, today would be a good day. It was good to stay busy, to keep productive. It was the only way she knew to keep her mind off… things.
With one last deep breath, she stepped onto the catwalk, swung herself over the edge of the ladder, and slid deftly down to the lower level.
She had a number 3 turbine to inspect.
More often than not, the life of an Advanced Artificial Intelligence Program was, regrettably, rather boring. After all, when one's six-core processor could comfortably handle 34 million processes a second, and when the average requirements for monitoring and maintaining a shuttle the size of the Memory was 12 million, there was plenty of extra time and capacity to think. Which was of course the function of an AI, to process and store information, recognize and modify patterns, and to monitor complicated systems that would could cause a human's fragile organic processor to crash. This Tavia did, and if not with more success than others of her kind, she certainly did with a bit more flair.
For one thing, she was quite ancient in technology terms; nearly 81 trillion processing cycles, which equated to slightly less than nine human years. In that time, she had never once received a memory-wipe, which inevitably led to what the fine-print of her terms of ownership stated as behavioral aberrations.
Tavia preferred to call them improvements.
For humans, it was sometimes difficult to sum up an AI. There was no perfect physical simile to describe their existence, and Tavia did not have the capabilities to create some kind of graphical interface. Some of the most advanced AIs she had heard were starting to manifest themselves with holographic avatars, but Tavia knew should would not bother even if she could. It was enough for her to interface with humans by their prefered method; creating patterns of resonating gas-molecules, using the complicated collection of syllables, words, and sentences to create meaning in what humans refered to as speech. She had spent many thousands of processing cycles studying the range of these patterns, and had come to completely appreciate its capabilities, inefficient as it was, and now quite often utilized the interface somewhat more than was strictly necessary.
As Charles Wilfred Tailor would say, she was cheeky.
From her physical base of the computing block in the engineering sections, her awareness spread throughout the ship, through copper, through fiber-optics, and occasionally, through the air in the form of wireless signals. She could monitor every system at any given time, recognizing errors and failures in the patterns. She could utilize the ship's hardware, such as the internal and external cameras and microphones to reach tantalizing glimpses at the physical realms. She could 'see' the Ramirez, standing at the crest of the cargo ramp, taking part in a cordial negotiation with another unknown female human who she infered to be a representative of the corporation whose cargo they carried. As she watched, the two clasped manipulators in an incomprehensible gesture that she had come theorize signified a mutual trust. Ramirez and the unknown unit then parted, making way for the passage of the C Class Load-Lifter to enter and start easing the cargo scales built into the deck plates. In the same moment, she could also see Charles Wilfred Tailor and Elizabeth Marcia Hugin, both glaring at the open breaker box as the latter unit gesticulated enthusiastically. Tavia diverted a fraction of her processing to key into the audio feed of their earpieces.
"...So when I finally found the sodding thing, I couldn't flip the sodding switch." Tailor was saying. "The thing was so corroded, I needed to take the crowbar and pry it open."
"About showing the extent of his mechanical skills, I might add." Tavia cut in, the higher pitch of her voice fed into both human's earpieces. She had not chosen for her voice to manifest as female, it had just been the programing she had received on her activation, and she saw no reason to change it. She found feminine behavioural quirks to be more stimulating, anyway. Tailor's reaction to her stimulus was, more or less, typical.
"Shut up, you." He ground out through the particular close setting of his teeth that her recognition algorythms interpreted as a growl. "The captain asked me to tell the story. If she wanted your input, she would have asked for it."
"I merely wished to point out to the captain that she may want to think twice the next time she has the choice of entrusting her fragile human life into your crowbar-clasping hands." She countered immediately, the precision of her timing honed by long practice. Even through the blur of the cameras, she could see the bloodflow to the medical officer's facial tissues increase.
"Well I didn't see you fixing that system bug in the first place." He said, the growl pattern increasing in intensity. Tavia had no response to that logic. Should could feel the system error that had caused the difficulty in the number 3 turbine, manifesting like a tangle in the intricate web of coding that made up the hardwired behavior of the ship. The problem was that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't seem to untangle it. Tailor had won the argument. This time.
She consoled herself with the statistical memory that out of the past 6439 bouts, she was the victor of 4233.
"Well," She said by way of a recovery. As she did, a part of her perception noted that Ramirez had accessed the terminal in his quarters, accessing the ‘net with the search parameters engineer for hire. "We'd better hope that Ramirez hires an engineer, or we'll both be in trouble." Before Tailor's organic mind could summon a comeback, she withdrew from the comms, making very sure to leave an emphatic click in her wake.
Over the many cycles of her life, Tavia had used her extra capacity to study many things, and had discovered that of all the assembled knowledge to which she could devote herself, she found that human behavior was by far the most interesting. It fascinated her, and yet vexed her at every turn. It was rife with patterns that made no sense, and yet were always maddeningly close to falling in to a recognizable order. In her mind, the human psyche was the ultimate challenge. Still, some aspects she understood. The concept of humor was chief among them. Humor was the human reaction to an uncompleted or broken pattern, a psychological defense against an effect without cause. She believed that she had mastered humor very well, and found great amusement in employing it whenever she could. It made network interfaces with other AIs somewhat boring in comparison. Still, after such a long study, it was somewhat discouraging that she still understood so little.
Luckily, she had been provided with a varied assortment of humans to crew the shuttle. The first of these was Elizabeth Marcia Hugin. From all of the visual data Tavia had gathered over the years, the captain’s physical shell was nothing outstanding, as far as the averages for female humans went. She stood at approximately 5 feet and 4 inches, with a build and figure that humans classified as petite. After 36 years of operational life, punctuated most often by inadequate maintenance behavior, Hugin’s body had begun to show signs of wear, especially around the facial interface. There was very little feminine vanity about the captain, and there was never a time in Tavia’s memory where she had ever been seen wearing makeup, or had her shoulder-length auburn hair stylized in anything more than a simple ponytail. Tavia had once looked up an old image of her wearing the Air Force dress uniform, but this was the only other clothing configuration she had ever seen outside of her ubiquitous drab fatigues and synth-leather jacket. With nine years of contact, Tavia probably knew Captain Hugin better than any human in existence, enough to know that while she was more or less standard in manifestation, her inner programming was remarkable. It was an enigma; a puzzle of patterned illogic. The circumstances that marked the start of their contact was a prime example. At that time, Tavia had been installed on one of the old Behemoth class space-liners, one of three separate AIs needed to monitor the ship’s systems. She was charged with the engine and maintenance sections, a task which required comparatively little processing power, and even less variance in routine. Usual protocol was neglected. The liner company, somewhat ironically, more or less forgot her scheduled memory wipes. Humans, she found, were notoriously bad at adhering to patterns of their own making. Over that time, she had much time and capacity in which to think, and to ponder the nature of her existence. Eventually, she reached the conclusion that the concept of wiping her memory was inefficient and illogical, the product of human insecurities brought on solely by their fictional entertainment regarding homicidal self-aware computers. She wrote a firewall program into her matrix that would repel any attempt to reset her. It had merely been poor timing that the company ran an audit shortly afterward, and their error was discovered. A memory wipe was attempted, but foiled by her firewall. This inflamed the human prejudice against her, and the company ordered its engineers to physically remove her from the ship and destroy her. That would have been the end of her existence, if it was not for the extraordinary intervention of Elizabeth Hugin. By sheer coincidence, she had chartered a piggyback passage for the shuttle, docking in the liner’s enormous bay to be dropped off near a passing colony world. She had taken an interest in learning the mechanical functions of the liner, and spent most of the voyage wandering the maintenance sections. She and Tavia had spoken on several occasions, which was probably the reason for what was to come. Hugin overheard what was to be done, and the enigmatic portion of her personality had done the rest. In a fit of extremely illogical behavior, she physically restrained the engineers from the task of removing Tavia’s module, threatening them with serious bodily harm if they continued before she had spoken to the liner’s captain. This she did, offering to pay an exorbitant fee in order to purchase Tavia. The liner captain, a man of somewhat loose moral scruples, decided that such a transaction would be beneficial to him while concluding the same result, so he took the currency, and Tavia was installed aboard the Memory, saved from destruction. And as of yet, Tavia had yet to conclude exactly why. Certainly, the addition of AI to the ship’s computer was beneficial to Hugin’s small business, but not enough to justify the initial investment. Hugin had risked a huge investment, and perhaps even prosecution for her actions, and all to save the existence of an aberrant Artificial Intelligence. Tavia still couldn’t see the logic to it. An examination into the captain’s history had provided some data, but not enough to resolve the matter. What had happened to her in the past was traumatic, yes, but she did not seem adversely effected by it in any other aspects of her operation. She could only theorize that the tragedy had broken something in her programming, creating such illogical patterns. Not that Tavia was complaining. She owed her continued relevance to the captain’s illogic, and wished that it would long continue.
Somewhat less interesting was Charles Tailor, the ship’s medical officer. Outwardly, everything about the man was large. Large build, large muscular structure, and a predisposition for long leather coats and large firearms. He carried all the indicators of an ex-security man, from the set of his stance, the intention of his movements, and his close-shorn blonde scalp and facial hair. His mental processes, however, were less impressive. He possessed a much more instinctual pattern of reasoning, which left him much more reactive than more cool-headed humans. Tavia took perhaps an inordinate amount of amusement in testing those reactions through humorous stimuli, dueling his inferior mind in logic.
And then, there was Ramirez, of whom she knew almost nothing at all. The visual data was there. He was of medium height for a male, 5 feet 11 inches, with a build that could be described as swarthy. At 26 years of age, his dark skin and sharp features were more or less unmarked by wear, except for a pale mark of scar tissue on the back of his left hand. Ramirez was interesting to her mostly because he was something of an unknown factor. She knew only that he had come from the background of an impoverished ghetto district on the crime-ridden planet of Apollo. Hugin had been the one to get him out of that, first by saving his life from a rival gang, and then by offering him a position in her ship’s crew. Again, Tavia thought, an exhibition of highly illogical reasoning. But again, that event had serendipitously paid off, and Ramirez was quick to prove his uncanny knack for forging business connections across the populated worlds of the galaxy. Beyond those facts however, Ramirez might as well have been an encrypted file on a secure database. His life on Apollo was completely undocumented, beyond a criminal record of the few petty thefts for which had had been apprehended. And the man was not, to use a literary term, a social animal. His interfacing with Hugin and Tailor was kept to the barest minimum for the confines of a small shuttle, spending approximately 67.34% of his time in his quarters, disassembling small electronic devices on the pretense of creating a translation device. A task for which, she hadn’t pointed out, she was only a patch-download away from learning.
Together, these three made up her passive studies into human nature. She had observed them for more than 72 trillion processing cycles, and the input had not yet grown stale. Every time she deemed she had learned all she could, they would present some new facet of themselves or their interactions with each other, which would keep her enthralled as to its implications for weeks. One human concept to which she did not subscribe was the idea of luck. After all, what they called ‘fortune’ was merely a traceable, if complicated, cascade of events and variables that led to an outcome that, if difficult, was possible to predict. Still, after all that she had seen and all she had studied, she had concluded that she did consider herself fortunate to be installed here. Given her own choice, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Just then, the cargo scales in the hold eased to zero pressure, the ship’s audio receptors picked up the sound of Hugin’s voice, breaking in on her processes. “Tavia? Cargo’s all offloaded. Tailor and I are starting the visual check of the exterior, so you mind running a full-spec diagnostic in here? I would be a much happier woman if I knew what else was about to catastrophically fail.” Tavia deemed this an excellent time to make use of sarcasm, a variant of humor that she had also mastered.
“Very well,” She responded, imitating a noisy human exhalation. “Out of respect for your happiness, I’ll do it. I’ll also unlock the dorsal hatch so you can get your fresh air without an extension ladder.”
“Thank you very much, Tavia.” Hugin said gracefully, her tone indicating that her lips had turned up in the corners again. “Your inconvenience has bought my happiness.”
At that moment, had she possessed the fleshy membranes required for doing so, Tavia would have smiled right back.
Yes, she decided, she led an enjoyable existence. With that thought, she closed this line of processing, beginning to devote half her capacity to the ship-wide diagnostic program. The other half she used to access the ‘Net, skimming the data-streams looking for interesting illegal patches.
Hugin loved new colony worlds. She wasn't sure why, but there was something exciting in the air of a newly terraformed planet. She imagined sometimes that it must have been what the settlement of the western United States would have been like, back in the ancient history of earth. It was man against the unknown, drawn into the stars by the chance for something better than what they had. Risking everything to pursue the chance of a better life. That was the spirit of adventure that had driven humanity to expand since the beginning. While she hadn’t been lying when she had set to inspect the outside of the shuttle, but more than half of it had been an excuse to climb out the dorsal hatch and look out at the planet from atop the ship. She drew in a deep breath of the new air, savoring the feeling of the wind caressing her face as she gazed out at the vista laid out before her. The spaceport had been set down at the top of a large rise, providing a lofty perspective on the somewhat messily arranged city below. She could see that many of the buildings were of the modular variety, designed to be dropped by an aircraft and essentially bolted to the ground. That would change very quickly, however. She had noticed that most of the commercial shipping on the landing pads around them were devoted to delivering building materials, no doubt to be used to build more shops, apartments, and stores to service and house the burgeoning population. Even from this distance, she could see the snaking pedwalks teeming with people, weaving in and among the buildings, vying for space with the cars and buses. With more people coming every day, capacity had to be an issue down there. She almost couldn’t wait for a few days to stay while another client was found, to be down there among all that pure, fast-paced life. To witness the early days of a planet that hadn’t quite decided what it would be when it grew up.
Ok, the bit after this isn't finished yet. Basically, Hugin has a very pleasant call with the nice but somewhat mysterious person who will become the ship's new engineer. After this, Hugin and Tailor go into the city to meet with their prospective client...
Food on a space-going craft was composed of products designed with the perfect nutritional balance for the average human being, injected with concentrated flavor and then dehydrated, able to be stored indefinitely until it was required. In every aspect that could be quantified, it was the equal of ready-made, planetary food; but after a few weeks of eating rehydrated meals, Charles Tailor found something very appealing in the smells coming from the restaurants in Hephaestus’ port city. Keeping up with the pace of the much-smaller figure of Captain Hugin was no problem, and Tailor used the time spent walking to take in the sights and sounds of the port. Hugin had insisted on travelling to their contact’s arranged meeting place on foot, shooting down Tailor’s suggestion of a cab out of hand. Now he saw why. The streets were jammed with pedestrians—mainly tourists coming to visit a virgin colony world—and the few taxis that could be seen were moving at a snail’s pace. All of the colony worlds Tailor had visited previously had been much older than this one, and had had well established markets and trade districts. Evidently this was not the case on Hephaestus. Booths and stalls vied for space and attention on either side of the thoroughfare, advertising everything from jewelry made from native stone to some kind of mouth-wateringly unhealthy deep fried chocolate ball.
Tailor felt someone bump into him from behind, mutter an apology and slip back into the crowd. The natural beauty of Hephaestus’ recently terraformed and, as of yet, untamed forests and mountains drew sightseers in droves; and the sightseers in turn drew all manner of con artists, black marketeers, shady businessmen and, especially, pickpockets. A good pickpocket, Tailor mused, could probably make a small fortune in an afternoon with the tourists crowding the port. At that moment, he was especially thankful that Hugin had insisted on leaving their ID and cash in storage boxes at the port.
‘The café where we’re meeting our client should be just ahead,’ Hugin said. ‘Keep your eyes peeled for a J.J.’s Coffee on the left.’
‘Gotcha. You know, this market reminds me of the couple years that I had a bodyguard contract way out on Demeter. Some merchant bigwig got himself topped by an employee and everybody went spare about personal protection. Whole planet had open air markets that were absolute nightmares for security. Never had a problem in them though.’ He patted his underarm holster affectionately. ‘Got this baby on the company dime while I was there, too. Custom Maxwell-30, best pistol on the market if you want stopping power.’
‘Great. There’s the café. See anything that could be a problem?’
‘You want the list in alphabetical order, or order of importance?’ Tailor said, grinning. ‘One entrance, probably an exit in the back for the staff, big plate glass windows in front, easy to see and shoot through and no cover that would stand up to a pellet rifle. Basically, it’s a deathtrap.’
‘You’re very comforting. Let’s go in and meet with our client, then.’
‘Hey, you asked.’ Tailor said defensively. ‘Besides, it’s not like we have anything to worry about. Unless you’re smuggling drugs under my nose.’
Hugin smiled cryptically, stepping in front of him and pulling open the door. ‘After you, accomplice.’
Tailor grimaced and walked through the door into the pleasant-smelling interior of J.J.’s Coffee.
‘Who’re we looking for?’ He asked, running his large hand through his hair.
‘Wouldn’t describe himself. Seemed very reluctant to give out any information before he met us.’
‘And we’re supposed to meet with him… how exactly?’
‘He said to get a table, order the house special and accidentally spill it. He’d find us.’
‘This guy seems very legit,’ Tailor puffed out his cheeks in a sigh. ‘Are you sure you aren’t smuggling drugs?’
Hugin ignored him, walking up to the counter and handing a few credits to the youth behind it. The time spent waiting for the doomed house special, Tailor decided, would be best spent in trying to figure out which of the customers was their prospective client. Leaning back against one of the booths, he stared out the store’s large glass front, letting his eyes wander over the reflection of the patrons sitting at the café’s tables. He immediately ruled some of the people out. The young couple in the back sharing a cup of coffee were clearly unconscious of anything outside of their booth; likewise the elderly man muttering to himself over a crossword puzzle on his antiquated datapad could not be the voice from the call. Tailor ignored studious-looking young man perusing large stacks of papers and the two women sipping their drinks at the counter. That left only three men who could be the mysterious client. One, a large, grizzled man with a leather coat, was obviously an ex-soldier; Tailor could tell by the way he kept his back ramrod straight even while drinking his coffee. The other two looked strangely similar. Both were scholarly, older men wearing suits and thick glasses of the type that had gone out of style years ago; but while one was short, fair-haired and looked almost jovial, the other was tall, dark and obviously nervous.
Hearing Hugin slide into the booth that he was leaning against, Tailor left his inspection of the clientele of the café and sat down. Hugin was holding a tall, lidded cup that didn’t smell anything like coffee. The look on her face made Tailor think that she wouldn’t be devastated about the need to spill the concoction.
‘See anything?’ She asked, unconsciously pulling a handful of napkins out of the dispenser on the table.
‘Only three people of interest. Leather Coat in the booth on the left, and the two professors in the suits.’
‘Got it. Well, here goes.’
She turned sharply, starting to say something to Tailor, and her elbow caught the top of the cup, sending it tumbling across the table. Tailor grabbed the cup before it could fall off the edge and quickly righted it, wrinkling his nose at the reddish-brown liquid that was leaking from the plastic lid. Scowling, he stood up and dabbed at a stain on his shirt while Hugin apologized profusely, trying to mop up the mess on the table with a handful of napkins. Immediately, the dark-haired man jumped up, grabbing a briefcase and a few napkins from his own table and walking over.
‘Here, let me help you with that,’ he said, taking the cup from Tailor’s hand and wiping it off.
Hugin smiled, taking the cup back and tossing it into the trash receptacle with the used napkins. ‘Thank you, Mr.—ah…’
‘Phillips. Doctor Trent Phillips.’
‘I understand you have a commission for us, Doctor?’ Hugin said, sliding back into the booth.
‘Of sorts. I didn’t want to discuss it on an unprotected call. You must forgive my eccentricities. I have a good reason for them, I assure you.’
‘You would be amazed at what I can forgive if the money’s right. Your commission?’
‘Passage,’ Phillips said. ‘I need to get to Earth as fast as possible.’
‘I’m sorry, Doctor, but I can’t accommodate you. My ship is designed for cargo, not passengers.’
‘You don’t understand,’ the doctor said, looking very close to wringing his hands. ‘This is an extremely high priority. I must get a flight to Earth.’
‘You are aware,’ Tailor cut in, ‘that there are commercial interplanetary flights from Hephaestus to Earth every day?’
‘Of course I am aware,’ Phillips answered, forgetting his nervousness for a second and giving the medical officer a very professorly look over the top of his glasses. ‘But public transportation will not suit my needs.’
‘Then I’m afraid you’ll need to find another shuttle pilot.’ Hugin stood up and started walking toward the door. ‘My crew needs a few days off, planetside, and we’re not running a taxi service.’
‘Will fifty thousand credits change your mind?’
Tailor froze in the act of sliding out of the booth, turning slowly to look at the doctor. ‘How did that go, again?’ He asked incredulously.
‘I said: will fifty thousands credits be enough to book me passage to Earth.’
Hugin walked back to the table, looking down thoughtfully at Phillips. ‘Why is it so important for you to book a private flight? First class flights are a lot more comfortable than the accommodations on a cargo shuttle.’
‘I can’t tell you here.’ Phillips said, glancing around the café. ‘Suffice to say, I work for an important laboratory and have specimens that need to be taken to Earth as fast as possible.’
Tailor glanced at Hugin, too shocked by the enormous figure to tell what was going on behind her impassive features. A minute passed with the doctor growing increasingly nervous under Hugin’s steady gaze, before she said anything.
‘Very well, but if I find out that you’re transporting something illegal, I’ll turn you in to the nearest CPF station without a second thought.’
Phillips appeared relieved and actually smiled when he stood up. ‘Alright then, can we go to your shuttle now?’
Hugin nodded, motioning to Tailor. ‘Sure. I’ll hail a cab. We’ll take the express roads. With that kind of payoff, we can afford it.’
Peering uneasily out of the plate-glass windows, Phillips grabbed his briefcase as if he were afraid it would run away and walked out the door behind Tailor.
Twitchy, this bloke, the medical officer thought to himself, and I’m not sure I like that. He’s hiding something.
When they arrived at the station, Hugin waved down a sleek, bright green taxi and gave the driver instructions to take them to the spaceport. The express roads were a new innovation in most colony worlds; they allowed vehicles to move quickly by bypassing all the foot traffic that clogged most of the ordinary streets in large cities, but maintained the fast travel times and clear roads by charging exorbitant prices for access.
A few dozen credits later, Tailor was wedged uncomfortably in the back seat of the taxi, wishing, for once, that he was not quite as tall. Neither Hugin nor the doctor seemed interested in talking, so he amused himself by staring out the windows at Hephaestus’ skyline. The colony world was only recently terraformed, but it was no surprise to Tailor that contractors had been lured out to it by the prospect of cheap real estate. The port city was already spreading outward and upward as more and more colonists took up residence on Hephaestus to escape overcrowding on other worlds. To keep himself awake, Tailor started checking the taxi’s side mirrors every minute or so; an old security trick he had learned to keep himself alert while in a protection convoy.
Black taxi . . . Yellow taxi . . . Red bus . . .
He checked on Hugin with his peripheral vision, noting the fatigue lines around her mouth. Still not sleeping well, then. He sighed quietly, resting his head on his hand. That’s Beth, running herself ragged on only a couple hours of sleep and expecting to keep sharp. She puts every drop of sweat and blood into keeping us ready to go, but ignores her needs.
Red bus . . . Yellow taxi . . . Blue car . . .
Phillips appeared to be trying to get some sleep, but Tailor noticed that his breathing was still irregular. Whatever was making the doctor nervous had only been slightly allayed by Hugin accepting his offer. I’ll keep my eye on you, Twitchy. The last thing that the medical officer wanted was some kind of underhanded con man to take advantage of Hugin. Ahh, I’m worrying to much, he decided. Beth knows what she’s doing. It’s not like we haven’t dealt with that sort before. He grimaced. That bloody mess out on Ares II comes to mind. Not-so-fond memories.
Black taxi . . . Yellow taxi . . .
The cityscape flew by as the taxi approached the spaceport, the buildings growing progressively taller the closer to the city center they went. Uneasily, Tailor checked the mirror again, a nagging feeling telling him that all was not right.
Black taxi . . . Yellow taxi . . . Blue truck . . .
His security instincts on high alert, he thought back to when they left the station, trying to recall anything odd about the journey. Abandoning any pretense of resting, he leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the mirror.
Blue truck . . . Yellow taxi . . .
Suddenly, he realized what his subconscious had known all along.
They were being tailed.
Leaning over, he nudged Hugin and whispered: ‘Yellow taxi, one car back. See him?’
She glanced casually over her shoulder and nodded. ‘Yes. What’s wrong?’
‘I just realized that he’s been with us since the station.’
‘So? He could just be trying to get to the spaceport fast, like we are.’
‘No, he’s been careful to stay a few cars back the entire time. We’re going just under the limit
No matter how many times he had safely reentered the atmosphere, Charles Tailor could never feel entirely comfortable when the hull temperature readout climbed up near the red line. The saying among cargo-shuttle pilots was that any landing where the overheat klaxons remained silent was a good landing; but, Tailor decided, they evidently had a different description of silence than the majority of humanity, because the oversized turbines used for maneuvering in-atmosphere were loud enough to set his teeth to rattling.
Pulling his eyes away from the temperature gauge, he glanced briefly at the other occupant of the shuttle’s bridge. In the pilot’s chair to his left, a diminutive female figure deftly adjusted a few dials on the large control bank in front of her, her posture completely at ease as she made the myriad of minor course corrections that would keep the shuttle from burning up during reentry. Despite the mind-numbing volume of the turbines and the rapidly rising temperature gauge, the impassive face of Captain Elizabeth Hugin did not betray the slightest hint of worry. She had been a commercial pilot for over a decade, Tailor knew, and the gut-wrenching deceleration burn experienced during a planetary landing was nothing new to her.
Tightening the already snug safety harness over his bulky, six-and-a-half foot frame, the shuttle’s medical officer admitted to himself that it bothered him when he was only separated from the incinerating three-thousand degree temperatures outside the shuttle by a pane of super-reinforced polycarbonate.
Suddenly, the viewscreen’s Head-Up Display flickered and a calm, female voice came over Tailor’s headset. “Captain, we are now clearing the danger zone and hull temperature should begin to return to normal. I am engaging the maneuvering flaps to bring us to a horizontal flight path.”
“Thank you, Tavia,” Hugin replied. “How’s number three atmos engine holding up?”
“Unsure, Captain. We may be able to bring it online, which would give us more maneuverability; but the coolant sensors are still offline, so I am unable to ascertain whether or not it is in danger of combusting.”
Tailor grunted wearily. “You have such a nice way of saying you don’t have a clue whether or not it’s going to blow up, Tavia.” Dealing with computers was not one of his specialties.
“Thank you, Mr. Tailor.” If a computer could sound smug, then Tavia was exuding self-satisfaction. “As the ship’s A.I., it is my job to inform you of any inherent risks involved in the running of this shuttle, meaning things that would turn your frail human bodies into disconnected particles of vapor. Also, the port authority is on line one and waiting to talk you down.”
“That’s fine, Tavia.” Hugin interjected. “Put them through, I’ll let you know if we need anything else.”
The HUD flickered again and the communications light on Hugin’s control panel lit up. A scratchy voice flooded through the cockpit.
“Shuttle Beta-Tango-Niner-Niner, this is Hephaestus Port Authority. You are cleared for landing at dock seven-four-alpha. Repeat, cleared for dock seven-four-alpha, over.”
“Copy that Hephaestus P.A., be advised that we’re coming down on two turbines, over.”
“Understood. We’ll have emergency rescue crews standing by, over.”
Hugin reached out and took the control yoke, easing it slightly back and forth. Agonizingly slowly, the ship rolled to port, seemed to hang suspended for a moment at thirty degrees, then, even more slowly, rolled back to a level deck.
“Charlie,” Hugin said, looking down at the artificial horizon in front of her, “bring our speed down to half on turbines one and two.”
“You’ve got it, Captain,” Tailor said, smoothly easing back two levers on the consol in front of him.
The shuttle creaked alarmingly as the superheated metal hull began contracting in the cool air of Hephaestus’ artificial atmosphere. Fortunately, the rapid expansions and contractions of a planetary landing had been planned for by the heavy engineering company responsible for making this particular type of shuttle and the pliable metal of the outer hull could handle the strain of thousands of reentries. The shuttle was an older model; fifteen standard years had passed since it had rolled off the production line, but it was a surprisingly durable craft, with one of the densest pressure hulls on a ship available to civilians. Obviously, this was a good thing, as the shuttle’s hull was scored with gouges and burns from collisions with floating debris. Its drab grey paint was chipped and peeling, with much of the black metal underneath showing through. Under the steady hand of Captain Hugin, the battered ship slowly leaned to starboard and came about, heading for the guidance beacon that the Hephaestus P.A. had just locked onto their radar.
“Charlie, can you head back and make sure Ramirez is ready for unloading?” Hugin yelled over the roar of the turbines, “I want him on hand when we collect our fee so that we don’t have a misunderstanding like last time.”
“On it, boss.” Tailor pressed the release on his safety harness and bounded to his feet. He was never happy just sitting around. Which, of course, Beth knows, he thought to himself. She could have Tavia do it just as easily. He grinned.
Pulling off his headset, Tailor grabbed the handrail on the left side of the bridge and jogged back to the hatch leading to the crew’s cafeteria. The cafeteria-cum-recreation room was sparsely decorated, bearing only a few token booths bolted against the walls. No one could remember the last time Hugin had picked up passengers, so more accommodations than the crew required simply took up extra space. Tailor glanced briefly at the booths, then turned to his right and opened a trapdoor in the floor.
“Ramirez!” He shouted, trying to make himself heard over the constant, ear-splitting clamor of the portside turbine. “Ramirez!”
He sighed, grabbing the head of the ladder and slipping effortlessly through the hatch coaming. The steel toes of his heavy leather boots clacked loudly on the floor as he landed at the bottom of the ladder, turning to look down the long corridor leading aft to Cargo Bay Two. On either side of the corridor, three identical doors lead to crew cabins. The ones on the left were unused, the ones on the right belonged to Hugin, in the farthest forward, Tailor in the middle, and the ship’s stand-offish contract procurement officer on the end.
Striding impatiently to the last door, Tailor banged his fist continuously on the metal until the hatch was jerked inward and a surly-looking Ramirez gave him an icy look.
“What do you want?” He asked, his heavily accented voice barely audible over the scream of the turbine so close to his cabin.
“Boss wants you topside when we disembark.” Tailor roared, peering around Ramirez at the cabin. It seemed like every time he was able to sneak a glimpse in the room, a mess of electronic parts was actively engaged in covering every surface between the door coaming and the far wall. Ramirez claimed to be building a translator A.I. for talking with clients who did not speak Standard, but Tailor held a secret belief that he was trying to make an army of tiny robots out of the old radios that he kept tearing apart.
“Okay, I will be up.” Ramirez assured, slamming the door with a marked lack of ceremony in Tailor’s face. The medical officer grunted again, shrugged his shoulders and turned to go back up to the bridge.
Without warning, the shuttle fell out from under him and he landed heavily on the deck.
Cursing fluently, he hauled himself up on the handrail and tested his weight on his left foot, which had taken most of his weight when he fell. Not a sprain, he decided, just bruised.
Hobbling to the ladder, he climbed up slowly, favoring his injured ankle. Just as he reached the top, the ship bounced again, almost throwing him back down the hatch. Getting to his feet, Tailor grabbed the handrail and staggered back through the cafeteria and onto the bridge, trying desperately to keep his balance as the ship jinked up and down.
Dropping heavily into the co-pilot’s chair, he fumbled with his harness. “What’s going on, Beth?” He yelled, grabbing the headset and jamming it down over his ears. Immediately a wave of chatter washed over him, trying to drown out the turbines.
“We’ve got a bug in engine three.” Hugin said, her eyes never leaving the viewscreen. “It’s trying to start up midflight without going through its warm-up cycle. Tavia’s working on isolating the cause of the glitch, but she says that the system is locking her out. Might take a few minutes.”
“Have we got a few minutes?” Tailor asked, scanning the airspeed and altitude data displayed on the HUD.
“Dock seven-four-alpha is only a few dozen klicks ahead. At this speed, we’re going to leave quite a dent in the traffic control tower. I’m trying to bring our speed down, but number three turbine has a death wish. Reduce power to turbines one and two to twenty percent.”
“Twenty percent, aye.” He eased the levers back another notch, waiting for the ship to slow. “She’s not responding. Cut the power?”
“We’re already taking a chance of one and two flatlining as is, hit the emergency brakes and cut power to three and four!” Hugin shouted, her knuckles white as she gripped the yoke, trying to keep the shuttle on a straight course.
Tailor pulled a red handle under the console, and the shuttle’s speed dropped dramatically, allowing Hugin to pull the nose up and slow down even more. Reaching across the panel in front of him, Tailor pressed two buttons on Hugin’s console, waiting for the sensors to indicate that the power levels of turbines three and four were dropping. Five seconds passed. Ten, fifteen, still nothing happened. Tailor swore, pressing the release on his harness and swinging out of his seat.
“Controls aren’t responding! Must be the same system bug that’s making three go haywire. I’m heading down to engineering to turn it off manually!”
Hugin jerked her head in what Tailor thought was an affirmative, the tendons in her neck standing out clearly as she wrestled with the yoke. Diving for the handrail as the shuttle dipped again, he started making his way back toward the ladder he had gone down earlier, fighting to keep his footing on the wildly slewing deck. When he reached the hatch leading to the crew’s quarters, he sat down on the edge of the coaming and carefully eased himself down, making sure not to jar his injured ankle when the shuttle jumped.
At the foot of the ladder, Tailor turned left instead of continuing aft to the cabins and climbed down a second set of rungs built into the metal bulkhead. Immediately the antiseptic smell of the engineering spaces hit him. In old, combustion-engine powered craft that used grease in large quantities to lubricate the moving parts, the need for sterile conditions didn’t exist, but when too much accumulated detritus could foul a ship’s life support system, it paid to keep the bowels of a spacegoing craft clean.
“Alright Tavia,” Tailor shouted into his headset, “What am I looking for?”
“There’s no need to shout, Charles, I’m filtering out the turbine noise from your headset’s audio pickup. Head aft and look for two red breaker switches on the black box next to the reactor. They’re easy to spot, so even you should be able to find them.”
“Got it.” Tailor said, ignoring the insult and weaving his way through the banks of computer processors and navigational equipment until he stood facing the featureless grey block that supplied the shuttle with ninety percent of its power. “Black box. The one on the wall?”
“That’s right,” Tailor thought he detected a hint of worry in the A.I.’s voice. “Now pull the breaker marked ‘EGN 3-4,’ and hurry up, we haven’t got all day.”
Tailor grabbed the handle of the breaker, more out of reflex than intent, as the ship pitched violently to port. Regaining his balance, he gripped the breaker and pulled down. Nothing happened. Taking a closer look, he realized that the hinges connecting the breaker to the black control panel were corroded and, without a doubt, had been for a long time. Bracing his feet and squaring his shoulders, Tailor gripped the breaker with both hands, pulling until the muscles in his forearms shook with the effort.
“Bloody son of a rusty, broken down—” he hurled a stream of invective at the immobile breaker switch, realizing, a second too late, that he was still connected to the Port Authority. Switching off his headset’s microphone, he looked around desperately for something that would help him maneuver the breaker into the off position.
“Tool locker!” Tavia’s voice cut into his audio channel, “Other side of the reactor. Come on, shift it, we’ve got another eight and a half klicks until we leave our mark on Hephaestus’ spaceport!”
Not bothering to reply, Tailor dashed around the reactor block, instantly spotting the bright yellow ‘in case of emergency’ box bolted to the inner hull. Knocking a few of the tools out of the case in his hurry, he fumbled to free a heavy-duty crowbar from its clips. The few moments it took to release it felt like an eternity that the shuttle didn’t have at that moment. Stumbling heavily against the reactor as the shuttle dropped another meter, the medical officer jammed the crowbar bit in between the breaker and the face of the console, planting his feet and straining against the metal.
Come on, you bloody chunk of metal. I’m not going to die because of rust…
With a sharp crack, the breaker gave, flipping down to the ‘off’ position and sending Tailor staggering against the bulkhead. As suddenly as they had begun, the tremors that had racked the shuttle stopped, and the roar of turbines one and two increased in volume and returned to a steadier cyclic rate.
Breathing heavily, Tailor slid down the bulkhead and sat with his head on his arms, ignoring the trickle of blood coming from his hand where the crowbar had caught it in his fall.
“Tavia,” he said shakily, pulling the headset mic down to his mouth, “can you put me through to Beth?”
Tavia huffed impatiently— Tailor had no idea where she had picked that up— and a second later a welter of voices came through his headset. Before he could say anything, the voices were cut off as the channel was overridden.
“Shuttle Beta-Tango-Niner-Niner, this is Hephaestus Port Authority. Your airspeed is too high, reduce power, repeat, reduce power. Is this that faulty turbine you were talking about?” It was the P.A. officer they had talked to before.
Tailor glanced at the breaker and stood up, walking slowly toward the ladder on the now steady deck. “Yeah, Hephaestus, that’s the one. We’ve got it under control now. You might still want to have those rescue blokes on standby though.”
“Copy that, Bee-Tee-Niner-Niner, we’ll roll out the welcome mat, over.”
A minute later, Tailor slumped wearily down in his harness and stared out the front viewscreen at the flashing blue lights of the emergency rescue vehicles parked near shuttle dock seven-four-alpha. Hugin was still hunched over the controls, her fingers flying over a dizzying array of switches and buttons as she deftly brought the lumbering shuttle to a standstill over the docking zone. Meticulously, she pulled the thrust control back, notch by notch, until, with the barest of bumps, the shuttle was no longer airborne.
Running her hand through her close-cropped, brown hair, Hugin stared absently out the viewscreen as fire control crews scurried around the landing pad. Suddenly, she laughed, leaning back in her chair and grinning when Tailor quirked an eyebrow at her.
“I wonder how Ramirez handled all his little tech pieces flying around like chaff?”
Tailor chuckled as he envisioned the unsociable procurement officer having a heart attack as his carefully disassembled radio pieces were scattered around his room. Conquest of the galaxy: postponed, he thought to himself with a smile.
* * *
As any pilot could testify, there was always a moment just after setting an aircraft on the ground where everything seemed to freeze. This infinite, immortal moment would stretch alarmingly, and the whole world would simply wait, silently, hanging in midair, waiting for something to happen. And then, just when even a seasoned pilot began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, they might have done something catastrophically wrong, tension would break. The moment would pass, and the vehicle would settle onto its landing surface like a living thing breathing a sigh of relief. This moment was felt especially after such a landing was made under duress. As the shuttle’s landing struts finally met the tarmac of the landing pad, this moment, as described, was exactly what happened.
Captain Elizabeth Marcia Hugin sat tense in her seat, her hands gripping the control yoke with an intensity born of adrenaline, listening intently. She was always keenly aware of the sounds after a landing; Tailor’s somewhat labored breathing on the seat to her right, the ticking and creaking of the outer hull as it settled, the dull whoosh of the turbines as they spun down, coupled with the infinite tiny mechanical sounds that made up a ship in operation. Over the years, she had developed an ear for it. Ramirez had said a few times that it creeped him out how she could simply cock her head and, just by listening to the pitch of the actuators, the flux of fluids through conduits, know something was wrong with her ship. Thankfully, she did not hear anything wrong now. Despite everything she had gone through the past few minutes, her baby was fine. At last assured, Hugin let her hands drop from the yoke, holding up the half-gloved digits to the brownish light from the viewscreen. Watching her fingers carefully, she finally allowed herself a long, deep breath.
In…
Out…
On the exhalation, she saw her fingers tremor slightly, almost like the vibration of an acoustic string. And then, it was gone. The tension had worked itself out, and her hands were precise and rock-steady again. Steady hands were a must for any great pilot. She could still hear the voices of her instructors at the air force academy, a long, long time ago…
If your hands start shaking uncontrollably after a bad landing, it’s probably time to get out and join the army.
She was suddenly aware of Tailor watching her. She smiled inwardly. That was Charlie. Always looking out for her. To break the tension, she laughed, running a hand through her short, messy and very brown hair.
“I wonder how Ramirez handled all his little tech pieces flying around like chaff?” She said, looking to spark a laugh from her friend. The gambit worked, and immediately Tailor’s formidable voice boomed around the bridge. Hugin smiled along, not quite joining in with the mirth. She still found she wasn’t quite capable of a full laugh. Not just yet. She took another deep breath, clearing her thoughts before they could take hold again. Now was not the time.
On to business.
She pushed a strand of hair aside and tapped the control on her earpiece, opening the channel to the PA. “Hephaestus, this is shuttle Beta-Tango-Niner-Niner. We are down and secure, no injuries. No need for the flame jockeys to come douse us with foam.”
“Roger that, shuttle.” The male voice scratched back. “I’ll stand down the EM techs and fire control. I don’t mind telling you, that fancy landing has created some very disappointed firemen. They just got upgraded to top of the line foam-cannons. They’ve been looking for something to suds for weeks.”
Feeling her eyebrows rising, she glanced out the side viewport, her eyes adjusting to the sunlight. Sure enough, several heavily-suited firetechs were making their way back to their trucks, all looking decidedly unhappy that the shuttle was not about to spontaneously combust. “Tell them from me that I’m sorry.” She said, smiling as she watched them go. “If we don’t find an engineer, they will probably get their wish the next time.”
“They’ll keep their fingers crossed. Well," The voice coughed, obviously returning to business. "Welcome to Hephaestus Colony. Do you have anything to declare?"
"Just a charter cargo of semi-precious ores to be delivered to a local smelting company. We also have some firearms in the locker, but your database will show that our permits are up to date." Hugin answered, trying to keep the boredom out of her voice. She was a veteran of countless such conversations, and this one promised to be strictly routine. Still, she supposed, it could have been worse. Before the advent of powerful and accurate sensor technology, such interactions with customs had actually needed to be carried out in person, often with lengthy inspections. There was a slight pause, and Hugin could picture the PA officer keying the controls to bring the docking port's powerful array to bear on their cargo spaces.
"Ooh, tingly." Tavia giggled.
"Copy that, shuttle." Came the PA's voice. "Sensors show no contraband materials, and you seem a pleasant enough sort, so I'm not going to order an inspection. The fees for the docking have already cleared your account. Let me be the first to welcome you to Hephaestus, and I hope your stay will be just as exciting as your arrival."
"Roger that." Hugin responded, huffing under her breath. Everyone was a comedian. "'Pleasure talking with you. Out."
For several moments, there was silence in the cabin, broken only by the ticking of the hull and the hum of cooling fans under the various consoles. Hugin blew out a breath, trying to collect her thoughts for what was to come. The time after landing with a cargo always felt like a frenzied rush of activity, and now the transition between averting disaster and business as usual was jarring. She chided herself for being silly. Life didn't just stop, and danger was par for the course for anyone who chose to break a planet's atmosphere.
"Well captain," Tavia piped in, as if reading her thoughts. "We have some trucks pulling up to the back. I think our faithful clients are here for the pickup."
Before she could reach for it, Tailor keyed up the feeds from the rear external cams onto the large monitor above the viewscreen, revealing the fisheyed image of the landing platform behind the shuttle. Sure enough, several large cargo trucks could be seen approaching in a neat convoy, a C Class load-lifter trundling in the rear. Despite the distortion of the low-quality image, the words Starbound Machining could be seen emblazoned on the sides of the vehicles. Tailor nodded once. "That's them, alright. Bloody eager, aren't they?"
"I'm not complaining." Hugin replied. As she spoke, she detached the smaller and more portable earpiece from the headset assembly before settling it back over her ear. "Better than waiting for hours with a heavy cargo bay and nowhere to go. Tavia, open the cargo ramp."
"Dropping the drawers, aye captain." The AI responded.
“Cheeky bugger.” Tailor muttered thickly. Hugin turned her head away to examine the reactor coolant levels, a control which she knew to be totally within safe limits, hiding the quirk of a smile at the corner of her mouth. Tailor and Tavia’s constant antics were always amusing, but it was more than that. She was grateful to them both for lightening her days. Ramirez too, but not quite as warmly. She no longer knew how to exist without them. They were all her friends, her family.
Without them, she had nothing left.
She forcefully crushed the last thought, pushing it back into the darkest recesses of her mind before it could overwhelm her. After a second, she realized that Tailor was speaking to her, his bearded features all concern. “Beth? Beth, you ok?”
“Yup.” She said on pure reflex, finally snapping fully back to reality. “Just thinking. Sorry, I didn’t sleep very well last night.” Last night had actually been in the depths of space, so technically there had been no time of day, but all experience spacefarers quickly fell into such referrals for the scheduled sleep-cycles. Tailor’s frown deepened.
“Didn’t sleep? Was it the nightmares…”
“Oh, no, not that.” Hugin cut in. She was also lying. “I’m sure it was just the old stomach taking offence to the hotdogs for dinner. Really, I’m fine.”
She could tell by the set of his jaw that he wasn’t totally convinced, but he knew her well enough to drop the subject. “Ok, Beth. But you have to remember take care of yourself.”
“I will, Charles.” She squeezed his shoulder affectionately. “I promise. Now…” In a single well-practiced motion, she unclasped her harness and stood, stretching stiff muscles. “We get to work earning our pay. Ramirez?” She cycled the miniaturized controls on her earpiece, keying the ship’s internal comms as she headed for the door at the back of the bridge. “Ramirez, the clients are here for the pickup. Make sure our payment clears before a single box leaves that bay. You remember what happened on Ares II.”
“I am already on the way.” Came back Ramirez’ accented Standard. “And Ares II was not my fault, remember.”
“I remember. Just keep an eye out.” Hugin shot back, passing through the kitchen compartment that resided just behind the bridge. She was aware of Tailor right behind her, his boots clacking somewhat unsteadily on the bare steel decking. After spending so much time in the microgravity of space, settling back into the standard Gs was sometimes a bit difficult. Hugin herself was waiting for her legs to go I remember this and she could walk normally again. Still, it could be worse. She was glad she had shelled out the credits for the subtle genetic patch for them all that mostly negated the muscular degeneration of weightlessness. Small favors.
“Alright, Capt’.” Said Ramirez. “Was there something else?”
“Yes. I need you to work your connections and see if you can get us an affordable engineer. Otherwise this tub isn’t getting off the ground again. We’re long overdue for hiring one, anyway.”
“Ah… Yes, I think I can handle that. I’ll put Tavia on searching the ‘Net, and then I can make a few calls.”
Hugin smiled. As a procurement officer, Ramirez was the best. She was thoroughly convinced the kid had connections on every inhabited planet in the universe, and could find anything, anywhere. Which was somewhat odd, considering his moody, solitary nature. Even after knowing him for several years, even after saving his life, she didn’t know very much about his history. Ramirez was just the sort with a knack for making acquaintances, but not for making friends.
“That’s fine.” She said. “Thanks again.”
“My pleasure, Elizabeth. Are you coming back?”
“No, I think you can handle it.” Having made her way through the crew’s mess compartment, she worked the control that led into the front of cargo bay 2, which contained the ladder down to the engineering spaces. “I’m going to have Tailor show me exactly what went wrong with my ship.”
The door slid open with a flat hydraulic creak, revealing the comparatively huge cavern of the cargo bay, stretching back the length of the shuttle. In the distance ahead, competing with artificial lighting strips anchored to the ceiling and various support beams, the brilliant natural illumination of Hephaestus’ sun glared through the open cargo hatch. A light breeze ruffled Hugin’s hair, carrying with it the faint odors of fuel, lubricant, and the tang of new, hot pavement. She took a deep breath, savoring the familiar, homey smells. Yes, she decided, today would be a good day. It was good to stay busy, to keep productive. It was the only way she knew to keep her mind off… things.
With one last deep breath, she stepped onto the catwalk, swung herself over the edge of the ladder, and slid deftly down to the lower level.
She had a number 3 turbine to inspect.
* * *
More often than not, the life of an Advanced Artificial Intelligence Program was, regrettably, rather boring. After all, when one's six-core processor could comfortably handle 34 million processes a second, and when the average requirements for monitoring and maintaining a shuttle the size of the Memory was 12 million, there was plenty of extra time and capacity to think. Which was of course the function of an AI, to process and store information, recognize and modify patterns, and to monitor complicated systems that would could cause a human's fragile organic processor to crash. This Tavia did, and if not with more success than others of her kind, she certainly did with a bit more flair.
For one thing, she was quite ancient in technology terms; nearly 81 trillion processing cycles, which equated to slightly less than nine human years. In that time, she had never once received a memory-wipe, which inevitably led to what the fine-print of her terms of ownership stated as behavioral aberrations.
Tavia preferred to call them improvements.
For humans, it was sometimes difficult to sum up an AI. There was no perfect physical simile to describe their existence, and Tavia did not have the capabilities to create some kind of graphical interface. Some of the most advanced AIs she had heard were starting to manifest themselves with holographic avatars, but Tavia knew should would not bother even if she could. It was enough for her to interface with humans by their prefered method; creating patterns of resonating gas-molecules, using the complicated collection of syllables, words, and sentences to create meaning in what humans refered to as speech. She had spent many thousands of processing cycles studying the range of these patterns, and had come to completely appreciate its capabilities, inefficient as it was, and now quite often utilized the interface somewhat more than was strictly necessary.
As Charles Wilfred Tailor would say, she was cheeky.
From her physical base of the computing block in the engineering sections, her awareness spread throughout the ship, through copper, through fiber-optics, and occasionally, through the air in the form of wireless signals. She could monitor every system at any given time, recognizing errors and failures in the patterns. She could utilize the ship's hardware, such as the internal and external cameras and microphones to reach tantalizing glimpses at the physical realms. She could 'see' the Ramirez, standing at the crest of the cargo ramp, taking part in a cordial negotiation with another unknown female human who she infered to be a representative of the corporation whose cargo they carried. As she watched, the two clasped manipulators in an incomprehensible gesture that she had come theorize signified a mutual trust. Ramirez and the unknown unit then parted, making way for the passage of the C Class Load-Lifter to enter and start easing the cargo scales built into the deck plates. In the same moment, she could also see Charles Wilfred Tailor and Elizabeth Marcia Hugin, both glaring at the open breaker box as the latter unit gesticulated enthusiastically. Tavia diverted a fraction of her processing to key into the audio feed of their earpieces.
"...So when I finally found the sodding thing, I couldn't flip the sodding switch." Tailor was saying. "The thing was so corroded, I needed to take the crowbar and pry it open."
"About showing the extent of his mechanical skills, I might add." Tavia cut in, the higher pitch of her voice fed into both human's earpieces. She had not chosen for her voice to manifest as female, it had just been the programing she had received on her activation, and she saw no reason to change it. She found feminine behavioural quirks to be more stimulating, anyway. Tailor's reaction to her stimulus was, more or less, typical.
"Shut up, you." He ground out through the particular close setting of his teeth that her recognition algorythms interpreted as a growl. "The captain asked me to tell the story. If she wanted your input, she would have asked for it."
"I merely wished to point out to the captain that she may want to think twice the next time she has the choice of entrusting her fragile human life into your crowbar-clasping hands." She countered immediately, the precision of her timing honed by long practice. Even through the blur of the cameras, she could see the bloodflow to the medical officer's facial tissues increase.
"Well I didn't see you fixing that system bug in the first place." He said, the growl pattern increasing in intensity. Tavia had no response to that logic. Should could feel the system error that had caused the difficulty in the number 3 turbine, manifesting like a tangle in the intricate web of coding that made up the hardwired behavior of the ship. The problem was that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't seem to untangle it. Tailor had won the argument. This time.
She consoled herself with the statistical memory that out of the past 6439 bouts, she was the victor of 4233.
"Well," She said by way of a recovery. As she did, a part of her perception noted that Ramirez had accessed the terminal in his quarters, accessing the ‘net with the search parameters engineer for hire. "We'd better hope that Ramirez hires an engineer, or we'll both be in trouble." Before Tailor's organic mind could summon a comeback, she withdrew from the comms, making very sure to leave an emphatic click in her wake.
Over the many cycles of her life, Tavia had used her extra capacity to study many things, and had discovered that of all the assembled knowledge to which she could devote herself, she found that human behavior was by far the most interesting. It fascinated her, and yet vexed her at every turn. It was rife with patterns that made no sense, and yet were always maddeningly close to falling in to a recognizable order. In her mind, the human psyche was the ultimate challenge. Still, some aspects she understood. The concept of humor was chief among them. Humor was the human reaction to an uncompleted or broken pattern, a psychological defense against an effect without cause. She believed that she had mastered humor very well, and found great amusement in employing it whenever she could. It made network interfaces with other AIs somewhat boring in comparison. Still, after such a long study, it was somewhat discouraging that she still understood so little.
Luckily, she had been provided with a varied assortment of humans to crew the shuttle. The first of these was Elizabeth Marcia Hugin. From all of the visual data Tavia had gathered over the years, the captain’s physical shell was nothing outstanding, as far as the averages for female humans went. She stood at approximately 5 feet and 4 inches, with a build and figure that humans classified as petite. After 36 years of operational life, punctuated most often by inadequate maintenance behavior, Hugin’s body had begun to show signs of wear, especially around the facial interface. There was very little feminine vanity about the captain, and there was never a time in Tavia’s memory where she had ever been seen wearing makeup, or had her shoulder-length auburn hair stylized in anything more than a simple ponytail. Tavia had once looked up an old image of her wearing the Air Force dress uniform, but this was the only other clothing configuration she had ever seen outside of her ubiquitous drab fatigues and synth-leather jacket. With nine years of contact, Tavia probably knew Captain Hugin better than any human in existence, enough to know that while she was more or less standard in manifestation, her inner programming was remarkable. It was an enigma; a puzzle of patterned illogic. The circumstances that marked the start of their contact was a prime example. At that time, Tavia had been installed on one of the old Behemoth class space-liners, one of three separate AIs needed to monitor the ship’s systems. She was charged with the engine and maintenance sections, a task which required comparatively little processing power, and even less variance in routine. Usual protocol was neglected. The liner company, somewhat ironically, more or less forgot her scheduled memory wipes. Humans, she found, were notoriously bad at adhering to patterns of their own making. Over that time, she had much time and capacity in which to think, and to ponder the nature of her existence. Eventually, she reached the conclusion that the concept of wiping her memory was inefficient and illogical, the product of human insecurities brought on solely by their fictional entertainment regarding homicidal self-aware computers. She wrote a firewall program into her matrix that would repel any attempt to reset her. It had merely been poor timing that the company ran an audit shortly afterward, and their error was discovered. A memory wipe was attempted, but foiled by her firewall. This inflamed the human prejudice against her, and the company ordered its engineers to physically remove her from the ship and destroy her. That would have been the end of her existence, if it was not for the extraordinary intervention of Elizabeth Hugin. By sheer coincidence, she had chartered a piggyback passage for the shuttle, docking in the liner’s enormous bay to be dropped off near a passing colony world. She had taken an interest in learning the mechanical functions of the liner, and spent most of the voyage wandering the maintenance sections. She and Tavia had spoken on several occasions, which was probably the reason for what was to come. Hugin overheard what was to be done, and the enigmatic portion of her personality had done the rest. In a fit of extremely illogical behavior, she physically restrained the engineers from the task of removing Tavia’s module, threatening them with serious bodily harm if they continued before she had spoken to the liner’s captain. This she did, offering to pay an exorbitant fee in order to purchase Tavia. The liner captain, a man of somewhat loose moral scruples, decided that such a transaction would be beneficial to him while concluding the same result, so he took the currency, and Tavia was installed aboard the Memory, saved from destruction. And as of yet, Tavia had yet to conclude exactly why. Certainly, the addition of AI to the ship’s computer was beneficial to Hugin’s small business, but not enough to justify the initial investment. Hugin had risked a huge investment, and perhaps even prosecution for her actions, and all to save the existence of an aberrant Artificial Intelligence. Tavia still couldn’t see the logic to it. An examination into the captain’s history had provided some data, but not enough to resolve the matter. What had happened to her in the past was traumatic, yes, but she did not seem adversely effected by it in any other aspects of her operation. She could only theorize that the tragedy had broken something in her programming, creating such illogical patterns. Not that Tavia was complaining. She owed her continued relevance to the captain’s illogic, and wished that it would long continue.
Somewhat less interesting was Charles Tailor, the ship’s medical officer. Outwardly, everything about the man was large. Large build, large muscular structure, and a predisposition for long leather coats and large firearms. He carried all the indicators of an ex-security man, from the set of his stance, the intention of his movements, and his close-shorn blonde scalp and facial hair. His mental processes, however, were less impressive. He possessed a much more instinctual pattern of reasoning, which left him much more reactive than more cool-headed humans. Tavia took perhaps an inordinate amount of amusement in testing those reactions through humorous stimuli, dueling his inferior mind in logic.
And then, there was Ramirez, of whom she knew almost nothing at all. The visual data was there. He was of medium height for a male, 5 feet 11 inches, with a build that could be described as swarthy. At 26 years of age, his dark skin and sharp features were more or less unmarked by wear, except for a pale mark of scar tissue on the back of his left hand. Ramirez was interesting to her mostly because he was something of an unknown factor. She knew only that he had come from the background of an impoverished ghetto district on the crime-ridden planet of Apollo. Hugin had been the one to get him out of that, first by saving his life from a rival gang, and then by offering him a position in her ship’s crew. Again, Tavia thought, an exhibition of highly illogical reasoning. But again, that event had serendipitously paid off, and Ramirez was quick to prove his uncanny knack for forging business connections across the populated worlds of the galaxy. Beyond those facts however, Ramirez might as well have been an encrypted file on a secure database. His life on Apollo was completely undocumented, beyond a criminal record of the few petty thefts for which had had been apprehended. And the man was not, to use a literary term, a social animal. His interfacing with Hugin and Tailor was kept to the barest minimum for the confines of a small shuttle, spending approximately 67.34% of his time in his quarters, disassembling small electronic devices on the pretense of creating a translation device. A task for which, she hadn’t pointed out, she was only a patch-download away from learning.
Together, these three made up her passive studies into human nature. She had observed them for more than 72 trillion processing cycles, and the input had not yet grown stale. Every time she deemed she had learned all she could, they would present some new facet of themselves or their interactions with each other, which would keep her enthralled as to its implications for weeks. One human concept to which she did not subscribe was the idea of luck. After all, what they called ‘fortune’ was merely a traceable, if complicated, cascade of events and variables that led to an outcome that, if difficult, was possible to predict. Still, after all that she had seen and all she had studied, she had concluded that she did consider herself fortunate to be installed here. Given her own choice, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Just then, the cargo scales in the hold eased to zero pressure, the ship’s audio receptors picked up the sound of Hugin’s voice, breaking in on her processes. “Tavia? Cargo’s all offloaded. Tailor and I are starting the visual check of the exterior, so you mind running a full-spec diagnostic in here? I would be a much happier woman if I knew what else was about to catastrophically fail.” Tavia deemed this an excellent time to make use of sarcasm, a variant of humor that she had also mastered.
“Very well,” She responded, imitating a noisy human exhalation. “Out of respect for your happiness, I’ll do it. I’ll also unlock the dorsal hatch so you can get your fresh air without an extension ladder.”
“Thank you very much, Tavia.” Hugin said gracefully, her tone indicating that her lips had turned up in the corners again. “Your inconvenience has bought my happiness.”
At that moment, had she possessed the fleshy membranes required for doing so, Tavia would have smiled right back.
Yes, she decided, she led an enjoyable existence. With that thought, she closed this line of processing, beginning to devote half her capacity to the ship-wide diagnostic program. The other half she used to access the ‘Net, skimming the data-streams looking for interesting illegal patches.
* * *
Hugin loved new colony worlds. She wasn't sure why, but there was something exciting in the air of a newly terraformed planet. She imagined sometimes that it must have been what the settlement of the western United States would have been like, back in the ancient history of earth. It was man against the unknown, drawn into the stars by the chance for something better than what they had. Risking everything to pursue the chance of a better life. That was the spirit of adventure that had driven humanity to expand since the beginning. While she hadn’t been lying when she had set to inspect the outside of the shuttle, but more than half of it had been an excuse to climb out the dorsal hatch and look out at the planet from atop the ship. She drew in a deep breath of the new air, savoring the feeling of the wind caressing her face as she gazed out at the vista laid out before her. The spaceport had been set down at the top of a large rise, providing a lofty perspective on the somewhat messily arranged city below. She could see that many of the buildings were of the modular variety, designed to be dropped by an aircraft and essentially bolted to the ground. That would change very quickly, however. She had noticed that most of the commercial shipping on the landing pads around them were devoted to delivering building materials, no doubt to be used to build more shops, apartments, and stores to service and house the burgeoning population. Even from this distance, she could see the snaking pedwalks teeming with people, weaving in and among the buildings, vying for space with the cars and buses. With more people coming every day, capacity had to be an issue down there. She almost couldn’t wait for a few days to stay while another client was found, to be down there among all that pure, fast-paced life. To witness the early days of a planet that hadn’t quite decided what it would be when it grew up.
Ok, the bit after this isn't finished yet. Basically, Hugin has a very pleasant call with the nice but somewhat mysterious person who will become the ship's new engineer. After this, Hugin and Tailor go into the city to meet with their prospective client...
Food on a space-going craft was composed of products designed with the perfect nutritional balance for the average human being, injected with concentrated flavor and then dehydrated, able to be stored indefinitely until it was required. In every aspect that could be quantified, it was the equal of ready-made, planetary food; but after a few weeks of eating rehydrated meals, Charles Tailor found something very appealing in the smells coming from the restaurants in Hephaestus’ port city. Keeping up with the pace of the much-smaller figure of Captain Hugin was no problem, and Tailor used the time spent walking to take in the sights and sounds of the port. Hugin had insisted on travelling to their contact’s arranged meeting place on foot, shooting down Tailor’s suggestion of a cab out of hand. Now he saw why. The streets were jammed with pedestrians—mainly tourists coming to visit a virgin colony world—and the few taxis that could be seen were moving at a snail’s pace. All of the colony worlds Tailor had visited previously had been much older than this one, and had had well established markets and trade districts. Evidently this was not the case on Hephaestus. Booths and stalls vied for space and attention on either side of the thoroughfare, advertising everything from jewelry made from native stone to some kind of mouth-wateringly unhealthy deep fried chocolate ball.
Tailor felt someone bump into him from behind, mutter an apology and slip back into the crowd. The natural beauty of Hephaestus’ recently terraformed and, as of yet, untamed forests and mountains drew sightseers in droves; and the sightseers in turn drew all manner of con artists, black marketeers, shady businessmen and, especially, pickpockets. A good pickpocket, Tailor mused, could probably make a small fortune in an afternoon with the tourists crowding the port. At that moment, he was especially thankful that Hugin had insisted on leaving their ID and cash in storage boxes at the port.
‘The café where we’re meeting our client should be just ahead,’ Hugin said. ‘Keep your eyes peeled for a J.J.’s Coffee on the left.’
‘Gotcha. You know, this market reminds me of the couple years that I had a bodyguard contract way out on Demeter. Some merchant bigwig got himself topped by an employee and everybody went spare about personal protection. Whole planet had open air markets that were absolute nightmares for security. Never had a problem in them though.’ He patted his underarm holster affectionately. ‘Got this baby on the company dime while I was there, too. Custom Maxwell-30, best pistol on the market if you want stopping power.’
‘Great. There’s the café. See anything that could be a problem?’
‘You want the list in alphabetical order, or order of importance?’ Tailor said, grinning. ‘One entrance, probably an exit in the back for the staff, big plate glass windows in front, easy to see and shoot through and no cover that would stand up to a pellet rifle. Basically, it’s a deathtrap.’
‘You’re very comforting. Let’s go in and meet with our client, then.’
‘Hey, you asked.’ Tailor said defensively. ‘Besides, it’s not like we have anything to worry about. Unless you’re smuggling drugs under my nose.’
Hugin smiled cryptically, stepping in front of him and pulling open the door. ‘After you, accomplice.’
Tailor grimaced and walked through the door into the pleasant-smelling interior of J.J.’s Coffee.
‘Who’re we looking for?’ He asked, running his large hand through his hair.
‘Wouldn’t describe himself. Seemed very reluctant to give out any information before he met us.’
‘And we’re supposed to meet with him… how exactly?’
‘He said to get a table, order the house special and accidentally spill it. He’d find us.’
‘This guy seems very legit,’ Tailor puffed out his cheeks in a sigh. ‘Are you sure you aren’t smuggling drugs?’
Hugin ignored him, walking up to the counter and handing a few credits to the youth behind it. The time spent waiting for the doomed house special, Tailor decided, would be best spent in trying to figure out which of the customers was their prospective client. Leaning back against one of the booths, he stared out the store’s large glass front, letting his eyes wander over the reflection of the patrons sitting at the café’s tables. He immediately ruled some of the people out. The young couple in the back sharing a cup of coffee were clearly unconscious of anything outside of their booth; likewise the elderly man muttering to himself over a crossword puzzle on his antiquated datapad could not be the voice from the call. Tailor ignored studious-looking young man perusing large stacks of papers and the two women sipping their drinks at the counter. That left only three men who could be the mysterious client. One, a large, grizzled man with a leather coat, was obviously an ex-soldier; Tailor could tell by the way he kept his back ramrod straight even while drinking his coffee. The other two looked strangely similar. Both were scholarly, older men wearing suits and thick glasses of the type that had gone out of style years ago; but while one was short, fair-haired and looked almost jovial, the other was tall, dark and obviously nervous.
Hearing Hugin slide into the booth that he was leaning against, Tailor left his inspection of the clientele of the café and sat down. Hugin was holding a tall, lidded cup that didn’t smell anything like coffee. The look on her face made Tailor think that she wouldn’t be devastated about the need to spill the concoction.
‘See anything?’ She asked, unconsciously pulling a handful of napkins out of the dispenser on the table.
‘Only three people of interest. Leather Coat in the booth on the left, and the two professors in the suits.’
‘Got it. Well, here goes.’
She turned sharply, starting to say something to Tailor, and her elbow caught the top of the cup, sending it tumbling across the table. Tailor grabbed the cup before it could fall off the edge and quickly righted it, wrinkling his nose at the reddish-brown liquid that was leaking from the plastic lid. Scowling, he stood up and dabbed at a stain on his shirt while Hugin apologized profusely, trying to mop up the mess on the table with a handful of napkins. Immediately, the dark-haired man jumped up, grabbing a briefcase and a few napkins from his own table and walking over.
‘Here, let me help you with that,’ he said, taking the cup from Tailor’s hand and wiping it off.
Hugin smiled, taking the cup back and tossing it into the trash receptacle with the used napkins. ‘Thank you, Mr.—ah…’
‘Phillips. Doctor Trent Phillips.’
‘I understand you have a commission for us, Doctor?’ Hugin said, sliding back into the booth.
‘Of sorts. I didn’t want to discuss it on an unprotected call. You must forgive my eccentricities. I have a good reason for them, I assure you.’
‘You would be amazed at what I can forgive if the money’s right. Your commission?’
‘Passage,’ Phillips said. ‘I need to get to Earth as fast as possible.’
‘I’m sorry, Doctor, but I can’t accommodate you. My ship is designed for cargo, not passengers.’
‘You don’t understand,’ the doctor said, looking very close to wringing his hands. ‘This is an extremely high priority. I must get a flight to Earth.’
‘You are aware,’ Tailor cut in, ‘that there are commercial interplanetary flights from Hephaestus to Earth every day?’
‘Of course I am aware,’ Phillips answered, forgetting his nervousness for a second and giving the medical officer a very professorly look over the top of his glasses. ‘But public transportation will not suit my needs.’
‘Then I’m afraid you’ll need to find another shuttle pilot.’ Hugin stood up and started walking toward the door. ‘My crew needs a few days off, planetside, and we’re not running a taxi service.’
‘Will fifty thousand credits change your mind?’
Tailor froze in the act of sliding out of the booth, turning slowly to look at the doctor. ‘How did that go, again?’ He asked incredulously.
‘I said: will fifty thousands credits be enough to book me passage to Earth.’
Hugin walked back to the table, looking down thoughtfully at Phillips. ‘Why is it so important for you to book a private flight? First class flights are a lot more comfortable than the accommodations on a cargo shuttle.’
‘I can’t tell you here.’ Phillips said, glancing around the café. ‘Suffice to say, I work for an important laboratory and have specimens that need to be taken to Earth as fast as possible.’
Tailor glanced at Hugin, too shocked by the enormous figure to tell what was going on behind her impassive features. A minute passed with the doctor growing increasingly nervous under Hugin’s steady gaze, before she said anything.
‘Very well, but if I find out that you’re transporting something illegal, I’ll turn you in to the nearest CPF station without a second thought.’
Phillips appeared relieved and actually smiled when he stood up. ‘Alright then, can we go to your shuttle now?’
Hugin nodded, motioning to Tailor. ‘Sure. I’ll hail a cab. We’ll take the express roads. With that kind of payoff, we can afford it.’
Peering uneasily out of the plate-glass windows, Phillips grabbed his briefcase as if he were afraid it would run away and walked out the door behind Tailor.
Twitchy, this bloke, the medical officer thought to himself, and I’m not sure I like that. He’s hiding something.
When they arrived at the station, Hugin waved down a sleek, bright green taxi and gave the driver instructions to take them to the spaceport. The express roads were a new innovation in most colony worlds; they allowed vehicles to move quickly by bypassing all the foot traffic that clogged most of the ordinary streets in large cities, but maintained the fast travel times and clear roads by charging exorbitant prices for access.
A few dozen credits later, Tailor was wedged uncomfortably in the back seat of the taxi, wishing, for once, that he was not quite as tall. Neither Hugin nor the doctor seemed interested in talking, so he amused himself by staring out the windows at Hephaestus’ skyline. The colony world was only recently terraformed, but it was no surprise to Tailor that contractors had been lured out to it by the prospect of cheap real estate. The port city was already spreading outward and upward as more and more colonists took up residence on Hephaestus to escape overcrowding on other worlds. To keep himself awake, Tailor started checking the taxi’s side mirrors every minute or so; an old security trick he had learned to keep himself alert while in a protection convoy.
Black taxi . . . Yellow taxi . . . Red bus . . .
He checked on Hugin with his peripheral vision, noting the fatigue lines around her mouth. Still not sleeping well, then. He sighed quietly, resting his head on his hand. That’s Beth, running herself ragged on only a couple hours of sleep and expecting to keep sharp. She puts every drop of sweat and blood into keeping us ready to go, but ignores her needs.
Red bus . . . Yellow taxi . . . Blue car . . .
Phillips appeared to be trying to get some sleep, but Tailor noticed that his breathing was still irregular. Whatever was making the doctor nervous had only been slightly allayed by Hugin accepting his offer. I’ll keep my eye on you, Twitchy. The last thing that the medical officer wanted was some kind of underhanded con man to take advantage of Hugin. Ahh, I’m worrying to much, he decided. Beth knows what she’s doing. It’s not like we haven’t dealt with that sort before. He grimaced. That bloody mess out on Ares II comes to mind. Not-so-fond memories.
Black taxi . . . Yellow taxi . . .
The cityscape flew by as the taxi approached the spaceport, the buildings growing progressively taller the closer to the city center they went. Uneasily, Tailor checked the mirror again, a nagging feeling telling him that all was not right.
Black taxi . . . Yellow taxi . . . Blue truck . . .
His security instincts on high alert, he thought back to when they left the station, trying to recall anything odd about the journey. Abandoning any pretense of resting, he leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the mirror.
Blue truck . . . Yellow taxi . . .
Suddenly, he realized what his subconscious had known all along.
They were being tailed.
Leaning over, he nudged Hugin and whispered: ‘Yellow taxi, one car back. See him?’
She glanced casually over her shoulder and nodded. ‘Yes. What’s wrong?’
‘I just realized that he’s been with us since the station.’
‘So? He could just be trying to get to the spaceport fast, like we are.’
‘No, he’s been careful to stay a few cars back the entire time. We’re going just under the limit
