Creation (4 page)

M
uscles ached
as Sam pulled his body from the battered shuttle. The gravity in
Leviathan
’s landing bay was one-tenth that of Earth, and Sam thought his body should be more appreciative of that. Total blackness ebbed to dark shadows against a gray background then slowly resolved to definable shapes. The cold receiving bay reminded him of his grandfather’s garage: mysterious, dirty, with tools scattered about and spare parts indistinguishable from the partially finished projects they were meant to complete.

As the silhouettes stretched out the kinks from the shuttle’s run-in with the black ship, Xavier’s thin figure dominated the main hatch of the antique space freighter. In all of Sam’s research, there hadn’t been a speck of information on the man in charge.

“Nice to see you didn’t suffer too much damage,” Xavier said. “Let’s get started.”

The gravity boots helped with the weightless feeling but made Sam’s feet ache. He squinted, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the low light of the spaceship, as he entered the main cabin. The heavy leather jacket he wore reached to his feet and combated the cold. As his eyes further adjusted, he counted an additional six workers who’d beat them to the far end of nowhere. Dankness filled the air; not all of the ancient filters were performing as intended. And he’d thought Earth was miserable.

Lud waved his hand toward the back of the ship. “What’s with the terraforming pods, Xav?”

Xavier looked back along the ship to the four monster tubes that occupied the majority of the spacecraft. “There’s a crazy bunch of utopian idealists living in that transparent agro pod. They own the
Leviathan
, at least until we complete the contract. Then she’s ours. The crew they hired to deliver them to their new planet went rogue and dumped the ship out here, stripping her of what they could easily cart off. But the people in those pods aren’t stupid. They managed to lock down the ship once the original flight crew left. Most spaceships that are dumped out here end up unable to support life. Scavengers wait a couple years then come back to cut up the remains. These people have managed to keep
Leviathan
alive, however. It’s why I wanted her: she’s a survivor. We’ll keep the terraforming tube that’s used for housing, food, and the basic necessities. The other three pods get delivered to Chariklo along with the tribe living in the agro tube.”

Sam wondered how it was even possible to live in a weightless agricultural terrarium so far from the sun. It was one thing to know he was on a rescue mission and another thing entirely to see the dark, cold tubes connected to a dead ship at the edge of the solar system.

Xavier stretched, nearly hitting the ceiling. “They’ve created their own little biosphere. Air, water—everything gets recycled. How they’re collecting or creating energy is a mystery. I had a hell of a time just making contact with them.”

“So they’re on board with this? They’re okay with us taking their ship?” Lud’s hands on his hips, the accusatory tone of his voice, and the sideways glare he shot at Xavier left Sam wondering about their past association.

The captain looked exasperated. “They requested it. I don’t like it, but they’re our first customers. The deal is we get them to their planet safe and sound. Once that’s done, this ship is ours. Kitchen, sleeping quarters, entertainment—that lot is for our use. They just want the remaining three pods: agriculture pod, which is where they live, terraforming-elements pod, and solar arrays.”

“So they owned this ship free and clear?” Lud sounded unconvinced.

Xavier’s long, thin fingers gripped the console as his whip-like anger escaped his control. “Do you want me to show you the fucking bill of sale? Out here, ships are the property of whoever can claim them.”

Even with Sam’s complete lack of knowledge regarding such things, he was pretty sure the word
pirate
was just about to come out of Lud’s mouth. Sam was discovering that every pirate had a different code of conduct.

“You’re talking about running this ship back to the inner planets, Xav. There’s bound to be questions about where she came from,” Lud said.

Xavier balled his fingers into fists against the ship’s console. “Look, that’s the deal. Once she’s fixed up, you’re all free to do what you want. But the only way we’re getting back is to get this junk moving. Since when did you ever worry about the legalities?”

Having delivered his pep talk, Xavier left the crew to their duties. Only Sam and Lud remained on the bridge. Dust from the decaying chairs, wiring, and carpet mixed with smells of people, some present, some only ghosts. The ship had originally supported a crew of ten, but that number had been cut in half as improved technology was crammed in next to the old. The computer consoles looked like some kid’s attempt at building an interface to hack game systems. Joysticks, knobs, and levers no one used even a hundred years ago had been grafted onto the workstations.

Lud tried out the captain’s chair. “How do you suppose they flew this thing? Just point it at a coordinate and hit the engines?”

Sam threw one of the levers to full speed. Nothing happened. “Probably not far off. There was a belief computers could do a more accurate job than humans back then.”

Lud, too, played with the controls and received a similar lack of response. “My dad had an antique automobile in his garage. He kept futzing with it. Eventually got it to run. Then destroyed some part by not pushing the correct pedal while throwing the joystick into the wrong position. I suppose this is on you—getting these controls to do something.”

“You know all those old space-adventure stories?” Sam asked. “The ones where the ship is damaged and the crew needs to get home? They always separate the bridge, which magically has its own source of propulsion.”

Lud shook his head in disgust. “Hate those stories. So wildly inaccurate. You know, it’s not just the engines. For an escape vehicle, the crew would need fuel too—fuel that ship designers conveniently kept as far from the bridge as possible.”

“Exactly,” Sam said. “But you need the operating system, which was always assumed to be on the bridge. This was never really the case, not even in the earliest oceangoing ships. The bridge would tell the engine room what to do, then someone would operate the real controls in the engine bay.”

Lud’s confident smile put him at ease. “I knew I liked you.”

“Yeah, well, if you can’t separate the bridge into a lifeboat, separate the engines.” Sam rubbed at his neck, knowing what he was in for.

“You mean the real ship computer is back there?” Lud hitched his thumb back along the mile-long delicate cord that connected the bridge to his precious engines.

Sam bobbed his head from side to side. “More like a spinal-cord computer. Think of it like a simplified human body. The long, hollow cord that runs the length of the ship is the brain and nervous system.”

Sam held the fingers of his two hands together to form a tube then spread them a little wider. “Around that first tube is a second layer that works like a blood-circulating system delivering energy throughout the ship.”

His fingers spread once again. “And around that is the life-support system. Like the human body, branches stretch off that main line out to the organs and extremities.”

“Makes sense, but where do those branches go if the pods are removable?” Lud asked.

Sam formed a circle with his open fist and ran a finger from his other hand into it. “The pods have connector ports. Some pods are simple storage containers needing only the most basic ship support, and some, like the life pod where people live, need tens of thousands of connections along that cord. Since the builders of the ship didn’t know what it’d be used for, they figured the more connections, the better.”

“And that’s what you’ll be working on—fixing that central nervous system?” Lud asked.

Sam ran his hand through his dark-red hair. “Well, there’s still life support all along the ship. So we know the spinal cord hasn’t been cut from the outside. If it had, all the systems would stop working somewhere along the line.”

“Using your analogy, it’s like a spinal injury where the person has lost control of their limbs but their organs still work?” Lud’s question gave Sam a new insight into the big man’s intelligence.

“Exactly. We can’t make contact with the engines, can’t communicate with the people in the agro pod, can’t do much of anything, but all the basics are still working.”

Lud squeezed his eyes shut. “How does that happen?”

Sam bit his lip as the pieces of the puzzle came together. “You remember
Leviathan
was taken over by the military? The pods they built weren’t meant for sustaining life.”

“I would guess not. More like launch pads for fighters or remote-controlled-weapons platforms.”

In the cold, dark bridge, Sam found it hard to envision the ship as an active military weapon. “That’s my thinking. Now, look at it from
Leviathan
’s perspective. Somewhere on the bridge, she’s told to pump more air into pod number two, for example. The life system does as it’s told. But the feedback loop, the nervous system, responds that the guns have been fired. Enemy destroyed.”

Lud controlled his laugh to one single burst. “You’re personifying the ship too much.”

“Am I? My hypothesis is that the ship did work as a person would. The brain would conclude that it had made a mistake. It would reroute its systems, try other connections.”

Lud grimaced. “It’d go insane.”

Slowly Sam nodded. “She’d become unpredictable. Push a button on the bridge, and you’d have no idea what would happen. So the military overrode the computer software, tried to lobotomize the poor girl.”

Lud let out a whistle from between his teeth. “Amazing she performed at all.”

“As Xavier said, she’s a survivor. That mile-long tube of connections figured out some way around all the obstacles.” Sam had a growing admiration for the ship filled with so much history.

“But she did work,” Lud said. “And now she doesn’t. The military finished with her long ago. What’s changed recently to make her nonfunctional?”

That was the real question, the one Sam had struggled with during the long trip out to the Kuiper Belt. “I have to get into that computer core, the inside of the spinal cord, to find the answer to that.”

“And that’s what we’re doing up here on the bridge?”

The question refocused Sam to his task. He pushed his body away from the console. “Yep. Inside that computer spinal cord is a builder’s pod. It works kind of like an antique loom’s shuttlecock. Except instead of weaving threads together into fabric, it organizes the electric impulses into something resembling thought. At either end of the pod are magnetic rings that keep it off the sides of the tube. Those rings also function as amazingly complex miniature tools for building and repairing the concentric systems.”

“And that’s what we’re looking for up here?” Lud asked.

“Exactly. And I need to find the access. There wasn’t much about it in the literature, like where it was, what it looked like, how it opened. Simple stuff. The access should be along the central axis of the ship. Probably looks like some small hatch.” Sam dropped to his hands and knees and crept in front of the view screen then flat on his belly as he squirmed closer to the leading edge of the ship. Long-forgotten dirt from shoes that had walked on distant moons tickled at his nose. As he feared, his fingers encountered a latch handle.

“Boy, they didn’t do you any favors.” The lilting tone of Lud’s voice had the unmistakable message of
Better you than me
.

Sam pulled himself out of the crawl space and dusted off a hundred years of decay. “Well, it makes the most sense. They didn’t want it easily accessible.”

“You must be some kind of contortionist to get into that hole. Good thing you’re not my size.” Lud shook his head as he peeked over the main console and down into the access hole.

* * *

M
uscles that had been restrained
and inactive during space flight, and then pumped to alert status by adrenaline, struggled into the tight, formfitting full-body work suit.

To Sam’s relief, Lud didn’t laugh at the ridiculous outfit. “I’m guessing the original builders didn’t worry much about modesty—or cold.”

Sam pulled at the suit to remove a stray wrinkle. “They couldn’t risk contamination of the core, and as you pointed out, there’s not a lot of room in that thing.”

Sam did his best to not think of the builder’s pod as a coffin as he struggled to fit his body in the confined space. The lid snapped shut as Lud closed the hatch, disconnecting Sam from the rest of the ship. He closed his eyes tight against the black interior, fighting back the claustrophobia. His eyelids glowed red as light hit them from outside. Opening them, he saw overlying computer screens. His brain fought to make sense of the information, but every movement scrambled the images.

Lud’s voice crackled from the dried-out speakers. “Xav says one-fifth power only. I’ll see what I can do to up that. Must be cold as a bitch in there.”

“Cold as death” might be more appropriate.
His heart began to race but immediately quieted as the long-forgotten smell of lemongrass-scented tranquilizers stung his nose.