“Bert? Bez Hanson, here, old chap. It’s not a problem. Robots like you are worth twenty of the ones I’ve got around here.”
“Thank you, sir. But you’re going to lose many many of my fellow robots who have been swept up with the crowd below. I’m just another one like them.”
“I disagree, but I respect what you are saying. It’s your call, Bert.”
“Yes, sir. And I thank you for that. I am ready now to be instructed as to the next steps.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Caleb watched Bert disengage the mounting brackets on the HPM and easily lift it onto his shoulder. Thick cables trailed out of a hole to the device and snaked back and forth while Bert got it settled. The robot had unzipped his friends’ emergency suits and let them drop to the floor, then pushed all of together in a tight target. While doing so, he gently squeezed each one’s hands and smiled at them with deep affection. He explained what was going to happen to Caleb and looked hard at Caleb’s eyes to be certain that the man understood. Caleb’s crow’s feet gently tightened and Bert nodded, giving Caleb pat on the arm.
As he watched Bert aim, Caleb felt a tear track down his cheek, and his nose began to run. Bert paused at that. “I see you in there, sir. Don’t worry. You’ll be free in just a moment.” He planted his feet firmly, steadied his aim, and called out to the commander, “All set!” He glanced at the faux sunset sky, then closed his eyes.
There was a brief hum from the device and Bert fell, his last conscious thought, to make sure that his body cushioned the machine from smashing on the ground.
As each of Bert’s friends shook off the spell, they crossed to his inert form. Caleb was there first, his hand reaching for the robot’s wrist as though a pulse could be detected. Jennifer grabbed Bert’s other hand and watched as Caleb searched fruitlessly for any sign of life.
Wiping a tear away like it was annoying insect, Caleb stood and grabbed the HMP. Shouldering the device, he aimed for the crowd below and called out to those who were watching from the bunker. “Let’s kill us some AI motherfucking nanos!”
In the Houston Spaceport, Tom Fisher stood in the control room watching the dead feeds that minutes before had been filled with Sammantha’s growing successful assault on Titan. Dr. Eric Gabelhauser had begun to walk out of the room. With him, he carried the weight of a singularly disappointed intelligence; one made up of millions of minds mixed with software, and all of it pressing down on his every step. Gabelhauser and Fisher, mixed with the entity that was AI, had made several irrational and pointless efforts to revive the connection with their doomsday machine. Pointless, because the dead falling cop ships that had surrounded Sammantha’s unit had made her end quite clear. Irrational, because although AI was an amalgamation of algorithms and code, it was also connected to humanity, and humanity has a knack for tenaciously holding onto lost causes well past the obvious expiration date.
Rather than send a mental note to Gabelhauser, Fisher spoke aloud, calling after his colleague as the man neared the door. “It’s not over, Eric. Success is ultimately assured. History informs us that, given time, a determined assault will overwhelm any bastion.”
Gabelhauser answered by letting the door shut behind him.
A singular albino white figure stood several tiers up from where Fisher stood. The robot was asexual in design, its features and clothing a perfect blend of all of mankind. It spoke with a liquidly sensuous voice, full of calm and assurance. “I can take it from here, James. Why don’t you get some rest?”
Fisher turned his head slightly at the sound of the voice, nodded and followed Gabelhauser’s path out of the room.
Harry’s Bar: Three Earth-months later
Caleb entered from the airlock to find that Harry’s was doing some brisk business. The parking lot had been full of spaceships. The proprietor noticed him and nodded warmly. Caleb smiled and stepped up to the bar with the giant mother planet taking up the view beyond.
Harry said, “Welcome back, Mr. Day. Beer?”
“Sounds heavenly.”
“Speaking of heavenly,” Harry nodded at a table. “You have some friends here.”
Jennifer sat alone at a table nursing a drink and observing the crowd. Her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail and a youthful rouge colored her cheeks. Harry continued, “She’s with that gorgeous Indian doctor. She’s in here somewhere.”
Caleb accepted the beer at the same moment that Jennifer’s eyes came to rest on his. She smiled broadly and stood as he stepped over to her. After only a moment’s hesitation, he set the beer down and took her into a warm hug. When they parted, it was only so that he could keep his hands on her waist, her arms draped over his shoulders. She said, “Yes, I’ve very much missed you, sire,” and winked.
Caleb’s crow’s feet crinkled. “Ditto.”
They stood like that for a moment, as though anticipating more. Caleb finally released her wais, and Jennifer’s chin tightened slightly as she let her arms slide off his shoulders. He said, “So the house call doctor and the traveling judo teacher thing wasn’t cutting it?”
“Not for lack of customers. It was just boring beyond belief. That, and maintaining the shuttle costs a fortune.”
“Well, thanks for reaching out. To all of us. Speaking of boring, I can’t tell you how bored I was working with Hanson’s personal security. They are still so wrapped up about protecting us from AI. So smothered in fear every day, they can’t think straight. They’re talking about taking the fight back to Earth.”
She sighed. “Like we don’t have enough to worry about. Anyway, the monks really want us to get back to selling their stuff.”
“And like I said, it sounds great to me. I don’t know why we decided to go different ways.”
“You decided to go a different way. You broke up the band.”
“Did I?”
“Um, quote: Guys, I have an offer from Hanson that I probably shouldn’t refuse.” She gave him a weak jab in the stomach. “The former cop who didn’t want to be a cop.”
He fended off the punch. Instead, grabbing her wrist and pulling her in close. “Yeah, I don’t like being a cop.”
“Jerk,” she said, but it was in a tone that wassoft and full of affection.
“So you really missed me?”
She looked up at his eyes letting hers fall into his. “Very much.”
He leaned in to give her a kiss. Her lips parted in anticipation. Then he stopped and glanced around. “Where’s the doc?”
“Bathroom, you tease.” She took his face into her hands and they kissed for several passionate seconds until Spruck’s voice interrupted them. “Jeez. Get a room.”
They broke the kiss to find Spruck and Natalie walking toward them from the airlock. The four friends embraced. Then Saanvi stepped up. “Hey. The party can’t start without me.” The five friends embraced again and sat around the table.
A few rounds later, Natalie was giving Spruck a shove on the shoulder. “Yes, this one actually had a love affair with one of the newly sentient ones in Hanson. It wasn’t even a pleasure model.”
“She. Not, It.” Spruck corrected. “And her name is Suzette.”
“Excuse me:
s
he
,” said Natalie. “Would you believe that they are legally designated by gender now?”
Jennifer said, “I don’t know how else you would handle it.”
Caleb asked, “So? Where is this . . . girl?”
Spruck said, “When I told Suzette that Jennifer had reached out to get us all together, she asked what my intentions were.”
“Meaning what?” asked Saanvi.
“Meaning, she wanted to know if I planned to marry her or was I going to be some type of traveling salesman who only came home now and again for a sleepover. She works for City Sanitation and really likes her job. She wasn’t going to go galavanting around the system.”
They offered slightly stunned laughter. Caleb said, “Seriously?”
Spruck shrugged. “Seriously. Amazing, right?”
“So?” asked Jennifer.
Spruck shrugged. “I said that seemed likely, the traveling salesman part, and she broke up with me.”
They fell into overlapping conversation about the absurdity of the story, the situation in general, and then shut up when a female robot brought them another round. When the machine left, Spruck said, “Gosh, I already miss her.”
Saanvi patted his shoulder. “Aww.”
Caleb raised his glass. “That being one of the craziest statements I’ve ever heard, I’d nevertheless like to make a toast.” They raised their glasses, and he proceeded, “To us. To the team getting back together.” He hesitated for a second, “And to the missing sixth member, Bert. He was unique, and I think I can speak for all of us when I say how much we miss his friendship. May his soul rest in peace.”
They joined in with “Here, here.”
Jennifer said, “That’s quite an about face for you, Mr. Day.”
Caleb raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement.
She lifted her glass once more. “To all of us. And . . . to the future.”
“To the future.”
Dear Reader,
Given the nature of gravity, I found myself occasionally taking a smidgen of dramatic license. Depending on its size-mass, an airless moon will have greater or lesser consequence on the movement of an object. For instance, on the small Martian moon Phobos, an astronaut leaping with all her might, can theoretically reach escape velocity and find herself stranded in outer space. The same effort on Earth’s much larger moon would have the astronaut taking a lesser leap and returning safely to the surface.
As Galileo theorized, all mass is treated equally by gravity. Where there is no air resistance to alter the speed, objects of any size will fall at the same rate. This was displayed definitively by astronaut David Scott on Earth’s moon, August 2, 1971, when he dropped a hammer and feather from the same height and at the same time and both fell to the surface at the same speed.
Thus, depending on its size, each of Saturn’s moons will have a varying effect on the speed of free fall. On a tiny moon such as Pan, a golfball (or a speck of sand) dropped from shoulder height will take roughly thirty seconds to fall to the surface. Therefore, the goings-on as Henry Lo prepares to do dastardly things to our heroes, would be quite a circus if the full effects (or lack thereof) of the Pan’s gravity were included in the telling. Rather than add to the drama, I decided that it would be a distraction.
So please forgive the author for the occasional fiction in the science. This is after all, science fiction. Nevertheless, as is true with all of my work, a great deal of research went into this book. Trust that stepping out of a spacesuit while standing on Phoebe would be way I told it.
Cheers, and please leave a review. Spread the word. Visit my web page. Sign up on my email list and get a free book.
C. Chase Harwood,
cchaseharwood.com
Other Books:
For my wife, Joyce, a woman of delicate sensibilities when is comes to scary stuff, and who as such, was unable to assist me with my previous novels. Honey, your thoughts and advice are invaluable.
For any writer, a handful of trusted advisors are a must. Thank you, Chance Cresant, Peter Beaven, Jennifer Collins, David Saltzberg, Tony Harwood, and Robert Beaven. You each helped in ways that were more critical than you may know. To my editor, Ernesto– your considerable skills have guided me toward being a better writer– indispensable.