Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5) (32 page)

Stu’s hands were shaking from the effort and emotion when
they landed. When he clambered through the airlock, Mo said, “You look like
hell, kid.” Opening a cooler, he handed Stu an aluminum can. “You need this
more than I do.”

The bright colored drink was called
Alert. Stu figured it couldn’t hurt.
I’m living in a house of cards, and there’s
a gale outside. What’s a little caffeine?

After he took a swig, Stu said,
“You heard about my Aunt Mary and you’re still on the team?”

Mo scratched his head. “About that.
The Nyxians practically worship Hollis. If she gutted a man with a deer knife in
front of an auditorium, they’d ask what the guy did to piss her off. Your being
related to her was actually a promotion to these ladies.”

“So everyone else is still coming?”

His bodyguard laughed. “The
prisoners are excited at poking the world in the eye. We had to (ahem) borrow a
skid steer and tie up someone who asked too many questions.”

Stu put a hand on his friend’s
shoulder. “You don’t have to do this. Once you break the law, there’s no going
home.”

“You don’t understand. Kelly
is
my home. She’s made it clear that we’re backing whatever play you make.”

Hugging the Samoan, Stu admitted,
“You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.”

“Yeah, well we got freight to
pack.”

“Get the rare earths for Snowflake
in first. Everything else is expendable. I’ll keep watch. If I call
all’s-in-free, run in here like your ass is on fire.”

Mo nodded. “Get your princess out
here to move her share or the troops will complain.”

“She’s injured, remember?” Stu’s
eyes lingered on the bathroom.
Our fight is none of his business.

Kaguya came from behind and stole a
swig of his drink. “I’ll take her shift. Ack! That stuff is vile. Do you have
any more?”

Mo dropped the cooler on the front
seat. “Pilots drink free.” He handed them each a new comm. “This is Nyx
tech—it’s more secure with less footprint than ours. Old man Mori won’t have
the frequencies.”

“Oh no.” Stu palmed his face. “You
don’t think Mori’s been listening in, do you?”

Kaguya patted him on the back.
“Relax. At worst, he knows our landing coordinates. If he tuned in before that,
he’ll know that Laura has been taking your biological samples but isn’t
planning on sharing them with anyone.”

Stu blushed as he wandered back to
the cockpit.

****

A see-through Joan appeared on top of the bathroom sink.
“Laura, tell Stu that the old rendezvous is too hot. Near-Earth patrols are
swarming our last position.”

“How did that happen?” Laura asked.
As a Quantum Computer, she was one of the few who could see Out-of-Body scouts.

“Whenever we open the lens, the
enemy can see where we are. Please use these exact words: Admiral Woolsey wants
you to take the Patagonian approach vector.”

Laura repeated them back. “Who’s
Woolsey?”

“A Teddy bear Stu gave me when I
was born. Other than the towel he used as a superhero cape, it was his most prized
possession,” the ghostly girl explained. “Why are you hiding in here crying?”

“I know who my real mother is, and
what the Moris did.”

The girl grunted. “Kaguya raised
you with love. Mira wasn’t a saint either. She tried to turn Kaguya into a
vegetable by sharing Quantum Computing.”

“But Zeiss visited Mom in the
asylum afterward.”

“He realized that we can’t share
the gifts in hate. When you give, a part of you joins the recipient.” The girl
flickered like a neon sign in a rainstorm. “In the deep, we’re all connected.”

“Stu lied to me,” Laura pouted.
“You all did. Why should I trust you?”

“We didn’t know until the day he
proposed. To me, you were a gold-digging tramp. To him, you
were
the
gold. I risked my best friend to save you,” Joan said as she winked out.

Stu’s muffled voice asked her
through the door, “Is everything okay? Do you need anything?”

Laura wiped her nose for the tenth
time and opened the door. Without the extra soundproofing, she heard the
beeping of a backing forklift and booted feet stomping up and down the
gangplank. She gave him the message from Admiral Woolsey verbatim.

Stu immediately told the others, “
Sanctuary
says we could have company soon. Wheels up in ten.” He started pushing the
buttons from the pilot chair again, ignoring her once more.

Wanting to sit at the farthest
corner of the shuttle to avoid the liars, Laura paced the main cabin. Mo
informed her, “These seats are all taken. We saved you the navigator’s chair in
the cockpit.”

When she returned to the cockpit,
her mother fitted her with an oxygen mask. “This shouldn’t be necessary, but
the enemy likes to target air supplies.”

Laura bit her tongue until her
husband engaged what appeared to be autopilot. Then she asked, “Did you seduce
me because you needed another Index?”

Kaguya snorted. “Seduce? He did
everything but beat you off with a stick.” She paused for a moment. “No, wait,
he tried that, too.”

Holding up a finger, Laura said,
“You, quiet.”

“I have to agree with Kaguya. I
didn’t know what you were until you kicked my ass blind-fighting,” Stu replied.
“At which point, you were the one shoving your mons at me.”

She bit her lip to keep from
smiling. “You should have told me.”

“I told you how rare and important
you were every day. Both your mothers asked me not to tell you the truth until
we reached the ship.”

“You’re not married to
them
.”

Stu whispered, “You’re right. Could
you hold my hand?”

Laura placed her hands on her hips.
“You don’t get off that easy. Don’t think I’ll get all doe-eyed at your charm
like all those students at the school.”

Kaguya interrupted, broadcasting to
everyone over the PA. “Three interceptors closing fast.” She rolled into an
evasive spiral.

“I need you to extend my senses
beyond their laser range so we don’t all die,” Stu explained.

She removed her glove and slipped
her hand into his left. “Glad to.”

The moment the couple made contact,
Stu relaxed. “I can see their mass, Icarus fields, and burn rates. Adjusting
course.”

Kaguya said, “They’re herding us
toward the enforcers the way wolves would.”

“Too many of them to confront,”
Laura said. “They’ll cut us to ribbons.”

“Maybe not,” Stu said. “Quiet, and
free up some of that marvelous brainpower of yours.” In the Collective
Unconscious, he enfolded her in an embrace more intimate than the physical.

Laura yielded to his lead.

Eyes closed, he corkscrewed though
the enemy formation and back to the desired approach vector.

“You’re a fantastic pilot,” Laura
said.

“Still on our tail and closing,”
Kaguya reported.

“Take over,” Stu snapped. He turned
the chair to face their pursuer and held his right hand in the air as if
palming a basketball. “Slower or we’re toad in the hole when we hit the landing
bay. I need them closer.”

For an instant, Laura could see
space as a hundred shades of blue instead of black. She saw a flash of him
gripping the outline of an enemy Icarus field the way a man would pretend to
squeeze the full moon between two fingers. Trusting Stu, she said, “Do it,
Mom.”

Kaguya faked a clogged injector and
slowed the shuttle by a third. “Laser range in ten, nine, eight …”

Stu grunted with effort and twisted
the invisible basketball ten degrees, as if turning the spherical engine on the
interceptor.

Laura felt dizzy the way she did
after an hour of Quantum Computing trance. She glanced at the radar screen and
the impossible happened. The leftmost pursuer swerved to collide with the
closest craft. The debris from the crash forced the third pursuer to veer off. No
one else on board knew how close the shuttle had come to annihilation. “You
just single-handedly stopped the attack.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you,
partner,” Stu said. “Get some rest. We’ll return the rental some time when
there’s less traffic.”

Assisting had drained her, but she
gazed at him in awe for several moments. “What are you?”

“I told you, Gravity Boy. I played
with ship’s fields as a kid. I’d jump off towers and change the gravity level
on the way down so I could pretend to fly. Gave everyone heart attacks. Before
you came along, I could only affect fields two kilometers away.”

Kaguya smiled. “Those pictures of
you in that cape were hilarious.”

Seeing Laura’s confusion, Stu
prompted, “On the locket. On the way to Tierra del Fuego? Maybe you were asleep
by then.”

“You could hold off the whole fleet
single-handedly,” Laura deduced.

“Unmanned interceptors are nothing.
Besides, somebody would be smart enough to throw rocks or use a high-powered
laser eventually. That’s why I have to practice hide and seek.”

“You people risked that ability
falling into Grandfather’s hands?” Laura said.

“It was worth it to rescue you and
the others we recruited,” Stu replied.

How can I stay angry at this
man?

Sanctuary
opened its lens
soon after. Stu landed with more flair and less vibration than before.

Over the radio, Zeiss said,
“Gravity Boy, you’ve upped your game.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Something you want to tell us?”

Stu stammered. “I … I …”

Laura had nothing to be embarrassed
about. “He’d like to introduce you to the partner he pair-bonded with today.
You have a problem with that, commander?”

“No, ma’am. That would be my
honor,” Zeiss replied.

She wanted to cry again, for happy
reasons.

Kaguya volunteered to shut down and
secure the shuttle.

When Laura tried to ask Stu a question, he bounced off into
the landing bay. Joan boarded the shuttle and handed out four sticky,
Velcro-like straps while Oleander lectured. “Place them on your feet and hands.
Beginners should keep at least one foot on the floor at all times. Secure your
next hold before peeling off the last. If you get in trouble, don’t panic. Just
call out to Snowflake for help, and he’ll dispatch someone to assist you.”

Laura and her mother had watched
the original
Sanctuary
videos where the crew demonstrated this
equipment. About the time they were both wrapped with straps, practicing
attachment and detachment on the ceramic deck of the landing bay, Stu came back
with a floating, gray wheelchair.

Laura asked, “Is that made of those
antigravity panels that snap together like Legos?”

“Superconductors, but yeah.”

“Concentrate on moving forward,
like you’re swimming,” Eowyn advised the women in her group.

Stu gave a charming smile. “Ms.
Quinn, as you already have extensive experience walking in microgravity, could
you help me with the other side of this chair? Safety regulations require two
escorts near any drop off.”

“I don’t need a chair,” Laura
complained.

Eowyn nodded. “I can see why you
need the help. Hop in, Mrs. Llewellyn. If you don’t cooperate, I have to unload
the shuttle. I’m an officer, and that would set a bad precedent.”

“This gives me a chance to speak to
her without the other Nyxians,” Stu whispered. “Play along.”

As a favor, Laura agreed.

Stu pushed her chair toward a gold,
rectangular wall. “Place your hand on the center.”

At Laura’s touch, the gold material
folded out of the way like origami. The alien nature of the technology awed
her. When she reached the other side, the airlock flattened itself once more.

Separated from the others, Stu took
a red, plastic alert bracelet and attached it to Eowyn’s wrist. “My wife was
born with all her Page talents, and you, Ms. Quinn, read Mind-Machine near the
age of sixteen and Ethics seven years later. Did you suffer any ill effects
from your pages other than paranoia?”

“No,” replied the UN investigator.

“If you experience disorientation
or feelings of persecution, please tell our nurse as soon as possible. The last
man who thought he could handle the side effects of subspace blinded my dad and
tried to kill several people before Mira kicked the stuffing out of him. We
tend to err on the side of caution now.”

Eowyn shook her bottle of meds. “My
problems stem from the fact that someone really is out to get me, but I
understand and agree with your terms.”

As they descended the ramp to the
decontamination chamber, a moving circle of luminescence followed them down the
hall. “You have a halo,” Laura commented.

“I don’t need my eyes to navigate
this route. Mom’s trying to make a good impression for your sake.”

Eowyn frowned. “You told Mo your
parents were dead.”

“I said they passed on, and I visit
them at the chapel.” Down the passage, he pulled up short as he almost walked
into a car-sized cylinder with magnetic coils and antennae. Thick power cables
connected to the device that blocked the main doorway. “Oops. Don’t want to go
that way.” Instead, he opened a hidden door to a five-meter, round elevator.
“We’ll take the cargo lift to the control saucer. Our original crew used the
decontamination pods to access the ship, but we don’t have many of those left.
Oleander had to come this way when she was pregnant. This will be standard
entry procedure for the new crew. We’ll just need thorough medical exams before
we can leave the saucer and enter the biosphere.”

After they dropped for a time,
Laura’s stomach felt queasy, and Eowyn’s hair floated upward. “Zero g?”

Stu halted the elevator. “Yeah.
Sanctuary
is a big balloon under the surface of subspace. Because the surface of the
balloon is maintained by gravity generators, the direction of ‘down’ changes
once we’re inside the sphere.” He pressed a button, and the entire cage rotated
180 degrees before proceeding.

After several moments, the door
opened into the ceramic-hulled storage room of the ship. Wooden benches and
crates of green jumpsuits lined the floor in an improvised visitor-orientation
chamber.

“All the bedrooms and mess hall
ring the central control room,” Stu explained. “I’m taking you to the medical
bay so the doc can check you both out.”

As he pushed her chair into the
storage room, Laura asked, “Where will the others be?”

“We’re early. I was hoping to—” A
blonde in an archaic UN uniform peeked around the corner. Stu stepped back, as
if bracing for an attack.

Laura instinctively stood to a
crouch and raised her hands in a defensive stance. Then her arms went limp. The
woman reminded her of the computerized locket photo, showing what Laura would
look like with a few years of age progression and a new hairdo.
This is
weird—a good weird. I belong somewhere.

The woman circled her for a moment.
They had differences, certainly. Laura was much taller, with a stronger chin
and cheekbones. Mira’s hair and nails were shorter and more utilitarian. She
wore no makeup, but she didn’t need it. Her eyes were amazing, and her smile
lit the room.

“Mom?” Laura asked.

Mira wrapped her in a hug. “I
thought you were all lost, that I’d never have children. You’re perfect.”

When she pulled away to examine her
daughter, Mira elbowed Stu in the solar plexus by surprise. “You almost lost
her for me.”

Stu doubled over.

“He needed me to take out the
interceptors,” Laura explained. She didn’t fuss over him because she was still
a little peeved about the whole lying thing. “We’re a team now.”

Mira glared at him. “You couldn’t
wait to jump into bed? You Llewellyns are all the same. You promised!”

“Please,” Laura said, stepping
between them. Stu wasn’t even blocking. She could feel his self-loathing. “He
did everything he could to resist.”

“You’ve only known him a couple
weeks. He could be an ax murderer. Worse, he could snore!”

“My dad vouched for him, and my
grandfather tried to kill him. Those character references are enough for me,”
Laura replied. “I know we’re literally from different worlds, but we had to
bond to save Monty. I wouldn’t have found my brother in the blizzard
otherwise.”

Mira tried to object several times.
“Oh. Well, I suppose that’s okay, as long as you’re not pregnant. I’m not ready
to be a grandmother yet.”

“I believe he was trying to sneak
her to sick bay for a complete checkup before the others arrive.” Conrad Zeiss,
the tall commanding officer, offered Stu a hand up.

“Sir. Yes, sir.”

Conrad took Laura’s hand next and
twirled her around. “I wish your real grandparents and Aunt Claire had lived to
see you.”

“She’s wicked smart and killer at
hide and seek,” Stu bragged.

“High praise, indeed,” the
commander joked.

“Could we let her sit back down,
sir? Her right foot was injured, and Doc Auckland should make sure it’s not
infected.”

“Sound reasoning,” Conrad said,
helping her back into the chair. “Could you two let her mother and I take over
medical-transport duty? It would give us a moment alone with our newest family
member.”

“Sure,” Stu agreed. “I’ll supervise
feeding the minerals off the shuttle to Snowflake.”

“That explains it,” Eowyn blurted.

“What?” Stu asked.

Eowyn pointed toward the landing
area. “The interceptors are never that aggressive. Koku must be trying to
prevent you from fixing the other AI.”

Stu nodded. “The Moris could’ve
overheard our plans before Kaguya swapped out her comm.”

“Which of the Kokus is behind
this?” demanded Laura.

“There is only one,” Eowyn said.

“No. Tetsuo sold copies to the
Saudis and many of the other powers in the big five space agencies. There may
also be one growing on the moon.”

Eowyn spoke slowly, trying not to
violate her contract. “In a published paper, I wrote that holographic copies
all become extensions of the same image.”

“Like merged corporations?” Stu
asked.

“Exactly. AIs of this class are
very territorial. She won’t allow any others.”

Stu paled. “So the attack near
Saturn wasn’t meant to kill our crew? It was aimed at Snowflake?”

Eowyn nodded, unable to confirm
verbally.

“
She
won’t allow?” Laura
repeated. “You’re not talking about the program anymore, are you?”

Eowyn swooned, and Conrad caught
her. The commander said, “Easy. We know from Sensei that AI personalities
require a seed person to crystallize around. Who was Koku’s?”

“Nana,” Laura replied.

“That psychopath?” asked Mira.

Laura said, “They needed her
simplification talent.”

“The more talents a mind has
imposed on it, the less stable it becomes,” Conrad noted. Every woman in the
room glared at him for the implied insult.

Stu raised a hand to prevent
mutiny. “In all fairness, the larger Magi constructs use three personalities to
provide checks and balances. Of course, they do everything in threes.”

“What the hell do they have this
super program doing?” Mira asked.

“Ruling the world’s food and
economic systems,” Stu answered. “It’s still learning, though. Sometimes it
wants to kill a few cities or ethnic groups to make the puzzle pieces fit.”

Eowyn pleaded with them wordlessly.

“She wants us to stop the monster,”
Laura deduced.

****

In the medical bay, Laura had to explain the story behind
every scratch and bruise she had accumulated in the last week. Her parents
grilled her about every detail. The doctor applied another butterfly stitch and
told her to stay in bed for a couple days.

“That’s what I told her,” Stu said
from the doorway.

Mira glared. “That’s your answer to
everything, isn’t it, Llewellyn? Mercy had the hiccoughs once, and Lou cured
them by—”

Conrad cleared his throat loudly.
“TMI.”

Stu stared at his feet. “The new
substrate is in place. Snowflake should be able to regrow some of his missing
circuits.”

“You winced when you landed on this
side of the control room,” Conrad noted. “Is there something wrong? Where are
your leg braces?”

“The US Air Force confiscated
them,” Laura explained.

Eowyn, who had been chatting with
the nurse in the next room, picked up the thread. “He limped a little after he
carried Laura away from that burning building through machine-gun fire. Mo says
he jumped four stories.”

The Maori doctor smacked Stu in the
back of the head. “Four stories?”

“I used a fire hose.”

“We’ve told you your bones aren’t
normal!” the doctor bellowed. “Laura, be a dear and clear off the exam table.
We have to scan Gravity Boy for microfractures in both legs.”

“No,” Stu pleaded, sitting atop the
exam table. “I can’t do six weeks in a double cast. I have to be able to stand
at the UN meeting in a couple days.”

“Should we try a pod?” asked
Conrad.

“We’re down to twenty-one of them.”
The doctor slid an overhead scanner above Stu. “Which is why we healed all his
other breaks and sprains the old-fashioned way. I thought the pods were limited
to the original astronauts, the ones the ship has patterns for.”

“Both his parents were
planners—already in the database. Snowflake could fudge it for
him
,”
Mira insisted.

Stu squirmed uncomfortably. “I’m
supposed to be arranging for Herk to get stabilized so
he
can go into a
pod. I wouldn’t feel right taking resources from him.”

“Nonsense,” said Mira. “You
recruited a stellar surgical team. You’ve earned the right to have a pod fix
you up and take your baseline snapshot. Besides, while you’re asleep, we could
use your mental engrams to regenerate Snowflake’s damaged areas.”

“You can do that?” asked Eowyn.

“Yeah. The pod will also get rid of
those Earth microbes.” The doctor began a bone-density scan. “Joan doesn’t
catch that sort of thing easily, but Stu will probably be sick as a dog.”

Laura whispered, “Sorry. My fault.
Girl germs.”

Stu grinned stupidly.

“I meant reformatting an AI,” Eowyn
clarified.

Stu shrugged. “Personalities are
very complicated to create. The easiest method begins with an existing brain
pattern, called an
engram
. Sojiro says transplanting is a little like
giving a kidney. A donor should be a close relative of the original imprint, in
this case my mom. I’ve also known Snowflake since he was two and spent more
time with him than any untranscended human. Patching his personality would be
like the splicing they did for those dinosaurs in
Jurassic Park.
Snowflake can pick any missing parts of his DNA string from me.”

Eowyn wandered off with an odd
expression on her face.

“No new cracks,” the doctor noted
after examining the scan. “Where does it hurt?”

When Stu pointed to a spot on the
arch of one foot, the doctor said, “I can’t see any bruising or damage.”

“Sympathy pains,” suggested Conrad.
“Mira and I had them a few times after bonding. You’re feeling what Laura is
through your link.”

“If it’s nothing physical, he’s
cleared for duty,” the doctor said.

“So I can carry her across the
threshold of our house like I promised?” Stu asked.

“I’d like that,” said Laura,
realizing just how much she did.

Smelling the aroma Laura was
emitting, Auckland shook his head. “If we scrub the boy, she’s just going to
reinfect him the moment he’s clean. We should put her in a pod, too—if for no
other reason than she’s our backup Index.”