Archaea 3: Red (19 page)

He leaned sideways in his console, head tilted under the weight of a mighty eyebrow. “Yak, please post another message to the Clairvoyant. Let them know the hostile target the
y are chasing no longer has offensive capabilities.”

“Aye sir.” he chuckled, typing out the message.

Dak took another sip of his coffee. “Well folks, our boards are clear, and we have about six hours before our next evolution. Please stand down and recreate, nap, do whatever you like for a while, that's an order. Janis, you have the conn.”

“I have the conn, aye Captain.” she said immediately.

“Remember George, Gene?” he asked as I kicked aft.

“I remember
a lot of people named George.”

“George, the autopilot.” he said smiling, getting out of his crash bars and stretching. “We used to hand the helm off to George on those long runs out to the Oort Station. You know, I never could trust George enough to sleep. He was just a glorified gimbal with a proximity alarm.
It was simply impossible to relax properly with George. Janis now, she is a proper watch officer.”

I laughed, as we headed aft with Shorty in the lead, as usual. “Yeah, now that you mention it, I remember you talking about George. I guess I never realized you meant the autopilot. I thought you were complaining about an actual crew member, Dak.”

“Complaining? I never complain mister.” He fixed me with a stern look. “I merely make highly detailed observations.” he smiled. “Actually, that's not true. I was complaining about George. I have my limits you know, everyone needs to sleep sometime.”

“Even you, sir?” I asked with a smile as we kicked through the gun deck.

“Yes, occasionally. I am going for a quick carbo-load and powernap right now, in fact. It's the only way to fly. Are you hungry, Gene?”

“I could eat, but then I want to go take a look at what Janis is working on in the cargo bay. I saw a glimpse on my way forward, and it looks pretty impressive.”

“That sounds fun. How about you, Shorty? Hungry?”

“I could eat the silverware, sir.” she said with a feral grin.

“Excellent.” he clicked on comms. “Yak, Pauli – you hungry?”

“I'm good, sir” Yak called back. “I just finished my sandwich a few moments ago.”

“That little thing? Heck man… that was just enough food to make my belly realize it wasn't full of coffee anymore.” The captain winked at me. “What if I said I was making stir fry?”

“Stick food? Oh yeah, I'm in, sir. I need the practice, if nothing else.” Yak replied.

“Sounds good, sir” Pauli added. “I'm headed back in a moment; Janis and I are on the trail of some interesting data here.”

“You can't eat data, Pauli... though I know you try.”

“Sir I know. Be right there – save me some!”

“No promises son. Shorty's looking pretty malnourished back here, and drooling up a storm.”

Shorty laughed, as we hauled ourselves down the ladder towards the galley. The rings were spun up to point-seven, a perfectly solid floor, and perfect for keeping good food down.

When the rings were
rolling, there was a little bit of a disorienting transition stepping into the rotating companionway, but we were all pretty used to it. Once you step in, there's a distinctive drop, and suddenly you're glued to the floor again. Of course, your stomach does a bit of a drop as well, but it's almost immediately replaced with an almost overwhelming wave of relief.

The galley was full-up, and loud. Dak had the wok out, and the stove-top magnetized. It's not a classic wok, of course, ours is a pressure vessel, and more like a sphere than a hemisphere. The process is the same, though. Dak tossed in some sesame seeds, a bit of salt, some olive oil, a bit of curry and some tandoori, a pile of fresh veggies from the garden, and what came out sure looked like stir-fry to us.

“That smells amazing”, Pauli said, walking in late, as usual. Yak and Shorty were working on Yak's stick skills. His technique was nonexistent. I knew he was a few inches from pulling out a fork, or his combat knife. Shorty was patient though, and would probably take away his knife and spank him with it if he tried.

“Sorry Pauli, you're too late. We just finished. There's some water in the tap though.” Dak said around a mouthful.

I laughed, and handed the pan over.

His eyes lit up when he saw how much was left. “Thanks Gene, my only real friend.” I rolled my eyes and laughed.  

“Jane, I swear. These damn things.” Yak was slipping his sticks across each other like a cricket.

“Yak, your hands are too big, that's the problem. You need to put them on either side of your hand, like this”, she demonstrated, deftly slipping a slice of carrot out of her bowl and holding it up.

“He'll get it, Shorty” I said. “One of these days...” I smiled.

Yak took a deep breath, shut his eyes briefly, and appeared to center himself. I tensed, just in case. He looked at Shorty's proffered slice of carrot as if it was a neck he needed to squeeze. He then carefully oriented his sticks, exactly like hers.

She held perfectly still. I think we were all holding our breath.

Yak slowly moved his hand down, into his bowl. We heard a distinct click. He snorted, and stared at the bowl
like it just insulted his heritage.

I looked over at Dak, who had his eyes wide, barely holding it in.

“Not… one… word.” Yak said, in a voice pitched lower than the bottom of a freshly dug grave.

“You can do it, Yak.” Janis
whispered quietly.

The captain broke out in a massive laugh, and slapped the table. We all lost it. Shorty had her hands over her face and was just laughing out of control. She sounded like a braying donkey, gasping for air.

Yak fixed us with a look of stoic determination, the kind of look you might see on a man about to summit a frozen windswept peak in the pre-dawn light. He fished around a bit in his bowl, then swiftly brought a piece of carrot up, popped it in his mouth. Chewed, and shrugged with a smile.

“It's not that hard, really.” He said around his mouthful, and then as if he knew how to do it all along, swiftly whipped out some green pepper, twisting it and dropping it into his mouth.

“I think you did it, Shorty!” I said smiling around my own mouthful.

“It's those big hands, Yak. You had it all along, just needed to hold them right. They're not hard, are they?” she said, looking up at him with a smile.

“Yeah, definitely”, he said, clicking them a bit in his hand. “And, unlike a fork, I could get some really deep penetration with these babies. Gene, do you think you could make me a set of these, in something really tactical?”

“You mean, like titanium?”

“Yeah, that'd do the trick. Do they need to be dull?”

“Well, unless you want them to stab into your tongue, then yeah, you'll want them to be kinda dull, Yak.” Dak said helpfully.

“That's okay then – Gene, just grind them with a good chisel edge.”

I thought a bit, wondering if I really wanted a seven-foot tall Marine armed with titanium eatin' sticks – then realized he's already armed with at least an 8 inch knife, and probably a few guns, maybe another knife or two, and probably some sort of wire. What could be the harm in adding some sticks?

“Sure Yak, I said with a nod. I was just about to add a witty comment about not stabbing anyone we care about, when an assembler abruptly pulled into the galley.

“Yak, here are the utensils you requested.” Janis said sweetly. “These are titanium as you requested, though I have built them with a core of high-carbon glassed steel.”

To say we were all caught off guard isn't really descriptive enough. It was as if the least likely thing that could happen, kept happening.

“Thanks Janis, these are beautiful!” Yak said in wonder. They were incredibly well machined, and sized perfectly for his hands. He passed them around.

“Janis, I want a set too!” Shorty said.

“Me too!” Pauli said.

“Janis, I think I speak for everyone, when I say I think we all need a set of these, dear. Can you do that?”

“Of course, Captain.” Janis said sweetly. “I took the liberty already, sir.”
The assembler leaned back on its rear legs, and passed out perfectly machined sets for each of us.

“Nice!” I said, and checked mine for fit and finish. They were absolutely beautiful, precision equipment for sure. The tips were cut on the ends with a concave bevel. Not really that bad of a thing to have, all things considered. Confucius may have thought chopsticks were more peaceful than forks, but he couldn't have imagined the mayhem someone could do with these.

“These are definitely tactical eatin' sticks, Janis”, Dak said, testing the tip.

I got
back to work on the rest of my stir fry, and for a while the galley was full of the sounds of clicking and munching.

“So Captain,” Pauli said between bites, “Janis and I found something really strange encoded in our copy of M2, and she just confirmed it from another
M2 node she tracked down from an AV warehouse network on Mars.”

“Strange how, Pauli?”

“Well... pretty strange. Americo Ventures has a project going on to repopulate Solis, it looks like.”

“How is that strange?” he said, sticks in mid-bite.

“Well, it's not, by itself... but the clearance level for the project is really high, sir – like astronomically high in their organization. This would be as high as it gets, Chairman and friends.”

“Why would a mining colony on a
hunk of ice like Solis need that level of security?”

“Well, that's what we were wondering. Of course, there's tons of information missing. M2 didn't really archive content in a direct way. Janis, can you describe it?”

“I can try, Steven. M2 stored data referentially, as a coded block that contains a signature of the original data. The data itself is stored fractally in a multi-dimensional array, and the pointers connect it through the mesh. The information I can recover isn't human-readable, not in any classic sense, of course. It's spatial information, and only exists in fragmentary pointers that reference data stored throughout their network.”

Dak looked like he was about to drop an eyeball, and squinted his right eye tightly. “Janis, that... okay, let me see if I understand it. You have essentially an address list to information that exists throughout their network?”

“That's a very apt analogy, Captain. That is exactly what I have, in very simplest terms.”

“I see... so we know this project exists because there is a reference to it. Is it possible to recover the information from their network?”

“Sir, I am recovering the information now through the Unet, though Americo Ventures is as you know, quite far away from Sol system, and there are complications at the moment. A missing com drone that services the back-haul through the Altair system has essentially severed a 10 light year segment. I am routing around it, and will have the information within twelve hours.”

“That's plenty fast
my dear, and also means there's nothing between me and a little power nap.” He stretched, and got up from the table.

“I am going to take a look at your
dropship, Janis, if you don't mind.” I said, getting up as well.

“Of course not, Gene,
I would be honored. I have some questions for you, in fact, if you wouldn't mind giving me some advice.”

I smiled. “Of course Janis, I'd love to!” I stepped to the dishwasher and loaded my bowl and sticks into the tray. “Captain,
do you mind if I take a refill?” I asked.

“Not at all Gene
, let’s see, is this your... first cup today?” he said with a wink and a look at Pauli.

Not at all sure what he meant,
I decided to go along with him, as that is always a smooth move. “Uh, yes”, I said, though I am afraid it wasn't very convincing. I am a terrible actor.

“See Pauli? One cup
… this man before you is a ruddy hero of the spacelanes. He knows the meaning of rationing, of selfless sacrifice for the good of his poor, caffeine-deprived Captain.”

I laughed as I hooked myself up the ladder to the gun deck, leaving the chaos of the mess deck behind. The smell of tandoori was pervasive, even up here in the ozone-infused atmo around Shorty's charged phase amps. It was in my clothes, my hair - I was going to be drinking tandoori coffee for days, but it was worth it.

The gun deck was quiet, aside from some machine shop sounds as I passed ring three, it was as quiet as I’ve seen it in a while. Still, I wasn’t inclined to go over the danger line. It may look and sound quiet, but a whiff of ozone reminded me that the amps were energized, and they didn’t need to be glowing to be deadly. How Shorty works in here, I can’t understand. I prefer a little wider margin for safety. The thought of flash roasting to a crispy cinder of well-done engineer – that’s not for me.

As I transited through the inner lock to the cargo bay, the sound of arcs filled the air. The dropship was coming along nicely, and I shaded my eyes as I kicked down towards the deck.

“Janis, permission to come aboard?” I asked the air as I approached the build site.