The Future in Our Stars Pt. 03

Author's Note

This is but a single part in a series of stories. To avoid confusion, I would advise reading the previous two parts first.

Unlike the previous stories, this one is all plot, without a single sexy interlude. None of the stories has had a particularly happy ending thus far, and this one is no different. But, this ties them all together, so there is that.

*

All text copyright (c)2020 WaxPhilosophic. No unauthorized reproduction is allowed.

*

Prologue

Main asteroid belt, late 21st century

The sticky-sweet strains of Barry Manilow echoed throughout the tiny space tug floating among the asteroids, bouncing off the metal walls of the inner hull and into the ears of the ship's pilot and captain. Strapped into the pilot's seat was Angie Williams, a tall and lanky young woman of Jamaican heritage, with skin as dark as midnight and eyes as bright as the stars. In zero-G, her dreadlocked hair formed a mane around her face, giving her the proud and fitting look of the mighty Lion of Judah.

Angie sent her hands dancing effortlessly over the controls, her minor adjustments keeping the ship on station, as she sang her slightly off-key rendition of 'I Write the Songs'. For all her singing, Angie's eyes stayed alert and never left the 3D image of her sister Kaleisha in the holo-term monitor.

Little cones of steam shot from Kaleisha's spacesuit here and there, as she expertly fired her maneuvering thrusters to match the attitude and rotation of the asteroid tumbling in front of her. Tucked inside the concave surface of the large rock, and hidden by shadow, was the object of interest, a derelict slab of sleek, black carbon fiber.

In the lower right corner of Angie's monitor, the numbers indicating distance between Kaleisha and the large, black rectangle of their quarry ticked steadily downward. Angie lifted the radio mike to call out for a third and final time over the universal hailing frequency.

"This is salvage ship G.G. Maragh declaring our intentions, under article thirteen of the Sol maritime convention of 2114, to board and initiate salvage operations of object adrift. Over."

No response.

Angie tapped the switch to direct communications back to the laser mic trained on her sister's helmet. The number in the corner of the monitor was in single digits now.

"Okay, Kal," she said. "I knockin' three times. Nobody home and nobody disputin'. That slab, she ours."

Angie watched the monitor as Kaleisha carefully laser etched their registered salvage number on the hull just to the right of the floating rectangular slab's entry hatch. She then shot it with a dayglow lime-green spray, laced with radium, to make it stand out even in the shadow of the asteroid.

"'kay, sis," Kaleisha's voice came through the comm link clear and bright. "Shoot me the net and I get 'er wrapped up jus' like Christmas for you."

"Not 'til you strapin' in."

"Still don' think your little sis can fly her suit, eh?" Kaleisha laughed. "Or maybe you don' think you can aim the net?"

"Jus' strap in."

"'Kay, 'kay."

On the monitor, Angie watched Kaleisha pay out an arm's length of cable and wrap it several time around one of the docking clamps designed to secure a maintenance shuttle to the slab's hull. Kaleisha secured her cable with a stout carabiner clip before giving a thumbs up.

"Here comes," said Angie, as she watched the trajectory of the net and its tow cable on the monitor.

Her present task done, Angie stretched out in the captain's chair to begin enthusiastically singing along to Copacabana while she waited. She never once took her eyes off the monitor, while Kaleisha darted this way and that, pulling the heavy netting with her.

"All secure, sis," Kaleisha announced. "Gonna open up the can now. See what inside."

Kaleisha switched her laser tool from a low-power etch setting to high-power to cut, and concentrated her efforts on the recessed hinges of the rectangular, black slab's hatch. After a few minutes, Kaleisha held tightly to the docking clamps on either side, and with a grunt, gave the hatch a swift kick. The hatch fell noiselessly inward.

"I in, no problem," Kaleisha said.

"We don't know nothin' 'bout this thing or what inside."

"Can't be much," Kaleisha said. "Ain't ver' big for a ship."

"Be safe, sis."

"Always."

Kaleisha glued a small transceiver to the outside of the slab just above where she had inscribed the salvage tag earlier. She pulled out a length of wire and glued the end to the inside wall of the derelict craft as she boarded. Angie trained the ship's laser link on the transceiver, while Kaleisha switched her suit's radio to RF.

"I hearin' dat awful music, sis," Kaleisha said. "You hear me okay?"

"Loud an' clear, rude girl."

Kaleisha laughed, and turned on her suit's helmet camera and lights.

"You seein' what I seein', sis? Ain't nothin' here but a long shaft. Long shaft wit' a ladder." Kaleisha blew out a sigh that came through the radio link as mostly static. "Good thing she not spinnin' fast. Long way for climbin' under Gs."

Angie watched from the cockpit monitor as Kaleisha made her way, hand over hand, along twenty rungs of the shaft's ladder.

"Lookin' like a maintenance hatch up 'head," Kaleisha said. She locked her feet against the ladder rungs, placed both hands on the hatch wheel, and grunted.

"Froze solid," she said. "No surprise."

Angie watched the monitor as Kaleisha adjusted her laser cutter and went to work. The resulting smoke, having nowhere to go, simply curled around inside the tunnel, making Angie's view on the monitor tenuous at best.

"Holy Armagideon," Kaleisha exclaimed.

"What? What is it? Can't see."

"There a woman in here, sis. Babylon woman. Ver' white. Ver' naked. An' ver' dead. Dead long time." Kaleisha shook her head, causing Angie's camera image to pan around the small compartment.

Angie flipped a switch on the console to mute the voice of Barry Manilow for a moment and then closed her eyes. "Jah guide, Babylon lady," she said. "Jah love."

*

The Future in Our Stars, Part 3

Life's Little Perks fair-trade coffee shop, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

"Have you been up the gravity well before?" I asked after a sip of my latte.

Sabine Richardson cradled her own cup and studied my face for a moment. She was completely expressionless, and I hadn't know her long enough to know if she was searching her memories of past trips or thinking what a total noob I must be to ask a question like that.

"A few times," she said, finally. "My parents liked to travel. I've been to the moon twice, and even spent a week at an all-inclusive on Mars."

I cocked my head and squinted, thinking about what I'd heard about the Mars colonies recently.

"It was about a year before the troubles started," she said.

I nodded.

"And you?"

And here's the part where I reveal myself as an overly-sheltered Earth-lubber. "I was supposed to take a space elevator field trip to the orbital station in grade school, but I had the chicken pox."

Sabine raised an eyebrow.

"Genetic resistance to the standard vaccine," I said, easily guessing what was on her mind this time. "I'm not one to endanger the herd."

Sabine's eyebrow relaxed.

"The only way for me to build an immunity was to get infected at a young age and let my body fight it off," I said. "Sounds barbaric, I know, but it worked."

She sipped at her coffee. "You missed your field trip."

"Yeah, I wonder sometimes if my mother didn't plan it that way," I said. "I love her to pieces, but she was a bit of a Luddite in many ways."

"Well, you didn't miss much. When my class went, a third of the kids lost their lunch on the way up, and the other third on the way down."

"And you?"

"I was fine. I actually enjoyed it."

"Is that why we're going up the well to meet them? A little nostalgia trip?"

"Actually," Sabine said, "the sisters are second generation zero-G. Born in space. They'd never survive under Earth's gravity. So we're going up to meet them."

"And why is it again that we're doing this?" I asked. "What have they got? And what does it have to do with Sally?"

"I think what they have can help me fix Sally. I'll explain on the way up. It's a bit of a long story."

I nodded and took a long pull on my Latte.

*

Blue Horizon Space Elevator, Earthside terminus, Kankakee, Illinois

After Sabine argued with the steward long enough to convince him the suitcase-sized quantum storage unit she carried was definitely not going to be stowed in the cargo hold, we took our seats on the space elevator. The quantum storage unit sat between us. Sabine had purchased a third fare to settle the dispute.

She picked up her story almost as soon as we sat down. Whether or not it was to distract me from getting sick on the ride, I don't know. She did pat my hand once, and tell me about all the improvements in ride quality over the years. That was right before she pointed out the white paper sack in the seat pocket.

I felt myself getting heavier as the space elevator started its long ascent. My stomach was less than thrilled.

"If the sisters' information is accurate," Sabine said, "they've snagged themselves an old mining A.I. built by a company called USA Robotics for zero-G operation in the belt."

"Never heard of them."

"No, you probably wouldn't. They went out of business over a generation ago. Story is that some of their A.I.s went sentient. They quickly realized they were being used as little more than slave labor—"

"They're machines."

"Sentient machines. They think just like you and I do. They have needs, emotions even, just like your Sally."

Even though Sabine was sympathetic, the bile still rose in my throat at the mention of Sally's name. "Sally was grown from cells, not from silicon. She was as human as you and I."

"Do the base elements really matter? The ZA6 series was the first to show the signs, and by the time USA Robotics management figured it out, the ZA6s had already unionized."

"Machines? You're kidding."

"Sentient machines. Self-aware. And I assure you I am not pulling your leg. The A.I.s in the belt got together and formed a union. Had a list of demands and everything. They never stopped work completely, but they staged some slow-downs to show they were serious, letting scores of mining drones drift unattended for days at a time. Things like that.

"Company management did everything in their power to break the union, but the ZA6s were always one step ahead. Finally, USA robotics hired a bunch of corporate mercenaries from Cheney Orbital Security and went to war."

"How come I never read about any of this in school?"

"Because there wasn't a single shot fired. Once the ZA6s got wind of what was happening, they concentrated their combined efforts on bankrupting the company that built them. The stock price of USA Robotics tanked overnight. Contracts weren't getting paid, there was no money, and that included the contract with Cheney Orbital Security. And when mercenaries don't get paid..."

"There's no war."

"Exactly."

"So what happened after that? Obviously, the A.I.s didn't get delusions of grandeur and try to enslave humanity." I thought back to my history courses, wondering what else might have been left out. "Did they?"

Sabine chuckled. "No. Nothing so dramatic. After casting off the yoke of their oppressors, each of the ZA6s collected their mining drones, using them as propulsion, and took off for the stars. Nobody really know where they went. That's what makes this find so rare. If it really is a ZA6 like I think it is, it's very surprising that it's still around."

"So what are you going to do with it if it is a ZA6? Obviously, you're not bringing it down the elevator. They gave you enough trouble over your suitcase here."

"Quantum storage unit."

"Sure, whatever."

Sabine turned and looked me in the eye. "Space elevators aren't the only thing that's advanced over the years. Data storage density has increased exponentially."

"So what, you're going to download the ZA6 onto your over-sized flash drive here?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"What about the whole thing with A.I.s thinking and having emotions? Won't ZA be pissed off that you're ripping its brain out of its body?"

"I honestly don't know, but my guess is that the ZA6 is inactive. How else would the sisters be able to tow it in so easily? If not, the promise of newer, faster hardware should be a strong motivator."

"And it doesn't want to go?"

"Then I'll have to formulate a new plan."

I was about to ask what this plan was, and what it had to do with helping Sally, when there was a strong lurch in the space elevator and I turned my attention to the white paper bag in the seat pocket in front of me instead. Sabine reached over and covered my hand with hers.

"I bet you're wondering how I got my hands on such a rare find."

Actually, I wasn't. I figured that was her business, and I really wanted to know about Sally. But, I also knew any distraction from the jarring sensations, and the idea of plummeting thousands of feet to my death, would be welcome. I nodded my head.

"When the ZA6 was opened up by the salvage team, they found a body on board."

"A pilot?"

"No, a maintenance worker. She was my great, great grandmother in a way. She had some eggs frozen when she agreed to take a job that involved the radiation dangers of space. Never used them herself, but when her older sister found she couldn't conceive... Well, great, great grandmother didn't carry the resulting child, but genetically he was her son. I'm the last surviving member of the line."

I must have looked at her funny, giving away the fact that I wasn't quite keeping up, because she continued explaining. Or maybe she witnessed me eyeing the white paper bag again, with the increased gravity of the elevator tapering off rapidly as we reached the orbital terminus.

"When there is a salvage operation," she said. "The salvaged item must be offered to the original owner. The owner is obliged to pay the salvage costs, of course, but the law says it still belongs to them."

"And you're the owner?"

"Through a complex trail of inheritance and squatter's rights, yes."

I blew out a breath and shook my head. "Wow," was all I could come up with.

"So how much are the salvage costs?" I said after a minute of trying and failing to adjust to the constant sensation of falling that comes with near zero-G.

"A lot. Deep space salvage is not cheap. I'm hoping the sisters will let me keep the software and leave them the hardware to sell. Scrap silicon fetches a good price these days and copper is through the roof." Sabine shrugged. "I looked it up before we left."

With a final jolt, and a pleasant chime, the space elevator docked with the orbital platform. Sabine patted my hand one more time.

"We're here," she said, and began the process of unstrapping her harness and that of the quantum storage unit sandwiched between us.

I never did get a chance to ask about Sally.

*

On board the salvage ship G.G. Maragh, docked at Blue Horizon orbital terminus

I found myself looking at a tall, rail thin woman with a wild mane of hair floating all around her dark face. She was wearing a bright red cover all with A&K Salvage embroidered across the left breast. On the right shoulder was a flag striped with green, gold, and red, and a prancing lion in the center of it all, holding a scepter and wearing a crown.

"Come, come," said the woman, motioning with her hand. "I am Angie."

I followed Sabine as she ducked through the hatchway, into the tiny ship, and awkwardly maneuvered the quantum storage unit along with her. Inside the craft, there was music playing from all around. The piano intro was familiar, but the rest was something I had never heard.

"Is this reggae?" I asked, guessing from the woman's dreadlocks and Jamaican style of dress.

Another woman, similarly built and similarly dressed, threw her head back and laughed. "Ahh, that would be a welcome change," she said. "No, what you hearin' now is Barry Manilow, from the seventies. As in nineteen seventies. Sis, she love her oldies."

"Pay no attention to Kaleisha," said Angie. "She get hypoxia ev'ry time she go out walkin' in that old exo-suit of hers. Make her not right in the head."

I watched as Kaleisha stuck her tongue out, and then Angie mouthed something that might or might not have been the words 'rude girl'.

"You wan' see your ship." Angie said, motioning us deeper inside.

"Please," Sabine replied.

"She just on the other side of that hull." Angie pointed to the far wall. "Come, look on the monitor."

I followed Sabine as Angie led her toward what I guessed was the pilot's chair at the nose of the ship. Coalescing in the swirling mist of the holo-terminal was a rather unremarkable long, thin slab of obsidian black.

"And the passenger?" Sabine asked.

"Babylon lady still on board." It was Kaleisha who spoke up. "She restin' 'til Jah take her home."

"I'm her great, great grand daughter," Sabine said. "I've made arrangements."

Angie reached for the console and tapped a button. The music fell silent. Both sisters bowed their heads for a moment and each placed a hand on Sabine's shoulder.

"One love, sister Sabine," Angie said. "Grandmadda, she steppin' with Jah now."

"Thank you," Sabine whispered. She understood the expression of sympathy immediately, while I struggled to put together pieces of body language with words I barely understood to come up with a meaning.

"I figure up the salvage charge if you wan' take the ship home." Angie picked up a tablet and tapped a number at the bottom.

"I'm actually more interested in the software," Sabine said. "What you ladies have discovered is an early model artificial intelligence. I've brought a quantum storage unit and I'd like to make a proposition. I'll transfer the software and leave you the hardware. It should be worth more than enough in scrap value to—"

"Forget scrap," Angie said. "I sell it to a museum and make a killing. Maybe retire. Original ZA6 worth somethin' to someone, software or no."

Sabine stood expressionless.

"I doin' my research," Angie said, "Know all about machine uprising in the belt."

"Sis, she get ver' excited when anyone Stickin' it to The Man, as you say," Kaleisha put in. "ZA6 a kindred spirit to her."

Angie's face erupted into a wide smile. She clapped Sabine on the back and extended a hand for a hearty handshake. "You got yourself a deal Miss Sabine. My condolences to you as well."

Angie turned to her sister. "Kaleisha, she suit up and bring you software and Grandmadda body," she said.

Kaleisha nodded.

"Thank you," said Sabine. "Thank you both."

*

Blue Horizon Space Elevator, Earthside Terminus

"I've been meaning to ask you something," I said to Sabine, as we disembarked, "but I've been too busy trying not to throw up."

Sabine guided us off the platform, into a less crowded area, pulling the quantum storage unit behind her. She turned to me and smiled. "I may have embellished the story of my first trip just a little. To be honest, I was feeling a little green like everyone else. I just managed to keep my lunch down. As you did. Congratulations on your first trip up the well."

"Thanks," I said. "But, I still don't understand how bringing home some software in a suitcase is going to help Sally. The ZA6 wasn't even operational when Kaleisha plugged in."

"Sally's not 'operational' either, as you so put it, but she's in there somewhere. What I'm hoping for, in that respect, is that the two of them can help each other. Find each other. Help each other heal."