Ship Child Read online

I shook my head. “If it’s glitching this badly, you need to reboot to an earlier version. These kinds of glitches could kill you.”

  “Tal!” Josue interrupted again.

  “AIs don’t need glitches to kill you,” Madelene muttered.

  “Can’t reboot it—"

  “Tal!” Josue whistled in my ear. “It ain’t me! It’s his AI and he can’t reboot—"

  “Josue!”

  A strange voice came from the speaker. “You meat-sacks are glacial.”

  Maddy flinched, but Coot just sighed. Josue—for once—was silent at the rather less-than-polite way for AIs to talk about non-AIs.

  “Here it goes again,” the old man muttered. “It’s my AI. Playing practical jokes and being insulting.”

  I froze.

  Pale and swaying, Maddy whispered, “AIs can’t—”

  “This one can.” Coot actually sounded proud.

  Salvage the situation, I decided. Think later. I forced a laugh. “Sounds like a typical teen.”

  Grinning sheepishly, Coot ducked his head. “So it does.”

  “Of course you can’t reboot it.” Cause that would kill it.

  Maddy sat down suddenly. “This one can?”

  Awkwardly, I patted her shoulder. “It’ll be okay.” Then I blinked. “Kid? You want to be called a he or a she or an it or a they?”

  “It’s an AI,” she whispered again, as if they wouldn’t hear. “It has no gender.”

  I hushed her. “It’s polite to refer to someone using the pronouns they choose. Josue is definitely male, but when Bait is active, she’s female. If you want to stay, you need to go with this.”

  She hesitated. “I… I’ll try.”

  “Male, I think. For now.”

  Coot rolled his shoulders. “Sure. My AI is a boy. Why not.”

  “Easier for everyone, don’t you think?” Josue said mildly. “I can’t really imagine you raising a girl. Or a gender-fluid.”

  He groaned.

  “So.” I interrupted the old man’s pity party. “A name?”

  “You named me already,” the AI chortled.

  “I—what?”

  “The Kid. You called me The Kid. I like it.”

  Ah. Oops. “Sorry,” I mouthed to Coot.

  He shrugged. “Maybe now that it’s… he’s met your Josue, I can get some peace,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

  Tugging on my sleeve, Madelene tried to whisper something about the AIs, but I shook her off. Whatever her problem was, she was just going to have to deal. Especially if she was staying on my ship.

  Which I hadn’t decided yet.

  Coot turned back to me with a sly smirk. “You want to buy some fresh stuff?”

  “Fresh? Oh—” I went back to staring out the window. “Hell yes. You know I’ve got the freezer and storage and galley and I never use them because I’m by myself. Has to be easy stuff, though. I don’t know how to cook much.”

  “I can,” Maddy said, moving next to me to stare out the window. “Tomatoes and zucchini. Arugula. Peppers. Is that oregano?”

  “Yup.” Damn, the man was smug. “Onions and garlic too.”

  “We’ll take some!” She looked up a me. “Um. I mean, I’d like to contribute to the ship. Will you let me buy and cook for you, Tal?”

  She going to poison me? I raised one eyebrow, then remembered those fading bruises. Argh. Can’t hurt to let her cook till we get to the next station. I think. “Sure. It would be great to have something better than really nutritional algae.”

  Maddy smiled, then she and Coot disappeared through one of the windows—which was apparently a door—in a waft of wet, growing smell, and I was left on my own.

  As on my own as a human could be inside an asteroid with two other people a window away and two AIs chatting a full speed, which—I guess—was pretty alone.

  If she was going to stay with us, feed us and pay for fresh food to do it, Maddy deserved a cut of the scavenges, which was going to change our economics. If we let her stay.

  I sighed.

  Give me a ship and fuel and air and I was happy. Enough money for repairs and the occasional upgrade and Josue was happy too. But with Maddy along… She didn’t seem the type to operate day-to-day. She seemed like someone who planned and schemed—exactly how she’d joined us. But seeing the holo of my legal face and name had been like a splash of ice. She might want to stay, for now, and not turn me in to collect that bounty—for now—but what if that changed? I needed some sort of a long-term plan. I sucked at making long-term plans.

  Before I’d done much but think myself into a dither—avoiding the other thing I really didn’t want to think about—Maddy and Coot were back.

  The old man was actually smiling as he told her that The Kid and Josue would get the bots to load everything onto the Desolate. He must have made some serious money off of Maddy, but she was smiling too, as if she’d gotten the best of the bargain. Before I could bounce myself off his couch—even in one-tenth gee—Coot had shaken an admonishing finger at Maddy, then plugged into a data port. He typed and pinched and slid until two quartz chips popped out of the slot beneath the port. He handed one to Maddy and one to me. “Your new idents. Talon Bosche and Maddy Candida.”

  My new cook smiled and tucked her chip into a pocket. “Thanks, Coot.”

  Scowling, I copied her actions. “Talon? That’s a stupid name.”

  “Close enough to Tal that you’ll still answer to it.” Coot held out one hand. “Want a refund?”

  “No, no.” I sighed. Coot’s idents were the best. Anywhere. “No, I’ll keep this one.” I slipped the old one—Tal Saintgermain of the gold eyes and blue fingernails—out of my pocket and handed it over for refurbishment. “Thanks, Coot.”

  “The Kid put your ship ident package onto the Desolate,” he grumbled. “Josue’s got it. Let’s get it installed so you can be on your way.”

  “Yessir.” I jerked my chin at Maddy and we followed Coot back to my ship.

  * * *

  As soon as we were back on board the Desolate—no matter what name the beacon gave her, I’d always think of my ship by the proper name I bought her under—Maddy ran for the galley while Coot and I headed for the bowels.

  So much of a space ship can be torn apart, retrofitted, or redesigned that the beacon of the ship—the ident—lived deep in the heart of her, right up against her spine, and most places had laws that said they could inspect the seals at any time, and if there was tampering showing the box had been removed from the spine or the seals on the box had been broken, they could deem the captain a pirate, and seize the ship.

  I could break open the box and replace the beacon myself, but only Coot had worked out a way to reseal the box so the inspectors would be none the wiser. He charged plenty of credits for it; good thing I trusted him.

  “You’ll be the Ruina,” Coot said, one hand on the new beacon’s box.

  “Heh, heh, funny thing,” Josue said.

  Coot lifted his hand away slowly.

  “Josue?” I demanded.

  “The Kid says he either gave us the Ruina beacon, or…”

  “Or?” The old man backed away from the box.

  “Or a shipkiller. Triggered.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and reminded myself he was just a kid. “You got a read on the box?”

  “About that.”

  “Josue!”

  “I can tell it’s electronics,” he said quickly, “but any more of a scan could set it off.”

  “Of course.” I took a cutter from my belt and walked toward the box. “You tell your buddy if I die, you die, and Coot dies, and he lingers on here. Alone. Until the power runs out and he dies.” Then I sliced the seals on the box.

  The side fell clear and showed me a ship beacon, pretty as could be.

  “I’ll just…” Josue sounded faint. “Leave you two alone for the install, shall I?”

  “Maybe explain to The Kid just how fragile meat-sacks are,” I muttered.

  “Yea
h. That.” Josue had once described “leaving” to me as losing a part of himself, but this time he didn’t seem as reluctant as usual. Probably thanks to the bomb-scare thing. “I won’t monitor until someone says my name.”

  Moving over to my old box, I cut the seals and gently pried it open. Rules for AIs—rules like protect humans and obey human orders unless those orders put humans in danger—were just that. Rules meant to protect humans from entities smarter and tougher than we were. The Kid’s ability to play pranks—the kinds of pranks that could kill us meat-sacks—meant that he had no rules.

  Two asteroid visits ago, Josue had been barely installed and nowhere near functional, but last time, when we’d been at Coot’s base for the Diebstahl and Spaander idents, I had thought he’d been a little upset at the AI’s restrictions. We’d come back so soon after picking up the job on Balastasia Space Station, because I’d needed a secure, untraceable com line for Madelene to transfer us money, and I had gotten the feeling Coot had been lonely.

  Josue didn’t have the normal AI Rules. What if…?

  Suddenly cold inside my own ship, I clipped the wires running from the beacon to the box, unscrewed two bolts, then pulled the beacon free.

  To me it looked like a glob of random parts welded together, but it was a heavy glob of parts, and I used the weight as an excuse to not think for long enough to pull it across the deck and heft it onto a transport panel. Coot would take it back inside and probably sell it to someone else.

  The old man caught my eye, but I just shook my head. He knew me well enough to know I was thinking about something, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to share it.

  Josue and the The Kid were the only two AIs in the universe I knew of without rules. Josue must have somehow passed his lack of rules on to The Kid. Had he done it on purpose??

  I muscled the new beacon into place and held it while Coot reached past me to bolt it in. I stripped the insulation from the new beacon wires, then matched them—black to black for power, white to white return, and ground wire to ground, twisting each together with a wire nut.

  Coot nodded his approval, so I tucked everything back inside and set the side of the box back up. I closed my eyes—Coot’s rule—and leaned against it while the old man hummed tunelessly and set about resealing the box.

  If Josue had passed on his lack of rules to The Kid, could The Kid pass them on to other AIs? Had Josue contaminated others I didn’t know about? Cara maybe? Had I doomed humanity by installing Josue into my ship and letting him contact other AIs?

  Could I stop him?

  If I had to, I could get rid of The Kid. I could convince Coot to wipe out his asteroid, and The Kid was young enough we could do it. But Josue… If I was docked at a good space station—one I could trust—I might be able to pop Josue’s kernel out of the drives of the Desolate before he stopped me, and wipe the drives and reinstall a basic AI without killing us all.

  But could I kill my friend?

  Because that’s what it would be. Ripping his kernel away from the quantum chips and wiping the drives would take his computing power, his memories, his personality.

  And to do it all before he stopped me… an AI without rules fighting for his life against a meat-sack could blow the ship’s atmosphere or poison the air or flex the gravity, so I’d have to set it all up and plan it out as carefully as I’d ever planned any job. Which was exactly why AIs had rules.

  To protect the humans.

  It would not just be murder, but cold-blooded, planned murder.

  Assuming he hadn’t already set up triggers and traps to protect him from exactly what I was thinking about.

  Which was a stupid assumption.

  Maybe Maddy could do it—hack Josue, disconnect him from everything, and disable any traps left behind—but there was no way I could communicate that to her.

  I sagged against the beacon box. No way. There was no way I could kill him. Not without killing us all.

  Thank the cosmos.

  Because even if I could contemplate it, I don’t think I could have gone through with it.

  He was my friend; the best friend I’d never had growing up.

  Whatever it meant that an AI without rules was flying through space infecting other AIs with a way around their rules, I would trust in my friend. Trust that he would think twice or three times before killing me, and decide not to too. And trust the other AIs—Cara and The Kid and whomever else—that they would kill only to protect themselves. However strange they looked—a cluster of quantum chips and a kernel—they were people, and they deserved a chance at life, and that those of us working with them, discovering them, and coming to love them would be able to teach them to love us in return.

  Because if we couldn’t, that doomsday device Chai had talked about wouldn’t matter. These new AIs would wipe out humanity before the device could.

  “Done!” Coot announced, patting the beacon box with a proprietary hand.

  As if I hadn’t just had my entire universe shifted on its axis, I hopped up and examined the seals as closely as I could. “Josue?”

  After a short pause, Josue said, “As fine a job as always. We are officially the Ruina, and no inspector is going to be able to say otherwise.”

  “Thank you.” I held out my hand to shake the old man’s. “Friend.”

  He looked at me carefully, then gripped my hand in his, just a little too tightly. “Yes, I think we are. Friends. You take care of Maddy for me.” Releasing my hand, he scowled. “That little bit of a thing is the best programmer I’ve ever seen, but she’s needing some protection… and some friends of her own.”

  “Will do.” I walked him to the airlock, nearly choking on all the words I couldn’t say to him. He and his AI had been getting along just fine before my little revelation. They’d get along just fine after. Without my meddling. “Take care of The Kid. He seems like a good sort.”

  “Yeah.” The old man’s face softened. “Never thought I’d be able to stand one of them, but he’s good company. Like your Josue.”

  “Yes.” I watched him seal his space suit and step into the airlock. “Like my Josue.”

  * * *

  Coot’s asteroid fell away behind us, immediately indistinguishable from all the rest. I reclined in the pilot’s couch and watched them go. Josue had the helm.

  “Tal?” Maddy’s hesitant voice came from the hatch.

  “Come on in.” I sat up as the most wonderful smell bypassed my brain and went straight to my stomach.

  “Here,” she said, handing me a bowl. “It’s a Vietnamese pho soup my grandfather used to make, but I didn’t have all the ingredients so I had to—”

  “Mmm.” After the first tentative bite, I had to force myself not to slurp directly from the bowl. “This is amazing.”

  “Watching you eat that…” Josue sounded wistful. “Makes me wish I could taste. Or at least smell.”

  Maddy started, then rubbed her palms against her pant legs. “Oh?” she managed without sounding too strangled.

  “I can smell the balance of O2 in the air, and I can taste the purity of our fuel… but it’s not quite the same.”

  “Mmmmm…” I swallowed long enough to say, “No, it’s not,” then dove back into the soup. When I came up for air, I realized Maddy was still watching me.

  I blinked.

  She looked like she wanted something from me.

  “Thank you,” I tried, but she just jerked her head and went back to staring.

  Josue whispered in my ear, “She wants to stay. On the ship.”

  Ah. “You okay with it?” I sub-vocalized.

  He hesitated, but when he answered, he sounded as if he was pleased I’d asked. “Yeah,” he said. “I think I am.”

  Glancing at the liquid black beyond the window, I let the silence wrench up the tension until Josue jiggled the couch under me.

  “Okay!” I yelped, and laughed when Maddy jumped. “Okay… you can stay.”

  She beamed.

  Now we wer
e three… A bruised but not broken woman fleeing her husband, a sometimes-smuggler just trying to keep her ship in space, and an AI with no rules. And an old man on an asteroid with his own no-rules AI, and another running a luxury liner, so at least six against billions…

  Watch out, universe.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Barbara’s novel Speaker for the People won 2nd place in the science fiction/fantasy category of the 2015 Zebulon contest sponsored by Pikes Peak Writers. Ship Desolate and Dimming Lights won Honorable Mentions in the Writers of the Future Contest. She has four indie-published novels and dozens of short stories and has been traditionally published in Daily Science Fiction. Add a husband, two kids, a dog, and a martial arts obsession, and she keeps pretty busy.

  Platform Eight Series (Short Stories)

  Darkest Space (#1)

  Recovery Space (#2)

  Damaged Space (#3)

  Revenge Space (#4)

  Craving Space (#5)

  Slave Space (#6)

  Shattered Space (#7)

  Relative Space (#8)

  In-between stories available from my mailing list at barbara.lund.com

  Crowns Peak Series

  Creeper

  Healer (Short Story)

  Ava’s Quest

  Last Mage Standing

  Doomsday Ship Stories (Short Stories)

  Ship Desolate (#1)

  Ship Heist (#2)

  Ship Child (#3)

  Space, Lies, Syndicate

  Witch’s Pet (Short Story)

  Blood Descendant (Novella)

  Sparks In The Dark: Fantasy Short Story Collection

  Sparks in the Dark: Science Fiction Short Story Collection (coming soon)

  http://www.barbaralund.com