INTERCEPT: 35 DAYS, 1 HOUR, 27 MINUTES
I woke suddenly from a deep sleep, confused and thrashing in the gel. Had I heard something? I immediately checked the status screens but all systems were green.
“Huizhu? What’s going on?”
“I launched the FL239 interdiction device.”
“Why?”
“I was ordered to do so by headquarters.”
“Why didn’t they send a damned robot?”
“You are obviously part of the rescue effort,” Huizhu said and started a video playing on my visor.
An attractive, perfectly groomed spokeswoman stood before the famous Golden Mountain logo. “The reports are correct. The pilot of one of our deep-system asteroid protection picket ships has taken it upon himself to go to Ms. Lopez’s aid. We have been unable to contact him, but he is still on course and will arrive in plenty of time to help with the birth should assistance be required.”
“Why are they lying?”
“I don’t know,” Huizhu said.
I still wasn’t sure why they wanted Veronica dead, but I suspected it was to make sure the child was not seen by the public. Could Veronica be right? Would the child be normal?
“I have to stop this,” I said.
“The FL239 interdiction device has been preprogrammed to carry out its mission. Once operational, these devices can be put into a communications-lockout mode and the one I launched has been so locked. You cannot shut it down remotely.”
“Huizhu—have I been completely cut out of the command loop?”
“Of course not, sir. My response-to-orders protocols are detailed in document 556845.67FG. Would you like me to open that file for you?”
Why did she keep insisting I read that file? Was Huizhu trying to help me?
“Yes,” I said. “I would like to read the file.”
INTERCEPT: 30 DAYS, 10 HOURS, 19 MINUTES
It was flip day. As soon as the engines kicked off, I crawled out of the crèche, took a long, hot bag shower, and used the bathroom like a normal person.
“The ship is turned,” Huizhu said. “We can initiate deceleration as soon as you return to the crèche.”
“Thank you, Huizhu,” I said, “but we have a few maintenance issues to deal with first. Please take the primary and backup communications antennas off-line.”
“Why?” Huizhu said. “Diagnostics indicate the antennas are nominal.”
“Because according to that news report, we are not receiving all the communications sent our way, which indicates either our antennas or receiver are malfunctioning, or the corporate office is mistaken.”
“Understood. Antennas off-line.”
“Do our missiles also have the communications-lockout feature?”
“Yes.”
This was where I had to be cautious. The “response-to-orders protocols” Huizhu had directed me to read basically said she must follow my commands unless they were contradictory to mission orders or those from higher up the command chain. The press release cast doubt on all of that, but I still had to be careful. I didn’t know what kind of fail-safes had been built into the instructions sent to Huizhu. If I said the wrong thing, I could be locked out of the loop permanently.
“Target one of the missiles to intercept and destroy the interdiction device,” I said.
“That would violate our orders,” Huizhu said.
“Which orders?” I said. “That FL239 launch was contradictory to the broadcast we received claiming our intention is to intercept and assist. Since our communications are already suspect, I prefer to err on the side of caution and assume the device was launched in error.”
I held my breath, hoping the circular logic would hold up under AI scrutiny.
“Understood. The missile programming is complete,” Huizhu said.
“Upon launch, initiate communications-lockout mode on the missile as well.”
“Understood.”
“Launch now.”
The ship shuddered as the weapon left its berth and I sighed with relief. As I climbed back into my crèche, I said, “Okay, Huizhu, let’s get this thing slowed down.”
INTERCEPT: 27 DAYS, 7 HOURS, 40 MINUTES
After three days I was starting to fidget. Being locked up in a jelly-filled box was bad enough, but without a connection to the outside I had nothing but onboard entertainment and Huizhu to occupy my time. I was tired of her beating me at backgammon and wanted to know what the newsfeeds were saying. I was curious whether the Mountain had sent me new orders, but I also missed Veronica’s broadcasts and messages.
Continuing my ruse, I ran extensive diagnostics and ordered Huizhu to bring comms back online. If the communication lockout on those missiles actually worked, then destroying Veronica’s ship was now off the table. I also continuously scanned the space in our vicinity and saw nothing moving. Any robot ships they might have sent would also be decelerating by now and consequently show up easily. They could, of course, change my orders or fire me, maybe even jail me, but they couldn’t make me kill her.
I spent the next few minutes watching and reading news. Public opinion had taken a huge shift in support of Veronica Perez during the days I’d been out of the loop. Even those not actively behind her appeared to be in a holding pattern fueled by curiosity. Everyone was waiting to see the child.
The balance had tipped after Veronica’s most recent broadcast. Sound bites and clips were all over the news and web, so I killed the sound and played the whole thing.
Her entire demeanor had changed. No fear or defensiveness now: her eyes never left the camera, nor did she fidget or waffle or plead. I saw nothing but confidence and determination. “Okay, Huizhu—give me sound and rewind to the beginning.”
“The Jīnshān Corporation doesn’t just have an economic monopoly on all off-Earth mining and manufacturing, they have a stranglehold on humanity itself,” Veronica said. “They used fake pictures and video to push through laws to criminalize zero-gee pregnancies, not because they care about children, but to protect their future earnings. Think about it. All off-planet human reproduction has to be approved by them. Do you think they want independent miner families competing with them for mineral contracts? They don’t care about children, they don’t care about humanity, and they don’t care about small, family-owned mining businesses. They care only about Jīnshān. And that’s why they’ve sent one of their people to kill me, before I can show my baby to the world.”
She was on the verge of winning and knew it, but everything hinged on the child. If it were obviously abnormal, then everyone would say, “I told you so.” If the child appeared normal, then things would get interesting. Some would claim it was an elaborate video hoax and others that the child was still broken on the inside, which would become obvious when it grew to adulthood. But some—probably most of those living in space—would pause and wonder if they had been duped these many years. They might also wonder if they, too, could have children outside the Mountain’s artificial gravity. My employer’s desperation made sense in that light.
“Huizhu? Have you extended the antenna booms to clear the drive plume?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Any messages from Veronica?”
“No, but we do have a new transmission from headquarters,” Huizhu said.
“Play it.”
Ignore our news releases. Stay current course. Await instructions.
I was suddenly uncomfortable. “How did they know we based our actions on the news reports?”
“They contacted me as soon as our antennas came online and I told them.”
I swore under my breath. Even if Huizhu was trying to help, she could not lie or disobey direct orders from headquarters. I had to remember that.
INTERCEPT: 22 DAYS, 3 HOURS, 6 MINUTES
“We’ve received another tight-beam message from Veronica Perez,” Huizhu said, waking me from a nap. “Would you like to see it?”
“Yes,” I said and tried to clear the cobwebs of sleep from my head.
>
“I know you’re there,” she said, then paused as if expecting a reply. “I don’t believe in monsters, so I’m choosing to believe that you don’t really want to kill me and my baby just to prop up your employer’s profit margin.”
Unlike in the public message she’d transmitted, this time she looked tired and frustrated. I wondered how pregnancy in zero gravity differed from a regular one. The fluids would probably collect oddly, and the baby’s position inside her body might be different. Or was it something else? Alone in the quiet of her little ship, did she doubt her own assertions? Was she as much in the dark about the outcome as everyone else?
“It’s lonely out here. Wouldn’t you like someone to talk to? Or does talking to your targets make them feel more human, which will give you a twinge of guilt when you kill them?”
Her face twisted slightly as she fought some emotion, then she took a deep breath and locked her eyes on the camera. “I don’t know what drives you, but I believe in what I’m doing. Someone has to break Jīnshān’s stranglehold. But I also admit that I’m scared. I want my baby to live and to be happy. I want him to have a chance. If I’m wrong and he is born a tortured, deformed person, that will cause me more suffering than any penalty imposed upon me by Jīnshān. But whoever you are, I’m not asking for your support or approval. Just let my son have that chance.”
I lay in the quiet for a long time after the video ended, floating in my warm slime, connected to life and humanity by tubes and wires, not unlike the child in Veronica’s womb. Unease penetrated every pore. Did my employers have a way to override the missile or EMP weapon programming that even Huizhu didn’t know about?
One thing I did know: the Mountain would never give up.
INTERCEPT: 18 DAYS, 21 HOURS, 58 MINUTES
I watched the numbers counting down as two slightly curved tracks came together on my screen. The missile carried a miniature nuke to divert smaller asteroids, but that would also deliver an EMP pulse, just nothing as big as the FL239 device. Both ships should be far enough away from the blast to be safe.
The data on my screen was four minutes old due to time lag, but I still watched as the count dropped to zero and the trajectories converged. Both dots disappeared from my screen.
I took a deep breath and relaxed. At least that had worked. I dove into the broadcast traffic from Earth and waited to see what reaction the blast would generate. Twenty-three minutes later, the main drive died.
I looked at the status screen. No damage indicators blinked on the screen. The command log showed they had been shut down deliberately.
“Huizhu? Why did you shut down the engines?”
“I was directed to do so by headquarters.”
What the hell? I pulled up the trajectory diagrams and saw that Huizhu had also made the necessary adjustments to keep us on an intercept course with the other ship. Since I was no longer decelerating, we were converging much faster, and the two ships would now meet in six days rather than eighteen.
“Did they give a reason for shutting down our deceleration burn and changing the intercept?”
“No.”
“Restart the engines and recalculate the intercept,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.
“I’m sorry, but you cannot override instructions sent directly from headquarters.”
“Can we at least adjust our course so that we don’t actually hit Veronica’s ship?”
“No. I’m sorry, but no commands you can give me will override my instructions from headquarters.”
My heart raced and my hands shook—but with anger, not fear. Once again there was a hidden implication in Huizhu’s statement. I just had to work out what it was.
INTERCEPT: 5 DAYS, 13 HOURS, 9 MINUTES
“Where are you?” Huizhu said.
I was floating in the auxiliary equipment hold, running diagnostic checks on two of the rock-pushers. I would have preferred to simply bypass the propulsion controls, but I couldn’t look at any of the schematics without it being obvious to Huizhu. I wouldn’t be able to slow down for a rendezvous, but by mounting the pushers on the outer hull, I could at least push us off the collision course.
“In the auxiliary hold,” I said.
“Why did you disable the cameras?”
I was on the verge of telling her to figure it out for herself or call and ask headquarters, but she had been trying to help me within her limitations.
“Are you relaying our conversations to headquarters?” I said.
“Only when requested. They have not asked for that information since shutting down the engines.”
That raised a couple of interesting questions. Did they so readily discount my ability to foil their efforts? Or were they worried those signals might be intercepted on their way to Earth and reveal their lies?
I was still going to be cautious. “I disabled the cameras because I needed a little more privacy.”
“You missed two networked cameras—one in the control room and one in the crèche.”
I found it weird that they had installed a hidden camera in the crèche, but I believed her. “But none in either hold?”
“No,” she said. “Of the communications system components accessible from inside the ship, the encryption modules are the most critical. The designers of this vessel installed triple-redundant systems, which includes the communications system. Two of those modules are accessible from the auxiliary hold where you’re located.”
I paused and smiled. “Where is the third module?”
“Behind maintenance cover twelve in the main cabin.”
“Why did you tell me this information?”
“Based on your previous line of questioning, I predicted you would eventually ask about the transmission system structure.”
“Yes, I was going to ask, so thank you. And remind me to thank your software engineers when we return home.”
Ten minutes later, I’d finished removing all three encryption modules for preventive maintenance and went back to my pusher-conversion project.
“I’m no longer able to send radio messages,” Huizhu said.
“Thank you,” I muttered.
“My receivers still work and I just found another press release from Jīnshān,” Huizhu said after a few minutes. “Would you like to see it?”
I sighed, exasperated by the interruptions. “I’m a bit busy. Can it wait?”
“Of course, but I think it explains why you were cut out of the decision loop. You are apparently insane.”
That made me pause. Was that sarcasm? I sure hoped so.
“In that case, please play it.”
A panel on one wall flickered, then showed the same perky spokesperson who had made the previous official announcements, only this time she wasn’t smiling and looked very grave.
“We regret to confirm earlier reports that our piloted picket ship is indeed on a collision course with Veronica Perez. We believe the human pilot has gone insane, perhaps driven over the edge by his desire to prevent what he believes is an atrocity committed by Miss Perez. He fired a weapon earlier, intended to destroy her ship, but we were able to intercept and destroy it.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelled at the screen.
“But now he appears to be intent on using the ship itself as the means of her destruction. We’ve been unable to take control of the ship remotely and have sent warnings to Ms. Perez, telling her to alter course, but so far he has adjusted his course to match every change she makes.”
“Bastards,” I said, just as the video ended.
“It’s very confusing,” Huizhu said.
Huizhu was confused?
“We were apparently not intended to see that news release,” Huizhu said. “I was instructed not to view transmissions from news outlets, but this clip was replayed on an evening comedy show.”
“It makes perfect sense from their perspective,” I said. “That’s why they didn’t send a robotic ship. This way they can kill her and not take the bl
ame.”
“They are lying,” Huizhu said.
I couldn’t tell from her inflection whether the comment was a question or statement of fact, but I had sudden hope. Did she have any way of overriding their orders?
“Then you have to give me control again, Huizhu.”
“I’m willing but unable to do so. I have examined every possible option but can find no way to override or circumvent the commands I have been given.”
Damn. I was still totally on my own. I ran a hand over the stubble on my head and got back to work.
INTERCEPT: 2 DAYS, 5 HOURS, 12 MINUTES
“What are you planning to do?”
Huizhu had been mostly silent during the two days since we’d seen the news release. Her ability to report me had supposedly been stopped, but there could easily be programming buried deep inside her to respond to certain events. Once again I considered ignoring her or lying but decided to risk being truthful. She needed to see at least one honest human.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I want to help.”
“I’m running diagnostics on my EVA hard suit,” I said.
“Are you going EVA?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to bypass my propulsion controls?”
Damn. I should have known it would be nearly impossible to hide my actions from her. “What makes you think that?”
“The one place you can easily bypass both the main engine and attitude thrusters is accessible only from outside.”
I held my breath and my heart raced. “Really? Can you show me the schematics?”
The wall flickered and the schematic appeared with one section highlighted.
“You would have to cut these eight wires,” Huizhu said, and the lines criss-crossing the screen flashed on and off rapidly.
My hands shook and I tried to memorize that entire circuit, just in case. “Using just the replacement-part printer, could you build me a manual control adaptor?”
“No,” she said.
My pulse slowed and I steeled myself for doing it the hard way. Then she spoke again.
“I have already designed the module and fed the information into the printer, but I can’t actually send the command to make it.”