5,001 - A Science Fiction Romance Short Story Read online

  Copyright © Tracy Cooper-Posey

  About 5,001

  Master Engineer Caelen Williams is the most sought-after contractor aboard the closed-system marathon-class vessel Endurance, a generation ship at least four hundred light years away from its destination. Captain Lakewood, leader of the space-faring city, demands she resolve a life-threatening issue—the ship is losing water.

  Caelen’s former lover, Devar, was wrongly persecuted by Lakewood’s people but for the sake of everyone aboard the Endurance, Caelen tries to solve the riddle of the draining water and learns that Devar is not the only one who may have been manipulated….

  This is a short science fiction romance story, for fast reading and enjoyment.

  5,001

  The end began when Caelen got a call from a frantic staffer on the Bridge itself. It was right in the middle of the Rebels game against the Crimson Crunchers. The Rebels were being slaughtered as usual because the Crunchers were an Esquilino team, but the Rebels had shown some amazing spirit. They had come so close to scoring, more than once. The possibility that they might actually get a goal kept Caelen hovering near the screen and sometimes stopping work altogether to watch when the ball floated toward the Rebels’ end of the tank.

  She barely paid any attention to the call, until she realized where it was coming from. “Now?” she asked, glancing at the game. “It’s the middle of the night...sir.” The honorific felt odd in her mouth.

  The staffer assured her that now wasn’t soon enough, making Caelen mentally tack on a fifteen percent mark-up to her hourly rate. She packed her tool kit into Scrub, loaded him onto the platform she had built on the back of her bike and locked him in despite his rabid protests that he could, too, hold on by himself. She glided out onto the Artery. Traffic was light because of the tankball game, which meant she could open up the bike. She reached the Bridge end of the Endurance only twenty minutes after the call.

  She presented her wrist to the sentries, who scanned her ID with deep frowns, as if she might be trying to crash the Bridge. She mentally snorted at the idea, but kept her face as grave as theirs and nodded her thanks as they dropped the shield and let her through. Then she had to back up and go through the pantomime all over again to get Scrub through.

  Finally, the only thing that moved them was her disinterested shrug. “Tell the Captain I won’t be making the meeting. I can’t work without my tools.” She headed back for her bike, parked across the corridor.

  They grudgingly dropped the shield and glared as Scrub rolled past. He looked up at them with the little tilt of his head that said he was smiling. “Have a nice day!”

  “Scrub, be quiet,” Caelen ordered.

  “I’m just being polite.”

  She gave him her best don’t-mess-with-me look and he straightened up and looked ahead.

  A flunky was waiting anxiously for her a little further along the wide corridor, and hurried her through more passages that gleamed pristine white and were completely empty. The sterile feel would have told her she was in the Bridge section, even without the sentries. The whole way, the nervous little man explained how to behave with the Captain. “The first time you address him, you must call him by his full name. Then you can use ‘sir’. Don’t try to shake his hand or touch him in any way--”

  “I hug all my clients.”

  He looked worried all over again.

  Caelen rolled her eyes. “I’m kidding.”

  “Master Engineer Caelen Williams only handles tools,” Scrub added in a stiff voice.

  Was the majesty of their location affecting Scrub? He’d used her full name and title, like he was trying to make a subtle point, which would be lost on their guide, who was too nervous to care.

  Ahead, four sentries stood at attention outside a door. The corporate flag hung to one side of them and the ship’s seal was on the door. The guards stepped away and the door slid aside with them.

  Caelen walked onto the Bridge and looked around curiously. This was the first time she had seen it for herself. There were tours, of course, but she’d never bothered.

  The room was smaller than it looked on screen. It was almost perfectly square, with the wall to her right covered in one big screen, showing the view ahead of the Endurance--black space, the same familiar star patterns and nothing else. The view hadn’t changed in years.

  Opposite the screen was the Captain’s chair, behind a console. The cameras were always set up in front of the console, so the seal and the corporate logo could be included in the frame. From where she was standing, though, Caelen could see the Captain’s manual overrides. They looked clunky and old-fashioned, but then they wouldn’t have been updated since the Endurance left old Terra. There was no need. Besides, Captain Lakewood wasn’t a pilot and wouldn’t know what button to press in an emergency.

  Lakewood was sitting in the famous chair. Both he and the chair were smaller than she expected. Lakewood rose to his feet. “This is her?” he asked of the seven men ranged behind him.

  “Captain Lakewood, may I present Master Engineer Williams,” the flunky next to her intoned.

  “Hiya, Captain,” Caelen said.

  Lakewood blinked. He was used to adulation and fawning respect. He was the only person on the ship ever to be awarded two children, and he had made a vast fortune teaching people his method for shaping their lives to better qualify for a child. He’d turned that fortune into a small empire stretching over every district except the slums of the Capitol. The Blues United, the premier Esquilino team, had sponsored Lakewood’s last three campaigns, which had locked in his bid for the Captain’s chair.

  Caelen gave Lakewood a friendly smile. “I heard the Blues lost by two goals tonight. Too bad, huh?”

  Lakewood’s face turned an interesting shade of red. “You’re a Palatino?” His voice was hoarse.

  Caelen snorted. “Not likely. Didn’t your people brief you?”

  One of the attendants cleared his throat, then leaned closer and whispered into Lakewood’s ear.

  Lakewood jerked like he’d been shot. “A Capitolino?”

  Another attendant stepped up into the Captain’s line of sight. He glanced at Caelen and she thought there was apology in his eyes. “Sir, Williams is a master engineer and has worked on ship systems her entire career. She is the very best at what she does. We need her expertise, regardless of her political affiliations.”

  Caelen waited them out. She didn’t want to be here in the first place. If her residential address was such a drawback, then in a few more seconds she’d be asked to leave. Fine by her. She’d bill for time and inconvenience and move on to the next job.

  Lakewood looked like he was going to personally kick her off the Bridge. Then the first attendant whispered in his ear again. Lakewood nodded and glared at her. “Our options are limited at the moment. Minister Grand assures me that you would not risk your professional reputation by disclosing anything that you learn here. I, in turn, trust Minister Grand.” He glanced at the aide, Grand, who nodded.

  Then Lakewood sighed. “We appear to be losing water.”

  Caelen frowned. “The Bridge?”

  “The whole ship,” Grand said.

  She laughed. “That’s not possible. The Endurance is a closed-system marathon-class vessel. Everything is recycled. It’s not possible to lose water. We’re more likely to gain water than lose it.”

  “Which makes the reports we’ve seen all the more alarming,” Lakewood replied with soothing overtones. “We would like you to look at them and tell us why we’re losing water.”

  “Your reports are wrong,” Caelen replied. “Someone is trying to scare you.”


  Grand stepped forward. “These are legacy reports.”

  Caelen thought that over. The data systems and reporting that had been built into the original AI couldn’t be tampered with, unlike all the coding the AI had built since the Endurance launched. Then she realized that she was being drawn into the mystery despite her reluctance. “I’ll find and fix your problem, for twenty-thousand credits.” She nearly stuttered just speaking it aloud.

  Lakewood threw up his hands. “That’s outrageous!”

  “Fine.” She shrugged and headed for the door and heard a hasty, whispered conference happen behind her.

  “Wait!”

  She looked over her shoulder, a meter from the door.

  Lakewood looked furious. Grand pressed his hands together and twined the fingers. There was stress behind his grave features. “We will pay you ten percent now, the balance upon resolution of the issue.”

  Caelen turned to look at them, moving slowly to give herself time to think. If they were willing to pay that much, then this was serious. Which mean it was true, the ship was losing water. Which meant if she couldn’t fix this, then it wouldn’t be just her reputation that would crack apart. It would be her whole life. She hadn’t wanted the job in the first place. She really didn’t want it now. So she nodded, looking as grave as them and added the kicker. “I want full access to the Bridge data river. I’ll analyze it from home.” She waited for the screams of protest.

  Lakewood sighed again and turned away.

  Grand nodded. “We’ll have it shunted to your server within the hour.”

  Shaken, Caelen looked down at Scrub. “C’mon. We’re leaving.”

  Scrub must have been worried, too. He didn’t say a word.

  * * * * *

  Caelen directed the spatula to her letterbox and as it lifted her up and along the square faces of the apartment wall, up to her level, she tiredly returned to considering the nagging data anomalies she had uncovered in the last ten days. She had hoped her trip down to the back end of the Capitol to acquire unslaved server modules would clear her head at the same time, but the facts were just too overwhelming.

  The platform stopped with its front edge up level against the bottom of her apartment face. She palmed the door and let herself in, digging the modules out of the secondary pocket in her jacket. “Scrub!” She secured the door and moved through the narrow apartment to the back corner. As she approached, Scrub opened the door for her and she stepped through to the other side. He secured the door and melded it.

  “Any thoughts, while I was gone?” she asked and handed him the modules. Scrub rolled over to the open bays and deftly started installing the modules.

  “I want to say you don’t make sense,” Scrub said. “The conclusions are nonsense.” He closed the bays and Caelen brought the heads-up displays on-line. Now the extra-large laboratory felt crowded as the virtual screens jostled for space. The extra processing power meant Caelen could display most of the anomalies and their streams all at once.

  “Every data blip is undisputed,” Scrub said. “The Bridge data river is as close to pure legacy data anyone can get anymore.”

  “This is the ship we’re looking at, basically,” Caelen murmured.

  “The logic you’ve followed based on this data isn’t wrong,” Scrub said. “And I cannot think of an alternative conclusion than the one you’ve drawn. That means you have to be right.”

  “Someone has been manipulating the data. Someone has been messing with the ship.” Caelen rubbed at her temples. She might be right, but she didn’t like it. “There’s no code changes. These are all physical changes to records. So it’s not the ship’s AI that is doing it. But no one else has access to the legacy data, so it has to be the AI.”

  “Which it can’t be,” Scrub said stoically, as he poured fresh coffee and rolled over to her with the cup.

  She patted his metal head as she took it and gave him a smile. “AIs can change and develop their own coding, but you are still just smart computers. Very, very smart in your case, Scrubby. You can improve. But you can’t build.”

  “I can, too!” He held up his articulated hands.

  “Digital building. You’re still the same adorable Scrubby you were when you first blinked at me. You can resolve problems, but you can’t create. But someone has been changing records, changing meta-data levels above the ship coding. Why? Why endanger the entire ship by venting water? There’s nowhere else to go once the ship is crippled.”

  “Unless that was the point,” Scrub said.

  She looked at him sharply. “Cripple the ship?”

  “Endanger the ship. The venting is incremental. It would take years, you said, to reach critical depletion.”

  “Why endanger the ship?”

  “To call upon the ship’s best master engineer?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  Scrub tilted his head. “Water conservation is a legacy system. No one knows the legacy systems better than you. They would have called you sooner or later.”

  “Why me?”

  “To make you pay attention?”

  “Why now, though? These manipulations go back years and years....” She stared at the virtual screen that showed the calendar of anomalies she had jerry-rigged. “Back more than seventeen years,” she whispered, as something invisible grabbed at her chest and squeezed.

  “Hey, I’m seventeen years old!” Scrubby exclaimed. “That’s a funny coincidence. Isn’t that the same time that-” He rolled backwards, agitated. “Oh....”

  Caelen swiped at the screens, looking for just one, pushing the others out of the way. There. There is was. “Scrub, this change in the environmental controls in the Palatine district. What sub-routines does this component affect?”

  “Retrieving,” Scrub said in the flat voice that meant the AI was concentrating on pure data. “Garbage recycling, air purifying, UV level control, random weather events generation, artificial gravity--”

  “Stop.”

  Scrub blinked. “Palatine doesn’t have artificial gravity,” he said, sounding puzzled.

  “There’s one section that does,” Caelen said grimly. “The Arcadome Handball League Arena.”

  “The tankball tank?”

  “The tank,” she confirmed. “Devar...” She paused, let his name sink in properly now it was out there. Then she went on. “Devar swore that someone tampered with the ball itself, yet it could never be proved. But what if they messed with the gravity? That would change the ball’s behavior, wouldn’t it?”

  “First level analysis meets all positive criteria,” Scrub said flatly. “But you’d have to ask Devar Todd to verify. He was the Primary Coder controlling all major routines in the Palatine district at that time.” Then he blinked as he processed what he had said. “Oh,” he said again, in a small voice.

  “I’m not asking him,” Caelen said flatly. Her heart was thundering. Hurting. “I’m not.”

  * * * * *

  The Palatine torus was the oldest district on the Endurance and one of the original components. The torus rotated to provide gravity, while artificial sunlight blazed from a set point on the central track around the torus, providing eight hour days and nights. The residents of Palatine liked to claim that the natural gravity they enjoyed was healthier than artificial gravity, but Caelen suspected it was Palatine itself that gave them a boost. From the entry hub, Palatine was spread out like a patchwork quilt made of greens and greys and browns, with secluded highlights that were villas hidden behind pockets of trees. Water twinkled as it meandered across the quilt in streams and rivulets. Even the air seemed fresher here.

  Caelen grabbed a taxi-boat, gave Devar’s address and pressed her wrist against the pay-plate as the driver punched in the address. The taxi-boat lurched, then sailed gracefully out along the null-gravity spine, giving her a stupendous view of the countryside circling around her, before veering off for the area where Devar lived. The gravity gradually reasserted itself, until it reached normal just abo
ve the level of the houses below.

  The taxi settled in front of a sprawling house with graceful arches and white walls. Somewhere nearby, a cricket chirped. The sunsource was almost directly overhead. The air was warm.

  Caelen forced herself to step out of the taxi and brushed at her worn jumpsuit. She twisted her hair into a rope and tossed it over her shoulder and tried to ignore the little voice that whispered about how much grey was showing at her temples these days. The taxi-boat lifted back up into the air and headed for the hub, leaving her alone, facing the house.

  She blew out her breath and headed for the door. Long before she reached it, it opened. Devar stood in the doorway, one shoulder against the frame, his arms crossed, watching her approach.

  Caelen managed a smile. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  He straightened up. His blue eyes were neutral. “You said it was important. Come in.” He led her through rooms that were spacious and comfortable, cool and silent. All of them were empty of people. Nothing was out of place, until they reached a room that was almost all glass, allowing the sunsource to fill it with light.

  Easels stood everywhere, many of them holding completed paintings. Landscapes, and still life studies. Portraits. On tables and workbenches were scattered paints and brushes, rags and bottles. The smell of oil paint was ferocious.

  “You paint?” Caelen asked.

  “I picked it up a few years ago,” Devar said, his deep voice even and controlled.

  “You were always the most creative person I knew.”

  He crossed his arms again. “Too creative, according to the judge.” His tone was bitter.

  Caelen made herself stop studying him. Toting up changes, cataloguing what was still the same, wouldn’t do her any good. The little scar at the corner of his mouth. That was still there. The laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. They were new...but nice. He had spent time laughing and smiling.

  Her chest squeezed. “Where is....your wife?” She couldn’t remember her name.