Bits of Catalyst, page 8
“If that’s the case, I’m going to lunch early,” Katya said. “And even if I can’t hand the artifact over, I can tell Nigel about it. So there.”
Sabina waited until her sister left the bridge before commenting, “And people say that she’s the mature one.”
“Which people?” Dewey asked.
“It’s just an expression. Any more news from Flower?”
“She checked with EarthCent Intelligence, and they agreed it’s better she doesn’t provide a permanent police force for the Miklat like she’s done for some of the smaller sovereign human communities on habitats. It comes down to the fact that the Zarents are the real authorities here, and their position could be eroded if they’re seen to be requesting help from an official agency of another species.”
Sabina nodded. “Did Flower or EarthCent Intelligence oppose the idea of our establishing a police force using human mercenaries?”
“No, they both thought it was about time. Taking over as a colony ship AI was a big leap for Kruik, even though the Miklat is ninety-five percent empty. It’s not surprising that he’s let some lower-level irritations simmer in order to prioritize the ship’s rehabilitation.”
“I have trouble understanding the intentions and motivations of the Humans we picked up at Earth,” Kruik joined the conversation unbidden. “Many of them are set on behaviors that can only harm them, and they seem indifferent to the impact their actions have on the ship’s efficiency.”
“Did you do any sort of background check before letting them join the ship?” Dewey asked.
“I thought the Humans would handle all of that.”
“Sabina?”
“To tell you the truth, we didn’t even think of it. Don’t forget that Katya and I grew up on a Stryx station. I was barely even aware that such a thing as violent crime existed until my mom took us to the first EarthCent Conference of Ambassadors. It was on this long skinny island, and they told us to stay away from one end because it was controlled by gangs.”
“The situation on Earth has improved radically over the last decade, and some of those criminals have left the planet in search of easier pickings. The ones who managed to lie their way past the screening for labor contracts were in for a rude awakening, but EarthCent Intelligence reports that a small number hooked up with pirates or other extraterrestrial criminal groups. The easiest way for troublemakers to get past screening is to sign up for package tours, as nobody worries about guests who have prepaid for their lodgings and have a return ticket. It’s quite possible that you picked up some bad apples.”
“I advertised for healthy laborers who wanted to learn new skills, and I hired local Earth doctors to perform medical exams,” Kruik said. “Flower told me that the supply of Human workers has peaked and that contractors are having difficulty meeting quotas, so I didn’t want to be too picky.”
“Have you identified any suspicious patterns among the new workers?” Dewey asked.
“I only started paying close attention recently when I discovered that some of the workers have been indulging in mind-altering substances before or during work. Most of the conversations I’ve monitored were statistically no different than a control group from Bits, but I have my suspicions about several men who are obsessed with cooking.”
“I never realized you were such a chauvinist,” Sabina said with a laugh. “I know the males of some species, like the Drazens, have rarely seen the inside of a kitchen, but—cooking what?” she cut herself off when she noticed Dewey’s look of concern.
“Based on the ingredients, I believe methamphetamines are on the menu,” Kruik said. “I checked the orders these individuals have placed since joining the ship, and their shopping list, taken as a group, was loaded with precursor chemicals that are only legally available to pharmaceutical manufacturers on Earth.”
“I think you may want to introduce this information at the beginning of this afternoon’s meeting rather than waiting to be asked,” Dewey said. “Flower had a tip that something like this might be happening, and if you hadn’t already detected it, I was going to ask your permission to do my own investigation.”
“Did you report this to the Zarents?” Sabina asked the ship’s AI.
“I didn’t think they’d be interested,” Kruik admitted. “I’ve come to believe that I was spoiled by the conduct of Humans on Flower, and likewise our community from Bits. I thought they were typical for the species, but now I see that I was mistaken.”
“Most people are fine as long as you don’t let them form mobs,” Dewey said. “I look forward to the meeting, but I have another stop to make first.”
“Snap?” Sabina asked.
“Yes. First Engineer Miklat is the conduit of leadership for his community, and there’s no point in the rest of us getting into the details of setting up a police force if the Zarents aren’t on board, so to speak.”
“We’ve tried to get Snap to participate in decisions about the ship’s human inhabitants, but he prefers not to get involved in anything that doesn’t directly impact the ship’s ongoing maintenance.”
“Even if he doesn’t want to participate, he may ask me to represent his views on the matter,” Dewey said. “I’ll see you both at Mouser’s after lunch.”
“Are you requesting that I send a bot for the sake of a physical presence?” Kruik asked.
“I look forward to hearing you after lunch,” the artificial person corrected himself. “Can you tell me where First Engineer Miklat is currently located?”
“He’s on the second ag deck inspecting some recent construction. I’ll guide you to him.”
Dewey spotted Snap on his unicycle zipping in and out of the newly built duplex stalls that had aroused the curiosity of Hercules and Shadow, and he halted a distance away to give the Zarent time to complete his inspection. Snap must have sensed the artificial person’s presence from the leakage of electromagnetic waves, because on emerging from the next stall, he broke off his pattern and pedaled over.
“Greetings from Flower,” Dewey said out loud. “Would you prefer that I address you via millimeter waves or infrared?”
“Your external form is so much like a Human that sound waves seem most appropriate,” Snap responded via his external translation pendant. “I sometimes wonder whether an artificial intelligence can pass as Human without unconsciously absorbing some of their idiosyncrasies.”
“I don’t worry about it myself. Are the temporary barracks ready for occupancy?”
“As soon as I complete the inspection, but I don’t anticipate any problems. The pop-up construction modules worked flawlessly, and I assigned an apprentice to work with the Humans who connected the utilities.”
“I think the location is an excellent choice,” Dewey said, looking around the ag deck. “They’ll have plenty of room to chase each other around. But the reason I’m here is to invite you to a meeting about establishing a police force for the Miklat’s non-Zarent occupants.”
Snap’s gentle back-and-forth rocking on the unicycle halted for a second, and then continued. “An unfortunate necessity,” the Zarent acknowledged. “I didn’t want to broach the subject with the mayor or the co-captains, but some of the Humans we picked up on Earth are behaving very poorly. I was thinking of asking Kruik to remove them from the Miklat, but I don’t want to start a precedent where we have the responsibility of determining who is fit to live on board.”
“As the ship’s owners, the final authority must rest with your community,” Dewey said. “Flower is concerned that after spending your lives maintaining the Miklat for the Wanderers, your standards for acceptable conduct in other species might be too low.”
“I’ll admit we don’t expect much of others, and even the problem Humans do some work. The Wanderers were mainly in our way.”
“Understood, but Humans are a young species, and the problem members of their communities have a way of dragging others down with them, especially where drugs are concerned.”
“If Flower and M793qK believe the Miklat requires a police force, we’ll bow to their superior experience in these matters,” Snap said. “Is Kruik uncomfortable with employing his bots to enforce a code of conduct?”
“I realized only recently that the Zarents are unique among the advanced species in your approach to automation,” Dewey said. “The Farlings engineered you for a synergistic relationship with robots, sacrificing physical strength in your design specification for fine motor control of your tentacles to operate servomechanisms.”
“You refer to the fact that we aren’t afraid of automation leading us down the path of physical lassitude and failing animal spirits?” The Zarent raised himself from the unicycle seat and emitted a humorous buzz. “We were designed for Zero-G, yet we spend a large portion of our days pedaling unicycles on decks that are rotating at high rates of speed to create weight for those whose health suffers in its absence. Operating a bot through servomechanisms all day in this environment gives us the same workout a Human might experience running a marathon.”
“I never thought of it that way,” Dewey said. “I wonder why M793qK didn’t disabuse me when I offered my observation to him.”
“He probably thought I would find it amusing to correct you,” Snap said. “Would you like to take a brief tour of the progress we’ve made since your last visit? I know that Flower takes a proprietary interest in the Miklat, even though she gifted the ship to us.”
When Kruik pinged Dewey to warn him that the meeting was about to start, the artificial person was at the bottom of the reservoir that filled the Miklat’s outermost deck, inspecting the Dollnick cleaning fish that Flower had gifted the Zarents. He excused himself from Snap, who was equally at home in water or air, and probably more comfortable in the former due to buoyancy, and swam for the surface. Giving himself a mental pat on the back for buying a washable business suit from Flower Formal Wear with his employee discount, Dewey ran for the nearest lift tube and requested Kruik to blow hot air through the capsule. By the time he arrived in Mouser’s repair shop on the hobby and light industry deck, the only sign he’d been underwater was the squishing from his shoes.
“Get caught in the rain?” Sabina asked him with a knowing smile. “You’re among friends here. Nobody will think the less of you for going barefoot while your socks dry.”
“I was checking on Flower’s reservoir fish,” Dewey admitted. “I’ll just squeeze out my socks in the toilet and I’ll be right with you.”
“Where’s the satchel with the artifact?” Katya asked as he turned to leave.
“I left it with a note in Nigel’s cabin as Snap and I passed. He’s probably discovered it by this point.”
“Nigel hasn’t returned to his cabin since concluding his lunch with Katya fifteen minutes ago,” Kruik reported via an overhead speaker. “He’s walking on the park deck.”
Katya shot her sister a look, wondering if in accordance with the agreement they’d just made, Sabina would cover for her while she left to break into Nigel’s cabin and present the artifact in person. Then Shadow and Delphi entered together, followed by Rayne with Hercules, and the moment was past.
“No Sarah today?” Mouser asked Rayne.
“When Kruik informed us that we’d be starting with a meeting about establishing a police force, Sarah decided to play with her friends instead,” the girl’s mother explained. “I don’t blame her.”
“It won’t be a long meeting,” Sabina said. “Mouser was approached by the leader of a small group of mercenaries with policing experience and we sent their information on to Flower and EarthCent Intelligence for vetting. They all checked out as legit, no black marks against them from alien employers, and the leader has a citation from the Drazens for sacrifice above and beyond the call of duty.”
“Who will they report to and how much will they charge?” Rayne asked.
“Drake said something about a standard contract with performance bonuses, though never having retained mercenaries before, I have no idea what either entails,” Mouser said.
“Human mercenaries contract out for the same rate as skilled laborers,” Kruik told them. “The performance bonuses usually take the form of prize money, receiving the fair value of enemy gear they capture, and a twenty percent premium on all of their hours worked if they accomplish their mission without the use of weapons.”
“Doesn’t going unarmed force them to take unnecessary chances?” Shadow asked. “I’ve played some policing games, and criminals are dangerous.”
“I think the idea is to discourage them from using deadly force,” Mouser said. “I wonder how the aliens arrived at twenty percent.”
“Trial and error,” Kruik said. “Dewey has informed me of the results of his conversation with First Engineer Miklat, who authorized the establishment of a police force, but the Zarents don’t want to be part of the chain of command. They see criminal behavior as an internal Human problem.”
“So Drake can report to the co-captains,” Rayne said.
“We were thinking it would be more appropriate for the mayor to be in charge,” Katya said hastily. “My sister and I can ask Kruik to deploy bots if we see a danger to the ship, but getting involved in domestic disputes and drunken brawls among the people living on board doesn’t fall within our mandate.”
“You don’t think a captain has final responsibility for the crew?” Mouser shot back.
“They aren’t crew, they’re temporary workers,” Sabina said. “We have over twenty-five thousand people living on board now, which sounds more like a town than a ship’s complement.”
“I’m pretty sure on cruise ships, the captain has final authority,” Hercules said in support of Mouser, who obviously didn’t want the responsibility.
“Maybe the police can work without supervision,” Delphi suggested.
“Bad idea,” Dewey said as he strode back into the workshop, squishing sounds gone. “Putting the police in charge results in a police state, by definition. And from what I gather, your problems are limited to a subset of the workers you recruited on Earth. If you just give Drake and his men the authority and the go-ahead, I believe the problem will be resolved in no time, and then the issue will be finding enough constructive work for your police that they don’t get bored and quit.”
“Or start drinking and cause problems themselves,” Rayne muttered.
“What does Flower do with the police that they train on board for deployment to the little sovereign human communities that request help?” Mouser asked.
“They train other ex-mercenaries in the fine art of civilian policing for the cultures they’ll be working with, and the turnover is high,” Dewey said.
“That’s right,” Rayne said. “It’s not a major profit center for Flower, but the work is subsidized by EarthCent, and she often collects bonus payments from the aliens whose facilities have been leased to the people in need of police. Do you think we could do the same?”
“Go into competition with Flower?” Sabina asked doubtfully.
“Why not? The whole point of a free-market economy is that competition makes us all better.”
“I’m not sure Flower will see it that way. And are you volunteering to manage a new business providing policing services to the communities we stop at?”
“We could hire somebody,” Rayne pointed out. “That’s how Flower keeps increasing her population, you know. She never misses a chance to start a business that requires new staff.”
“I’d like to circle back to who is going to be in charge of the police force,” Mouser said. “It sounds like it’s between me and the co-captains, and since none of us want to do it, I suggest splitting the difference.”
“You take half the job, we’ll take half the job,” Katya said. “Done.”
“Stop it,” Sabina said. “If the two of you feel so strongly about it, I’ll take care of the police, but you both owe me one.”
“Agreed,” Mouser said. “Now, if we can move on to more important affairs, has anybody filled Dewey in on what happened in the game last week?”
The co-captains took their leave and headed for the lift tube. Katya asked Sabina, “What gives? You must know that taking responsibility for the police means adding another meeting a week to your schedule, and probably a long one at that.”
“I read through the Drazen report about the incident which earned Drake his citation.”
“Drake?”
“That’s the name of the leader who will be acting as police chief.”
“Good looking?”
“In a rugged way,” Sabina said with a sly smile. “He has a prosthetic arm. Besides, we just agreed that you get Nigel.”
Katya stiffened at her twin’s exaggerated pronunciation of the name, and then she sighed. “I’ll give you that,” she said. “Drake is a pretty cool name.”
Seven
“Hey, Belle,” Kyor greeted the clone. “How’s tricks?”
“I heard you were on board and I had to see with my own eyes,” the Gem said. “Why do you have a high counter without seats?”
“It’s a standing bar,” the Huktra said. “You order a beer, I serve it, you stand there and drink it, pay me, and leave. Simple, clean, and profitable. I don’t understand how I could be the first to think of it.”
“You aren’t. There are beer stands all over Earth, but they’re usually found at special events, like sports contests or festivals. Why should people come to the food court and buy draft beer from you when they can get it with a meal at a pub?”
“I have peanuts.”
“It won’t be enough. Either you need attractive Human barmaids or ridiculously low prices. How much for a beer?”
“One cred.”
“I don’t think it’s going to work,” Belle said.
“I meant one cred for two beers,” Kyor amended herself. “Humans seem to be fans of buying things in twos.”
“That’s a bargain.” The clone put both hands on the bar and stared up at Kyor’s reptilian features. “But I suspect that you’re here for Myort and the business is just a cover. Why didn’t you open a gallery?”
