The Founder Effect, page 13
Sonny grinned. He always knew he was destined for greatness; he just thought it would happen at TRAPPIST, not en route.
No matter; he was ready to meet his destiny.
Sonny Strongbow was born ready.
“What can I do?” he boomed, stretching out his limbs, eager for his new orders. The orders that would make him a hero for the ages.
“Saboteurs,” the AI said flatly. “The previous team is still awake, and the new crew just awoke. Suspicious activity has been identified; security members of both teams appear to have been compromised.”
Sonny grinned. “And you needed the best to deal with it.” It wasn’t a question. “You got him.”
His only regret was that there were only two crew shifts—that meant ten of the human filth. It hardly seemed like a fair fight.
After cracking his knuckles and stretching his neck, he strode over to a nearby weapons vault and mashed a hand on the genlock, coded only to the security team. It popped open; Sonny snatched up a couple utility belts and loaded them with disruptors and extra power packs, along with some blades for good measure.
“Time to clean some scum.”
Sam
Benedict’s Bar probably wasn’t the worst place to waste an evening on Cistercia, Sam Torte mused, racking his brain for a grimier, more dimly lit candidate. Failing, he continued nursing three fingers of far-from-top-shelf rum and offered a silent prayer that the stench of urine settled over the establishment came from the winos frequenting it.
Nearby, several patrons engaged in a heated debate.
“Sonny took out all ten of those dirty rebels and that’s why we’re all here now, instead of space dust light-years away!” one drunk yelled, his face scarlet, with one fist hovering over another drunk’s smug face and the other fisting his victim’s collar. “You take back those lies, Clem!”
A man on Sam’s other side snorted, shook his head and muttered, “Every night.”
Clem spat at his aggressor’s face, but the spittle barely leaked out his mouth, settling on his beard. “It’s your crazy cult’s got all the lies. Sonny Strongbow is a myth!”
A massive paw wrapped itself around the first drunk’s fist, immobilizing his arm. “I think that’s enough for tonight, Van, don’t you?” the mountain attached to that paw said calmly. His other hand easily pried Van’s fingers from Clem’s clothes and he effortlessly dragged the man toward the door. “Out you go, friend. See you tomorrow.” He shook his head slowly and sauntered back behind the bar, polishing the rich wood mindlessly while waiting for his next order, a time-honored Earth tradition that remained after centuries of time and nearly forty light-years.
Clem sighed and stumbled back into his barstool. “So stupid,” he slurred. “Was just some guy. Jackson Something. Not Sonny.” His head thudded onto the bar, his eyes closing.
Sam smiled briefly and returned his attention to the alleged rum in front of him. He’d come here for a respite from digging through archives for his studies. All day sorting through the conflicting detritus history accumulated—looking for the one weird artifact that supported one researcher’s theory or disproved another’s—made a man thirsty.
Alcohol didn’t judge; it just was.
Until you needed a refill, at least.
All this arguing seriously interrupted Sam’s drinking. He knew the arguments both ways; everybody in Antonia did. The stories of Sonny Strongbow’s heroic deeds grew larger and more unlikely over the generations; they were practically a religion at this point. The worst part was, his acolytes would tell you his stories anywhere, everywhere, with little or no invitation, even if you didn’t want to hear it. Persistent bunch, too; once one of them got started, they’d follow you down a dark alley by the plague graveyards in Roanoke just to finish their pitch.
To be fair, the other side wasn’t much better. They denied Sonny Strongbow’s existence, of course, and since there was no record of a crew member with that name, it was hard to dispute. On top of that, they did find someone named Jackson de Clare, a name that could be twisted into Sonny Strongbow with one eye closed and some basic knowledge of Earth history. It was easy to see how Jackson could become Sonny, and the Second Earl of Pembroke, Richard de Clare, was also known as Strongbow. Obviously, Jackson de Clare was the real Sonny Strongbow.
But they didn’t stop there, oh no. Just denying the myth wasn’t enough. De Clare’s records were suspiciously spotty, and they made him out to be a cold-blooded murderer, so obsessed with his psychotic vision of who’d get to make it to the new colony that he tampered with the records and erased his victims so nobody would know.
This, of course, made Sonny’s followers see red; and the two groups were still getting into fights over Sonny decades later.
Jackson
Jackson de Clare woke for his first crew rotation and smiled, silently recalling the carefully crafted plans for the demise of his four team members, starting with the security woman. Once she was out of the way, the others would be easy prey.
Slinking out of his casket—a fitting name, he mused—he asked the AI for his team’s status.
“Bart Tolsovic is awakening, Lane Franklin is awake; May Yoko—”
Jackson didn’t listen to the rest. As expected, Lane was awake. The AI always woke the security team member first. He thought back to the romantic dinners they’d shared before stasis. He’d wined and dined her, gaining her trust in the weeks pre-launch, with the promise of more once they reached TRAPPIST and woke the entire crew for terraforming. He swallowed the bile rising in his throat, thinking of all the things he’d had to do with the repulsive witch, a smile pasted on through all of it, a nightmare he only endured by constantly recalling his training and focusing his mind by internally reciting the plan over and over.
The plan. No, not just a plan.
The Plan.
The Grand Plan.
The one that would make Earth pay attention to them at last.
Once they’d both awakened for their first crew rotation, deftly manipulated for a few Earth years into the mission—too long to arouse suspicion, early enough for news to get back to Earth and scuttle any more plans for interstellar colonization—she’d trust him enough that he’d be able to overpower her and eliminate her, replacing her with one of his comrades.
After that, the others would fall easily.
The Plan was perfect, and Jackson’s part in it critical.
Now all he had to do was execute it. He chuckled at the word, and silently marveled at his genius as he approached Lane, still stretching after her long sleep.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” he joked, his plastic smile firmly in place. “Sleep well?”
Sam
The door of Benedict’s swung open with a crack like a whip, capturing Sam’s attention, and yet another bum stumbled in like an alcohol-seeking zombie, lurching toward the bar, remnants of his torn, threadbare coat dropping to the dirt-caked floor in his wake. Sam turned away, focusing on his glass of battery acid, and tried to ignore the growing bile rising in his throat as the approaching man’s eau-de-sewer cloud of cologne intensified. Groaning at the scrape of the bar stool next to him, Sam hunched his shoulders and turned away slightly, hoping to avoid a direct encounter.
The slap of leather on the bar grabbed Sam’s attention and he nearly swallowed his tongue after he realized he’d unwittingly turned to face the fool, who stared at him with a toothless grin.
“How’s that rotgut treatin’ you, son?” he slurred, leaning in so that his fetid breath blasted Sam directly in the face. Sam tried—and failed miserably—not to flinch, but the ragged man didn’t seem to notice. “It’ll kill you if you’re not used to it.”
Clearing his throat, Sam nodded and turned back to his rum, but said nothing.
“I can take it,” the man continued, tugging at a loose thread that seemed to be the only thing keeping his left sleeve attached. “’S’my favorite, actually.”
Sam glanced aside. “You don’t even know what I’m drinking, old man.” He didn’t even try to hide the contempt in his voice.
The bum leaned into Sam’s personal space and hovered over the rum before Sam could snatch it away, but not before the old man managed a wet snort. He sat back and nodded smugly to himself. “Rancé, right?”
Sam glared, impressed, nonetheless. “Yeah.”
“Most kids call it Rancid Rum.” The bum licked his lips, eyeing Sam’s glass hungrily. “Like I said, my favorite.”
Chuckling despite his rotten mood, Sam pushed his remaining two-and-a-half fingers to the man. “Be my guest.”
The bum snatched the glass without hesitation and drained it in a single swallow, then grunted approval and wiped a filthy arm across his mouth, leaving an unidentified yellow smear on his mostly white, weeklong stubble.
Sam shook his head and blinked.
“That’s the stuff,” the bum murmured and belched loudly. “That’ll earn you some of my fine knowledge here,” he stage-whispered and patted the dog-eared, leather-bound tome he’d carried in with him.
With the sudden realization that the old man’s hand had never left the volume since he’d slapped it down on the bar upon his arrival, Sam’s curiosity was piqued. “What’s that you got there, old-timer? A book?”
The bum snorted. “Not just a book. Notebook. A journal, actually.” He cleared his throat and threw out his chest, like an actor about to launch into a soliloquy. “You know about the first Mason?”
“Obviously. There’s a statue of William Mason a few hundred yards that way.” He jerked his chin toward the door. “First colony lawman, responsible for security and all that. Wrote the book on it, Mason’s Security or something like that. Blah, blah, blah. Whatever.” He turned away and motioned for the barkeep.
The old man blew a loud, wet raspberry. “Not him.” He shook his head and muttered, “Kids these days don’t know nothin’.” Clutching his notebook tighter, he continued. “I’m talking about Sonny Strongbow, of course. The real Sonny, not what you’ve heard.” He looked around conspiratorially and gestured vaguely with the arm surrounding his notebook. “I know the real story.”
Sam groaned. There was no escape from Sonny Strongbow tonight, was there? He glanced around nervously, looking to where Van, the drunk who’d attacked the other man earlier, had been seated. Fortunately, his buddies were still focused on drinking, too far away to hear the old man. “Careful, old man,” Sam whispered. “We don’t need another fight here tonight. Maybe you should just find another bar.” He turned away, shaking his head.
The drunk grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.
“It ain’t rot, son,” he hissed, his eyes wild. He glanced over at the leather-bound notebook clutched in one hand, his knuckles white.
Sam grimaced, trying to ignore the man’s halitosis. “You’re one of them? Thinks Sonny Strongbow was a real hero? Your people are over there.” He jerked his head toward Van’s friend.
The old man snorted. “Oh, he was a hero all right, but not like they think. Some of the truth’s a bit . . . stretched, is all I’m sayin’.” Patting the worn notebook, he leaned in close and whispered, “This here’s his journal, written in his own hand. ’S’my inheritance.” He sat back and grinned, smacking his lips. “And for a bit more of that poison they call rum here, I’ll let you in on the truth about Sonny.”
As if on cue, a fresh glass of Rancé Rum thumped onto the bar in front of Sam. He glanced at the barkeep and caught him rolling his eyes before turning away, shaking his head.
Sam sighed, defeated, and nudged the glass toward the drunk. “Tell me.” He looked around slowly, fearing a new altercation. “Just me; keep it low. I don’t want any trouble.”
The old man grabbed the new glass and threw it down his throat in one go. Belching, he dropped the empty glass back to the bar top. The glass tottered for a moment before tipping over, the dregs of the cloudy liquid escaping onto the poorly polished surface.
He fixed a rheumy gaze on Sam and cleared his throat loudly but kept his voice low for an audience of one.
Mason
Mason Munson drifted out of stasis, as if waking from a dream. His eyes fluttered open and he squinted at the stasis display. Right on schedule, Earth year 8. Excited for his first of seven crew rotations, Mason recalled his stasis training and performed each task deliberately, methodically making his way out of his chamber—whimsically dubbed the casket by the crew. Surprised at the lack of a hangover, considering he’d spent his last night before stasis with some friends—and a couple of new guys Mason didn’t know, whose insistence that he should skip the mission and help them fix Earth first made him uncomfortable enough to spur him to imbibe more heavily than usual—it wasn’t long until he felt he was up to performing his duties as the current rotation’s security member.
Following protocol, he addressed the AI. “Mason Munson awake and ready.” The AI wouldn’t allow a crew member to go back into stasis until his replacement was both awake and lucid enough to claim readiness, thus ensuring a crew of five was always active at any moment. Mason expected his counterpart on the outgoing crew even now waited in his own casket for the go-ahead to go back into stasis, and now the AI would allow it.
“Nan?” he said, to get the AI’s attention. Crew members didn’t usually name the AI, but Mason felt it helped him to think of their interactions as conversations, so he’d done so. As a side benefit, he’d learned to have entirely muttered conversations with Nan that earned him a reputation in training as a bit loony, which could only help him as the security guy. Nobody wanted to mess with the crazy person. “Wake the others.”
Retrieving some nonlethal items from the gencoded weapons vault, Mason sighed, thinking of his favorite weapon, conspicuously absent from the vault.
His bow.
It wasn’t a weapon, per se, more of an obsession. He’d even trained for the Olympic Games back on Earth. He didn’t make the cut, but he didn’t care; it was the sport that drew him in, not the competition. It was always a competition with yourself, not others.
And that feeling when the second arrow slipped right into the same groove as the first, practically stripping the finish from the first one’s shaft as it wedged into the center of the target mere millimeters from the first. Well, there was nothing like it.
Mason sighed again. He’d heard that there were bows and arrows with the hunting supplies in the bays; maybe he’d get to shoot again once TRAPPIST was terraformed and the colony started up.
In the meantime, it was time to meet his team.
The first few weeks flew by, the crew learning to work together as a cohesive unit, getting to know each other on the job and off. He especially liked Hal, the engineer, and talked to him over the link whenever he had a spare moment. Hal was only a couple years older, but led a far more exciting life on Earth, and Mason couldn’t get enough of his stories.
Once, after they’d all converged on Seneca’s cabin for her birthday and she’d wormed a story out of Hal, Mason remarked that he must have had exciting adventures on every continent back on Earth. “Sonny boy, you don’t know the half of it,” Hal said, winking. “Ask me about Antarctica sometime.”
He did, a week later, and Hal’s tale didn’t disappoint.
Life was good. Mason exercised rigorously daily, keeping in shape as expected for his job, but he was bored. Everyone on the team was great and they all liked each other; they hardly even argued.
That was okay by Mason; for a policeman, better to be bored than busy.
Another six Earth months flew by before Mason’s training was put to the test. Mere weeks before the end of their rotation, Hal plain lost it and started doing crazy things, ignoring his comms, flipping random switches and punching buttons repeatedly, breaking things, although not in a malicious way. It was almost as if he thought he was somewhere else, and things that got in the way got broken.
The AI caught his behavior, of course, assessed the damage and ordered repairs, locked out Hal’s access and called for Mason, all part of the standard protocol for erratic behavior.
Even out of his mind, Hal had come to trust Mason, allowing Mason to approach close enough to subdue Hal, stunning him into unconsciousness. He picked up his friend’s limp body and laid him gently on a cart. Silently thanking generations of Earth firemen for their training regimen, which had strengthened his muscles sufficiently that moving Hal barely winded him, Mason wheeled his sick friend to the Med Bay.
“We expected some people wouldn’t be able to take space travel,” the med, Stephanie, said after examining Hal. “He’ll need to go back in stasis immediately.” She looked down at his sleeping form. “I’ll mark him for observation and the AI will schedule him for another rotation in a few years. If he still can’t handle it, he’ll go under until we reach the colony.” She shook her head sadly.
“Nan,” Mason muttered, so softly only the AI would understand his words, “wake up an engineer.”
Sam
“Whassat old man sayin’?” Clem spit out from a couple barstools away. “Sonny Strongbow stories?” He slithered from his barstool to the next one closer. “Set you straight ’fore, didn’t I?” He slumped upward, tottering on the edge of the barstool and leaned heavily onto the bar, offering his version without the cost of a drink.
Jackson
Jackson de Clare’s first crew rotation was succeeding well beyond expectations. Not only had he managed to dispose of all the original crew in his rotation, he’d convinced the AI to awaken handpicked replacements, sympathizers in the Grand Plan. Well, one of his handpicked replacements at first, an expert who deftly hacked into the AI. After dispatching the extraneous replacements, the hacked AI was more amenable to his suggestions.
Now, he had a full crew of handpicked replacements. But Jackson wasn’t one to quibble with the details when he had the desired results.
Soon, they’d convince the AI to bring his other comrades online—all fifteen of them—and they’d ready the San Salvador for ejection. After the Victoria was sabotaged, of course.
