Mind Over Ship (5 page)

Oh, to the devil with the stones, he thought, abandoning his quest for skip-worthy stones and settling for a pocketful of gravel. He spent the next hour pitching gravel into the pond, not even trying to skip them because they always sank after the first bounce. Meewee had a strong throwing arm, but it was too short to get much distance. Nevertheless, despite everything, Meewee lost himself in the activity.

His reverie was interrupted by a message from his calendar.

“I thought I told you to hold my calls,” he said with a huff of annoyance. “This had better be important.”

The calendar wisely made no reply.

Meewee sighed and brushed his dirty hands on his scarlet and vermilion jumpsuit. “Proceed.”

Aria flight control at Mezzoluna reports that due to local conditions launch of advance ships has been moved forward.

“That news could have waited until I returned to the office.” He turned and began to climb the rocky apron to the grassy bank. “Anything else?”

New launch time is 14:50 today
.

“Today? The launch is today?”

Yes, at 14:50 local time
.

“What time is it now?”

14:45.

Meewee swore and began to jog up the bank to the cart, but he knew he would never make it back to the office in five minutes. “Arrow,” he said, addressing his mentar, “you’ll have to project the launch here.”

The cart at the top of the bank lurched forward half a meter in order to turn away from the sun. Then a patch of eastern sky above Meewee’s head darkened until it was pitch-black and spangled with stars. A voice was counting down the seconds, and Meewee craned his neck to stare at the far reaches of space projected above him. He couldn’t distinguish the launch facility from the starry background. The view was from the Aria space yards at Mezzoluna several tens of thousands of kilometers from the actual blast site. At the end of the countdown there was a beat, and then the star field disappeared in a blossoming ball of nuclear fire. Meewee shut his eyes and turned away, dazzled. When he could see again he searched the star field. “Well?” he said. “Was it successful?”

Arrow said,
Shipboard telemetry won’t resume for several minutes.

Of course not, even robotic ships needed time to recover from a nuclear blast. These ships carried a complete set of repair bots and nanofabs to constantly rebuild themselves during their centuries-long journey. They were designed to arrive at their destination star systems at least two hundred years before their assigned Oships. They would spend the time gained preparing the way for the colonists: scouting target planets, performing terraforming tasks, laying infrastructure, constructing cities so that when the Oships arrived and the colonists were roused from their millennial slumber, whole, viable new worlds awaited them, ready to inhabit.

A new, faint star appeared in the holoscape above Meewee. “Is that—?” he said, and another appeared, and a third and fourth. The robotic ships that had come through the atomic boost were firing their main chemical rockets, to correct their course and to boost their speed even more.

Aria launch control counted the ships as they reported in. Six, seven, fourteen ships. Twenty, twenty-eight, fifty, seventy-six. Meewee cheered, literally jumping up and down on the bank of the fishpond. Seventy-six out of a possible two hundred advance ships reported in. It was more than he had been told to expect. The launch was a solid success!

“Arrow, name the Oships they belong to.”

The
Garden Chernobyl—
ten advance ships under way. The
Garden Hybris—
eight. The
Garden Kiev—
twenty-four advance ships.

The
Kiev
—excellent! thought Meewee. The
Kiev
was the first Oship in the launch order. Its departure was only months away.

The
King Jesus—
nineteen advance ships under way
, Arrow continued.
The
Garden of Hope—
fifteen.

Excellent, excellent, excellent—it was all excellent. It was superlative. Meewee felt like celebrating. If only Wee Hunk were still around. How he missed the annoying little caveman. Meewee turned his pocket inside out and flung the last bits of gravel into the pond. The splashes made a gurgling sound that resembled a word, someone saying, “Galloway,” or maybe “Go away.” Meewee often heard words in running water, in the wind, in squeaky hinges.

“I’m going, I’m going,” he replied merrily and climbed the rest of the way to the cart.

No sooner had Meewee returned to his office than Lyra called and asked him to join Ellen Starke in an ongoing meeting at the Starke Manse. Lyra was Ellen Starke’s new mentar, the replacement for Wee Hunk, her former mentar. Meewee had not yet found the courage to inform Ellen that it was Arrow who had killed Wee Hunk or that it was he, Meewee, who had ordered Arrow to do so. But now was not the time. This was a time for celebrating their successful launch.

“By all means!” he exclaimed to the mentar. “Tell Ellen I’ll be right there.” He sat in his favorite chair and told Arrow to take him to the Manse. A moment later he was sitting opposite Ellen’s desk in the Map Room. The room was brightly lit by a single window that stretched the entire length of the wall. Ellen Starke’s persona sat behind her desk. She appeared to be the
same young woman she had been before the space yacht crash that had taken her mother’s life. In a chair next to Meewee sat the holo of another young woman, Andrea Tiekel, who had replaced her aunt, Andie Tiekel, on the GEP board. Andie Tiekel and Eleanor Starke had been murdered only days apart.

Bracketing Ellen’s desk were the personas of the mentars Cabinet and Lyra.

“It was a complete success!” Meewee announced, pumping the air with his fist. He turned to the corner of the room, where he knew the realbody Ellen would be sitting with her evangeline companion. And though he couldn’t see her, he gave her a triumphant thumbs-up.

“Over here, Bishop,” Ellen said. Her holo persona at the desk waited for him to turn back to her. “What was a complete success?”

“Why, the launch of the first advance ships. We’re on our way!” Ellen gave him a look of incomprehension. “The advance ships for the Oships,” he explained. “Aria had to push up the atomic boost to today. I thought that was why you summoned me.” Meewee’s elation began to leak away. “Why did you summon me?”

“We have received an unexpected offer from Myr Tiekel here. Since you are titular head of Heliostream, I thought you’d want to sit in on this meeting.”

Titular head? Meewee didn’t like the sound of that. He turned to the Tiekel woman. “Hello, Andrea. What offer?”

Andrea smiled disarmingly. “Don’t worry, your excellency, my offer will have little effect on your position at Heliostream. And, by the way, congratulations on the successful launch. I think that’s marvelous.”

Being told not to worry always made Meewee worry. He shot a questioning glance at Ellen, who said, “Andrea wants to buy Heliostream.”

“Excuse me?”

“Heliostream,” Andrea said. “I’m in the process of retooling my investment portfolio. Except for E-Pluribus, Auntie’s investments are, frankly, a bit outdated. A space-based energy company like Heliostream would make an ideal core holding.”

Alarmed, Meewee said to Ellen, “Why don’t you sell her our fish farms instead? The aquaculture sector is just as important as energy.” But these were only the surface words. Embedded in them was a hidden statement in another language.

Ellen made no sign of understanding him in either language. Since her
crash, she had repeatedly refused to speak the secret family metalanguage with him. Sometimes he wondered if she even remembered it.

Meewee turned to Cabinet, who was standing on one side of Ellen’s desk, and challenged its ID in Starkese.

The mentar, once Eleanor Starke’s power house, did not answer his ID challenge. It hadn’t done so since it had been forced to pass through probate after Eleanor’s death. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, it was an outsider and not to be trusted with family security. For about the thousandth time, Meewee questioned his decision not to kill the mentar when he had had the chance. But not even Wee Hunk had been sure at the time whether Cabinet had been contaminated or not. And besides, some family mentar had been necessary to manage Eleanor’s far-flung empire until Ellen could take charge of it. Cabinet had seemed capable of doing that at least.

Meewee didn’t even bother challenging the young mentar Lyra. It had never given any indication of knowing Starkese at all. That meant that neither Starke mentar was completely trustworthy.

Andrea, watching him with a puzzled expression, said, “While aquaculture is indeed an important industry, Bishop Meewee, I am more inclined toward energy at this time.”

Meewee threw off all attempts at appealing to Ellen in Starkese. He leaned over the desk and said, “You
can’t
sell Heliostream. It’s out of the question. Heliostream is more than an energy utility. It’s the contractual linchpin of the entire Garden Earth Consortium. If you sell it, you give away control of the whole GEP!”

Before Ellen could reply, Andrea said, “I repeat; there’s no need to worry about that, excellency. When I buy Heliostream, I’ll allow you to remain in your position as CEO, and you can continue to represent it on the board. I have no intention of abandoning the GEP mission. On the contrary, I’m on
your
side. I, too, believe it essential that we humans spread our species throughout the galaxy. In that we are allies.”

Andrea turned to Ellen and added, “And I will do everything in my power to carry on your mother’s work as she would have wanted.”

Ellen’s expression darkened, and she stared at Andrea for several long moments.

Uncertain, Andrea added, “I hope I haven’t said anything out of line.”

Finally Ellen said, “Thank you for your offer, Myr Tiekel, but the sale
of Heliostream or any other part of Starke Enterprises is out of the question.”

Her statement seemed to take Andrea by surprise. “May I ask why?”

“Because I’m only standing in for my mother.” Tears began to well in her eyes. “I had forgotten how much Bishop Meewee’s little project means to her.”

Andrea looked more confused than ever. “I don’t understand. Standing in for Eleanor? I’m under the impression that—that you own Starke Enterprises outright.”

“I do, but only until my mother returns. And when she does, I want to be able to hand her company back to her in as good a shape as when I acquired it.”

Even Meewee was stupefied by Ellen’s declaration, but he was grateful for the distraction and didn’t interrupt her.

“I’m sorry to bring up this painful matter,” Andrea said, “but didn’t your mother perish in the same troubles that killed my aunt?”

Ellen smiled sadly and shook her head. “Eleanor Starke is far too wily to fall victim to mere assassins.”

“Then where is she?”

“She’s in a secret location recovering from her injuries. When the time is right, she’ll walk through that door, and when she does I want to be able to show her that I’m on top of things.”

At this point, Lyra jerked into speech. “Thank you, myren. Ellen is overdue for a physical therapy session.” The holoscape abruptly closed.

Meewee was left in his office chair thoroughly bewildered.

“WHAT WAS
THAT
?” Andrea said. Though she was in her tank in the basement, she had moved her POV upstairs to her always room. Her always room was a simulation of her real living room, an exact facsimile, faithful down to the nap of the carpet and scuff marks on the walls. “You didn’t foresee that at all. Your prediction was completely off base. Starke should have welcomed our offer.”

E-P replied,
It’s impossible to accurately model insanity. It’s too fluid a psychic state.

“Is that what you think, that she’s insane?”

What do you think?

Andrea took a moment to sort through her impressions. She tried to dampen her connection to E-P’s mind, which raced in dozens of directions at once. She recalled her conversation with Ellen and tried to hear
the rhythm of her words. “I think she believed what she was saying, that Eleanor survived the crash. Is that even possible?”

We doubt it. We’ve preffed tens of millions of people from all walks of life since the crash. We’ve run hundreds of probable newscasts and alternate history scenarios concerning the crash. None of them resonated with anyone. No one anywhere has the slightest inkling that Eleanor might still be alive. We think we can safely rule that out. Her daughter is clearly delusional.

We don’t need Heliostream
, E-P continued,
to sabotage the GEP. Jaspersen seems to be doing that all on his own. We wanted Heliostream as a fail-safe. But with Ellen’s state of mind and Cabinet’s meltdown, the whole family empire is imploding. Still, they bear watching.

Andrea floated across her always room to the windows. The city and Bay were lost in fog. “Were you able to move more furniture into Cabinet’s realm?”