IGMS Issue 2 (26 page)

Dr. Anne Gable waited for the call she knew was coming. A psyship was drifting in space, powerless, and she'd have to go, she just knew it. The pilot was unresponsive, and that put it squarely in her territory whether she liked it or not.

The visiphone beeped, and she pressed the button before it beeped again. Rob Spencer, the head systems engineer of the psyship program, appeared.

"We need you to come with us," he said.

Anne sat back in her chair. "How far out are we talking about?"

"The ship is drifting our way. We'll meet it about six days away, so you'll be back in about two weeks."

Space. She trained for it before ever interviewing psypilot candidates. She'd been in Earth orbit, but never deeper. "Is the pilot alive?"

"We don't know," said Rob. "If he isn't, then you won't have much to worry about."

"You can't take Dee?" she said. Dee was her ex-husband, the first of the psypilots. "Isn't he on Earth right now?"

"Yeah, he is. He'll be piloting, but we are still requesting that you come with us. Dee's no psychologist."

Oh, this is getting better and better. "The corporation guys know we used to be married. That's got to be some kind of violation of --"

"I just spent the last hour convincing the Board that I need you both. Dee is the only Earthside psypilot, not to mention the most experienced, and you are the one who wrote the book on potential psypilot problems. We need you both because we have no clue what we're looking at here. Between Dee, you, and myself, I'm confident we'll know everything we need to by the time we get back."

"But I haven't seen Dee since --"

"Anne, please. I really need you there. And I'll be with you the whole time. It's not like you guys will be alone."

"Yeah," she said.

"Neither one of you are the arguing type, anyway. You surprised the hell out of all of us when you said you were splitting."

All true. The marriage had ended not with a roar, but a whimper. Dee is comfortable in his psyship. That's just the way it is. In his psyship, Dee is alive. In his skin, he is ... not.

"Two weeks?" Anne asked.

"Yeah, two weeks," said Rob.

"What's the exact situation?" she said.

"There's no response at all from it. We're not even receiving on-board telemetry data. This leads us to believe that it's either a catastrophic systems failure, or the pilot shut the whole thing down. We've never had a systems failure like this, so I'm guessing that something's gone wrong with the pilot."

"Who's the pilot?" she asked.

"Thomas Schaeffer."

Thomas was a good friend. All of the psypilots were. She interviewed and approved them all.

"Thomas is a rock, Rob. You certainly don't think he lost it out there."

"I don't know what to think yet. Maybe he can't jack out. Maybe he's dead. I just don't know."

"When are we going?"

"Tomorrow morning. I'll send a car."

"Okay," she said. She turned off the visiphone and spun her chair to look out the office window.

Dee watched as his ex-wife and Rob climbed aboard. He had been jacked in for over an hour and was comfortable. When carrying passengers, he always liked to get settled in early. Besides, this way he'd avoid the inevitable awkward in-the-flesh meeting with Anne.

Dee's body was present on the ship, in the back near the engines. It was comfortably housed in a small, cushioned compartment. His brain was connected to the ship through a thin umbilical attached to the physical implant on top of his skull, near his motor cortex. When jacked in, the ship's sensors became the pilot's senses, its many cameras his eyes, all its moving parts his limbs. When jacked in, Dee became the ship.

And there was Anne. He could see her from a couple of different angles, and admired her beauty. He hadn't satisfied her, and he knew that. The way around that wasn't to try harder, because he simply had no more to give. The way around it was to let her go. So that's what he did.

He willed his face to appear on a screen in front of Anne. "Good morning, Doctor," he said, thinking immediately that he should have called her Anne.

"Good morning, Dee," she said. Stiff, but not unpleasant. "How are things?"

"Is there a correct answer to that when talking to a psychologist?" asked Dee. "We'll be on our way in no time."

"Good," she said.

"Dee, how are ya?" said Rob.

"All systems go, Chief!" said Dee. "We should leave orbit in ten minutes."

"Excellent," said Rob.

Dee returned attention to himself, the ship. In under a second, he checked the hydrogen pressure (good), the engine temperature (climbing), the life support system (cabin pressure a touch low, nudge it up). Within that same second, he noticed the last of the docking station crew close a panel in the engine room, and he verified that some entertainment files he wanted had finished downloading. He planned to use them to keep himself occupied during the flight. He could only apologize to Anne so many times.

Anne stood there, feeling like an extra limb. She watched Rob make certain that all of his tools had been delivered. Her own tools were in her breast pocket in the form of a small reader that contained her entire library.

Ten years before, when the psyship program first started, she had been told that she might be called on for missions like this. No one knew at the time how a pilot would react to long-term connection to a system that completely replaced the body. Her first assignment was to head a team of psychologists that predicted possible problems that a person might experience under those conditions. Everything from mild addiction to major personality disorder had been applied, written about, and published. Then they all sat back to watch what happened.

Dee had been the first psypilot. He went through numerous tests before being connected to a psyship, performing everything from controlling robots to flying remotes through his implant. He'd been excellent not only at performing his duties, but also at reporting how it felt to him to do so. Anne had fallen in love with him, and they married before Dee's first mission. Before Anne truly understood what it meant to be a psyship pilot, for despite all her research and conjecture, she didn't foresee that a pilot would feel better in a metal skin than he did in his own.

Rob floated up the corridor. "Almost ready," he said.

"Where will I be sitting?" Anne asked.

"Up front," Rob said. "Take either seat."

She pulled herself along the corridor, gaining confidence in zero g. Her worries about meeting Dee had, until now, eclipsed her nervousness about the actual flight. She took a deep breath and entered the front compartment.

In a normal ship, the crew sat in the front with a whole host of switches and screens to operate. The point of the psyship program was to run the entire ship with one person, so the front compartment here was a comfortable, carpeted room with two chairs outfitted with restraining straps. Through the window, Anne could see the Earth and part of the docking station. Below that was a single screen that allowed the psypilot to interact with the passengers. No flight controls in sight. Dee would be doing the flying.

She picked the chair on the left, pulled herself down, and worked at the straps.

"Dee?" she said.

The screen in front of her flickered to life, and a digital rendition of Dee's face appeared. "Yes?"

"Did all of my stuff get delivered?"

"Yup. Your clothes and personal stuff are in your cabin."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome," said Dee. The screen went black.

"Dee?" said Anne.

He appeared again on the screen. "Yeah?"

Anne wanted to say something like, "I'm sorry it turned out how it did," or "how are you really," but said only a couple of words that had been a private joke during the short time they were married. "Drive safe."

Dee chuckled. "You got it."

Six days later, Dee could scan the psyship in question. Thomas.

The ship was dark and tumbling very slowly. Dee sent Thomas a burst in the language psypilots had developed over their decade of existence, and waited for an answer. None came.

Anne was in her cabin. Dee told her that Thomas was a half hour away, then told Rob in the foredeck that he'd be able to get him a good picture in a few minutes.

"Any obvious damage?" asked Rob.

"Can't tell yet. He's completely dark," said Dee.

From her cabin, Anne asked, "Any contact?"

"No, but I won't stop trying," said Dee.

Rob asked about the ship, Anne asked about the man. Dee chuckled. To them, psyships were person and craft, but to Dee, they were one. Can they possibly understand? The thought, like so many other thoughts, brought him to Anne and the familiar pang of guilt.

Dee focused to the limit of his instruments. Still dark, but he could make out a bit of detail on Thomas's hull. As it tumbled, the antenna came into view -- a small dish protruding from the ship's side, fragile as can be. It looked intact. He willed the image to appear on the screen in the foredeck.

"You see that?" said Dee.

"Yeah, I'm looking at it now," said Rob. "No damage that I can make out. Foresee any trouble docking?"

"I've calculated trajectory, and have adjusted," said Dee. "It should be smooth."

As they moved closer, Anne joined Rob in the forward compartment. Dee listened as Rob pointed several things out to her when details emerged.

Dee matched rotation with Thomas. Both ships were identical, except that Thomas was carrying a cargo container attached to his underside. Dee reached out with his docking ring and grabbed the other ship. He used two of his grappling arms, one in front and one in back, to hold Thomas tight. He then pulled closer before extending the tunnel that would allow Anne and Rob to move between the ships. After pressurizing the tunnel, he used two additional arms to open Thomas's hatch. There was a very brief hiss as the door opened.

"Sounds like the pressure is Okay," he said.

He fastened the door open and retracted his arms.