Burnt Ice (21 page)

Harry paused then redirected the
question.

‘Hmm, what do you say, Stephine?’

‘Altering the vegetables to
produce the bells should not be too difficult, Harry. Then growing them.
Probably better to go with a flower. The right shape from the outset. Please
send me the specifications of what you need, with all the plumbing lines for
the nozzle. Also the size and shape of your retaining and lockdown mechanisms.
Those I can program directly into the plant as it grows. I would say four
standard weeks before I would have a batch ready for you. I can program the
growth sequence so they would all be identical.’

‘Great. I’ll shunt a file over to
you for the design. Don’t get too fussy, though. They are only reaction
rockets, after all. We just need them to operate for a very long time.’ Harry
turned to the captain. ‘The nanotes would take another two weeks to make each
nozzle, boss.’

‘Good, get them under way. The
more thrust we have, the better. With that in mind, Jan, we had better look at
long-term effects on our bioware for continuous acceleration at, say,
one-point-four gravities.’

‘Yes, sir.’

~ * ~

The
next few weeks saw
Basalt
getting deeper inside the comet, welded into place
with ice. All the available engineering drones had been put to work around the
clock, drilling, smashing and lifting ice out, pulling
Basalt
into the
cavity, then backfilling and melting the ice to lock the ship into place. The
engines were run for the first time since they had arrived.

They pushed up against the first
of the other two comets they were taking with them. A day after they had
arrived in the Oort field they’d flown a pair of fast mover drones with
additional rocket packs out to the two target comets and attached them, firing
the rockets to alter their trajectories, placing them in
Basalt’s
flight
path. The new comet was a lot looser in structure than the one around
Basalt
— more like a giant snowball in consistency — so work slowed while they used
all the available drones, including modified combat ones, to compact the
200-metre-round ball down into the cavities that had been created in the comet
now surrounding
Basalt.
There was a bonus — the captain decided that the
comet must have been formed around one of the system’s gas giants, as a great
deal of ethane was present. He knew that gas would work very well as an
accelerant for the chemical rockets long term.

‘Lotus, you have control,’ the
captain said. ‘Harry, could you come up to the flight deck please? Time for a
walk around, and I have a date with Jan in the medical suite to check all my
nanotes. Mind the bus, Marko. Back in a couple of hours. We have another
twenty-eight hours before the next iceball. Wonder what that one will bring us.’

‘I could get a couple of the
astronomicals to get ahead of us to check it out further, if you want? But all
the data from the fast movers says it’s good,’ Marko said.

‘Actually, captain, can we use my
proxy?’ Lotus asked. ‘Might be a good idea if we sent one of the skuas, with
three astronomicals, to map the next comet as the fast mover did not have time
to do that. Would save us some time.’

‘I concur. Good idea. By all
means, do it.’

‘Boss, can we upgrade to one of
the landers?’ Fritz said. ‘Sirius would like some long-range pictures of
Basalt
in ice.’

‘OK, Fritz. Go for it. Use the
proxy anyway. You happy with that, Lotus?’

‘No problems, Michael. I have a
spare.’

On the flight deck they all
looked at each other and shook their heads. All that time and Lotus had a spare
set of hands anyway. They were not surprised. The captain was still shaking his
head as he left. Fifteen minutes later Marko’s screens showed the lander
leaving, moving quickly ahead of them.

‘Hey, mate. How’s that blue arm?
I can’t get used to it. Looks dead.’

‘Yeah, I suppose you could say
that, Harry. But have you seen a dead one do this before?’ He clenched his
fingers into a fist, straightened them, then rotated the last joints of the
fingers and thumb, grasping anything in any direction without rotating the
wrist. He then thought for a moment, and three fingernails extended to form a
blade.

‘Oh, mate! I like that. Now that
is nice tech. I suppose you’d like some nice diamond fingernails next? We could
then irradiate them and turn them black or blue or even red if you wanted? Next
break time together you have to talk me through this process of yours. I might
have need for a nice ACE spider. Always fancied a critter. But knowing how much
you charge, you robber, it would have to be serious mate’s rates.’

‘Trade you for beer, Harry.
Really surprised you haven’t laid down a brew in weeks.’

‘Yeah,’ said Harry. ‘Tell me
about it. No bloody time. Too busy drilling and snagging comets. But once we’re
clear of the next comet processing we’ll have plenty of time. Stephine is keen
to try her hand at making beer. Says that she will have some interesting yeasts
available soon. Have you seen the computer in their craft? Man, but that is a
serious piece of kit. The info she has in it is amazing, even for me. That lady
is one very serious biologist. You need to talk with her, you really do. By the
way, we need to talk with Jan, being the shooter that she is. The boss is
worried about weapons and deploying them from under the ice. Any ideas?’

‘Yeah.’ Marko said. ‘But we’ll be
travelling so fast nothing will be able to touch us anyway. The first purpose
of the ice is fuel, but the real task for the bulk of it is to provide
protection against stellar particles when we gain a percentage of Tau. Hell,
the way I see it, we’ll be struggling to maintain viability of any sensors. I
reckon that as the front surface ablates any weapons would be wrecked anyway.
Keep them in here, would be my thoughts. We could have a few weapons at the
bottom of the sensor tunnels, but they’re only a third completed.’

Harry nodded as Marko continued. ‘That
would be the only logical place for them, in which case, the only stuff we
could use are missiles. But what are we going to fire them at anyway? As we
accelerate, there is nothing there, or if there is, we probably wouldn’t know
about it as we would be destroyed so quickly. We have plenty of time to worry
about the other end. What do Veg and Stephine have to say? They have been out
here the longest. And why are you asking me? You are the whizz-bang specialist!’

Harry smiled. ‘Yeah, but the boss
wants a conference anyway, as soon as we are up against the other comet. So I
have to ask everyone to give him as many options as possible, even from
blue-armed dickheads like you!’

Marko left Harry and went to have
a good look around the ship, checking on progress. The vats for the growing of
the rocket nozzles were almost complete in the auto builders, being a
relatively simple project. The nanotes were being bred up from radically
altered bacteria that had been programmed so that oxygen was lethal to them.
That way, the ship’s safety would not be compromised if any escaped the vats.
Marko sampled the breeder and ran a whole batch of tests through his midi, now
stationed in the engineering room, then started to put his secret plan for the
linking of his midi to Ernst into action.

‘Lotus.’

‘Yes, sergeant.’

‘I have isolated a sample batch
of the diamond-building nanotes in my midi. I would like to compare them with
the nanotes in medical. I have an idea which ones I’d like to examine for
possible human medical application. I believe that they would be useful to
establish a baseline with these nanotes.’

‘I am not sure how this action
will benefit research,’ said Lotus. ‘We already know about the nanotes, but it’s
your machine and, if Jan has no issues, I have no objections from a security
view. I wonder, sergeant, if you are not on a little fishing expedition, maybe?
No doubt, the trade-off will be your acquiring some info for creating another
being? Yes? I thought so. Good hunting, Sergeant Marko.’

He decided that Lotus was a good
old duck, notwithstanding that she was a melding of two AIs. She still came
across as an old military type, now living in a vicarious way, perhaps trying
to decide if she would return to the living, breathing masses at some point in
her future.

‘Midi, follow me.’

It raised itself off the floor
and followed as he walked to medical, where he instructed it to place itself
against the Ernst unit. Jan just nodded and smiled in an enigmatic way.

‘Nanotes? Cute. You happy about
this, Marko? Ernst is a potent AI and has access to huge amounts of info both
here on board and also back in civilisation. I have instructed — shall I say,
requested
— that he erases a lot of info, primarily concerning me and what I have been
involved in, from the clone with the copy that he has prepared. But Ernst is,
well, Ernst. Once he gains control of the midi you could be in for an
interesting time.’

‘Yeah, I’m good with it thanks,
Jan. His skills are worth taking a few risks for, and besides, the midi has a
few killers lurking in it as well. He could spend a huge amount of time trying
to control them, but they’re actually with me. So I figure you heard all that,
Ernst? Want to come out and play?’

‘Yes please, Marko. ‘My
biological self will be very pleased to meet with you one day.’

Marko instructed the midi to
accept a new augmented core and left them to it. It would take many hours for
them to combine and sort out their systems. Marko wondered what personality
would come of the amalgamation. He had not been exactly straight with Ernst as
to what was waiting for him as the midi contained a few of Fritz’s more
esoteric programs.

‘Time for a coffee, Jan. Stephine
was baking something most interesting when I went past the galley last. The
smell was fantastic. Imagine that, a sentient being actually baking food!’

‘Yeah, but remember that the
captain prefers that I make his tea for him. Says that there is a distinct
difference between what I make for him and what he would get from an auto
dispenser! I know it’s bollocks but I am happy to do it for him.’

Marko looked across at her and
gave her a little smile and a nod.

‘Yeah, I understand that. He is a
good guy.’

When they entered the galley the
smell was even better. Veg, with the captain’s permission, had installed a
manually operated oven. Marko had never heard of such a thing inside the
military. Veg had also had the CNC machines and electronic builders create a
whole group of tools and other machines; Marko could only guess at what they
did.

Jan was looking completely
bemused by the whole thing until she let out a squeak of delight and gestured
to a most odd piece of equipment.

‘Is this an expressa machine,
Stephine?’

‘Espresso, espresso, Jan. Yes, it
is. Now that smell you are all revelling in is coffee. And Veg is a barista,
which means he knows how to operate the machine, so you can all have a real cup
of it. The beans are still not perfect as they were fast cloned from some of my
own dwindling supply, but they will do for today. I need to tweak the gene
sequencing for them a little more yet. Now, to go with the coffee, I have made
a batch of pinwheels.’

‘Sounds good.’ said Jan.

‘Sit yourselves down, people.’
Stephine said as they scattered around the table. ‘Harry will be with us
shortly. Michael has asked Lotus to run everything while we’re here. Now,
coffee! This coffee, not the horrible stuff you’re familiar with, is much
stronger and has a drug called caffeine in it. You will get a buzz from it, but
it’s OK. Humans have been drinking the stuff for millennia. You can have it
black, or with the sweetener of your choice, and with milk or cream. So let us
begin.’

Marko, after a few mouthfuls,
decided that it was as awful as it was strong, but gave him a real buzz. He
wanted to try another one until Stephine told him that the allowance was one
per day only. She smiled down at him and said Veg would make it again tomorrow.
The things she called pinwheels, on the other hand, were fabulous. She said
that they were butter pastry, something he had only read about, with layers of
walnuts and spices, which were other foodstuffs he had never experienced. He
took a bite, slowly chewed and swallowed, and tastes he had never experienced
flooded, and then flashed, into his head. He looked at Stephine and was even
more deeply in love, despite knowing it wouldn’t do him any good.