A Planet For Emily

CHAPTER SIX

When they emerged in the system that contained Concord Down III, Suzanne got out of her seat and leaned forward to peer through the flight deck window as if she expected to see something with the naked eye. All she saw were dots of light.

“Look at the top screen, Cruise,” said Rods. “That’s your Concord Down.” Suzanne could see a small, grey disc. “We can spend half a day scanning it and then we’ve got to get on, or we’ll be late at our next stop.”

Suzanne had talked Rods into going to Concord Down as it seemed the best fit for the material. The Blake poem had been about the 13 colonies that eventually started the United States; their War of Independence had kicked off at Concord and in that long ago film the replicant had said down rather than up.

The planet had been checked briefly by one of the doubtful operators in the area, mainly concerned with salvage rights, and Suzanne hoped that something had been missed. It was a long shot but not out of the question as it was Mars-like, in the terminology of planet hunters, Rods had told her.

“Mars-like?” she had asked.

“Sure. A rocky planet that formed like earth and plate tectonics, where segments of the outer crust move around, got started. Volcanoes erupting gave the place some sort of atmosphere, but then the system slowed then stopped. On Earth, it kept going but on Mars it seized up, leaving one gigantic rift valley and some really big volcanoes. Similar stuff on all the planets on the list. They could have been like earth, but they just didn’t get going.”

Suzanne had heard all this from a poorly remembered science documentary.

“What made Earth so different?”

Rods had shrugged his broad shoulders. “I think they’re still arguing, but one point about the Earth is that the Earth-moon system is something like a double planet. The moon is much smaller than Earth but its size in proportion to earth still makes it stand out compared to other moons. It’s a freak occurrence. Just why the existence of the moon meant the tectonic plate and carbon cycle kept going on earth is a long story, but the bottom line is that there are a lot of Mars-like planets out there and Concord Down is one of them.”

Suzanne now stared at the small disc of Concord Down on the screen as if she could see some sign of Eve.

“Will we be going closer?”

“Not much. It has a 12-hour day so we won’t even be able to scan the whole surface, but we will see the big rift valley where life is more likely to be as the thin atmosphere is a lot denser at the bottom of the valley. If there is any life the scans should show something.”

They did not speak for some time while Suzanne watched the scan data which Max put on the screen. It meant nothing to her, but Max promised an analysis. Rods went off to do something with the engines then came back just as the analysis came back negative for any form of life.

“I felt sure that was it,” said Suzanne.

“Um, well, never mind,” said Rods. Suzanne was aware that was all her boss could think of to say on the matter. “On to King’s Foil II and another load of passengers

Later that day, Suzanne looked at the list again. What had her sister meant?

As well as dealing with passengers at King’s Foil, Suzanne was handed a new role. Rods gave her a list of traders and goods to be delivered and picked up and what each owed or was owed. The amounts involved were comparatively small, but they added up to a profitable sideline to the ores hauled in the Max’s main holds and passengers on the top deck, provided someone kept all the trades straight, ensured there was room on The Max’s mixed goods cargo section, and collected money owed – the most delicate job of all. Suzanne had suspected she had a knack for wheeling and dealing before but had never made much of it. Now she plunged into it with a zest. Occasionally she resurfaced to recollect, with some guilt, that she still had a fiancé and a mother way back on Earth Station. At some point she knew she would have to go back to swap identity cards with the girl she had saved from a mining colony. She couldn’t let the other girl keep her card. Sooner or later there would be an audit. She could go back, swap the cards with her DNA codes, and come out with her mother and Richard. There was still the problem of where they would stay apart from on The Max. Her mother might fit in, but she could not imagine Rods and Richard on the same ship without friction. Even Suzanne clashed with Rods but held her own without being unpleasant.

“Oh Rods,” she would say when she came in for breakfast.

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me in that snappish way, please!”

“I’ll ‘what’ whom I want to ‘what’ aboard my own ship, Madam Cruise, now what do you wish to discuss with me?”

She was able to send off the occasional brief messages – anything longer was too expensive to send by squeezed light link or would take weeks by trading ship – and then plunge back into her new life with a zest. Rods rewarded her by leaving her to do the job and permitting side trades by which Suzanne was able to acquire a few more clothes.

After studying the list she picked George’s Claim, which also seemed like a reference to the American War of Independence, but a quick inspection of it with Rods grumbling about the cost, had no result. Thoroughly puzzled she went back to organizing another load of passengers. A slight misjudgment in her duties brought another problem that required a delicate discussion with Rods.

“You want to have a barbecue for the passengers?” Rods exclaimed when Suzanne put the concept to him one morning, just as they came out of phase drive to pick up another load of passengers at Lucifer III. He scratched his head. “I dunno if you’ve noticed but we’re aboard a spaceship.”

“It wouldn’t strictly be a barbecue as we’d do it on the grill with the hood down and take the meat out to them.”

“Meat? You mean the meat in the freezer, that I – and you – are going to eat sooner or later.”

“You’ve got heaps of it and a lot of the passengers have never done anything like that. I’ve never done anything like that.”

“The poker tournament on the last trip was a great idea. But a barbecue? Unless …” Rods looked at her quizzically, “this is all about you messing up the numbers on the pre-packaged meals?”

Suzanne colored slightly. “I followed the ratios your guide sets out, and lots more wanted beef on the last trip. This way, just a few 'll have to make do with chicken or fish before we pick up some more. It’s all from food vats anyway, just in a different form, so what does it matter?”

“What matters is that it’s my meat.”

“If we don’t do this, the passengers will start to complain – more than usual anyway – and want to see the captain of this fine ship.”

“Hmm. Oh, very well. A barbecue, but at least I should get a plate. I want to taste the meat that’s going down the gullet of these passengers.” He almost spat the last word.

“Of course,” said Suzanne, smiling sweetly. “You’re the captain.”

The news that the ship would have a barbecue for the evening meal half–way through the trip was announced by text, which was reviewed by three men sitting in a crowded bar waiting to board.

“A barbecue?” said the leader, a tall, dark man with a shaven head. “That night might be the time. May be easier to touch the food plates of others if they’re going to have a barbecue – less formal and you eat together.”

“What’s a barbecue?” asked the youngest. He looked like an undergraduate who had strayed from campus and was now nervous that his absence would be noted.

“You cook the meat on a grill or maybe an open fire and put it on the plate with salads and stuff. It’s meant to be in an atmosphere, but I’m guessing it’s just meant to be an informal way to have lunch.”

“Sounds like fun,” said the undergraduate, “but how can you have an open fire on a spaceship?”

“Must cook it on the ship’s galley stove and send it out.”

“So, we strike then?”

“No and keep your voice down. Not with all the passengers still awake. We’ll doctor the food when the plates get handed around – the stuff takes a few hours to take effect, right?”

“Should take about ten hours, if it’s a kid,” said the third man. He was heavy set with long, brown hair, and eyes that darted around the bar.

“We’ll know when to go when someone starts shouting on the flight deck intercom demanding help,” the leader told the undergraduate. “That’s when you’ve got to start the jacking script.”

“It’ll get past the inflight passenger system,” said the undergraduate. “It’s real powerful. But I’d be happier if we knew about any changes they’d done.”

“The ship’s old,” said the leader. “They’re all old out this way, and that’s the best script there is. It’ll blow away the on-board AI. It did last time.”

“Do we know anything about the crew?” said the undergraduate.

“We know enough. There’s just one permanent crew – calls himself Rods – and an occasional cruise director he gets out of brothels. They say this one’s a looker. Probably sweet on her. Should make it easier. He’s also got a drug conviction back in Zard controlled space and there’s talk that he gets high and sings in his engine room. With any luck he’ll be stoned and out of it when we go.”

“Druggie?” said the quiet man. “Heard of him. Hard man, they say.”

“I thought jacking was endemic out here,” said the undergraduate. “And this guy’s survived, so he can’t be high all the time.”

“Maybe so,” said the leader, “but we’re the best and we’ve done this before. Just remember, we go on board separately and no one even looks at anyone else until the yelling starts. Then be ready and it’ll all fall into place.”

“Hope so,” muttered the undergraduate.

Suzanne finished giving the passengers their dinners and came into the crew quarters to get her own, to find Rods sitting at the wardroom table.

“I thought you would have eaten already.” They sometimes had meals at the same time, but rarely when they had passengers.

“I have. I just wanted to tell you that the risk of a jacking attempt has gone up.”

“But why?” Ira put a steaming bowl of vegetable stew in front of her. Rods found the sight repugnant. He never understood any meal without meat.

“Because someone’s tried all three hatches out of the passenger area, apart from the main door. A few passengers try the hatches at some time each trip but not all three so soon after boarding, and when I can’t see who's doing it on the security cams. Maybe it’s nothing. We have a few kids and a few guys in transit to the mining colonies so maybe it’s them, but worth remembering.”

Suzanne nodded. She had heard Rods talk about possible jackers among the passengers often enough. “I thought the main film tonight should be that remake of Emma.”

“A romance at Earth Station? The place has forced abortions, Cruise. Why not an action film?”

“A Jane Austin classic is worth watching no matter where it is set. She wrote in early nineteenth century England, but her plots are still classic.”

“I know who Jane Austin is and what she did, Cruise. I do occasionally venture from the engine room. Elizabeth Bennet was a gold digger, Emma an interfering snob and Marianne Dashwood a hysteric.”

Suzanne crossed her arms and glared at him.

“What got me was that they’re all completely idle. Put them to work in engine rooms and, I say… or as cruise directors.” He added as Suzanne continued to glare.

She smiled. “And have to deal with hateful, evil captains I suppose.”

“At least it would get their minds off their love lives. But it’s really hateful, evil jackers that are the problem. Just remember, if you have to go out there, you want to be extra careful.”

“I’m a careful girl, Rods. You know that.”

The next day was the barbecue which turned out to be a success but a busy time for the cruise director, who forgot all about Rods’ warning. Suzanne got to know some of the passengers, as she always did on each cruise, and there were party games. Rods watched some of the action on a screen in the bridge and decided two things – that if there was a jacking crew on board they were taking care to blend in, and that he could never understand the appeal of charades.

That night, the alarm on the passenger intercom in the passenger common area, just outside the door to the crew quarters, jerked Suzanne awake. Someone was thumping the alarm button hard.

“Suzanne! Suzanne! We have to get into the sick bay. Quickly!” The last word was a shriek.

Suzanne glanced at the intercom screen brought up automatically by Max. It was Holly the mother of four year old Oscar, the youngest of just two children on the trip and a favorite of Suzanne. She could see on the screen Oscar was writhing in his mother’s arms, screaming.

“Goodness! Holly, I’m coming. Hold on!” Suzanne hopped out of bed and grabbed slacks from the wardrobe. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know he just went into convulsions. We have to get him to that scanner. Hurry! Please hurry!”

Suzanne dashed into the passageway, bare footed still pulling on her pants and touched the lock on the door to the passenger area, which was all that was normally required to open it. This time it did not open.

“Night vision goggles,” prompted Max. “In the box on your right.”

“But he’s only four. He and Holly aren’t going to jack the ship.”

“You still have to take your goggles.”

“Hurry!” screamed Holly. Suzanne could hear her through the bulkhead. “What’s taking so long!”

Suzanne grabbed the goggles from the box and crammed them into her pocket.

“Fine! There.”

The door opened. Suzanne was aware, as she stepped out, of other passengers awoken by the noise standing around wondering if they should help, but her attention was taken up by Holly, holding a writhing Oscar. Then an arm wrapped around her throat. Rods had done something like that in training but his pretend grip had been soft. This arm choked her. She glimpsed her attacker’s shaven head and felt the attacker’s breath on her ear. It occurred to her he had eaten the fish.

“Shut your trap,” said a voice somewhere near her left ear, “and you’ll live.”

“Oscar, sick,” she managed to gurgle.

“I said shuddup.”

Holly was screaming about Oscar.

“Shut her up.”

That last remark, Suzanne realized, was addressed to someone else. She was aware of a long haired man swinging something and Holly abruptly falling silent.

“Get it open.”

To Suzanne’s horror, the crew door opened. She heard someone yelling at the other passengers and then she was dragged into the crew passageway.

Rods was on the bridge. He had also been woken by the alarm but ignored the unfolding drama of Holly and Oscar to get to his command post.

“Sniper screen,” he told Max.

A display of the drama but from above and behind the action around the intercom came to life. He tapped a button underneath the screen and a joystick popped up into his hand – a control he had never showed Suzanne. He saw her step out into the common area to be abruptly seized by one passenger. Another man hit Holly and yelled at the passengers to stay away.

“Got you,” he muttered. Both men had been on his list of suspects, but it had been a long list.

“No helmets,” he said to Max. “Target the one holding Suzanne.” Crosshairs appeared on the bald head. Rods hand moved to the firing button.

Then everything went dead.

Shutting down all the comms ports to the passenger deck had never been possible. Max controlled too much. But Rods had done everything short of physically disconnecting them to ensure a hacker couldn’t get through. Even then, he and Max should have received some warning. Instead, nothing. Suddenly he wasn’t in control. This jacking crew had a powerful hacking code. Rods thought he still had the bridge, but then the screens started to flicker into life. It may not be Max coming back. Rods opened the flight deck door a fraction and peeked out. The crew quarters' lights had come on when the alarm sounded. He could see two men, one with an arm around Suzanne and something sharp at her throat, coming down the passageway. They had already opened the hatch to the passenger quarters. Worse, Igor standing at his jacking post just beside the passenger deck hatch, was now beginning to stir. If the jackers ever gained control of Igor, the game was over.

Only one thing left to do. Rods slammed the door shut and shot the very old-fashioned, simple bolt he had installed for just such an emergency, then lifted off an avionics inspection hatch, flinging it to one side with a crash. He crawled in. The panel he wanted was half a body length inside, protected by a casing with a simple metal lock. The key was out of sight, underneath another panel where Rods had put it months ago, hoping he would never have to use it. Now he did. He unlocked the casing. A dim light came on, illuminating a boarding pistol and night goggles in one compartment and on a panel a set of controls that would have been familiar to Edison – the oldest remedy for a computer malfunction, switches and buttons. Rods used them. He thumbed one button that said I-kill, for Igor kill, and turned the power off.

Not everything went off. The engine controls switched to an independent system as they were designed to do. Nuclear reactors should not be left without controls. But everything else went off – the life support systems, the passenger entertainment systems, the coffee machine and, of course, the lights.

Out in the corridor all Suzanne knew of Rods' struggles was that suddenly she was in total darkness with her captor cursing fluently while jabbing hard with what felt like a wooden spike.

“Power’s gone,” said the third man. Suzanne thought he sounded young.

“I can see that,” snarled Suzanne’s captor.

“No emergency lights,” said the young man. “Old tub.”

In fact, Rods had ensured that if he ever had to pull the ultimate kill switch, the emergency lights would also be disabled.

“Turn on the panel light on your device,” snapped Baldie.

“Oh, right.”

A light in the hand of the third man turned utter blackness into one where people were shadows and the passageway a black tunnel. Beyond the hatch to the passenger quarters, which the jackers had closed behind them, Suzanne could hear the other passengers calling out to one another.

“Now then,” said Baldie, “tell your boyfriend to open the door to the bridge.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” gasped Suzanne. “I have a fiancé back on Earth Station. He won’t open the door for me.”

“We’ll soon see about that. Hey man! I got your girl here. You want me to do a number on her throat? Open up!”

Suzanne finally remembered her training. “You’re going to die.”

“Shuddup bitch! I’m getting real impatient here man! I got her carotid right here under my spike! You better open up.”

“He won’t open the door for me,” said Suzanne. “He told me to say that to any jacker.”

“Sure!” sneered the jacker.

“He told me to say you’re dead if you don’t throw away the spike thing.”

“Shuddup! You in there, open up! I’m gunna do this.” Suzanne was aware, in the dim light, of another figure standing by the door - the long haired man keeping quiet.

“You better pray this Rods guy opens the door, or you’re dead.”

“You kill me and you’re dead!” Suzanne was certain of that, at least.

Then the bridge hatch opened.

While the bald attacker had been yelling, Rods had been debating what to do. He had night goggles on and the boarding pistol in his hand. The gun firing rubber bullets was safely locked in the armory, a closet on the passenger side of Suzanne’s cabin. The boarding pistol was a less satisfactory back-up. Its shots were deliberately low powered so that there was less chance of stray shots tearing the hull open. But stray shots were still undesirable – Rods was hazy about what happened if the hull was punctured while the phrase drive was on and didn’t want to find out first hand. Then there was the question of keeping the cruise director alive. At two meters he wasn’t going to miss by much, but he didn’t want to miss at all.

He opened the door and moved to the left.

Baldie waited, straining his eyes to pierce the gloom.

“Push that light out there.”

The young man came up beside him and held the hacking device at arm’s length. The jacker thought he could see a dark shape looming on one side of the door. He wasn’t going to rush in.

“You come out man, or I do her,” he snarled. Suzanne felt the pressure on her neck increase, her artery throbbing under the spike.

Rods moved. He saw two men, one holding Suzanne and another holding a device He darted forward and fired. Suzanne felt Rods loom, closed her eyes and was almost deafened by the bang, then felt the pressure on her artery relax. Her assailant fell. But the third, quiet man stepped from beside the door to swing his weapon of choice, a club – a thick rod of heavy plastic picked up from a workshop. Rods registered the movement out of the corner of his eye and, with boxing reflexes, swayed his head out of the way, only for the club to smash down on his gun hand. He dropped the boarding pistol with the cry, then turned and charged, smashing his forehead into the man’s face. Blood spurted. It was the long-haired man’s turn to cry and stagger back. Rods followed it up with a kick to the solar plexus.

Remembering her training, Suzanne fell clear of the bald man then fumbled for her night goggles and put them on. She saw the third man, the young undergraduate, still holding the hacking device as a light, staring as Rods slammed the long-haired man into the bulkhead and head butted him again. The younger man looked around. The balance of power needed to shift quickly. He saw the pistol Rods dropped at the same time Suzanne did. The cruise director thought of her sister, thought of her comfortable room and dived on it, grabbing the weapon just before the undergraduate got to it. Her hands closed on the grip, her finger tightened on the trigger and she swung around holding the gun out, steady in front of her, backing away through the open bridge hatch.

“Stop or I shoot!”

The undergraduate hesitated. He hadn’t signed on to do the grunt work, and the pistol was pointing at his chest.

Rods looked around, startled. The long-haired man kneed him the testicles, then shoved him away. Rods stumbled and then fell.

“Chris, rush her,” called the long-haired man. “Get the gun.”

“Try it,” said Suzanne.

The undergraduate, who could barely see the cruise director in the gloom, stayed put.

Rods had fallen near the spike baldie had dropped, the butt of a toothbrush that had been cut in half filed to a point and then taped together again to get through inspection. Some things never change.

Rods picked it up, still bent double in agony. This was no time for respecting life and no room for playing nice. Long-haired, who had not seen Rods pick up the implement in the gloom rushed the spaceman, arms flailing, to be stabbed twice, hard, just under the rib cage. Rods thrust up, hoping to reach the heart with his borrowed implement. He didn’t but it did not matter. The jacker fell back, the implement still in his stomach. He had time to look at the instrument and at Rods.

“You guys were the best I’ve ever faced,” said Rods.

The long-haired man nodded then died.

“I surrender,” said the undergraduate, throwing up his hands and backing into the bulkhead.