Back to school

The Jesuit University of New Fresno was, perhaps surprisingly, one of the premier pure research universities in the 'Verse. They specialized in physics, mathematics, astronomy, and cosmology. All related fields. The Jesuit order had a history that dated back at least a thousand years, to well before the Exodus. There were quite a few, often confusing, sometimes contradictory, stories about their origin and purpose. In contrast to what some would expect, given their origin as a Monastic religious order on Earth that Was, their universities had a reputation for strong academic values.

Still didn't quite explain why Professor Sinclair was here teaching. Not when she already had tenure at Feynman and at least two others: at 26. But here was where she was, so here was where I was - prowling the grounds of a premier university campus trying to find the Upton Hall of Mathematics.

I found Professor Sinclair in one of the lecture halls, giving a lecture on some aspect of advanced mathematics that was more than a little over my head. No surprise really. I'd had a solid formal education, but even with a Master's in Applied Technology the frontiers of theoretical mathematics were well beyond what most of us could even comprehend.

Forty minutes later, and I was waiting in her office waiting for her to come out of 'Lecture' mode. The professors here had a long tradition of wearing monastic robes that looked like they'd come from an Abby on Earth that Was during the medieval period. The reason was lost to history, though there was an official story that the robes took the focus off the Professor's presence to let the students concentrate on the content being presented. With Sinclair, the robes were probably more of a requirement than a tradition.

I'd seen holos of the Professor long before I came to New Fresno, but when she tossed the formal robe covering a t-shirt and shorts aside and settled into the seat behind the large wooden desk, I realized the images hadn't done her justice. A cascade of red hair, intense green eyes, a perfect face. Professor Sinclair wasn't just 'very pretty' as she appeared in the images. She was stunning. Teen-age fantasy poster model stunning. Invade your dreams stunning.

Without the robes, most of her students wouldn't have been able to concentrate on the lecture.

"Please, Colonel, take a seat," she said, cheerfully, motioning me to one of the leather covered chairs. "Sorry the lecture went a little long. Did you have a nice flight?"

It took a second for the fleeting "Elle est belle" moment to pass before I settled comfortably into a chair. "Please, Professor. Just Seana. No one calls me Colonel."

She actually blushed a moment, then laughed. "Oh! I'm sorry. I forgot that's a secret. Deal. You've got to call me Tawny though, ok? 'Professor' is just too stodgy. Coffee? I'll make some fresh."

I nodded yes and watched as she made coffee in an antique press that was probably older than the trees that had gone into her desk. Sinclair was known for her work in Crypto, but that wasn't why I was here. My interests were, if anything, even more esoteric than the convoluted mathematical world of keeping secrets secret.

"Thank you for meeting with me, Tawny. I know I was less than clear about the specifics when I asked to see you, but this isn't about your Cryptology work."

She smiled, pouring out two cups of coffee from the antique press. "Oh, it's ok Seana. I know. He told me. It's about the Machines and modeling their Artificial Intelligence."

I nodded, then paused. "Wait. What? He told you?"

Sinclair stopped, looked at me in a moment's confusion, then started to giggle. "Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't know you didn't know. Blue Man. Your friend. The AI. He was telling me about the issue you've had on the Rim with those von Neumann machines. He said you'd probably come talk to me about it. "

For a moment I was speechless. She knew Blue? I knew he wasn't restricted to just a single piece of kit, or location. As far as I could tell, he could go wherever the Cortex went. By now, he'd have instances of 'Self' scattered through the Cortex from Londinium to Miranda and most nodes in between. But Blue, historically, had kept his existence hidden. His very existence partially relied on the 'Verse as a whole not knowing about him. There were ways to keep him out, but they were complex and beyond the ken of most system operators. That people weren't taking active measures to "deal with" the most complex AI in human history was a testament to the fact that very, very, few people even knew he was there.

"Indeed, Tawny. I hadn't realized Blue was talking to you. To anyone, really. But yes. There aren't a lot of people I can consult on the subject and your mathematical modeling of machine consciousness is state of the art. I'd very much appreciate your input."

She smiled cheerfully, settling back into her chair and curling her legs up under her. "I'd be happy to. I don't get a lot of opportunity to work with real AI. Other than Blue, I mean," she said with a laugh, then leaned forward. "So, what have you got?"

I made it back to Wave Equation nine and a half hours later. Kari had coffee ready, but had been bored staying aboard the boat since we landed. AuroraBlue was curled up on the couch, asleep, after prowling campus for most of the day. And I was tired. Brain hurt, kind of tired.

Exhausted, really.

Exhausted, but it was worth it. I'd gotten even more than I'd intended. I wasn't sure whether Sinclair would be able to answer my core questions, but she was the best chance we had. I just had to wonder whether, ultimately, we really wanted to know the answer.

Stowing away

There's a lot of myths about stowing away aboard spacecraft. Some of them are even true. Many have some grain of truth in them, whilst some are reiner Schwachsinn. Pure bullshit. One of the common ones is that it's simple to stow aboard any ship. All you have to do is avoid being seen boarding, and avoid getting caught aboard. And, while there is some grain of truth to that little myth, the fact is that it depends almost entirely on the configuration of the boat and the diligence of her crew.

There's a lot of signs when there's a stowaway aboard. Some easier to see than others, and some more or less dependent on the boat in question. Examples? Easy. Skipping past the obvious "getting found by the crew" parts, you get to the root of it. Passengers breathe. They eat, drink, and excrete too. Unless they brought along their own air, water, and food, they're going to put some sort of load on the ship's life support. You can figure out there's someone extra aboard just by keeping an eye on the life support monitors. That's without any kind of fancy on-board security systems.

Of course, the bigger the boat, the smaller the proportional load'll be. If the boat's old and creaky to start with, like an old tramp freighter, chances are no one'll notice. Some of those boats lose enough atmo through the hull seals that a stowaway would just look like noise. Thing is, on a smaller boat, an extra passenger will show up right quick on the life support load. Hell, if your navigation suite's any good, an extra 50 kilos moving around the boat will show up on the maneuver console.

Wave Equation, in spite of her range and performance, was a small boat. She wasn't old, and she wasn't creaky.

And I didn't use a lot of life support.

Now, I was right gratified that AuroraBlue had decided to come along on this little excursion. It would be good to spend time with my little girl. What I hadn't quite expected was to find I had another passenger. Though, to be sure, I hadn't really needed any fancy monitoring to figure out there was a third person aboard. No, Kari hadn't actually bothered to hide. She'd just curled up on the bunk under a blanket and waved when I came back into the cabin.

Reminded me of Nack's comment that his sister didn't like to travel off world much. Seems he wasn't entirely up to date on her flight preferences. Having her aboard would make for an interesting trip, but I couldn't complain. It would certainly make the flight to Athens interesting.

The entire point of this trip, aside from a stop to see Sabrina and another to swing by Surfer's New Paradise for fifty kilo's of fresh coffee, was to stop at the Jesuit University of New Fresno on Athens. Specifically, to see a mathematician who was guest lecturing there. She wasn't in a position to travel and a Cortex bridge wasn't secure enough for our needs, so I would have to go and see her in person.

It was kind of an odd situation, really. Intel Section had mathematicians I could tap if I needed to. The Signals Intelligence and Cryptology units were loaded with them. But they weren't professor Sinclair. Plus, they served other masters. By reputation and everything I'd been able to research, she'd stayed in academia because, for her, Universities didn't care so much about what she was working on. Only that she was doing it. And sharing it. Which left some folk in the Alliance a little annoyed, especially when she'd published a paper that effectively broke about a third of Parliament's secure comms traffic.

Just the sort of person I needed to talk to.

Outbound leg

Every time I leave Hale's Moon, I wonder what'll change in my absence. Reaver attack? Alliance install a new government? Another rock drop out of orbit and leave a smoking hole somewhere on the surface? Was always something different. Not always so major, but always something to leave me saying "Mmmm, maybe I should have stayed around."

Some unknown miscreants trying to kidnap Tillery one day, and a bounty hunter bagging Cody a couple days later made my departure a little awkward. But I'd already delayed my trip longer than I should have. Rescheduling with Sabrina was easy. Uncle Elsoph would kick her out of the lab before I docked, no matter when I docked. But meeting the Professor was a different story.

The 'missing Cody' issue I would have to leave to others. The pilot of the boat that took him killed his pulse beacon while the IAV Abraham Sinkov was vectoring in. Made it easier for them to drop off the grid, seeing how the Sinkov's array's were typical Alliance and essentially kainashi. That didn't mean our system couldn't track them for a good deal farther. Still, there were a lot of worlds to alert down that vector, even with a solid ident and profile for the boat.

Have to hope someone, on a console somewhere, made the connection when the boat set down and sent word back our way. Doubted I'd be around to deal with it, but Gallagher or someone else in the Sheriff's office could follow up the lead.

AuroraBlue showing up while I was at Firefly's before departure put another spanner in the gears. She still wasn't talking to anyone, me included, but it seemed she didn't need to talk. She was able to make herself understood whether she spoke or not. The details were still fuzzy, but it had something to do with x0x0, her horse, and a lot of altitude. The problem was, there were too many vectors for me to chase down. I couldn't pursue Cody, x0x0, Tillery's kidnappers, and the work I was rapidly running out of time to do all at the same time.

If AuroraBlue snuck aboard, I wouldn't complain. I'd offered to take her with me but I'd have to leave the ultimate decision up to her. I wasn't going to force the issue. Assuming I could force the issue. Which, itself, was in doubt. Tiny Dragon faced the world on her own terms. She might listen to a suggestion, or choose to accept a command based on respect, but she wasn't going to be intimidated into cooperation or just do something "because I said so." She was a lot like her mother in that respect.

I'd get contacts, official and otherwise, to look into the current issues. I wasn't going to bring all of my Intel Section resources to bear, but it was easy enough to set the flags and let the big, unwieldy, oft uncoordinated, intel machine do its thing. Where x0x0 and Cody were involved, I could use official channels to discretely query the Special Investigations Group where Major Siamendes had still been showing some passing interest in my residents. Not that the normal flags wouldn't catch it.

For now, it was time to get a move on. Say good night to friends at Firefly's. File a pre-flight that was almost, but not quite, accurate, and get Wave Equation into the black. I had a lot of space to cover, and not a lot of time to do it.

Just hoped the trip went as intended.

There's just some days . . .

I'd been getting ready to leave. Not permanently kind of leave. Just a few days off world to handle some very specific business that couldn't be handled remotely. Or, more accurately, a very specific person I would have to go to rather than bring to me. Two of them, really, since I planned to swing by Ariel on the way home to spend some time with 'Brina. I'd been feeling the distance more and more lately and work was becoming less of a distraction from that "alone" feeling.

We both had our ways of dealing with being apart. We both had local friends who could brighten our days. From what I was hearing, 'Brina was very popular with the other engineers in Uncle Elsoph's special projects group and with the platform's staff in general. Add to it a population at the orbital shipyard that was about triple what we had on all of Hale's Moon, and close proximity to other facilities and Ariel itself, and my wife wasn't lacking for distractions.

My situation on Hale's Moon was a little different. There was less to do. Less to keep my mind occupied away from work. Especially since the Alliance changed our government on us and pretty much put me out of my publicly acknowledged job. Though, to be fair, I was less of a social animal than my wife. Most of the time I was content to be alone in the Black. When I need to feel people around, I could fly down to the surface and spend an evening in Fook's or Firefly's. Plus I've had Haley to keep me company, snoring aside, and, more recently, Kari, Nack's sister, has spent some very pleasant social time with me. Unexpected, but welcome.

Who knew cats liked coffee?

Unfortunately, my departure plans were interrupted by a frantic call from the surface. It seems someone had stormed the CNS offices on Hale's Moon and taken Tillery hostage. Why? No clue. Probably either ransom or some kind of political statement. Either way, with no active Alliance patrol on the ground, it would be up to our locals to deal with the issue.

Fortunately for Tillery, no one did anything stupid. At least not very stupid. I had Genni assemble a Militia sniper team to deal with the keijijou holding Tillery on the roof of the CNS building. I resisted the urge to call in a team from the Sinkov, since the more it looked like we could handle things on our own the more likely it was Silvermane could push for us to get control of the colony back.

In the meantime, our locals handled things like they so often do. With a lot of random gunfire and a bit of high explosives. Not always very effective, but often spectacular.

The Infirmary had a few casualties to deal with in the aftermath, but at least Tillery wasn't hurt. Down side was the kidnappers got away, evacing on a stolen shuttle when our locals took to the air for better position themselves before Genni's snipers got into position. They left Tillery behind, shaken up but uninjured, and Cody, who'd somehow managed to get himself stared down at gunpoint.

Best we could do at that point was put out an alert with the stolen shuttle's ident and hope one of the Alliance patrols, or a friendly merchant in the region, caught site of them. With our navtrac being what it was, they'd have a hard time just transferring to another boat and slipping away, but they could probably get out of range before anyone caught up with them.

If I hadn't been on short time, I might have gone after them myself. Was unlikely a stolen shuttle would be able to elude Wave Equation's arrays. Wasn't in the cards though. Had places I needed to be, and with Tillery safe, I wasn't so concerned with the folk who'd tried to snatch him. Was something I could leave the the authorities.

Though, to be sure, it was something I'd be looking into when time allowed.

Rebuilding

Folks living on the Rim can be a stubborn , cantankerous, lot. Especially when it comes to things they've built and consider a part of who they are. It's like the folks who went back to recolonize Shadow before the radiation from the last bombing had fully cleared, or the ones who went back to try and reclaim Blackburne from the Reavers and the Wastes. The same thing's starting to happen here on Hale's with the crater that was Destiny.

Now, I'm not one to discourage someone from trying the impossible. Trying impossible things is what slides an eraser over the "im" part of that word, leaving possible behind. Folk don't try, they don't find out that sometimes "it can't be done" is a lie.

Thing is, not everything that's been called 'impossible' is worth proving wrong. There's some things that maybe can be done, but maybe shouldn't aught to be done. Like those man-powered Ornithopters they build on Colchester. Sure, they fly. But what's the point?

Same thing seemed to be happening with what had been the Destiny compound. Some of the folk who'd evacuated before the rock pasted the site have started rebuilding parts of the enclave. Never mind the ground hasn't cooled yet. Never mind there's a moon's worth of open land to work on. Never mind there's no real shortage of housing in the main colony proper. Never mind they're rebuilding under the watchful eye of the Alliance, who hasn't forgotten flippant remarks about nuclear weapons. Never mind there's no real good reason to rebuild there. They're doing it.

Stubborn.

Cantankerous.

Part of me understands wanting to rebuild, but these are some of the same folk who had to evacuate Caliban and came here to restart. They didn't rebuild there when the Alliance collapsed the dome. What made them want to stay here? Perhaps more important, given as they hadn't shown any real desire to integrate with the existing colony, what makes them want to rebuild their enclave right in our back yard? Somehow building here will put a thorn in the Alliance's paw? Don't seem especially likely. More like they're shoving their tenacity in the face of the folk who'd already proven they could survive anything this little slice of heaven threw at them.

Wasn't much inclined to stop them, of course. Not my place to tell them no. Not much need either. The deal they'd had with Blue Sun for the land was already defunct. The rock impact hadn't changed that. Seeing as they were building so close to the colony proper, they'd be under the Colony's auspices. Least that's how I saw it. And, likely, how the Alliance would see it, given my conversations with Lionheart and Silvermane.

So let them rebuild. They'd be part of the town, like it or not. At least when the Alliance gave the town back to us. Meantime, they could be as shibutoi as they wanted. Wouldn't make much difference in the long run.

Right now, I had to change focus to other issues.

They'd still be there when I had time to put a boot down.

The one wherein the Destiny Enclave is replaced by a large smoking crater...

If I said I was comfortable with everything that went on in the Enclave It'd be a lie. From the Casino that everyone knew about to the hidden genetic research laboratories that pretty much no one knew about, there were goings on behind the fence that never really sat well with me. Not that having it close enough to keep an eye on wasn't an advantage, but there were times the Risk vs Reward balance swung a bit too far towards the Risk side for my taste. Not to mention some of the residents having a separatist attitude that was kinda galling. Like it or not. Admit it or not. Their whole Gorram enclave existed because I convinced the council to let x0x0 alter our deal with Blue Sun.

Destiny existed because Blue Sun let 'em set up on their leased land. Blue Sun had land to sublease, because I convinced the Town Council it was a righteous idea.

Now, I didn't rightly mind an independent spirit. The folk on Hale's were right independent minded most of the time. But when you let refugees move in out of the kindness of your collective heart and some of them go out of their way to not make an effort to join your community? That's just not right. Hell. There were times a few of them seemed to go out of their way to make trouble. Threatening the Alliance with a nuke? Whole colony'd have been humped if we hadn't nipped that in the bud.

Suppose it's no surprise I didn't shed a tear when a low velocity rock center punched their landing pad. We'd gotten enough warning to know it's trajectory and knew it was big enough we couldn't alter its course. Numbers showed it'd hit like a tactical nuke. Five, maybe eight, kiloton yield. Enough energy to wreck everything in the immediate vicinity, but not enough kinetic energy to do more than shower the main colony with a layer of kicked up dust. There was also more than enough warning to let folk evac, so when it hit it didn't end anyone's span. Just made a royal mess of the compound.

Not to say that altering the surface like that didn't give me a twinge. The folk who'd lived in the Enclave had been through a lot. Life hadn't been exactly kind to them. Hell, the Replicants had evac'd Hale's to go to Caliban, only to have that settlement taken out by an Alliance Cruiser. To have their refuge here turned into a crater by a hunk of rock seemed like an ignoble end to Weyland Yutani's experiment in replacing human miners with machines.

But, in the end, they'd find themselves a new home. Any of them wanted to stay on Hale's Moon and join the folks who called our little slice of Heaven home, more power to 'em. We'd welcome them. They wanted to set out for other parts of the 'Verse? We'd wish them the best.

If it ever came up again, I was right sure we'd think hard before offering large scale refuge to folk who don't show an interest in integrating with the people already here. History's had its share of examples and, unfortunately, we hadn't paid quite enough attention to them.

Wouldn't happen again.

Or, more correctly, if it did, it wouldn't be because I'd let it. Only trouble now, was finding resources in town willing to help them clean up their mess.

Laika Day

Having Haley curled up on her pillow next to my desk, snoring merrily along in her sleep, brought Nora's reminder early this morning home. On the Old Calendar, reflecting dates and holidays and significant events from Earth that Was, today was 3 November. Just another day for more or less everyone in the 'Verse.

Only, it wasn't.

With several thousand years of recorded history, albeit with some gaps and omissions, and only 365 days in a standard Earth that Was year, there are bound to be multiple events with significance to multiple groups on pretty much every day on the calendar. That's just statistics. Like the random chance of having two people in the same class with the same birthday. On most calendars, there's nothing special about 3 November. But 3 November, 1957, was the first time a living creature from Earth flew into space.

Her name's remembered as Laika. She was a mongrel dog the Russians found in Moscow, and they sent her into space partially for Science and partially as a publicity stunt. I can barely imagine what it must have been like back then. Clawing into orbit on chemically fueled rockets that were built so light, they were likely to fall apart from their own thrust. Some of them did fall apart in flight. Or exploded at launch. Or tumbled out of the sky and killed their crew.

It was a different time then. Primitive technologies and political systems on the brink of global war. The politics may not be so unlike they are today, but now days when your dog flies into orbit she's probably curled up in your lap, or in the galley begging for snacks, not strapped into a metal capsule scared and alone.

It's so easy for us, now, to forget. But for some strange reason, I don't. There's nothing special to do on Laika day, except maybe give your favorite dog an extra treat.

And to remember Laika.