CollisionWithParadise (3 page)

Genevieve blinked several times on screen, obviously shaken by his brash assault. She remembered being surprised by his open abuse. The “ripping off of legs” was certainly in full gear now.

“The asshole,” she murmured, pushing back from the ship’s console. She felt tendrils of rage grip her even now and tried very hard to blank out that same fear he was referring to. “I should have punched him in the face right then.”

Meantime, Genevieve on screen regained her composure and formulated an answer. “Despite what the press kept trying to fabricate, there was no reason to believe that the explosion that took the crew of Prometheus IV had anything to do with the planet or the Eosians. There’s absolutely no evidence of a deliberate hostile action on their part or an incitement to altercation or war. They assured us of that and provided their heart-felt condolences.”

“Sure.” Trip nodded with a skeptical frown. “But there remains the fact that, despite our prolonged communication with the Eosians, no one from Earth has ever successfully landed on Eos or met with them face to face,” he pointed out. “Prometheus II and Vega I both met with disastrous ends journeying to Eos prior to your husband’s mission. Doesn’t
that
make you nervous?”

“No,” she said. “Both of those accidents were easily explained.”

“Technically, yes. But coincidentally they
were
heading for Eos and just out of orbit with the planet when disaster hit. Aren’t you nervous that the statistics are against you?”

“No. I’m not superstitious. Besides, there were inherent problems with those two series of vessels of which we are now aware. The new ZAC series is totally different. First of all, the ship is equipped with a new bio-film plasma shield technology that should ensure against any hypervelocity impacts that we are likely to run across in the giant nebula of the Pleiades system. Second, it’s sentient and its organic-quantum structure is maintained by a sophisticated network of nano-machine/biology. “

“Oh, yes,” he sneered. “The ship uses dream waves for fuel. So, tell me about the way you generate power for the ship while you’re asleep. Isn’t Zeta Corp using an adapted old virt game suit that taps into your dreams?” It was a safe technical question, but Trip’s predatory smile warned her that he was leading her, yet again, astray.

“We rely on REM sleep to activate theta rhythm, which is generated in the dentate gyrus, a part of the hippocampus in the brain,” she explained. “Several parts of the brain are involved in theta rhythm. The brain stem transmits signals to the septum, which then activates TR in the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex. It was discovered almost a century ago that we generate new neurons and process them as we go along under REM sleep. That’s why infants need four times the REM sleep as adults, because that’s when they build neurons, under theta rhythm. So, while the theta rhythm wave we generate during REM is tapped into by the nano-sensors of the
jack
suit and transferred via the neural network into wave energy for the ship, we benefit by building new neurons.”

“Which can make you even smarter than you already are,” Trip said, clearly smirking.

Genevieve ignored the smirk and went on, “The
jack
suit houses over a billion nano-sensors, which communicate between our bodies and the ship’s own organic neural network. The sensors do more than tap into our brainwaves. They also feed us and keep us clean while in hibernation. And, like I mentioned earlier, they keep us in REM and guide us through our active dreams to keep our muscles and cardiovascular systems well exercised.”

“Like being in a mother’s womb,” Trip remarked.

He was a lot closer to the truth than he realized, she thought. While
jacked
in hibe she depended on the suit’s environmental system to feed her, provide her with comfort and remove her wastes. So she fed and evacuated as effortlessly and unconsciously as she breathed, just like a baby in her mother’s womb.

The Genevieve onscreen smiled tightly and offered a light-hearted remark, “In fact the section where all the hibe chambers are located is affectionately known by the crew and ship as the nursery.”

“So what do you dream about?”

Genevieve’s face coloured onscreen. “I can’t say,” she responded evenly. “All manner of things.”

“Like sex, sex, and more sex!” Genevieve jerked forward and yelled at her screen image.

She remembered deciding to make him uncomfortable: “What do
you
dream about?” she asked Trip.

“About sex,” he said without hesitation and grinned with obvious pleasure, hand touching her knee. “Especially with beautiful women, someone like you, for instance.”

“What a creep!” Genevieve yelled. She watched herself redden and twitch her leg out of his grasp. She remembered thinking that he was much better at this mind game shit than she was.

His eyes twinkled and he went on, “So, what if you have a nightmare? You could have it for…well…weeks!”

“It isn’t that simple. First of all, each crew member undergoes an extensive psychological examination that’s filed with the ship. The
jack
sensors monitor and guide our REM sessions.”

“You mean they tell you what to dream?”

“Not exactly. It’s like hypnosis. They can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. But if you’re heading into a bad cycle, they can mediate and help you work your way out of it.” It was actually a lot more complicated than that, with many more levels of optional persuasion available to a
jack
dreamer, but she wasn’t about to tell him. She hadn’t exactly lied, either. What she’d told Jonathon Trip was essentially the truth
—
she just hadn’t shared all the details. For instance, that the nano-sensors could take her anywhere and provide her with any sensation. And she could order them up like a chocolate Sundae in a fast food take-out, “dial-a-dream”. It was still up to her to react, though. Of course, knowing her psychological makeup gave Zac an edge in manipulating her emotions during
jack
-dreams. An edge she counted on.

“Hang on,” Trip waved a hand and pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Okay, so you say they can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, but what’s stopping them from persuading you that you do want to do those things by preying on your weaknesses?”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” she said. “Mainly because of the way AIs think. And the code of conduct they’ve been programmed with. They don’t think like humans, so they would never conceive of such an idea, to persuade us and use us to their advantage. They don’t have those kinds of ambitions.”

Genevieve stiffened briefly as she listened to her confident, but naive explanation from a year ago. She hadn’t missed Cheryl’s oblique reference to the anthropogenic propensity of Genevieve’s programming and its implied potential for eroding Zac’s judgment. The newscaster had said as much, they were concerned about the mission. Would Zeta shut them down? They were so close to Eos! And so close to where Dan’s ship had met its mishap.

Trip leaned back and stared through her as if he hadn’t listened to her response. When his eyes refocused, they gleamed. His finger pointed at her emphatically, “Didn’t they actually discontinue those virt suits because they were designed for x-rated experiences?” he pressed on. “Surely that isn’t what the
jack
suit does with your ship’s crew?”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” she said, face burning again. Genevieve remembered telling herself that she didn’t know exactly what the rest of the crew dreamed, although she’d already had a good idea back then. “You’d have to ask them. Our dreams are unique to each of us.”

He nodded with a sly smile. He hadn’t believed her for a moment and thrust from a different direction. “I recall that they discontinued those virt suits because of nasty and inappropriate side effects.” He paused for a moment, knife-sharp eyes interrogating her, and giving her a chance to elaborate. She remained silent. “If I remember correctly,” Trip went on, “the story goes that the users became intensely sensitive to any physical stimuli on their skin. The slightest touch after a virt experience of sufficient length could set them off into uncontrolled sexual arousal. Some claimed it hurt them to wear any clothing.”

Genevieve glanced at Zac’s camera and shrugged with a stupid grin.

“Very inappropriate incidents occurred, like kids leaving the rec centre naked,” Trip continued. “They came on to strangers and became sexually aggressive when touched. They masturbated or fornicated in public. Everywhere
—
on street corners, in malls, stores, transit stations, lifts and moving transit cars, oblivious to the appalled people staring at them. They caused disturbances, even riots.” He’d leaned forward and Genevieve saw herself stiffen, knowing what he was going to ask her next. “So, how does your
jack
suit differ from the original virt suit?”

Not much, she thought wryly.

“I admit that we are definitely more sensitive to touch when we come out of
jack
-time,” Genevieve on screen said. “That’s because our skin has been stimulated by the nano-sensors for so long.”

“And the skin is your largest organ,” Trip said enthusiastically.

Genevieve on screen agreed with the energetic reporter and added, “But it in no way interferes with our duties.”

“A lot you knew back then,” Zac snorted.

Zac was right. She was pretty much an idiot for the first few hours after emerging from
jack
-time, especially coming out of extensive
jack
in hibe.

After another awkward pause, Trip leaned back in his chair and tried a different approach. “Don’t you all get out of shape, lying in the suit for so long during hibernation?”

“No, we’re in hibernation, but we’re not comatose,” she countered. “Like I said earlier, we’re pretty much just dreaming, more like sleep-walking. So we act out our active dreams with the guidance of
jack
, and get a really good workout, running and walking, etc., while actually floating in negative G in a well-padded room. Zeta’s stats suggest that on average we use up five hundred calories a day during hibe sleep. Sometimes we emerge with bruises from bumping around so much.”

“I can’t believe I said that with a straight face!” Genevieve snorted at her image on the screen. “It’s called sex, sex and more sex!”

“Wow! Pretty energetic dreams.” Trip raised his brows for punctuation. “Have you ever bruised yourself?”

“On occasion,” she answered coyly.

Genevieve barked a sharp laugh and Zac joined her.

Trip grinned slyly. “You mentioned that the suit monitors your dreams and guides you in them. Do you mean it can choose
what
you dream about? Even
how
you enact your dream?”

Bingo. He hadn’t missed it. Genevieve remembered having hoped he had. He’d just stored it away for the right time. She’d been warned. That was his
modus operandi
. He never stuck to a topic, but drifted as if aimlessly, then struck at the most vulnerable moment.

“No…well, yes,” her image on screen faltered and deferred, “You’ll have to ask Doctor Amanda Kidd, our psychologist and ship’s physician, about that.” It was a lame answer, but she wasn’t about to divulge that it was both. Zac’s way of providing the crew with an energetic workout was by delivering a virtual sex experience, tailored to their unique requests.

He shifted gear with a stretch of his legs. “So, tell me about this mission. What do you hope to achieve that a hundred scientists haven’t?” he quipped in a voice thick with sarcasm. “What will be meeting face to face with these bright pillars of the universe, these purple baldies give us?”

She remembered thinking he ought to talk to Mission Commander Bragg, who seemed to speak the same language of prejudice.

“Is it the same old story? Looking for that elusive elixir? The fountain of youth? Eternity, like the baldie said? Or is it their environmental technology? Wisdom? Maybe some answers to help us fix what we’ve fucked up? For all their boasting and promises, those baldies haven’t given us anything yet. I’m really not sure why they contacted us in the first place. To brag, then spit on us? That head baldie made it clear in all his transmissions to Earth that they don’t respect us, so how do you expect them to share their greatest secrets with us?”

“Like you said,” she countered, apparently nonplussed by his torrent of sarcasm, “They did contact us, which indicates a wish to share.”

“Share what? His Ten Commandments?” Trip was referring to the famous ten televids that Azaes sent, before disappearing altogether. Each vid had condescended to outline an Eosian virtue to which humans could strive. The vids had, indeed, been rather humiliating, and cemented the certainly in most people’s minds that Eosians were not so much interested in sharing as dominating.

“Perhaps they’re as curious about us as we are about them,” Genevieve on screen offered. “And they hope to learn as much as we could.”

“Ah,” he sneered. “Like what
not
to do!” he snorted. “I heard a rumour that you haven’t even told them that you’re coming. Hoping to slip through their defenses, unnoticed until it’s too late?”