Torchship (18 page)

“Then let’s finish the job,” ordered Captain
Schwartzenberger.

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Mitchie. She put
Fives Full
into a gentle arc back to the camp. Since surprise was no longer an issue she
made it a slow descent. Hopefully this would let the site be blown clean before
they were close enough to get hit by flying debris again.

It seemed to work. The ship was unsteady when she brought it
to a hover, but that seemed to be the irregular ground causing an asymmetrical
ground effect. Mitchie wondered how much blasting the camp the captain would
consider
enough
when a
wheet
sound rang through the bridge.

“Ha! Bastard did get out in time,” said the captain as he
unbuckled. He’d raised his voice over the sound of the torch coming through two
holes in the canopy. The noise grew worse as another bullet slammed into the
comm console. “He’s on top of the hill to the west!” he shouted over the noise.
He had his nose to the canopy, staring at his enemy.

The turbines reacted faster than the torch. Mitchie cut
their thrust to bounce
Fives Full
above the hill. A bullet hit the hull
without penetrating, striking a crisp bell note. Another hit was quieter—Max
must have given up on hitting the bridge and aimed lower on the hull.

“Hover over the hill,” ordered the captain.

Mitchie protested, “That’s going to—”

“Do it!” yelled Schwartzenberger.

She cursed and drifted the ship west. It wobbled as the
plume struck the side of the hill. The slope compressed one side of the plasma
cloud, exerting higher pressure on the base plate than the side open to air.
Mitchie frantically tweaked the turbine controls to keep
Fives Full
upright. The irregular hill sent changing pressure waves across the base as the
ship moved closer to the peak. Schwartzenberger’s grip on the canopy frame didn’t
keep him from being thrown to the deck and rolled back and forth. Mitchie’s straps
were secure but her stomach tried to escape.

Once she fought the ship to the peak the ship was steady.
Not stable, the turbines were running hard to keep it balanced in place, but
calm enough for Schwartzenberger to crawl back into the co-pilot couch.

As his straps clicked into place Mitchie reported, “That’s a
full minute, sir. Enough?”

“Yes.”

She cut the turbines and took them ten klicks higher to
hover on just the torch again. “Sir, can you take the con while Guo gets the
turbines switched back?”

He ran through some finger exercises before answering. “All
right.”

“Good. I need to go pee.” And put on some dry clothes. “Your
ship, sir.”

“My ship, Pilot Long.”

***

Mitchie volunteered to show Guo the repairs needed on the
bridge. Her plan failed. When they went down to the hold Yukio was still
ranting. The open cargo hold hatch framed the hills nicely. The trees had
mostly burnt out. A grassfire spread to the east. No live herds were visible.

“And it’s not just that the microorganisms were killed! That
much heat will have baked the inorganic components of the soil to rock! We won’t
even be able to restore the soil. We’ll have to bring in new top soil or wait a
century for it to erode into something that will support a root system again!”
The terraformer went on to detail how much this would disrupt the TFS plans for
expanding their megafauna habitat.

Captain Schwartzenberger listened nonapologetically to his
employer’s complaints. When she ran down he said, “Max and his thugs are dead.
We’re alive. That’s how I wanted it to be. Now we’ve got some work to do. You
and Roark need to get in the floaters and find any survivors. Guo will help you
with that.”

“I can help, too, Cap’n,” said Billy. When the officer
lifted an eyebrow he continued, “I can drive a floater. It only needs one foot
for the controls.”

“All right,” said the captain, turning back to Yukio. “You
can have both of them. Get going. Some of them are going to need medical help.
I’ll be trying to come up with a report that will explain all the damage
without incriminating us. Long, you’ll be helping with that.”

She nodded. Mitchie had to admit she probably was the best
bullshit artist on the crew. She just didn’t like anyone realizing it.

***

Bing had recovered enough to come join the report writers.
Schwartzenberger hadn’t allowed her to take notes. That left her with nothing
to do but chortle at the brainstorms.

“No, this’ll tie it all together,” said Mitchie. “When we
got to the planet Max’s ship was already wrecked in orbit by the defense
system. We sent out Bing and Billy on an EVA to check for survivors. That was
when a cloud of debris in a crossing orbit hit. So all the damage and injuries
are a single incident.” Schwartzenberger scribbled it down.

Billy and Guo came in and sat at the galley table with them.
Billy was only limping now. The TFS meds had almost finished regenerating the
damaged muscles.

“Well?” asked the captain.

“About half of them survived,” reported Guo. “Minus a couple
some hyenas got. The rest are at the dome now, getting burn cream.”

“They know they can’t go home, right?”

“Yukio’s been very clear with them. Spend the rest of their
lives working for TFS, or try your luck with the kitties.” Some grim chuckles
went around the table. “Biggest news is they told us who Max was.” Guo took a
long drink of water.

“Out with it,” said Bing.

“Maximilian Murtaza . . . the Fourth.”

“Oh, shit,” said Mitchie and Schwartzenberger together.

“Yep. We just killed the son of Demeter’s Planetary
Coordinator. Which explains how he got this.” He produced a cube, twin to the
one Yukio had used on their bridge.

Billy took up the story. “Yukio says they’d left one with
the Demeter government in case of emergencies. We found it when we checked their
ship for salvageable parts.”

“Find anything sellable?” asked Bing.

“Lots,” said Guo. “But I tossed them when we found out who
Max was.”

“Good,” said the captain. “We’re in enough trouble.”

“Dammit, we’re not going to get any good stories out of this
trip, are we?” complained Billy.

“You’d damn well better not be talking about this stuff or
we’ll all be fertilizer,” snarled Schwartzenberger.

“You can talk about the lion cubs playing under the ship,”
said Mitchie. “Girls love stuff like that.”

Billy brightened up. “Oh, good. So it’s not a total loss.”

Schwartzenberger shook his head. “Let’s get started
unloading. As soon as all the containers are off I want to lift.”

Savannah System. Acceleration 10 m/s
²

Yukio had given them directions for using the password cube.
Schwartzenberger had promised to send it to a Terraforming Service ship when
they had the opportunity. He’d had a paranoid fear that she would betray them
to keep the secret of what had happened, but the defense satellites moved out
of their way without fuss.

The captain spent most of his time on the return trip
fussing over Bing’s recovery and trying to edit Mitchie’s “death in orbit”
scenario into a report that would sound convincing to the Space Safety Office
on Demeter.

***

“Seriously, man, she owes you. You need to collect.”

“Billy, I didn’t do it to get a reward. She’s part of the
crew. Just like you. If I saved your life would you be writing me a blank
check?” Guo had gone beyond polite brush-off and was now openly annoyed by the
deckhand’s smarmy urgings.

“Well, sure, I’d feel obligated. Not saying I’d enjoy it but
I’d deliver. But you can’t tell me you’d rather collect from me than—oh, um,
er, hi, Michigan.” At the far end of the galley table Bing lifted up the form
she was editing to hide her smirk. She needn’t have bothered. The boys weren’t
paying her any attention as Mitchie entered the galley.

The pilot hopped up and perched on the table next to Guo.
She looked sideways at him—hiding the bruised side of her face—and asked, “So,
sir knight, how may this fair maiden reward you?”

He gave it a few seconds’ thought. “Make me a sandwich.”

“Okay.” She jumped down and opened the fridge.

“Seriously?” Billy was actually shocked.

“What?” replied Guo.

Mitchie put the tuna salad and mayo on the counter.

“You’re asking for a sandwich?”

“We have a cooling cycle in an hour. I have to babysit the radiator
wings for deployment and retraction so I’m missing lunch break.”

“A sandwich,” repeated Billy.

Mitchie took a couple of slices of rye out of the bread box.

“I need something I can eat in free fall.” Guo bit back a
laugh as Billy stalked out of the galley, muttering under his breath.

Mitchie added a few cookies to the sandwich bag. She offered
it to Guo with the best approximation of a curtsey she could manage in a
jumpsuit.

“Thank you, my lady,” said Guo. He headed below decks.

Mitchie cleaned up the counter. Bing smirked openly. “What?”
asked the pilot. “We were just messing with Billy.”

“Oh, I know,” said the first mate.

“Then what’s so funny?”

“You didn’t ask what kind of sandwich he wanted.”

Mitchie looked at the chronometer on the bulkhead. “I, uh,
need to take a position sighting.” She headed for the bridge.

Akiak, gravity 10.3 m/s
²

“I really appreciate this, Pete,” said Connie.

“Happy to help,” he answered. “It’s no trouble.” He’d
invested in the open-top four wheeler to carry cleaning tools, but it was the
perfect size to take a friend with luggage to the shuttleport.

“You should be coming too. I’d love to hear your take on the
AI tracks.” The conference attracted researchers in all fields discouraged by
the Fusion, not just the artificial intelligence problems it focused on.

“I’ll go to the next one. But I won’t stick to AI. I’ll want
to hear your paper.” Connie had emigrated from the Fusion to study the history
of Earth’s last human century.

“Oh, I’m in the main AI track.”

“Why? You’re talking about anti-AI.” She’d collected all
surviving data on the Vetoers, people who’d had laws passed to keep AIs from
affecting them.

“The chair scheduled me for before lunch. I get to break up
the tired old arguments and give them something new to talk about while they’re
eating. Not the slot I wanted, but it’s an audience.”

Pete chuckled. He parked the four wheeler and picked up her
bag.

“You don’t have to carry that,” said Connie.

He pulled it out of her reach. “I don’t mind.” They walked
to the terminal. “Besides, this is pretty heavy for you. What all are you
carrying?”

“Um—food and water, mostly. They gave me a free membership
and paid for the shuttle and room. But I can’t afford resort restaurant prices.”
Connie did enough odd jobs to keep from starving in her garret but she
begrudged all time away from her research.

“Sensible.” Pete was saving up for real programming gear. He
wanted to attend the next AI technology conference as a participant, not a
wanna-be.

“There’s my shuttle.” She wrested the wheeled bag from him. “I’ll
tell you all about it when I get back.” Connie gave him a quick hug and kiss. “Thank
you so much.”

Pete sternly ordered himself to not get his hopes too high.
The PA blared, “All passengers for Noisy Water should board Shuttle Five. Last
call for Noisy Water.” Connie waved from the shuttle hatch. He waved back.

From the shuttleport Pete went to Zoltan’s Diner. They’d
shut down after one of their cooks quit the day before and posted nasty
comments about the kitchen hygiene. Zoltan hired Stacey’s Sweepers to scrub it
out. Stace had promised Pete double pay to do the stoves.

Eleven hours later he staggered into his apartment and
collapsed on the bed. Disassembling, degreasing, sterilizing, and reassembling
three industrial stoves had strained every back muscle. He’d gotten a bonus,
which would cover the day off he’d take to recover.

A chirp woke him from a dream of fitting pipes together. He’d
tagged Connie’s messages with a birdcall. He pulled the datasheet from under
his pillow.

“Dearest Pete,” her message began.

“My presentation was a complete success. Hardly anyone had
heard about the Vetoers before. I kept getting questions through lunch and they
added a follow-up session in the morning.

“I couldn’t answer most of the questions, of course. There’s
so little data from before the Betrayal. They did come up with one I’m hoping
you can help me with.”

Pete let out a soft “Ah.” He hadn’t expected to hear from
Connie until he picked her up at the shuttleport tomorrow.

“Jordan Hammerstein fascinated them. He was the last living
Vetoer. They want to know if he lived to see the Betrayal. The possibility of
him yelling ‘I told you so!’ as he got dissolved got a huge laugh.

“If you have a couple hours to spare could you go by my
place? I have the record of Hammerstein’s last medical exam. That should be
enough for you to get an estimate of his lifespan. Hopefully it’ll settle some
of the arguments here.

“I have so much to tell you about, Pete. You really should
have come. The discussions here are amazing. You can feel decades-old problems
getting solved right in the hallway. Gotta run!” It ended with a kiss-sound.

The worst part was now Pete wanted to know if the old crank
had seen the Betrayal. He levered himself out of bed and staggered to his
medicine cabinet.

By the time he got to Connie’s apartment he felt almost
normal again. He had copies of the physical keys and passwords for both door
and computer. Her perfectly indexed files gave up Hammerstein’s data. Finding a
medical simulation willing to make a forecast was harder.

Pete finally had to hire a human doctor to convince a sim
that Hammerstein had no access to medical care. Under protest it disgorged a
time versus probability series. Pete plugged in the date of the Betrayal.

“44%” glowed on the datasheet.

Pete thought about that. The Vetoer probably died before the
Betrayal. Unless he had some medicine stashed away to improve his odds, which
was possible. So quite possibly Hammerstein was disassembled in the first wave
of the Betrayal. Or if the veto code held while the rest of the AI safeguards
broke down he could have sat in his bubble of San Francisco while outside his
500 meter radius the rest of the world was reduced to gray goo.

Pete sent the report off to Connie then lay down in her bed
for a nap.