Chapter 5 #4
“Will he be helping me with the asteroid?”
“You can count on his expertise. His file notes particular gifts in mechanical engineering, piloting, survivalism, and hand-to-hand combat.”
Survivalism. Hand-to-hand combat. “Ask him to open the door.”
“I have already asked him. He has declined.”
“‘Declined’?”
“That is correct.”
“What, is he too busy to meet me?” I ask, mouth gaping. “When we’ve been leaking oxygen, and have to net an asteroid hurtling past at twenty kilometers a second so we can drink and breathe? When we’re on a mission to rescue Minerva?”
There’s no answer at first. If I were in my right mind I’d have known better—sarcasm is the surest way to fritz out an AI’s conversation skills.
Why am I being sarcastic? Because this hurts, and I’m feeling weak, and sarcasm is the refuge of the hurt and the weak.
That’s why. It will be the last time I let myself be sarcastic.
I’m stronger than that. I’m Ambrose Cusk, dammit.
“Spacefarer Celius is indeed busy at the moment. You have a two-kilobyte list of tasks, but there is a list over six kilobytes long on the Aurora. Maintaining the ship and ensuring its integrity is of course a foremost priority. Even if we did not harvest more oxygen, you wouldn’t expire for another four to five months.
Loss of hull integrity would cause you to expire within seconds. ”
I’m only half listening. I can’t help it. I bang on the orange portal. Fuck you, Kodiak Celius!
A door with my mother’s feet casting shadows underneath. Minerva’s voice, hushed in a velvet hallway: As long as I’m alive, someone loves you.
OS speaks. “I surmise from your nonverbal cues that you are upset Kodiak Celius has sealed himself off. Could I offer you medication to help you relax?”
“I’m a trained spacefarer, OS,” I say, stepping away from the portal and clambering back down, my body gaining weight as it goes. “I’m not some sweaty-balled knock-kneed cadet. I represent the legacy of Minerva Cusk. I’m fine.”
. . . and now I’m bragging to a computer. Yep, totally fine.
I make my way down the last few rungs to ordinary gravity, then to room 03 and its narrow bed. Someone made this bed for me. I wonder who it was. I lie down and close my eyes. I stick my hands in my pants. I pull them out. I sit up. “Tell me everything else you know about this Kodiak Celius.”
“Most information about him is privileged,” OS responds.
“Connect me with mission control.”
“Communications with Earth are temporarily unavailable due to solar activity.”
“Notify me as soon as communications are available, and once they are, immediately download an update on relations between Dimokratía and Fédération,” I say. A moment passes before I continue. “Kodiak. Is he . . . like me?”
“If you are referring to his age, like you he was selected from among the seventeen-year-olds in his class. Given what astrobiologists know about the quantity of radiation your bodies will receive in outer space, seventeen was determined to be the optimal age for the crew. Any younger and you would have been likelier to make fatal mistakes in navigation or negotiation. Any older and you would have had unacceptable likelihood of dying of a malignant tumor, with Rover as your only option for crude medical treatment. Current analysis gives an eight percent chance that radiation-caused cancer is what incapacitated Minerva, making that one of the most likely outcomes, second only to gas poisoning.”
Even with the best social engineering, AI personalities contain currents of callousness. Lucky for me, life in my family trained me well to cope with that. “Got it.”
A pitying tone enters OS’s words. “Spacefarer Celius turned eighteen while on board, but you’re nearer eighteen than seventeen, too.
You have your own separate routines scheduled in by your respective countries.
There is no reason you cannot train effectively in isolation for the eventual rescue of Minerva. ”
“Bullshit. This isn’t about meeting up for tea and gossip.
This is about our survival. Remind Kodiak that I’m the only game in town if he’s hoping for any human contact whatsoever.
Remind him that loneliness will wreck anyone eventually.
That even the most tundra-hardened soldier trained in survivialism and hand-to-hand combat can die of it. ”
“I relayed your message, using your exact language. I will note, though, that I am engineered to provide social sustenance—”
“Let me guess, no response from Kodiak?”
“You are correct.”
I stretch out on the bunk, even within my anger enjoying the sensation of muscles that no longer cramp and clutch.
I press my hands over my eyes. You’re in outer space, where you’ve always dreamed to be, I remind myself.
You are rescuing your sister. You are the pride of your family and the hope of Fédération. Millions want to be you.
I place my feet on the ground to get the blood circulating. I must have caught Rover by surprise; it squeaks. “I guess I’ll be dining on my own today, while I review the harvesting training reels. What’s the plat du jour, madame?”
“Open the cabinet, and you will see. Keep in mind the inventory quantities, however. I will not allow you to use up your rations irresponsibly.”
“I won’t try to use them irresponsibly. So. How’s the pizza around here?”
“There is no pizza. The closest I can offer is manicotti. Monsieur.”
I tilt my chin toward the ceiling. “Manicotti, really? And your humor settings . . .”
“My sense of humor is programmed deep in my bios. Like yours.”
“I just—my mother doesn’t make jokes, so it’s weird to hear anything lighthearted in her voice. Could we switch you to someone else?”
“Of course. I have a few hundred possibilities.”
“Oh, are you using the commons voice set, same one that ships on the Zen 10.0?”
“Yes.”
I grin. “So you can be Devon Mujaba of the Heartspeak Boys? Voice 141?”
OS changes to a purring countertenor. “The one and only.”
“That’s amazing,” I say. “Don’t ever change. Devon’s my favorite.”
“My ship is yours,” OS says as Devon Mujaba. “All my rooms and corridors are yours.”
“Okay, stop,” I say. “Take a ten-minute hiatus on humorous responses. That was a little creepy. You’re a little creepy, OS, to tell you the truth.”
“‘Creepy’ is not an adjective I’ve ever applied to myself,” OS says in its new super-sexy voice. “You have given me something new to think about. If you help me identify ‘creepy’ whenever it occurs, I can learn to predict and avoid it so you do not experience an unpleasant reaction.”
“It’s best we set some expectations for our relationship. I’ll start by informing you when you’re being creepy.”
“And you can start by refreshing those harvesting procedures,” OS says.
“Wow, that was salty. I kind of like it,” I say, smiling up at the disembodied voice, my hands punching into my pockets, to show off the muscles of my arms. Am I flirting with my operating system? I think I’m flirting with my operating system. That voice. “Food first, though. I’m starving.”
“My reference sources indicate that after physical trauma, you should not yet be hungry. I was ready to have Rover hook you back up to an intravenous drip to feed you.”
“Well, your data was wrong. I told you I’m not your run-of-the-mill crewman. I hope Rover’s a good chef.”
_-* Tasks Remaining: 342 *-_
It’s a good thing the manicotti has a printed label on it, because I wouldn’t have known what it was otherwise.
It’s basically white gluten and red oil, with dominant polycarb notes.
Pretty close to my own home cooking, actually.
Not like the manicotti Minerva used to make us every Friday night.
I run my fingers over the printed name. Getting this meal onto Fédération ships was her doing, I’m sure of it.
I remember watching her fingers as she sprinkled sea salt and Parmesan.
I stare at harvesting training reel projections while I chew, surrounded by the humming machinery of the Endeavor.
I’m sort of loving the chance to eat manicotti, it turns out.
Minerva used to cancel awards ceremonies, training sessions, anything that came up on a Friday night, all so she could be with her little brother. I could eat this manicotti forever.
A voice comes on. I sit up, rod straight. It’s not Devon Mujaba. This voice is low, almost a growl. Sounds like gruel and bar fights. Fédération language, but with a Dimokratía accent. “Put the OS’s voice back to the female one.”
“Spacefarer Celius?” I say, getting up so quickly that I bang my head on an open cabinet door. “Is that you?”
“Do as I ask. I don’t have access to OS personalization.”
“We should meet.” My voice breaks. It hasn’t done that in years.
“There’s no need for that.”
“Of course there is. We need to plan out the asteroid harvesting, for starters. Come over for dinner. I insist.”
The ship’s sensitive mics pick up his slow breathing, the friction of his jumpsuit as he readjusts his body. “Did you really just invite me over for dinner?”
“I ate, but in another five hours or so I’ll want some more. Maybe we should actually call it dinner number two. Come over for dinner number two.”
“Meeting you isn’t permitted.”
“Isn’t permitted by whom? Your Dimokratía commanders?
It’s only the two of us here. Well, plus OS and Rover.
” There’s no answer, except for more soft breathing.
Vulnerability is the one thing you have to learn, the mission’s head psychologist once said.
The Cusk family didn’t prepare you for it.
I cough. “Kodiak, do you remember anything of the launch? Or anything right before it? I’m scrubbed as of a few days beforehand, as far as I can tell. ”
“I’ll ask you one more time. Put the voice back.”