Dramatis Personae

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Tarn

Hector sat glumly on the medbed in the ship’s infirmary. His father was in the head doctor’s office, in the middle of a very loud conversation with the Professor and Lucy. Tarn had watched the kid suffer through a good five minutes reaming from his father already so he could guess about how that was going. So he pulled over a chair and sat down beside Hector. “Rough day, kid?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it good.”

Tarn fished a stick of chewing gum out of a pocket and started unwrapping it. “Ever been to Yshron?”

“No. The company doesn’t have any contracts there, although I guess that’s not unusual since the Patyr-caste handles most of the commercial work for the planet. Not much room for outside commercial firms. Why?”

“We have a saying there: The caste is the caste for a reason.” He shoved the gum into one corner of his mouth and bit down on it for a moment, savoring the minty flavor while he organized his thoughts. “You’re familiar with the principle of the castes?”

Hector nodded. “Yshron was a philosopher about five hundred years ago who proposed that every human being was best suited to one of 108 categories of skills, called castes, and should be trained in how to excel in their caste by others of that caste. Your caste is more important to you than anything, even your family. Right?”

“It’s a start.” Tarn snapped his gum once, trying to figure out how to best explain. The Shran caste were hunters, not teachers after all. “One of the first things to learn about a caste is it doesn’t just specify what it is that we do. It also tells us what we don’t do. Within certain limits. I’m a sel-ranked Shran-caste, which means my specialty is hunting but I can also negotiate contracts and seek out new work for myself. Those agreements can be overridden but I can still look for them. The same isn’t true of a ben-rank Shran. But even in my case there are many skills and scenarios where I would never dream of getting involved. It’s outside my caste’s responsibilities.”

To Tarn’s shock and horror the kid rolled his eyes. Actually turned his eyeballs around 360 degrees in their sockets, the kind of disrespectful behavior Tarn knew existed but never actually expected to see once he’d left ben-rank behind. “You think I should have minded my own business and left Lucy to handle this on her own.”

“The outcome supports the notion, don’t you think?”

Hector sighed and slumped down lower on the bed, his hands fidgeting in his lap. “I suppose. This conversation doesn’t feel very much like hunting, though.”

Tarn gnawed on his gum for a moment. “Point taken.”

The younger man gave him a look out of the corner of his eyes, mulling it over for a moment. “What were you hunting down there, anyway?”

“The terms of contracts between Yshron and our clients are confidential, I’m afraid, although given how little we were told about the actual situation…” Tarn glanced over to the office where Hutchinson’s argument with the Professor was cooling down. “Well, let’s just say that the math may have been different.”

“Well, I understand wanting to avoid illegal tech. But AI are banned under the University Pact but the prohibition only applies to the ones researched and built after the Pact was signed. If the one Lucy was after was an ancient piece of tech it’s at least…” Hector trailed off, realizing Tarn was trying and failing to hide a smile. “What?”

“It’s not the Pact’s prohibition on artificial intelligence that’s the issue, Mr. Hutchinson. Yshron forbid us from using them as well. The castes are our pride and joy, the purpose that animates us in this cold and uncaring galaxy. They force us to tie ourselves together and become more together than we could ever hope to be separately, reaching our personal potential through mutual cooperation. Thinking machines disrupt that coordination.”

“That’s… an interesting thought.” Hector mulled it over. “So what are you saying, Yshron would’ve changed the terms of the contract if they knew there would be AI involved?”

“Possibly. More likely they wouldn’t have agreed to the contract at all. Any involvement with AI carries the temptation to laziness, after all.”

“That’s… an interesting notion.” Hector sighed. “I guess we’d all do different things if we knew the outcome before we started. You have a caste for hindsight on Yshron?”

Tarn chuckled. “It’s not something the Philosopher felt we needed. Perhaps it’s something you can leave to other people. The castes define what we are and what we aren’t but there are things we can’t offload to others at the end of the day. We don’t have a caste for breathing, either.”

Hector laughed, too, and they enjoyed a moment of companionable silence. Then the office door opened and Agamemnon swept out, storming towards them, his eyes fixed on his son. He didn’t acknowledge Tarn until the moment he started to speak. Once their eyes met he spun back to look at the Professor, who was trailing in his wake, and demanded, “What about him?”

Dart’s eyes swept over the three of them. “Bring him, too.”

“We’re way outside the terms of the contract we agreed to,” Tarn replied. “If you want this to go any further you’re going to have to go up to a higher caste and be honest about the details this time.”

“Tarn.” Lucy came up and put a hand on his shoulder. “This is important. The Zahn-caste will want to hear your opinions on it before they reach a decision.”

He studied her for a moment. Most academics didn’t have a use for people like him but she’d always had good consideration for the Doctrines in the past. “Very well. Where are we going?”

“To the bridge.”

Elisha

There were worse things in the world than having a pretty blond patching up the holes in you but, on the balance of things, Elisha still would have preferred avoiding perforation. However if he had to have a hole in him, a few painkillers and a pretty face made for a decent consolation. His leg still hurt but it had faded to a dull ache. His ribs merely itched. With the pain out of the way a new thought was making itself known in his mind, forcing him to squint and seriously think about the face he was looking at. “Wait a minute. Weren’t you on the side shooting at us a few minutes ago?”

Blondie blushed and ducked her head. “That was me. Athena Hutchinson, by the way, and in my defense my disruptor was set to stun at the time. Given everything that happened I realize that still isn’t the best thing but… well, I didn’t realize.” Her eyes went distant. “There were many things I didn’t realize.”

“I’ve been stunned, it’s not the best thing that ever happened to me.” He looked down at his leg. “I think I’d still prefer it to the present circumstance, however.”

She shook off her funk and tore a final strip of medical tape off a roll and sealed down the final edge of the skinpatch on his ribs. “Anyway, hopefully that makes up for – hup!” The ship twisted and jerked under them for the third time in as many minutes, pitching her back into the far wall. “Getting rough out there.”

Elisha shook himself off and levered himself into a sitting position, grabbing a bar at the side of the medbed to keep himself stable in spite of the rough skies. He wasn’t much of a spacer but storms were a fact of life on Wireburn. Even with a bum leg he could handle a little turbulence. “What’s going on?”

“I think you’re running. I’m not sure who you’re running from, although given the kinds of people Lucy was working with I can make a decent guess.”

“Lucy the other lady with you?” She nodded. Elisha grunted and Tarn’s face flitted through his mind. “Yeah, I got my ideas about it, too.”

There was a soft clatter of metal and he turned his attention to the small staging table a half meter away. Malaki was there, a recently discarded scalpel by his hand. He stretched his back out, twisting first one way, then the other, while holding a small lump of off white stuff in both hands. “Now I’ve got it. You were a puzzle, Agamemnon but now I’ve got you!”

Athena’s head whirled to lock on to him like a sentry turret and if her eyes were lancers Skorkowski would have been shredded. “Alright, you. What are you on about?”

He replied by holding up the thing he was holding for their inspection. It was a strange, pearly white substance carved into a pair of hands cupped protectively around two smaller figures. The had shockingly well realized features, particularly their noses and ears. Elisha found the detail a bit odd but he had to admit Malaki’s attention to detail had paid off as it was a simple matter to look between his 20cm tall carving and Athena and see the resemblance. “Hey, that’s pretty good.”

“Sculpture was my undergraduate field,” the academic admitted sheepishly. “But thank you.”

Athena grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the sculpture and pushed it down so she could resume lancing him with her glare. “Why. Did. You. Carve. It?”

It occurred to Elisha that he really shouldn’t let a girl who was shooting at them a few hours ago manhandle Lin’s employees like that. He took her wrist and gently shook it until she let go. “Let’s be civil about this. I’m kinda curious about it too. Why did you make that, you sweet on the lady or something?”

“Every person has a vision for their life, Mr. Hammer,” Skorkowski replied, setting the sculpture down on the table and holding it in place as the ship shook underfoot again. “Some visions are simplistic. As straightforward as a block of wood. Others are as complicated as the rotations of the galaxy itself. If you wish to understand a person, their methods and goals, you first have to capture that vision. Miss that and you can only flail in the dark.”

The withering gaze refocused from Malaki to the carving. “You think that is my father’s vision? The vision of a man who made the twelfth largest shipping concern in the dexter arm through thirty years of hard work? Who became wealthier than many companies that have existed for centuries? Who’s cargo fleets number more than some planetary defense forces? That’s his vision?”

“Didn’t realize we had a big shot here,” Elisha muttered, leaning closer to look at the sculpture. “Who’s the other one?”

“Her brother.”

“I told you I don’t have a brother.”

The thieftaker swing his head to Athena, then back to the carving, then back to her, then to the sculpture again. “Oh. I get it.”

She threw her hands in the air. “What? What do you get? Why do none of you make sense?”

Skorkowski picked a very feminine handbag up off the floor and set it on the table beside him. Elisha frowned. “That’s not yours. Did you steal it? I’m a thieftaker you know, I have to turn you in to keep my license.”

“How many painkillers did they give you?” Malaki asked, rummaging through the handbag.

“Wasn’t counting.”

“I can’t say I blame you.” Malaki pulled out an etheric transmitter and turned it over in his hands. “Long range, multichannel, with a hard wired connection to another transmitter which it can reach anywhere in the galaxy. Undoubtedly so you can always reach your father.”

Athena’s eyes narrowed. “If you think you can blackmail daddy into letting you go then I’m afraid you’ve another thing coming. He’s not actually the one who’s after you.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You’re also working on a limited set of information, my dear.” He steepled his fingers with the transmitter held between them and touched his fingertips to his lips for a moment of thought. “You know, on Lin’yi’s planet they say it is very difficult to bring two souls together. But with a thousand years of good prayers perhaps a loving parent may achieve it. They were speaking about rebellious children, of course, and everyone agrees you’re quite devoted to your father. That’s what makes his work so admirable.”

Elisha could tell the academic was really invested in his babble but he could also see the heat behind Athena’s eyes slowly cooling and it was clear Malaki was loosing her. So Elisha reached out and took the transmitter from him before he could go further. “Stop rambling, Skorkowski. We get that you’re smart, you don’t have to go on about it until her dad dies of old age.”

He held the device out to Athena but she took another step back, getting about as far away from them as it was possible for her to get in the confines of the medical bay. “No. That transmitter is gene coded to me, I’m the only one who can activate it and I’m not going to. I’m not letting you use me as blackmail. Daddy’s work is too important for you to get in the way.”

Malaki shook his head. “He can’t do it without you-”

“He did it for twenty years before I was old enough-”

“Why are you two so stupid?” Elisha roared. His ribs immediately made him regret it but the outburst had the intended result, namely making the two of them shut up and listen. “Miss Hutchinson. I understand that your dad is basically the most important thing to you in the whole galaxy. The reverse is undoubtedly true as well. Your father did all these great things you talk about and it’s great that you recognize them – I never understood all my dad did until he was gone. What you’re missing is that now the great thing he’s trying to do isn’t for the galaxy. Or the cargo. Or whatever. He’s trying to do something for you.”

For a long moment Athena was quiet, her eyes fixed on the device in Elisha’s hand. “What. What is he trying to do?”

“Ask him and find out.”

It took a long moment for her to work up the nerve. Elisha watched it build up behind her eyes, pressing her lips together to keep them from trembling and straightening her spine the barest amount before driving her arm out to wrap her fingers around the transmitter. She thumbed a single button and held it up in front of her face and said, “Daddy? It’s me.”