cop and you’re already acting like a racist. Yeah, I’m a dirty oiler. Just like you’re an even filthier fleshy.’
Calder rubbed his aching forehead. His scalp felt hot. But he suddenly realized it was his mind, cooling from being excited by the headset. He couldn’t believe it had all vanished, that it had never even existed in the first place. A whole other life. He had been a police agent travelling between worlds, tackling federal cases for the alliance where local law enforcement was either lacking, corrupt or out of its depth. Calder looked down at his hands, expecting to still see the blood on his hands from the last stand on the Amish world. His partner dead, sold out by a racketeering spaceport manager. Only Calder left, Calder and a few backwoods farmers who he’d convinced to throw aside their pacifists tenets and take up arms against the offworld hitmen arriving to execute the only witnesses to an interstellar crime boss’s villainy. Calder had saved the woman and her son in the witness protection programme, exposed the conspiracy and taken care of the crime family’s henchmen. Calder had saved the goddamn day, and this was his reward? He looked at the sailor with new eyes. Except for Zeno’s golden metal skin and the spiky steel Afro, his face was human. ‘But you’re no clanking machine, why the hell would you need oil?’
Zeno held out his arm, a section of golden skin rippling back to reveal a conduit of black liquid flowing across a carbon frame embedded with micro-machinery. ‘I don’t bleed blood, just nanotechnology. That’s where your racist cop shit is coming from.’
‘Gods!’
‘Yeah, right about now, you’re thinking that life with the Amish and your head stuck between your ass is looking like your gravy. I’m right?’
‘You’re not wrong,’ said Calder. ‘The rest of the crew, are they similar to the creatures I saw in the spaceport? Are they aliens?’
‘Cop instincts now.’ Zeno whistled in appreciation. ‘The Gravity Rose has got five crew. Well, maybe six, with you. We’ll see how that works out. You’ve met Lana Fiveworlds, the skipper. Me, you know. There’s Zack Paopao who takes care of the engines and the engineering on the rear of this bucket. Fleshy-ass human, same as you. Kind of a recluse, though. Our navigator and pilot is called Polter. He’s a kag, which is to say a kaggen. Negotiator and cargo man is Skrat. He’s a skirl. They’re aliens, although truth to tell, humanity hasn’t thought of them as anything other than weird-looking amigos for millennia. You’ll be seeing why we didn’t bring either of those two down to your world. You get to lay eyes on a man-sized talking lizard and a giant sentient crab inside Matobo’s tower and we’d need to be taking your medication to a whole new level.’
‘What do you do on the ship?’
‘Me?’ Zeno placed his arms behind his wire Afro and leaned back in the chair. ‘I pretty much run this place. There’s a couple of thousand robots on the ship, real oilers – not self aware, like yours truly. Everything from talking vacuum cleaners to hull repair drones. Huey, Dewey, and Louie, they’re all answering to me. I’m the bot boss, the go-to-guy, the man with a plan. I guess you humans prefer having an android on board to manage the vessel’s mechs. Makes you feel a little less like you’re gang masters in the slavery business.’
‘I don’t understand,’ sighed Calder. ‘How is that you’re intelligent while they aren’t?’
Zeno shrugged. ‘Trick ain’t building something like me, man. Trick is building something smart enough to be useful, but dumb enough not to go self-aware. Lot of effort goes into that. Take the Gravity Rose ’s main computer core. If our ship’s AI, granny, develops herself a little self-awareness, you think she going to want to haul high-quality machine parts from point A to point B for Fiveworlds Shipping? Shit no. She’s going to be all, ‘Hey,
Calder rubbed his aching forehead. His scalp felt hot. But he suddenly realized it was his mind, cooling from being excited by the headset. He couldn’t believe it had all vanished, that it had never even existed in the first place. A whole other life. He had been a police agent travelling between worlds, tackling federal cases for the alliance where local law enforcement was either lacking, corrupt or out of its depth. Calder looked down at his hands, expecting to still see the blood on his hands from the last stand on the Amish world. His partner dead, sold out by a racketeering spaceport manager. Only Calder left, Calder and a few backwoods farmers who he’d convinced to throw aside their pacifists tenets and take up arms against the offworld hitmen arriving to execute the only witnesses to an interstellar crime boss’s villainy. Calder had saved the woman and her son in the witness protection programme, exposed the conspiracy and taken care of the crime family’s henchmen. Calder had saved the goddamn day, and this was his reward? He looked at the sailor with new eyes. Except for Zeno’s golden metal skin and the spiky steel Afro, his face was human. ‘But you’re no clanking machine, why the hell would you need oil?’
Zeno held out his arm, a section of golden skin rippling back to reveal a conduit of black liquid flowing across a carbon frame embedded with micro-machinery. ‘I don’t bleed blood, just nanotechnology. That’s where your racist cop shit is coming from.’
‘Gods!’
‘Yeah, right about now, you’re thinking that life with the Amish and your head stuck between your ass is looking like your gravy. I’m right?’
‘You’re not wrong,’ said Calder. ‘The rest of the crew, are they similar to the creatures I saw in the spaceport? Are they aliens?’
‘Cop instincts now.’ Zeno whistled in appreciation. ‘The Gravity Rose has got five crew. Well, maybe six, with you. We’ll see how that works out. You’ve met Lana Fiveworlds, the skipper. Me, you know. There’s Zack Paopao who takes care of the engines and the engineering on the rear of this bucket. Fleshy-ass human, same as you. Kind of a recluse, though. Our navigator and pilot is called Polter. He’s a kag, which is to say a kaggen. Negotiator and cargo man is Skrat. He’s a skirl. They’re aliens, although truth to tell, humanity hasn’t thought of them as anything other than weird-looking amigos for millennia. You’ll be seeing why we didn’t bring either of those two down to your world. You get to lay eyes on a man-sized talking lizard and a giant sentient crab inside Matobo’s tower and we’d need to be taking your medication to a whole new level.’
‘What do you do on the ship?’
‘Me?’ Zeno placed his arms behind his wire Afro and leaned back in the chair. ‘I pretty much run this place. There’s a couple of thousand robots on the ship, real oilers – not self aware, like yours truly. Everything from talking vacuum cleaners to hull repair drones. Huey, Dewey, and Louie, they’re all answering to me. I’m the bot boss, the go-to-guy, the man with a plan. I guess you humans prefer having an android on board to manage the vessel’s mechs. Makes you feel a little less like you’re gang masters in the slavery business.’
‘I don’t understand,’ sighed Calder. ‘How is that you’re intelligent while they aren’t?’
Zeno shrugged. ‘Trick ain’t building something like me, man. Trick is building something smart enough to be useful, but dumb enough not to go self-aware. Lot of effort goes into that. Take the Gravity Rose ’s main computer core. If our ship’s AI, granny, develops herself a little self-awareness, you think she going to want to haul high-quality machine parts from point A to point B for Fiveworlds Shipping? Shit no. She’s going to be all, ‘Hey,
Similar Books
