Earth Song: Etude to War (34 page)

“I mean outside that sort of stuff. Anything that doesn't fit in?”

“How am I supposed to tell? I've never even seen one of these things in person, let alone dug around inside its brains.”

“Just scroll through them,” she suggested as she watched over his shoulder. She had the advantage over him that her brain now instantly translated Lost script into English. After a few minutes she was forced to admit it would take all day. Besides, Pip was right, the files were all ubiquitously named. Nothing like X marking the spot.

“Okay, how about comparing them to each other? They should all have the same files, right?”

“I would think so. Give me a minute.” The tablet didn't have nearly enough memory to copy all the files from the four suits. Besides, even at the high data transfer rate of the Concordian tablets it would take almost an hour to do all four. Instead he opened a little note window and zipped through each of them, counting and keeping track as he went. When he finished the last one he looked at her with a wry smile. “One more file in number two there.”

“Copy it to my tablet,” she instructed. He did so and kept a copy for himself, but when he opened it all he found was a string of seemingly random script. Minu took the script and dropped it into the secure files on her father's special diary chip. The next code unlocked, and a message appeared.

“Very good daughter, almost there. If you have gotten to Dervish, you must have secured transportation. That is good, because now you have to go off the map. Take as many of the EPCs as you can and head here;” The message displayed the coordinates of another star system. “And don't forget the toys I left you!”

“Well?” Pip asked, having respected her privacy and not leaned in to read the message.

“Looks like we have another stop,” she told him, and gave the coordinates. Naturally Lilith had been listening.

“That is only a few dozen light-years away,” she informed her, “in deep space.”

Chapter 33

April 20th, 534 AE (subjective)

Dervish Star system, Galactic Frontier

It took more than a day for them to get the four suits back aboard the Kaatan. Unfortunately Pip and Kal'at both agreed that using them to move the EPC was unwise. “These are combat suits, not cargo loader bots,” Pip complained vociferously. “While it might be possible to use them, it will take Kal'at and me several days to get even one of them configured for human use. Even though they are quite powerful, those ship-sized EPCs are just too big for one suit to maneuver, so you'll need two.”

It was a logical argument, but it did nothing to dissuade her impatience to be on to the next stop. The message said she was almost there. Almost where? Was her father out there waiting for her, all these years?

It seemed improbable at best. He'd been missing almost twenty years now. He'd be what, sixty-five years old? She guessed that wasn't very old. Bjorn was nearly eighty years old, after all. There were more than a few Chosen still serving in various capacities in their fifties and sixties.

Though she couldn't imagine living somewhere in the frontier, year after year, wondering when her stupid daughter would come rescue her. That didn't sound at all like Chriso Alma. Besides, if she found him, he might not like some of the things she had to say. He had a lot of explaining to do.

Each of the EPCs weighed in at nearly four tons. The station’s handling system was not designed to deliver them to the outside maintenance lock. “The station is not intended for direct refueling,” Lilith informed them, “EPCs would be delivered through portals to firebases.”

“What if they needed one here?” Cherise asked, logistics being her specialty.

“Then I would guess they improvised.”

Lilith commanded the Kaatan to make cargo bots. Lots and lots of cargo bots. The crystalline technology was beyond Minu's understanding and she'd gotten a headache the one time Pip and her daughter tried to explain it. Something about nano-pneumonic polymers and field effect control devices implanted in the crystal matrix?

She recalled some ancient Earth scientist commenting that any sufficiently advanced technology would appear as magic to a less advanced technology. Watching the blue crystal plates extrude bot after shiny bot looked like magic to her.

After an hour of work, the ship’s dozen odd 'bot plates' had produced a total of a hundred and twelve crystalline crab bots, each standing a half meter tall on six gossamer legs that looked like they couldn't support a kilo.

Lilith assured her each bot, while not possessing the same brute strength of a conventional dualloy crab bot, was capable of lifting more than fifty kilos. Even at that impressive figure, it took at least eighty to move one of the EPCs. She sent the whole army, just to be safe.

Everyone turned out to watch the strange procession. Ants were not common on Bellatrix. Some of the local fungi proved problematic for many Earth-born insects (unfortunately flies and mosquitoes were not two of them).

Still a few species had thrived and Minu remembered watching recordings of a swarm as they cooperated to move a large twig many thousands of times heavier than any one ant. The swarm of crystalline bots resembled that operation quite well.

Because theysize of the EPCs and their scale against the bots was not as profound as that of the ants and their stick, the bots were forced to use the entire width of a corridor, and part of the walls. It turned out a hundred and twelve were barely enough. Corners were an amazing feat of agility as the module was maneuvered around each one with only centimeters to spare.

She wondered if it was a coincidence that it was even possible to move the EPCs through the station in such a way. As she watched the four-ton behemoth creep along at a consistent ten centimeters per second, she marveled at the efficiency of the bots. “That is some good programming,” she commented to her daughter over the link.

“They are not programmed for this sort of function. And if they could be, they are not capable of communicating with each other to this level.”

“Then how are they managing?”

“I am controlling them.”

Minu blanched and gaped at the procession. Her daughter was controlling over a hundred little bots to such a degree that they could orchestrate the movement of a four-ton EPC module, nearly as big as the entire corridor, and do it with centimeters to spare?

She knew the girl's brain was an exceptionally fine-tuned thing, augmented with at least one computer implanted when she was still a fetus. But this was beyond her conception.

“I'm impressed.”

“It is not much more processing than is required of me to fly the ship in combat. The task is only difficult because I have never done it before, and because the bots are so stupid. I have to constantly issue revised orders as the corridor changes.”

Minu watched some more, impressed at how the task was being addressed. The bots were stronger in manipulating than in carrying. To address this, Lilith had them stand in place and pass the module from one shiny blue set of claws to another. The circular masses lining the walls and floor all acted in concert with each other to keep the module suspected between them. It was featureless with nothing to directly grasp.

After it had been passed beyond the ones at the end, they would jump down and move through a narrow passage under the network of bots and assemble a new line in front. Minu guessed about seventy bots at any one time were stationary and acting as the working part of the team while the other forty-odd were in motion.

“I'll say it again sweetheart, impressive.”

“It is nothing, but thank you, mother.”

They finally ran into trouble while loading the module into the tram that ran from the docking area to the EPC service area. The tram was considerably wider than the hallway, and the bots had difficulty maintaining the module's lateral stability.

“Stay clear, please,” Lilith warned Minu who quickly passed the warning on to her fellow gawkers. As the module entered the tram, it shifted suddenly and slipped sideways with a sickening crunch. A dozen bots had been instantly ground into powder on the floor and a line of seats in the tram was crushed like empty soda cans.

“Oh no,” Minu said and looked at the pile of broken blue bots. There were no pieces larger than a tenth-credit coin. “What do we do now?”

The tram started up once everyone was aboard, apparently taking no notice of the four ton module sitting on the floor.

“Once the module is again in motion, please scoop up the remnants of the destroyed bots and bring them aboard.”

The remaining leg of the trip was even slower now with fewer bots, but Lilith managed with no more casualties. A room just off the airlock entrance had been modified by the ship to hold the EPCs, with room for six modules, three on either side. Lilith assured them the ship could take care of them from that point without further assistance of the bots.

Minu and Kal'at took the debris of the crushed bots aboard. They got most of it, but the tram's floor was covered with a fine blue powder they had no way to recover. “Now what?” Minu asked.

“Take it to one of the bot panels.” They did as instructed. “Now please dump it on the floor in front of the panel.” Again they complied. A second later a new bot extruded, this one a little bot with unusual long feelers. It moved to the pile of debris and reached out with the feelers. On contact the debris instantly turned to liquid and began to be absorbed by the little bot, which steadily grew in size.

“It seems almost disgusting,” Minu thought as it ate the dead bots. Once the pile was gone, it in turn was absorbed by the wall. A second later, new crab bots began to appear. However, only eleven came out this time.

“Some material is lost,” Lilith explained. “I could replace it from reserves, but making the original number placed the ship at a dangerously low level of material already. I see no reason to override the safety mechanism to replace one bot.”

The operation continued for the rest of the day. Most of the other crew members became bored with the spectacle after the second trip. In the end it was only Minu and Cherise.

Cherise stayed out of fascination and professional curiosity, Minu because it was just so damned impressive. By the end Lilith had only one more incident costing her just a pair of bots, again in the problematic tram.

When they unloaded the last time a tiny recovery bot appeared and went around the tram vacuuming up as much of the blue dust as it could find. Even with that effort, the floor still had a bluish hue.

The EPCs secure, they detached from the station but stayed there. Lilith wanted to complete some minor repairs on their shields, which had been stressed from their arrival.

Since Pip and Kal'at wanted to tinker on the combat suits, Minu and Aaron retreated to their cabin. She'd intended to catch some sleep, but Aaron was interested in more. She tried to never refuse him, same as he for her. It was something they'd both said as an unspoken agreement early on in their relationship. Intimacy wasn't something to be rationed out.

Though she wasn't initially in the mood, under his practiced caresses she soon had a change of heart. A deeply satisfying orgasm was a much better sleep aid than anything the ship could dispense.

When the ship communicator beeped to wake her up, she was surprised to see it was six hours later. “Minu here,” she reported, extracting herself from under one of her husband’s well-muscled forearms.

“Repairs are complete,” Lilith announced.

Whenever Minu was in bed with Aaron she abstained from using the implanted communicator. Its visual functions were something Minu didn't approve of in that context. The ability to turn it off herself was something she'd insisted on prior to implantation.

“Great, we'll be in the CIC in ten minutes.”

“There is no hurry, everyone is sleeping. Pip and Kal'at finally succumbed four hours ago.”

Minu nodded, surprised it was that long ago. Pip seemed to need almost no sleep, and the Rasa were notorious for being able to operate for days without rest if properly motivated.

She rolled over and gently woke her husband with kisses on his neck. He smiled and mumbled something that sounded like 'love you,' which made her smile back. Then suddenly her stomach turned upside down and tried to climb out her mouth.

“Oh shit,” she moaned and hopped out of bed. The ship had created much more conventional human-styled bathrooms since their first trip; even a married couple wasn't terribly interested in watching each other defecate.

She barely made it through the door into the small bathroom. If it weren’t for a last-moment dive, and the toilet having no lid, she would have vomited all over the floor.

“That doesn't sound like fun,” Aaron said sympathetically from the bed.

She choked and retched a couple more times before her stomach verified its emptiness and the spasms stopped. Love her he might, but she noticed he hadn't come in to help her.

“I think it's morning sickness,” she said after rinsing her mouth in the little sink. “I remember Mom saying she—” she stopped with a jerk, looking up at herself in the mirror.

There were bags under her eyes and a look of anger mixed with betrayal.
Right, Mother was lying about being morning sick with me, wasn't she?

“You okay?”

“I'll live.”

Of course she hadn't been pregnant with Lilith long, but it was a bout of nausea that had sent her to the sickbay on this very ship where she found out about the life inside her. She'd discovered minutes later that it would have to be aborted. One creative idea later, and a few months of quantum faster-than-light aging later, and she had a daughter.

She stripped off her uniform and pulled the moliplas screen out of its niche in the bathroom wall, making part of the space into a shower. The hot stinging water helped clear her mind and at least partially forget the thoughts of her parents.

As she turned to finish Aaron was standing there with one of the ship’s manufactured towels. It was a lot better than the old blow-dry system. That might have worked well for the People, who had fur, but humans preferred a towel. “Thanks love.”

“Anytime,” he said, stripping and taking over the space. She exited to finish drying, the room just not big enough for two adults. “I heard you mention your mom and morning sickness,” he said gently. “I'm sorry, I know it must be painful.”

“Maddening is more like it,” she said as she toweled her long red hair. “I don't know what to believe any more. I can only trust my own memories now. From about five years old onward, I guess. And even then, a lot of what I knew was what my father told me. How much of that was klothshit too?”

“Do you still hope we find your father?”

“I don't know,” she answered honestly.

* * *

The departure from Dervish was much less eventful. Not having to concern themselves with a careful approach to the station, the Kaatan used the massive’ stars gravity fields to either side and in front of them to make a quick exit from the region.

In only a minute they were away from the dangerous solar prominences and titanic flashes of radiation. Ten minutes later they flashed into super-luminal travel and were away from Dervish.