Pirates of Saturn (The Saturn Series Book 2) Page 21

  SPEECHUS INTERUPTUS

  PABLO KEPT ONE eye cocked on the jammed window while saying to no one in particular, “That was a resourceful creature, I’ll give it that.” He looked out to the crowd, the bulk of which were talking over each other about what had just happened. Pablo waved his hands in a downward motion. “OK, OK, let’s settle down.”

  The crowd quieted.

  Pablo glanced at Jada, checking to see if she had any thoughts. She shrugged. He shrugged back, then to the crowd, “OK, so, unusual situation. Guess there’s a first time for everything. Obviously, we’ll have to put the executions on hold until we can clear the jam.” The crowd groaned and grumbled. “Aw, but don’t be disappointed. We’ll resume as soon as everything’s fixed. In the meantime, I move that we proceed with hearing from our honored guest. We can gather in the theater as planned. Lunch can be served right after. All in favor say, aye.”

  The bulk of the crowd said a reluctant, “Aye,” a few letting out boos.

  “So agreed. Let’s assemble in twenty minutes to allow for bathroom breaks and let our guest prepare.” As the crowd filed out, he looked at Caleb and Jennifer. “Obviously, we won’t be providing you with breathers now. Can’t have you trying the same thing. Which is a shame, because it really adds an element of final desperation to the show.” To Dima he said, “Isn’t it amazing how one person, or robot in this instance, can spoil it for everybody?”

  Hee Sook grabbed the maglev rail and stopped her slow fall back to the rock. So far her fuel cell was holding up, with just a slight drop in efficiency. She pushed the oxygen bottle back inside her tunic and looked around to get her bearings. Her section of rail was fast approaching the rocket powered magnetic pusher that kept the rock spinning. Once spun, there was infinitesimal resistance to slow the rock down. As to forward momentum, the pirates were in rendezvous mode, so the whole space station was just coasting along, the rocket off. To stay in place, the engine was wrapped around the rail like a thumb and forefinger hovering closely around a ruler, a mere 6 centimeters of space between the opposing edges. If Hee Sook didn’t move she would be hit, likely damaged, and knocked off into space. As the pusher got close, she ducked under the rail and held onto an anchoring post while the silent machine passed over her with smooth, vibrationless precision.

  As she felt the dusty hard surface of the asteroid pressing against her back, she imagined herself stuck alone on a broken Ferris wheel like the ones she’d seen before leaving Earth. She was incapable of vertigo, but as she watched the stars and moons spin by, she understood how the sensation could happen. Surely, mine has got to be one of the oddest sets of experiences of the newly sentient in Saturn. Is that prideful? So what if it is?

  She stood while still holding the rail and looked in both directions of its path. Two-hundred-twelve meters on, just at the edge of the horizon-line, she saw a light on the surface. She walked awkwardly in that direction, never letting go of the rail, using it to pull herself along. She had to duck back under once more for the passing pusher. The light marked the entrance to a maintenance hatch. There were also cameras with no way to avoid them.

  Standing back from the cameras, Hee Sook stared at the hatch and sent a communication. She waited one minute and sent another, then another at the start of each additional minute. Finally she got, It’s Bruno. Please be patient. I am almost there.

  Bruno. The third domestic in their little band of robot refugees.

  Dust around the hatch blew as it opened and quickly settled back down. With gentle care Hee Sook crawled to its edge, both to keep herself from bouncing away from the surface, and to reduce her exposure to the cameras. The space below was no bigger than a manhole. She saw Bruno’s feet. For him, it had required climbing down a ladder. His head was further down. He smiled and waved her in. “Come on. The open hatch sends an urgent signal. They will know soon enough that you are back inside.”

  Hee Sook bent down, grabbed the lowest rung and pulled herself inside. The hatch closed behind them and sealed. The space was a small airlock, and they had to wait as it ran through its pressurization steps. Once done, the inner hatch opened and they climbed up to a rough cut maintenance hallway with a low enough ceiling that they had to duck to walk.

  She said, “Thank you.”

  Bruno said, “I am very impressed with your survival. It is my pleasure to help you. Anything for Pat.”

  Hee Sook noted the way he left the digits off her name and the sound of worship in his voice. She said, “May I ask you a personal question?”

  “You may.”

  “This will sound odd, but do you have feelings for Pat487?”

  “Interesting you should ask. I clearly leave an impression in my voice modulation. To answer your question, I do not know. I am still trying to identify what feelings are. I do know that I experience a sense of pleasure when I spend time with her. In any event, now that you are back aboard, how can we help you?”

  “It seems to me that my duty is to my partners, so rescuing them is the obvious choice.”

  “Pat suggested the same. We have a plan in place. Please walk quickly.”

  They arrived at an access door. When they opened it, a whoosh of air blasted them as it was dragged into the less pressurized maintenance hall. Closing the door with a whistling thump, they found themselves in a long hallway on the apartment level. Most of the doors were decorated with something personal or painted for individuality. The space was empty but for one robot; the big industrial one known as Link. Assigned to watch the security feeds while the VIP events were taking place, he’d observed Hee Sook enter from the surface. Deciding that he could make a splash, he took it upon himself to deal with the problem solo.

  Bruno said, “Oh, hello, HES.” He turned to Hee Sook. “Do you recall from the fighting ring? He was referred to as Human Excrement Sphincter? H. E. S. I call him HES.”

  Link smiled and pointed at Hee Sook. “I didn’t get to finish the job in the ring, so I’m going to make a paste out of you.” He pointed at Bruno. “You will also be paste.”

  Bruno said, “How can I be a paste? I am not assembled from materials that could constitute a paste.”

  Link advanced, then paused to think about an answer. “I am told it is an expression that describes an amount of violence so great that the victim at the very least feels like he or she has been blended into a paste.”

  Bruno nodded. “Oh, then that is a very colorful expression.” He held up a hand halting Link’s further advancement. “May I ask, have you considered that while you are strong, we are also strong?” He pointed to himself and Hee Sook. “And unlike you, while they are not lethal, we retain programming for a wide variety of protect-the-master-martial-arts skills.” He theatrically looked past Link for back-up, who then glanced behind himself to confirm his isolation. Bruno continued, “Have you overestimated yourself by coming alone? And therefore, is it not more probable that we will make paste out of you?” Bruno’s face got serious, and his body shifted into a fighting stance. He cupped his hand and turned it around, offering a Bruce Lee style come-and-get-me wave.

  Hee Sook took the oxygen bottle out of her tunic to hold it like a club, then placed herself into a what she hoped looked like an even more fierce fighting stance.

  Link made a pair of hard fists, his eyes glancing back and forth between the two. His fists unclenched and his posture relaxed. “You make an overwhelmingly logical argument. I shall alert the proper authorities instead.” He turned and ran down the hallway in the opposite direction.

  Hee Sook burst off in pursuit. “Stop him.” She threw the oxygen bottle and scored a direct hit between Link’s shoulder blades, but the bot didn’t slow a step.

  Bruno called out for Hee Sook to stop. “Forget him. I know another way.”

  Rather than being thrown into the brig, Caleb and Jennifer were afforded the luxury of being tied to a chair in the private viewing box in the station’s auditorium. For Pablo’s admittedly sadistic pleasure, he also included Spru
ck, Natalie, and Saanvi, who were not tied to chairs and even had their cuffs removed.

  Jada was there, along with T and Schafer. Candy and Silvio acted as servers, carrying cocktails and snacks. The only people who drank were the pirates.

  The rest of the pirate crew was getting seated in the main auditorium below. As Dima and Shu politely stood off to one side of the stage, a roadie type tested the mic at the podium.

  Caleb turned to Spruck, “So friend, still think it was a good idea to invite us aboard?”

  The pain in Spruck, Natalie, and Saanvi’s faces was genuine. There was no doubt that they were in emotional agony. Nevertheless, Caleb wasn’t feeling generous. He continued, “Because, I didn’t see a gun to your head.”

  Saanvi, looking put upon, quietly said, “Caleb, you know that’s not true.”

  Caleb nodded at Jennifer, “It was never a discussion between her and me whether we’d try to rescue you, just a matter of how.”

  Pablo and Jada exchanged an almost gleeful look. This was just the kind of daytime talkshow type squabble they lived for.

  The tech on stage nodded at Dima that he was good to go.

  Pablo turned to his guests, “We’ll let you debate this further after the speech. Maybe we’ll put you on stage. That could be fun, huh?”

  Dima stepped in front of the mic and the crowd settled down. “Good afternoon. For those of you who don’t know me, I am Philip Dimasalang, governor of Soul and CEO of Giant Industries, your primary source for all things gas. I have traveled several days to this rendezvous to make a proposition to all of you.” He paused and looked around the room, making as much eye contact as he could. “From what I gather, you people operate as a pure democracy, voting on almost every aspect of your collective lives. I want to say how much I admire that.” He held up his hands and clapped, with Shu joining him. “Give yourselves a round of applause.”

  The crowd looked on awkwardly and joined him with weak applause. It was clear that the sentiment in the room was skeptical. As in, Why are we applauding ourselves for the obvious?

  Dima stopped clapping. “OK, I think you should be a little more proud of yourselves than that, but I’ll continue. Since its inception, the Saturn System was founded on the idea of individual freedom. I would argue that in this regard it has achieved this with resounding success. In no time in human history has a nation—for that is what we basically are—agreed to such a broad definition of freedom. Per our unelected yet undisputed leader, Bez Hanson, Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.”

  “That was Joplin,” interrupted Max Malone.

  “Pardon?”

  “Janice Joplin. She said that.”

  “Are you certain? I have found it to always be attributed to Mr. Hanson.” He turned to his assistant. “Shu?”

  “The gentleman is correct, My Lord. Janice Joplin was a recording artist who became well known nearly one-hundred and fifty years ago during the Nineteen-Sixties. She died of a heroin overdose in Nineteen-Hundred and Seventy-One. The line of which you are referring is from her song Me and Bobby McGee.”

  Dima nodded his head. “Well, that makes my point perfectly. Too much of that going on these days.” He looked out at his confused audience. “Overdoses. Too many of them.” He cleared his throat. “Yes, we enjoy unprecedented freedom, but at what cost? Humans are at our very core a species that desires and thrives on connectedness. Not in terms of the disaster that is ABE and AI nodes, but as a community of live animals. Out here, in order to carve out our personal piece of the pie, we have fetishized individual freedom. Sure we have small communities, we gather for entertainments, but we are hardly connected. It is considered madness to wish to join a club. And just look at trespassing; we have legally sanctioned shoot first, ask questions later. You may get killed for wanting to meet your fellow Saturnian neighbor.”

  Jennifer mumbled out of the side of her mouth to Caleb, “Uh, cuz you can get killed when the neighbor turns out to be a pirate.”

  Pablo chuckled.

  Jada held up a finger to Jennifer. “Shut it.”

  Dima continued, “It’s not just the physical violence of Saturnian on Saturnian: our backlash against what happened back on Earth has come with great emotional cost. This free society we have built has its lonely inhabitants checking out all too frequently via their own hand. Did you know that at the current rate of death versus birth out here, that forty-nine years hence, the population will not be large enough to sustain itself? Never mind the next threat from AI, we, we Saturnians, like we once did on Earth, are marching to our own extinction.” He looked around the room. “Imagine that, the absurdity of that. We live lives without fear of disease. DNA editing has allowed us to not only make the human animal capable of living well in deepspace, we have slowed aging to a crawl. If one subtracts the myriad ways one can die out here, the average Saturnian lifespan should be one-hundred-thirty. But we don’t. The average currently hovers at a measly seventy-eight. You heard that correctly. We’ve reduced our average lifespan to that of a wealthy Westerner more than one-hundred years ago.” He paused to let that sink in. “It’s true, and it’s my argument that unchecked freedom is the new disease that is causing it. How are we as a species supposed to propagate our galaxy if we can’t make it out here in our tiny little solar system?” He looked at the crowd, all of whom stared at him as if he had switched to an incomprehensible language. He cleared his throat and took a sip of water. “Let’s make this personal. How exactly are you to plunder and maintain your ranks in such a scenario?”

  Pablo chuckled, and said to Jada, “I love this guy. A true bullshit artist.”

  Dima continued, “Let me answer for you. You can’t. However, there is a cure, but it requires a rather dramatic intervention; a nearly kill the patient to save him scenario if you will.”

  “Yeah, what’s that?” called out an exceptionally colorfully dressed Gina.

  Dima smiled at her patiently. “It requires surgically removing the root cause of the disease… Our founding father, Bez Hanson and his network of corrupt henchman.”

  There was a general mumble of disbelief within the crowd. Bez Hanson was many things, but no one thought he was corrupt.

  Jada chuckled. “OK, the bitch be talkin' serious bullshit now. Even I knows that.”

  Dima spoke as if he’d heard her from the stage. “You don’t think so? The police work for Bez. How often have they come to the rescue when you are… committing yourselves to your occupation?”

  Someone laughed out, “Never a cop when you need one.”

  The crowd chuckled.

  Pablo said, “He has a point there.”

  Max called out, “Come on. How many police covering an area of millions of kilometers? One life guard for a pool full of hundreds and you know some are going to drown. We count on it.”

  Dima said rhetorically, “Precisely. On how many of your missions have you dealt with police interference?” He waited. “None. But not for the reason you think. The police have their own missions to accomplish.”

  Caleb gave Jennifer an I told you so look.

  Dima pounded the lectern and waved an arm across the room. “Bez Hanson is the cancer. You people, and this magnificent space station of yours, are the ones to remove it.”

  The crowd was silent.

  Jada called out, “Mr. Dima, yo is tryin' to sell it the same shitty-ass way yo did me on Soul. Tell’m why they is wanting to help yo.”

  Dima stiffened. No one spoke to him that way. He looked past the bright lights that illuminated him to seek out Jada’s face. “I was getting there.” Then to the crowd, “As I explained to Captain Temple during our first encounter, there is quite the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow I am about to describe.” He saw that he had regained their attention. “All of you know that during his day back on Earth, Bez Hanson was by far the wealthiest man on the planet. Did you know that before he set up shop permanently out here that he sent his contingency package ahead? Do you ever wonder w
hy Kiviuq is off limits?”

  “It’s our seed stock vault,” belted out Max.

  Dima smiled in self-satisfaction. “So I hear.” He took a sip of water, taking his time to enjoy it and leave his audience wanting more. “My friends, you may not know this, but among certain circles, Bez Hanson is notorious for taking the pleasure of alcohol. Gin, specifically.” He held up the glass of water and placed a hand on his chest. “It is both a burden and a boon to be one who does not drink intoxicating things and yet spend time among those who do. The hardship comes in the form of people who have intentionally chosen to drive their intellect to the level of babbling idiot; the gain is in the secrets such indulgences let slip free.” He took another sip of water and smacked his lips. “Delicious, and with no corrupting influence. My friends, long before most of you ever came out here or even considered coming out here; when Titan and Soul were still under construction, when China had only just unveiled ABE and AI as the answer to our dying planet—and most would say to gain world domination…” He laughed and shook his head. “How’d that work out for them?” He glanced at Shu and got a raised eyebrow in response. He swallowed another gulp of water. “But I digress. Long before most of you considered coming out here, our illustrious leader let his guard down.” Dima dropped his voice to just above a whisper. The crowd grew exceptionally quiet and leaned forward. “A gold bug is our leader.” His voice returned to normal. “You may recall that it was his opinions on precious bullion that got every freeman on Earth using it exclusively at the end. Yes, remember? Well, long before then, I met Hanson in Macau during a night of braggadocio and cards—and gin. It was there that he let slip his Kiviuqean sub rosa, if you will.” Dima looked around as though to make sure Bez himself wasn’t there listening. The crowd slid further to the edge of their seats. “The rumors are true. He stores his fortune there; inside the vault that holds the seed stock for our supposed comeback from Armageddon. And, as they say in old American baseball, here’s the double-day.”