Mind Over Ship

The office door opened again, and a second arbeitor rolled in to join the first. It, too, bore a glass of gray liquid. Zoranna looked from it to him.

“Yes,” he said, “my own brew, but improved. You alone turn it on or off. You determine the intensity. It’s all under your direct control.”

Indecision played over her face. After a long moment, she lifted the glass and made a silent toast.

Toeing the Line

“Show me,” Fred said.

“It was no big thing, Fred. Honest.”

They were in the Boomer Rumor in a rough part of the civieside port. Same sort of dive as the Elbow Room.

“Show me anyway.”

Using his visor, Mando cast a tiny holo on the tabletop between them. It was a scene from Space Gate AL, where Mando had been assigned for the recently reinstated foot patrols. Because it had been recorded by Mando’s visor cap, and not by one of Earth Girl’s stationary cams, Mando, himself, occupied the POV spot and thus was not visible. In the holo, the space gate was jumping with activity as donald dockworkers hustled to offload the newly arrived freighter, ISV Dragoneer. Port activity had doubled since the GEP’s announcement that five Oships would be permitted to complete their original mission of ferrying colonists to distant stars. Side deals were being struck between the lucky and unlucky plankholder associations, and much of the increased port activity was ship-to-ship as provisions and cryocapsules were redistributed among them. TECA cited the extra workload and tight launch schedule as the official reason for its decision to reinstate foot patrols. Fred was content to let that pass unchallenged.

In Mando’s holo recording, crates and shells of all sizes were flying in every direction. More than once, a harried-looking donald, a designated babysitter, blocked Mando from bumbling into flight paths. Donalds passing by would sneer or scowl at him, but there were no spit missiles or insults until one donald made a few obscene pelvic thrusts in his direction.

“That’s it?” Fred said.

“I told you it was nothing.”

“It’s not much, but it’s not nothing.”

Fred used his TECA sidekick to quickly research Earth Girl’s own official recordings of that time and place, but he couldn’t find the incident. He found Mando’s cap log in Earth Girl’s archives, but again, not this incident.

“Swipe me your vid,” Fred said.

“But why, Fred? Why are you interested in this thing? The monkeyboys are way more civil now.”

“I’m keeping a document trail is all.”

“You sure it’s not a grudge?”

“A grudge? Me?”

IT WAS HARD to get around Earth Girl’s monopoly on surveillance data. One method he tried was to scoop up whole person/days worth of footage with his TECA sidekick and take it off-line to analyze with his Spectre. The problem was, Earth Girl seemed to be sanitizing any incidents of donald/russ conflict. Also, without a mentar to direct the survey, it was staggeringly difficult to program the Spectre search engine to recognize signs of disrespect. The Spectre contained reliable algorithms for detecting threat and aggression, but mere disrespect came in too many varieties to ever pin down. Fred kept a little visor window open while on patrol so that his Spectre could pass him possible hits for a quick judgment. He found few clear infractions, and these, like Mando’s, tended to be minor. In the end, Fred knew that news of any serious breach of contract would probably come to him as scuttlebutt anyway.

MARY’S FRESH DAILY FUS didn’t seem very fresh. She had no news to share lately, and she didn’t seem particularly curious about his day. Instead, he was treated to more pointless quizzes and a raft of off-the-wall pronouncements. “In a thousand years, Fred, no one will even know or care we ever existed.”

Fred checked the FUS creation date. It was already forty-eight hours old. He shut it off and cast an updated FUS of his own. As his brain was being scanned, he lay on the couch of his stateroom with his eyes closed and concentrated on the question: Why so morbid, Mary?

Fred sent the FUS streaming to Earth and turned his attention to his recent all-consuming obsession — the russ metaverse he had discovered via his Spectre. In addition to the familiar channels that Marcus provided, there were others completely unknown to him back on Earth. There was even a Book of Russ. He was thunderstruck the first time he saw it, and his shame rebounded as strong as ever. But this BOR was unrelated to his own shortlived forum of the same name and, in fact, preceded it by sixty years. It contained gazillions of entries that spanned every subject imaginable. There was even a “Clone Fatigue” category in which he figured prominently by name. There were thousands of holos and clips of him from the clinic incident, his imprisonment and trial, and the months since his release. These images came both from public cams and private spybots. Some were even recorded from within his and Mary’s apartment, which infuriated but didn’t surprise him. Oddly, and thankfully, there weren’t any clips originating at Trailing Earth, and for the first time he had a reason to be glad about coming up.

The one mystery Fred couldn’t unravel was how something like the BOR could be in existence for so long and garner the participation of so many of his brothers and yet remain so secret. Who were these russes? Rather than abuse him, they used his experiences as jumping-off points for serious discussions about clone fatigue, germline personality traits, the Original Flaw, and even the possible existence of russ musts and candies.

Were they the fringe brothers he had always dreamed of meeting? Were they a secret cabal inside the ten- million-strong brotherhood? And if so, could he join them? For the hundredth time he composed a message announcing his presence, and for the hundredth time he deleted it without posting.

IN SPACE GATE DN, where Fred patrolled with a dour russ named Daoud, the donald dockworkers seemed to compete with each other in being respectful to him. They literally scraped and bowed before him. Daoud made no comment about this. Actually, he made no small talk whatsoever and only addressed Fred as the job required. At one point a donald made a secret sign that let Fred know that a new Raspberry shipment had arrived. Fred ignored him.

A little while later, Top Ape, himself, arrived at the space gate, and Fred ignored him too. Later that day, when Fred finished his shift, he took a detour back to his wheel through a corridor he knew to have a number of EM shadows. Top Ape was waiting for him there with the tamperproof shell. Fred acknowledged him with a silent nod. Without going into any explanation, he swiped the donald the vid clip of Mando’s incident plus several more minor infractions he had found. Donalds used ocular implants instead of visors, and as Top Ape reviewed the recordings, his eyes took on a faraway look.

When he finished, he focused on Fred and said, “Such small crimes.”

“I agree,” Fred said. “That’s why I’m imposing only one twenty-four-hour demerit.”

Top Ape was intelligent enough not to protest.

Twenty-four hours passed, and when again a donald signaled Fred while on patrol, Fred took a break and passed through a transshipment bay. His Spectre picked the shell out from a bundle of similar ones, and he covertly swiped its lockplate as he went by. On his way back to the space gate, every donald he passed saluted him with his tail.

IT SHOULD HAVE been simple to complete: check uniform in mirror, check sidekicks, change stateroom setting from bedroom to day room, enable the door sentry, put on visor cap, leave stateroom. But he became distracted and had to begin the departure list from the beginning several times before he got it right.