Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary

  Chapter 14

  Gateway Station, Earth-Moon L2 Point

  February 25, 2121

  0430 hours

  The crew lounge and bar on board Gateway Station had long ago been done up to follow a Wild West theme. Known to the locals as the High Plains Saloon, the bulkheads were filled with faux Colt 45s and photos of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, coonskin caps and Winchester rifles, along with other frontier memorabilia. A hand-lettered wooden sign had been duct taped to the bulkhead above the gangway entrance: Dodge City: 1.5 million miles. The auto-tender behind the bar sported a bright silver badge, along with chaps, a bandolier and even a droopy white moustache on its cylindrical head. A black Homburg was secured to the top of its video dome. Everyone called the tender Marshal.

  Johnny Winger and Evan Metcalf were on hand, with Captain Hideki Yamato, the Frontier Corps four-star who would been piloting their ship into deep space in less than a day.

  “Quite a place you’ve got here,” Winger observed. He tossed back the rest of his beer and studied the view out of the nearby cupola. Earth and the Moon were both in crescent phase. The other modules of the station hung like fat grapes on the trellis that was Gateway’s main truss structure. “Only we seem to be a long way from Dodge City.”

  “Maybe not so far,” said Metcalf. “Lots of shady characters around here.”

  “Yes, it is true,” Yamato nursed a cup of sake. “Dockhands should never be trusted. Shall we take a tour of the ship?”

  Winger nodded. “Suits me. It’s going to be home sweet home for the next few years.”

  They paid their bills and left the Saloon, making their through gangways and compartments to Dock 2, where their ship was parked, still surrounded by hordes of work drones and dockhands, making last minute connections, aligning gear, loading supplies through an aft shipping hatch.

  Yamato paused outside the bridge entrance. “May I present the UNS-227, the Johannes Kepler.”

  Winger peered through the bridge porthole at the huge ship. “Still looks like a kebab skewer to me.”

  Yamato appeared hurt, as Metcalf added, “Yeah, with onions and sausages strung on the skewer.”

  Yamato cut in. “She’s fully up to date with all changes and modifications. First class accommodations. Mark IV plasma engines, uprated reactor…she will take us to Jupiter in style, gentlemen.”

  “And back, I hope,” said Winger.

  “Ah, here is my executive officer now—“ Yamato stood aside as a thin crewman in officer’s piping drifted up to the bridge hatch. “—Commander Winston Smithers.”

  Winger could tell right away that Smithers was angel. It was long-standing Frontier Corps practice to assign angels second-in-command duty on cycler ships and deep-space vessels. They were loyal. They were smart, having constantly upgraded quantum processors. They were flexible, driven by their config engines…angels could morph into anything they had a config for. Perfect crew members, reasoned the Corps in its wisdom.

  This angel was good, better than most in appearance, but far from perfect. Smithers had loose ropy arms and his hands had an indefinable fuzz at the fingers. When he grasped something, the solidity was spotty; sometimes, the fingers went right through the object being grasped. Still, all in all, a capable-looking officer. Winger knew of Smithers’ exploits with the Francis Bacon.

  Smithers extended a hand and Winger shook it. The thing felt normal, even if it wasn’t. “Pleased to me you, General Winger. It will be an honor having you aboard the K-Dog. I’ve scanned all the mission files from your previous trip to Europa.”

  “I’m sure that made for interesting reading, Commander. I see you’ve made a full…er, recovery, from dealing with MARTOP. Scuttlebutt says you were nearly extinguished. Like deader than dirt.”

  Smithers cracked a sort of smile. “In a manner of speaking, General, that’s true. Of course, an angel such as myself cannot truly die, as you are alluding to. My assembly was dispersed and only my main processor core remained. Crewmen from the Bacon were able to retrieve my master core and my structures and forms were regenerated from that. I believe the phrase is ‘good as new.’”

  “Indeed,” said Yamato. “Commander Smithers now hosts numerous upgrades to his core and effectors, along with a completely new config driver.” He cycled open the bridge hatch and waved them in. “Shall we begin?”

  The group explored the innards of the K-Dog—Yamato admitted to hating the nickname that dockhands and crewmen had given to his brand-new ship, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. The three onions on the skewer were A, B, and C decks. Aft of the crew spaces, K-Dog’s quad propellant tanks looked like fat sausages on the lower end of the skewer. Her reactor and plasma torch engines hung off the bottom, a nuclear electric drive that would send the ship hurtling off into deep space with a seemingly slow starting kick, but after just a few days, the Dog would be eating up the miles with the best of them.

  Metcalf pulled Winger aside as the two of them hung back on B deck for a moment, on the pretext of examining her hab spaces more closely. Yamato went forward with Smithers to attend to some last minute details on the command deck.

  Metcalf was plainly worried. “General, I read your mission reports too. One thing bothers me. If we get to Europa and find that Keeper guy has reached the surface and is active again, can we really trust an angel officer like Smithers? I mean he’s a cloud of bugs…pardon me, sir, a swarm of nanobotic mechanisms. An ANAD-style swarm. What’s to keep the Keeper from taking Smithers over, co-opting him, so to speak? Don’t all ANAD systems have a common architecture?”

  Winger had thought about the very same thing. “They do, Inspector. When I was aboard the Trident, submerged in the ocean, our crew had the same question about our angels. In fact, we did have some problems with them reverting to outside control…we had to disable and contain them to keep them from damaging the ship.” Winger wanted to believe progress had been made since then. “The truth is nobody knows, I guess. It’s all a matter of programming, security protocols, how well can angel master cores recover from upsets, outside signals, penetration attempts, that sort of thing. From what I know, Smithers has proven himself several times already. Maybe we should cut him some slack.”

  Metcalf wasn’t convinced. “Maybe we should keep an eye on him. Treat him like a spy.”

  Winger silently agreed, but he felt compelled to put up a front. “Let’s just follow regs and see what happens, okay? K-Dog’s got a pretty good complement of defenses.”

  The big day came and Yamato gathered his entire crew, all twenty two of them, in the ship’s galley on B deck for an all-hands briefing.

  “The trip out will take just under eight months,” he told them. “Nominally, two hundred and twenty eight days.”

  One of the crewmen in the back, Becker from Supply, called out. “We gonna have drills every day, Captain?”

  Yamato set his lips in a tight line. “Frontier Corps crews must be prepared for any eventuality. Proficiency must be maintained. So, yes, there will be frequent drills…possibly every day. Duty rosters and schedules will be posted in the crews’ mess every day at 0700 hours.”

  “Jeez, Becker,” said Nygren from Engineering, “what did you think? We’re on a vacation cruise?”

  Yamato went on with a few more details. “I expect every crew member to maintain their training schedules. You have those already. Commander Smithers will be in charge of all tests and proficiency checks.”

  The executive officer stood next to Yamato with an expressionless face that could only be described as angel bland. A swarm’s interpretation of stoic command leadership.

  Winger studied Yamato as he went down a list of announcements: assignments, promotions, equipment upgrades, the usual admin crap that every ship captain dealt with. He decided that Yamato was like a puppy on his first walk: earnest and eager to please, generally aware of the rules but anxious to get on with the big
event, not sure of his standing with the others. Lots of book knowledge but no field experience. Not totally green or without seasoning but definitely untested. Winger knew the testing would come: Frontier Corps crews were like children, always pushing the boundaries, probing to see what they could get away with.

  Yamato would have to grow some spine if he intended to command this bunch.

  Winger left the briefing and went to his bunk on B deck, following the circular passage around from the crews’ mess. He was in the middle of unloading his bags and gear when his wristpad chirped. Incoming call.

  This one was from Earth.

  It was a Level One message from Dana. Winger massaged the crypto circuit, which beeped, and let Dana’s voice come through.

  At first, she didn’t make any sense. Words came out in snatches, torrents, gibberish and her face was taut as a guitar string.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa…slow down, Dana. What’s this about Liam? What’s going on?”

  Dana took a deep breath. Her face relaxed a little. Was it morphing? Facial bots shuffling around, reconfiguring? He couldn’t be sure. Normals didn’t do that.

  “I was saying—“ she forced herself to take a few deep breaths “—Liam and I went to that rally in Boise. Wings, it was scary…it was a riot. People shoving, the police…people were getting trampled. And those Hellcats—“

  “I know, I know. I saw the newsvids. You’re not hurt, are you? You and Liam got away okay?” For a brief moment, he forgot that Dana was an angel. Old habits surfaced. The love that had once….

  “It’s Liam. I’m okay. But Liam’s gone.”

  “Gone? What do you mean gone? Back to Cambridge?”

  Dana shook her head. Somehow, the config wasn’t holding…maybe it was his wristpad, the resolution wasn’t sharp. Not enough pixels. Her nose and lips didn’t track with the rest of her face. It was jarring, but he tried to ignore it.

  “No. No, he went to one of the booths. The assimilators. He went in.”

  “He what?”

  Dana nodded. “He’s gone, Wings. The booths were knocked over by the crowds. Liam went through the ‘awakening.’ He deconstructed. He’s gone.” It was plain she didn’t know what to do with her hands; they fluttered around like something disconnected.

  Winger put down the bag he had been unloading. He felt like he had been kicked in the gut and drop-kicked into the middle of next week. Liam. Liam!

  “Maybe he got away…maybe you just missed him in the crowds.”

  Dana was already shaking her head before he had even finished. “No, Wings, he’s an angel. For real. He took the step. He did it.”

  Even on his wristpad screen, he could see something: what the hell? Was she proud of this? Now her face showed an ambivalence that hadn’t been there a moment before. Damn the friggin’ bots…they could reconfig in an instant. Normal facial muscles changed smoothly. Facial bots made abrupt changes. Maybe the config driver was messed up. It was like she was…what? Vindicated? Satisfied? Proud of her son? You couldn’t tell with angels.

  He realized he knew his wife less than ever now. This wasn’t Dana. This wasn’t the woman he’d married, the nanotrooper who loved to kick his butt in marksmanship contests. This was a machine. A machine simulating motherly concern, feigning fear, anxiety, mimicking some ersatz form of distraught fluttering stammering worry.

  “Wings,” she said, with a preternatural calm, as if the config driver had shifted again, NOW DISPLAYING MODULE PEACEFUL TRANQUILITY… “—Wings, you should try it. It’s not so bad.”

  But Winger was still trying to get his head around what had happened. Liam Winger, Cambridge University professor, youngest child of John Winger and Dana Tallant-Winger, blond kid with the crooked smile and the gap in his front teeth, Liam…an angel? A disembodied swarm of nanobotic elements? Liam…a cloud of bots?

  No.

  He refused to believe it. This was a joke. “Dana, I’m sure he’s out there somewhere. Probably he just went off with some friends.”

  But she wasn’t listening. The program was executing and would not be deterred. “Wings, being an angel has some advantages.”

  “Yeah, like what?”

  Dana tried to put the feelings into words. “It’s like being in bed on a Saturday morning, all close and warm and snuggly…you know, when it’s freezing cold and dark outside and you’re under all the covers. There’s love, affection, you know you’re in a big family, you’ve got that sense of belonging, a cocooning, in a way or at a level which you never experience as Normals. And you can be anything…anything you want. Normals can’t do that. You’ve got one body, one life. Angels can fly, really fly. They can be anything their imaginations dream up.”

  Winger didn’t want to hear it. “Dana, don’t talk like that. I’m against angels and Assimilationists and Symborg and everything he stands for. We’ve been fighting this for decades. You know that. You’ve been fighting this right there with me.”

  “I’m not fighting any more. There’s nothing to fight, Wings. You should do this. Join with Symborg. Join us. Be part of the mother swarm.”

  “That robotic creep…if I didn’t know better, I’d say he has some kind of arrogance module programmed in. He talks like he’s some kind of god.”

  “He’s just part of the mother swarm, Wings. He’s just a configuration representing the mother swarm here on Earth. We’re all just configs…you too. Only your config is a few gazillion cells. Mine is different.”

  You can say that again.

  “Symborg’s got an awfully big head for a cloud of bots, Dana. I don’t know…maybe Lanier Barnes is right. Maybe the Hellcats are the only ones who see Symborg and angels and asses for what they really are.”

  Dana made a little pout with her lips. “Wings, I hate it when you’re like this. All we do is argue now. Can’t you just listen for once?”

  “Maybe some things should be argued, Dana.”

  “You’re just being unreasonable. Rigid. Not listening to new viewpoints or the opinions of others…just like a machine. Just like always. Nobody made you agree to this trip. Leaving me and Liam behind like this…what were you thinking? Johnny Winger, you may be retired but you’ve still got Corps in your blood. “

  Winger stabbed the END CALL icon on his wristpad. He couldn’t listen to this anymore. As the screen went dark, he muttered, “So did you, Dana…once.”

  He sat on the side of his bunk for a few moments, trying to collect himself. Breathe, damn it! Breathe. That’s what they taught you in Survival school at nog camp when you came into Quantum Corps. Concentrate on breathing and assess the situation. List the pros and cons. Evaluate the alternatives. There’s always a way out of any situation, if you look for it.

  Two minutes later, Captain Yamato’s voice came over the ship’s 1MC.

  “Attention all hands. Rig for Burn 1. Stow all loose items. Engine start in five minutes.”

  Johnny Winger was saddened, maybe even depressed, by Dana’s call. Why couldn’t she see it? Why couldn’t any of them see what was going on, the threat they all faced? A nanotrooper’s first duty was to the mission. You didn’t leave your buddies behind.

  He was determined to meet the Keeper and Config Zero and Symborg head on. Maybe Dana was right. He did have the Corps in his blood. Or maybe it was just residual bots from earlier missions…garbage from embedded ANAD systems all Quantum Corps nanotroopers had had to host, a gift from the Symbiosis project years before.

  Somebody had to do it. Somebody had to keep their head on and their wits about them.

  “Ten seconds to engine start…nine…eight…seven….—“came the ship’s voice, some AI taking over the terminal boost count.

  Maybe, if he was lucky, he wouldn’t even come back from Europa. Rene was gone, somewhere in the cloud of bots that seemed to be drifting around the world now like endless weather fronts. Dana
had changed practically overnight; when had that happened? Now, Liam.

  “Engine start.”

  Winger took a deep breath, strapping himself in. The ship accelerated gently at first, barely discernible. That was the way of nuclear electrics. No kick in the pants. Just a gentle nudge.

  K-Dog was on its way to Jupiter.