Torchship (11 page)

The bailiffs parted to let
the young man’s parents embrace him. The brief conversation seemed to consist
of variations on “sorry” from both sides. Another team of bailiffs set up a
contraption with a short white pillar in the center. When the time was up two
large bailiffs took him by the arms and set him on the pillar. Clear panels
rose up to surround him in a soundproof cylinder. He slumped against the side. Then
a brief hum came from the machine as his body liquefied and drained into the
tank below him. His mother fainted.

“Shit!” exclaimed Mitchie.

“What were you expecting?”
asked Billy.

“For a first offense? A
little mercy. He’d never been in trouble before.”

“This is Demeter. They get
hit with AI probes two-three times a year. They don’t leave any slack on that.”

“Goddamn straight,” injected
the explaining stranger. “Miracle we’ve lasted as long as we have.” He walked
off.

Mitchie kept watching as the bailiffs
packed up the apparatus of the court and flew off. “Um, Billy, I don’t think I’m
in the mood for dancing any more.”

“Nah. Neither is anybody else
probably. Everybody at the club is just going to babbling about this all night
instead of going out on the floor.” Billy sighed. “I’ll walk you back.”

***

The next night Billy finally came through on his promise to
explain Fusion-world socializing. Indirect searches could reveal a lot about
someone without triggering a notice that they were being observed. The true key
to social success, according to Billy, was to get other people to do searches
on you. The notices let you know who was interested. You’d do a bit of indirect
to see which ones you wanted to follow up with. Then real searches to send a
notice to the ones you had some mutual interest with. After that you saw who
had the nerve to make the first real contact.

Mitchie hadn’t decided if he believed all that or had just
made it up as an elaborate way to get her out on the dance floor with him. She had
a good time either way. Billy took full advantage of her size to not just twirl
her around but toss her over his head. Working with him in free fall and
varying accelerations let her relax and trust him now. It’s not like there was
a chance of him slipping and dropping her in Demeter’s lighter gravity. He
moved perfectly to the music. She only had to follow his lead or flow into his
tosses.

Eventually she needed a break. When the music switched to a
slower song she mimed drinking at Billy. He nodded, set her down, and led off
the dance floor. She’d been too caught up in the movement to pay attention to
the other dancers before. Now she was surrounded by smiles and inaudible
clapping hands. Mitchie smiled and waved back. As they moved off the dance
floor onto the carpeting the music volume dropped to background levels. The
buzzing in her chest went away. The conversations around them were still
muffled. Her ears would need a bit to recover.

Billy seated her at an empty table and leaned in to talk to
her. “I told you you’d be a great dancer. Can you imagine the attention we’d be
getting if we’d rehearsed that?”

His exultant grin hit Mitchie like a punch to the belly. She
was actually starting to feel tempted.
No more dancing with Billy tonight
,
she decided.

They pulled out their datasheets and ordered drinks. Both
sheets were covered with search notifications. Billy began scrolling through
his. Mitchie ignored hers. She surveyed the crowd.

A group of leather-jacketed men had come in. They shoved a
couple of tables together. Mitchie saw one’s back and burst out laughing. She
elbowed Billy. “That’s great!”

He looked puzzled. “What’s that on their jackets? Looks like
housefly wings.”

“Yep, exactly,” she said. “They’re fighter pilots on the
anti-AI patrols.”

“What’s that got to do with bugs?”

Mitchie rolled her eyes. “Old joke. Little boys pull the
wings off flies for the fun of it. Scientists dissect flies for data. But it’s
all the same to the flies.”

“Oh,” said Billy. “So it’s an AI motivation joke? I never
got into those arguments. The whole point is humans can’t understand them, so
why bother?”

“It’s not about that. It’s the pilots being the flies.” She
gave up trying to explain it to him. “I’m going to say hi to them.” Mitchie
hopped down and crossed over to the pilots. They were loudly debating the beer
choices. No one noticed her walking up. Her head didn’t clear their shoulders.
Inserting herself into the argument would take a loud shout. Instead she
punched the tallest under the short ribs.

“Hey!” The pilot looked for someone to punch back, glancing
left and right before looking down. His glare softened as he saw Mitchie’s face.

“What’s with the bug wings?” she asked.

Billy saw her get seated as the pilots settled down. A lithe
woman then distracted him from his crewmate by demanding to know which Old
Earth traditions he’d drawn on for his dance moves. He ordered drinks and
leaned in to explain. “I’m drawing on two different traditions. My father was
Bantu. He met my mother at a dance competition. She was with a Tamil troupe. I
grew up learning both.”

Explanations turned into demonstrations on the dance floor,
then more drinks. Eventually Billy accepted her suggestion to go elsewhere. As
they headed out they passed Mitchie drinking with the fighter pilots. “So you
just sit there waiting for them to pop out and zap you? I should embroider a
duck on your jackets. A fluffy, yellow, sitting, baby duck.”

“We’re not sitting,” protested a pilot. “We run an
ever-changing—” Billy shook his head and moved on. Pilots were crazy. He could
think of much better things to talk about with a girl than work.

***

Mitchie leaned against the wall of the nightclub. She
watched the other dancers while catching her breath. A couple of them glanced
her way, possibly hoping she’d come back to the pattern. She looked at her data
sheet. The usual number of search notifications. Including, finally, one from
the man she’d been curious about. She’d done some indirect searching, finding
out all she could about him without triggering a notification.

Now she initiated a prepared search. Half a dozen queries at
once would only give him one notice. She skimmed through the results. Her
guesses had been right. She wanted to meet Chetty Meena. Another notice popped
up on her sheet. He had done more research on her.
They sure know how to
flirt in the Fusion
. Some men would keep an exchange of searches going for
hours. Mitchie didn’t have the patience for that. She walked over to Chetty’s
table. “Hi. Don’t bother searching more. I’m an offworlder. Not in the
database.”

Chetty blushed a bit—probably just shy—and said, “Hello,
Michigan. There’s more than you might think. The Navy said your flying saved
the ship from that pirate.”

Her turn to blush. “The newsies exaggerate. I just ran away
to buy time for the Navy to show up.” She’d been impressed by how few details
of the incident had gotten out. “Do you read up on pilots a lot, Chetty?”

“No. I wondered why you had such a presence on the dance
floor. Does flying make you a better dancer?”

“They’re not directly related. I have a good kinesthetic
sense which helps with both.” She shifted the conversation to his dancing
ability, or lack thereof. ‘Chet’ was competent at strictly choreographed dances
but had no talent for the free-form dancing popular in the clubs. Analyzing the
hows and whys of that took up most of dinner at a nearby seafood place. With a
detour into describing the hazards of fishing on Akiak (mostly hypothermia).

Angel Creek Park was one block over. A stroll to settle
dinner was so obvious neither needed to suggest it. They went hand-in-hand into
the park. A couple of klicks upstream they stopped to admire a waterfall. Chet
led her off the path for a better view. Then he lost interest in nature and
began kissing her, even more competently than she’d hoped. Mitchie held him
tight as he explored her neck. “Um, wait. What’s that?” She pointed to her
left.

Chet glanced that way. “Oh, just an observation bot.” He
leaned in to kiss her lips. She closed her eyes and opened to the kiss. A few
pleasant minutes later she peeked.

“Chet, it’s still watching us.”

He straightened up. “Well, they’re attracted to heat and
movement. We’re the only interesting thing around.”

“I don’t like being watched.”

“Nobody’s watching. It just records. If nobody makes a
complaint the images get overwritten in 24 hours. Nobody’s going to see that
record.”

“Okay, I guess that’s all right.” Mitchie pulled him to her.
A few more minutes went by before she stepped back. The plastic sphere still
hovered a dozen meters away. “I’m sorry. I can’t ignore it. It’s a Disconnect
thing, we’re too used to privacy. Can we find some place to be alone? Your
place?”

“We can go to my place, but I’ve got a roommate so no alone
time there.”

“I’m staying in a coffin at the spacer hostel. I don’t think
we’d both
fit
in it.”

Chet had popped his HUD glasses back on. “I know there’s
some nice hotels in the area. Let me see if there’s any rooms open. . . . Ack.”

“No rooms?”

“The price depends on how far in advance you make your
reservation. The ‘now’ price is steep. Um. I can afford to get a room for
tomorrow night.”

Mitchie slid her hands under his shirt. “Chet, all night
I’ve been waiting for my sheet to beep with my captain saying, ‘Got a cargo,
get back to the ship and plot a course.’ I don’t know if I’ll be here tomorrow
night.”

“Um. Right. Sorry. Well. Um. My office has soft carpet?”

She kissed him. “Sounds great.”

The floater ride to the Operational Analysis Institute had
more chatting than kissing. Naturally his work there came up. If Chet had hoped
to impress her it backfired.

“You play games.”

“They’re not games, they’re simulations,” he said
defensively.

“You don’t want to be one of the guys just drawing his
stipend and spending it on games. So you’re getting a salary to play them
and
getting the Navy to buy your games for you. I’m impressed. You looked like such
an honest guy. What a con.” She was pretty sure a junior analyst’s salary was
lower than the stipend though.

“It’s serious work. The Navy bases important decisions on
our results. Lives are at stake.” He paused to deal with the building’s
security codes.

“I’m a ‘research associate’?” Mitchie giggled.

“Yes. You described how piloting worked in variable
acceleration. That’s useful for me.”

“Oh, good. I’d hate to think I’ve been wasting your time.”
That got her a kiss instead of an argument.

Chet was still irked enough by the games crack that he fired
up his console when they got to his office. His current project was a
simulation of an AI attack on Demeter. Attack drones engaged the Navy defenders
at the gate while data probes skittered past toward the planet. Mitchie avoided
connecting the vanishing dots to the pilots she’d been drinking with. Chet lectured
on how the Navy’s deployment needed to be changed to handle multiple-intensity
attacks.

Mitchie stood behind his chair and rubbed her breasts on the
back of his head. Chet shut up. “Sweetie, you’re right, that’s brilliant and
important and I’m impressed. But it’s not what I came here for.”

He swiveled in the chair, grabbed her, and laid her down on
the carpet. They made love by the light of clashing fleets in the holographic
display.

***

Afterwards Chet lay beside her, an arm and leg wrapped
around her, as he drifted toward sleep. Mitchie whispered affectionate words at
him as his breathing slowed. She reached out for her discarded clothing and
pulled it to her. The pocket of her jacket held a sampler pack she’d gotten
from the nightclub vending machine. The Fusion’s paranoia about data technology
didn’t overflow into pharmaceuticals. Adults could alter their brain chemistry
any way they wanted. She popped out the sedative capsule from the pack. Timing
it for an inhalation she crushed it under Chet’s nose. He sucked in a puff of
green mist. His breathing started to deepen. The empty capsule went back in her
pocket. When he was soundly asleep she stood up.

Her dress went on the seat of Chet’s chair. She donned her
jacket and took a write-once data crystal out of her pocket. She could access
the files without needing to interrupt the simulation. The OAI network had a “Naval
Systems Reports” directory. Under that were a set of directories by topic: “Human
vs. AI Probe,” “Human vs. AI Sortie,” “Human vs. AI Assault,” “Human vs. AI
Offensive,” and “Human vs. Human.” The last was immediately copied onto her
write-once. Mitchie went back up the list copying files over until the crystal
was full.

She carefully put the console back to how Chet had left it.
She stripped and cuddled up to Chet again. She laid her clothes over her
Chet-free side for warmth. It’d be a few hours until he woke up. She might as
well be comfortable.

***

Alois Schwartzenberger dealt with insurance paperwork over a
restaurant dinner. Bing had dumped her damage claim onto him the moment the
company disputed something. He took the chance to squeeze them for all the keys
he hadn’t been able to get out of the shipyard. The adjustor hadn’t let him get
away with double-billing anything the shipyard would fix. His best leverage was
Bing’s marketing plan. She’d invested her retirement savings in an estate sale.
The porcelain would have gone for 5-10 times that when delivered to Corcyra.
The insurance company had offered to reimburse the original purchase price.
Schwartzenberger was still holding out for in-kind replacement with equivalent
sale value. The adjustor sounded a bit frayed in the last message. Possibly
there was pressure coming from Bobbie’s end of things. If they broke down and
issued a cash payment for the expected sale value Bing wouldn’t complain.