Unstable Prototypes (8 page)

"That plasma mix is starting to sound a
little rich."

"Concentrating," came the distorted, drawn
out reply in his earpiece.

The ship's shuddering was considerably more
violent as she spoke. Lex wisely decided to hold his tongue.

"Attention passengers," announced an
automated message, "Please return to your seats in a quick and
orderly manner. Attach all emergency restraints in the manner
indicated by the pre-flight briefing. The spacecraft is
experiencing minor equipment problems. The crew is currently
addressing the problem. Remain calm and follow any instructions
provided by the crew. An unscheduled stop, to diagnose and correct
any possible issues, will occur in: Forty. Three. Minutes."

That was the fun thing about space travel.
When a ship, a train, or a plane experiences issues, the main
problems stem from the fact that you will be stopping, sometimes
catastrophically. A spacecraft, on the other hand, has the unique
problem of NOT stopping. There was no air friction, and courses
were generally plotted to be as far from gravity wells as possible.
This meant that, even if your engine completely shut down, you
would continue skimming along at the same speed. If the speed
wasn't high enough, and you weren't close enough to any VectorCorp
scanners, you would show up at your destination in a few decades.
That is to say, your ship would. (Whether or not the desiccated
remains inside would still count as you is a matter for
philosophers.) On the other hand, if you were going too fast, you
would reach your destination right about on time, but you would
reach it at near light speed, and afterward there wouldn't be much
of a destination anymore. This was actually a favored tactic
utilized by many a desperate military. Such ships were classified
"Relativistic Kill Vehicles," and rumor had it there were engines
specifically designed to propel them to the appropriate speeds.
Safeguards existed to prevent accidental or purposeful collisions
of that type, but they were mostly dedicated to eradicating the
malfunctioning ship prior to its arrival, so it seldom did the
pilot or passengers any good. Since this ship was clearly
malfunctioning, but not badly enough to be considered a threat to
anyone but itself, the course of action involved pulling off of the
primary course into a secondary emergency lane, dropping down from
faster-than-light speed, then pushing the ship's engines to maximum
safe limits to get down to a manageable conventional speed. In this
case, it would take almost forty-five minutes to do so.

"Attention passengers. As a precaution
against potentially dangerous changes in velocity, the secondary
inertial inhibition unit will now be activated. For the duration of
this flight, you will be experiencing weightlessness. Please do not
leave your seats unless necessary."

There was the muffled sound of startled
screams as the gravity dropped away. For the other passengers, this
was all probably terrifying. Knowing as he did the cause of the
current emergency, Lex was considerably less concerned. It wasn't
that this wasn't still tremendously dangerous. It was. Monkeying
around with the operation of a ship in motion, particularly during
FTL travel, is a recipe for disaster if you don't know what you are
doing. Ma knew what she was doing. In fact, the longer he knew her,
the more it seemed to Lex that Ma was the one who got to
decide
what should be done. Thus, while half of the ship
feared for their lives, Lex's primary concern was the rapidly
cooling cut of beef that had begun to drift around his cabin in the
center of a galaxy of garlic and herb roast potatoes and steamed
carrots.

"Come on," he groaned, straining against the
restraint to try to snatch the filet as it floated tantalizingly
close. He managed to brush it with his fingertips, causing it to
spin lazily away. "This has got to be against some sort of
international treaty."

The forty-three minutes were almost up, and
Lex had managed to snatch and consume most of the veggies and
potatoes as they were pushed around by the air conditioning vent,
but the meat had remained elusive. Three failed attempts to snag it
had taught him that making a grab before it was close enough would
just send it off into an unreachable corner for a while, so he was
holding his hand out and waiting agonizingly for it to make it to
his palm. The steak was probably cold and not worth eating now, but
it had stopped being about wanting to eat it half an hour ago. Now
he wanted it out of sheer stubbornness.

"We are now docking at our destination.
Gravity will be restored momentarily," said the automated voice.
Lex reached more desperately. "Ships are standing by to bring you
to your next destination. We would like to apologize for any
inconvenience that this may have caused, and please remember that
VectorCorp is dedicated to safety, speed, and efficiency. Thank
you. Gravity will be reestablished in 5... 4..."

Lex flicked the meat toward the far wall.

"3... 2..."

It rebounded off of the wall and flew back at
him. When it was close, he grabbed at it.

"1... Gravity reestablished."

An instant before the weight returned, he
closed his fingers around it.

For a second or two he simply stared in
astonishment.

"Yes. YES! AHAHAHA!" he proclaimed
triumphantly, holding it aloft like a trophy.

"What? What is it?" asked Ma, slightly
startled by the outburst as she finally released her
concentration.

"I am meat juggler supreme, that's what!"

"Sir?" said a new voice.

Lex turned to the door to see the very same
attendant who had brought Ma her water. He froze, meat still in the
air, as she took in the contents of the room. The walls were
flecked with grease and oil from where the various bits of food had
bounced off, and he was holding an uneaten medallion of beef as
though he had caught the final out of a legendary baseball game. Ma
was standing on his lap, staring at him as curiously as the
attendant.

"I don't know what this looks like, but it's
not what it looks like," Lex said.

"As our only first class passenger, you are
the first off of the ship. Please gather your belongings, and we
apologize for the inconvenience," she said, as though nothing about
the situation in any way fazed her.

"Thanks. Give me two minutes," he said.

"Yes, sir," she said, closing the door.

Lex unlatched himself and lowered Ma to the
floor, venturing over to his duffel to brush aside a few stray
veggies and make sure nothing got loose or broken during its zero-g
adventure. He placed the hard-earned but no longer edible filet
onto the edge of the couch. While he determined the condition of
his possessions, he whispered harshly to the furry little
ringmaster of this circus.

"I want to know exactly who this guy is and
what is about to happen."

"He is a former associate of Karter. Like
you, he helped to test and advise on the development of certain
avenues of research. His specialty was infiltration and
intelligence. I am uncertain of his name, as in his collaborations
with us he requested that we refer to him by no fewer than three
different aliases. He is currently serving a sentence for being
part of a squad responsible for violating three provisions of a
multi-system treaty, officially declaring him a war criminal. Due
to the minimal involvement in the incident and his cooperation with
authorities, he was the only member of his group to be assigned to
medium security. I managed to schedule an emergency fumigation of
his cell block and flag most of the penal fleet of his facility for
a security sweep, thus requiring him to be transported to an
alternate, off-planet holding facility via civilian transit."

"Prisons can just put criminals on any old
ship?"

"Only when official vessels cannot be made
available within the required time frame and the prisoner has no
history of violent crime."

"And what did this guy do?"

"His squad possessed and activated a class 3,
man-portable energy weapon within a populated area outside the
bounds of an officially declared war."

"What does that mean exactly?"

"It means that they were caught using an
experimental plasma cutter, designed by Karter, that was powered by
a miniature fusion reactor. The reactor, if allowed to overload,
could have rendered an entire city uninhabitable."

"Whoa."

"That is an appropriate reaction."

"So what happens now?"

There was silence. Lex turned to see Ma
rather intensely staring at the filet on the couch.

"Ma? Did you want the steak?"

"... No," remarked her voice. A drop of drool
trickled from her lip.

"Are you sure? Because you look like you want
it pretty bad."

"What you are witnessing is an autonomic
reaction to certain olfactory and visual stimuli. It is in no way
representative of wants or needs as defined by my higher thought
processes," she said, licking her lips and turning to him. "Please
repeat your question."

"What happens now?"

"Now we liberate him from his armed escort.
After that, we board the SOB, which is docked in short term bay
I-85, and leave the facility. From there he will direct us to a
safe location, where the next stage of the plan will be
determined."

"It sounded like you said liberate him from
his armed escort. At what point did you think that this was
something I would be able to do."

"Leave that aspect to me."

"Fine, but won't people see? Won't there be
video? I wouldn't have agreed to help if I'd known I would have
been incriminating myself in a major crime!"

"This station was selected for this phase of
the plan because it has failed six consecutive security audits due
to an uncorrected hardware flaw in its surveillance systems. There
are no active monitors or logging systems. Only eye witnesses will
be able to identify you, and all possible steps will be taken to
avoid the appearance of collaboration between yourself and our
target. But please move quickly. They are likely moving him as we
speak," she said, hopping to the floor and picking up the leash in
her teeth. "Time for a walk."

"... Fine, but I want it on the record that
I'm not happy about this."

Lex clipped on the leash, threw his bag over
his shoulder, and headed out into the hall. The attendant was
waiting for him there.

"We are currently docked at a space station
known as VC-808. There are four commuter shuttles ready to take you
to your destination. They will be leaving in fifteen minutes. I am
afraid that none of the shuttles have got first class
accommodations, but we would gladly refund the fare difference,"
the attendant began.

"Tell her that you have an alternate means of
conveyance," Ma recommended. "Your absence on an exit vehicle may
attract attention."

"Yeah, I appreciate the gesture, but after
the last hour, I think I'd be more comfortable on a smaller vessel.
I know a guy who works here. I'll catch a ride with him," Lex said
as gently as possible.

"Very well, sir. We hope you'll ride with
VectorCorp again in the future."

"I don't see how I can avoid it," he
remarked.

He was directed to the nearest exit, which
led to a pressurized gangway and into the transfer station. For one
who has never seen a remote transfer station, conjuring an accurate
mental image is actually quite simple. Begin by picturing a bus or
train depot. Not one of the big hubs frequented by commuters and
tourists, mind you, but one of the sketchy, middle-of-nowhere
depots. The kind of place that exists not because there is a large
city nearby, but because there isn't anything even remotely
resembling civilization for far enough in every direction that, in
the event of an equipment failure, the chances are very good that
all involved would starve to death before seeing another human
being. A tiny, poorly lit skeleton of a place with barely enough
equipment to do its job. Now imagine that everything, including the
oxygen, has been recycled for the last decade. That dismal, smelly
image perfectly describes the vast majority of transfer stations,
this one included. Here in the loading and unloading areas, no
consideration at all had been given to the subject of gravity.
Instead, a wide metal grid ran along the walls, and the longer
corridors had a slowly moving chain conveyor that would haul you
toward your destination if you were brave enough to grab one. It
gave the whole complex the look of a series of LED lit elevator
shafts jammed together at right angles, like an M. C. Escher
daydream. Things became a bit more hospitable as you approached the
central waiting area. There, a small section of the station had an
artificial gravity field, seats, network terminals, and places to
eat and freshen up. Unfortunately, Lex wasn't headed in that
direction.

"They will be moving the prisoner to the
security area. Take the shaft to the left. Please move quickly.
Extricating him will be enormously complex if we fail to do so
before he is properly remanded."

"Easy for you to say. You try moving quickly
in zero-g with a duffel bag and a house pet without being
conspicuous."

He set Ma adrift for a moment in order to
cinch the strap of the bag tight across his chest, then tucked her
under his arm and got to work. Though he was anything but an expert
in microgravity navigation, Lex had learned a thing or two from his
ill fated trip through Blake's. Not much, but more than enough to
give him an edge over the hapless tourists that were littering the
shafts, awkwardly clutching at bundles of luggage and unruly
children. He avoided the pull-chains, instead bouncing from grid to
grid, propelling himself as quick as he dared according to the
directions being given by Ma.

"To reach the security area, turn right here.
Now up. Faster please," she calmly stated as Lex struggled to make
the sudden changes in direction as indicated.