Aneka Jansen 6: The Lowest Depths of Shame Page 2

  Ella was frowning uncertainly. ‘I guess… Do you really think I’m up to it?’

  ‘Before you met Aneka I’d have had to say no, but the last couple of years have changed you. For the better, I might add.’

  ‘You’re up to it, love,’ Aneka stated, ‘and there doesn’t seem to be much change for me. We’re keeping the Hyde?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ Gillian replied, ‘but Drake and Aggy wanted to tell you about that. I’m sworn to secrecy.’

  ‘What’ve they been up to?’ Aneka asked, narrowing her eyes.

  ~~~

  ‘The Amethyst Hyde,’ Drake said as they looked out through one of the observation windows at the huge bulk of starship sitting in one of the hangar bays of the orbital starport. ‘Three thousand tonnes of state-of-the-art science vessel. She’s ten times the size of the Garnet Hyde, but she’ll do twice the speed in warp and she’s got one of their high-end reactionless drives in her so she’ll turn on a pinhead and pull a hundred Gs.’

  She was an attractive vessel, all gleaming white metal. The hull was smoothly curved and more or less elliptical with the front slightly raised toward the nose and more pointed, and the rear a blunter shape housing that powerful reactionless drive.

  ‘The sensor systems and lab are incredible,’ Gillian said. ‘The lab space is not quite up to what we have at the university, but it makes what we had on the old ship seem like heaven. And the drones…!’

  ‘There are two hangar bays,’ Drake said. ‘One’s big enough to house Gwy, and the other is fitted out for launching ten-tonne drone ships. We can carry ten, and they come in defensive, survey, or transport models. We can pick and mix according to the expected needs of any operation. The ship has no weapons, but between the drones, the exotic matter stealth hull, the force screen and the cloaking system, we figure we’re covered for all eventualities. And there’s one other gadget we won’t be able to test for a while, but Abraham is very excited about it.’

  ‘Oh?’ Aneka asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘Can you tell me, or are you sworn to secrecy?’

  ‘Wormhole transition shielding system.’

  ‘They’re building another wormhole system? I thought it took a collapsed star to power those?’

  ‘According to Abraham and Reality,’ Gillian said, ‘they’ve got a lot better at it. It’s still going to take some engineering, however. They’re building another star tap in one of the nearby systems.’

  ‘They expect it to be up and running early next year,’ Drake told them. ‘And then we’ll be able to hop from here to New Earth in a day. Most of that will be getting to the tap system.’

  ‘Well that settles my last worry,’ Ella put in. ‘I thought I’d hardly ever see my mother.’

  ‘And Aggy?’ Aneka asked.

  ‘They finished installing her into the new computer system last week. Abraham and Cassandra have been helping her adjust. She seems quite happy, but she did want to see you.’

  ~~~

  ‘Aggy?’ There had been no sign of the golden-skinned avatar Aggy generally used to make appearances, but Drake had directed them to one of the cabins in the forward section where he said she would be waiting. So far, however, there was no sign of her.

  The ship was definitely a step up from the Garnet Hyde. There were ten cabins as well as a complement of twenty stasis pods. However, these cabins came with facilities to generate as much resource as was required to keep the crew going indefinitely so the pods were there for extra staff or to stave off boredom on exceptionally long trips. And the habitation area had a couple of lounges and a kitchen in which food could be prepared. No one was slumming it on this ship.

  The cabin they had been directed to was like all the others: a large bed, two desks, en-suite bathroom with a shower large enough for three people, and a couple of built-in wardrobes. The walls were video-capable, but currently dark.

  At least they were dark until a section of wall lit up as though a door had opened in it, and there was Aggy, smiling at them from the surface of the wall.

  ‘Good morning, Aneka,’ Aggy said. ‘Welcome to the Amethyst Hyde. What do you think of my new home?’

  ‘We’ve hardly seen any of it,’ Aneka replied, smiling back, ‘but…’

  ‘It’s amazing,’ Ella finished for her.

  ‘It really is,’ Aggy said, and then she walked out of the wall and into the room, giggling at their reaction. ‘More or less everywhere is covered by holographic emitters. I can project myself wherever I’m needed without all that business with connecting through to your visual electronics. Plus, you get full tri-D projected entertainment if you want it and I can provide very realistic training simulations.’

  ‘You know,’ Ella commented, ‘that’s supposed to be impossible. I know they do it with the display tables, but…’

  ‘This is a rather more extensive use of the technology,’ Aggy acknowledged. ‘The AIs thought it would be useful. The light from the projectors interacts with a low-powered force field. That provides the necessary projection surface.’

  ‘So they could make you solid?’ Aneka asked.

  ‘Technically, but a drone body would be more practical. This has the advantage that I can be in several places at once without worrying over motor function and getting there.’

  ‘Huh. You know you do kind of look… sharper. More detailed. It’s kind of… like you’re more there.’

  ‘My processor systems are significantly more powerful, and the technology I have available to provide this avatar is, ahem, rather more advanced than my old equipment. Would you like the tour?’

  ‘Sure, why not?’

  Aggy beamed. She was clearly rather happy to show off her ‘new equipment.’ It was cute in what had to be an extremely intelligent AI now that her processors had been bumped up several technology levels.

  ‘This is your cabin when you’re aboard. I’ve pre-set to your preferences, both modes, sex and sleeping.’

  ‘Thanks, Aggy, it’s nice to know you thought of us.’

  ‘You and I have been together for over a thousand years, Aneka,’ Aggy replied, ‘even if a lot of that time neither of us were active. It would not be the same without you.’ Her projected image set off across the carpet and Aneka could swear she saw the soft fibres deform as her feet touched them.

  She gave short shrift to the control room embedded deep within the core of the forward section: it was essentially the same sort of featureless, VR-based system as Gwy, but with two flight chairs, and both Aneka and Ella were familiar with the design.

  The mid-section was more interesting. Here was the secondary habitation block and the lab. Ella cooed over the latter which was ten times the size of the one on the Garnet Hyde and equipped with state-of-the-art instruments. There was also, however, a nanofabrication system, two offices, a full-sized gym, a five-bed sickbay, a mess hall, space for five tonnes of cargo, and a classroom!

  ‘It’s perfect,’ Aggy said as they stood in the last of those. ‘I can be involved in discovery and education. It’s like… Well, I don’t dream, but it’s as if I did and one came true.’ She developed a look on her face which, in a Jenlay, would have looked a lot like lust. ‘Oh… and wait until you see my engines.’

  Drake and Abraham Wallace were in the engine room when they got there, the latter examining a display on one of two workstation units. This room was twice the size of the cubbyhole on the old Hyde, stretching from the bulkhead door forward of the engineering section through to a gantry overlooking the spherical reactionless drive at the rear. All around them were the vast coils of the warp engine, though that seemed to be in two distinct sections.

  ‘The forward part is the wormhole shielding,’ Aggy explained as they looked upward. ‘Now that is exciting. Gwy is fifty-point-oh-nine per cent faster than I am in warp, though I can match her in normal space, but I should be able to traverse wormholes while she cannot.’

  ‘But she can sit in your hangar when you do,’ Aneka said, grinning at the apparent
competitiveness.

  ‘She can. She’s a sweet child and we should make an effective team. I believe she has put through a request to have her sensors upgraded to allow more detailed scientific analysis.’

  ‘It was suggested while we were in Herosia,’ Ella explained. ‘She wants to feel useful beyond combat situations.’

  ‘Commendable,’ Abraham commented. ‘I’m happy with the diagnostics, Aggy. We’re ready for the shakedown flights.’

  ‘Oh… excellent,’ the golden woman said, trying very hard not to look like a kid who had just been handed the keys to the sweet shop.

  Amethyst Hyde.

  Everyone wanted to be aboard when Aggy first put out of dock. Even the AIs had developed an interest. Aneka could see why Reality was aboard; he was down in the engineering room with Abraham, monitoring the drives and making sure nothing was wrong. But Winter, Evolution, Speaker, and War had all decided that they might be needed for some reason or another and were in the lab with their more organic colleagues as the sleek vessel pulled out of the hangar.

  Outside the station, Gwy was waiting rather enthusiastically. She was in constant communication with both Aneka and Aggy, chattering about thrust vectors and clearances.

  ‘She’s clear and free,’ Gwy informed Aneka. ‘I can’t wait to see what she can do. She’s so beautiful.’

  Aneka giggled, which got her a couple of perplexed looks, but she was not going to explain that her ship was infatuated with her sister vessel. ‘We’re clear,’ she said aloud.

  ‘All hands,’ Drake’s voice said from the speakers, ‘we’re going to push her out at ten Gs to start with. Are we ready?’

  ‘We are ready,’ Reality announced.

  ‘Sensors are fully active,’ Gillian confirmed, ‘and we’re getting feeds from Gwy. Go when you’re ready.’

  There was no sensation of movement, but the displays of the outside world on the lab walls began to shift with increasing pace. Gillian and Ella were watching the monitors. Not that they were physicists, but Cassandra was there and doing the same. All of them had watched engine function data before.

  ‘Are you seeing that, Abraham?’ Cassandra asked after a minute.

  ‘Slight phase variance?’ Abraham’s voice replied. ‘We’re adjusting the force generators now.’

  It was the form of address which Aneka noticed. Cassandra usually called her boss ‘Doctor.’

  ‘He told her not to just after the battle at New Earth,’ Al supplied. ‘He says he isn’t one unless the title is bestowed here, and he’s of the opinion that they should revise the practice.’

  ‘Okay.’ The term was applied to someone with tenure in some form of learned institution, and Abraham was right in thinking that the institution which had given him the title was gone. ‘I always thought of him as a professor anyway. He looks like a professor.’

  ‘That looks like you’ve got it,’ Gillian said, breaking Aneka’s chain of thought.

  ‘Indeed,’ Abraham replied. ‘Captain, would you take her up to fifty gravities? Be ready to cut the drive if we notice instability.’

  ‘Did you go through this?’ Aneka asked Gwy as the star field began to shift even faster.

  ‘Yes, though it was rather more clinical. I am seeing no unusual effects or distortions in Aggy’s drive field. She is holding course, straight and true, as I knew she would.’

  ‘She was nervous?’

  ‘She was concerned that her first outing might be fraught with minor issues and so disappoint everyone. Especially when everyone decided to attend.’

  ‘A ship with stage fright, that’s cute.’

  ‘Let’s go to full power,’ Abraham’s voice said.

  ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Shannon responded, and this time they could feel the acceleration. Half of one-G was nothing to worry about, but it left some of those standing grabbing at furniture to avoid stumbling as it came on in a sudden burst.

  There was a sound which could almost have been a giggle in Aneka’s head as Gwy gave chase. ‘Wonderful,’ the sleek, black ship following them said. ‘She’s performing beautifully.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re just not watching her arse?’ Aneka asked, grinning.

  ‘What?! No! I… It is a very shapely rear hull.’

  Aneka wondered whether Gwy’s bows were reddening. ‘You’ve got a very shapely rear hull too, Gwy.’

  ‘Thank you, Aneka. I’m no judge of Jenlay aesthetics, but I believe you do too.’

  ‘Why are you grinning like an idiot?’ Ella asked as she spotted Aneka’s expression.

  ‘I’m having the most surreal conversation I think I’ve ever had.’

  ‘She’s right though,’ Aggy’s voice said over the speakers, ‘you do.’

  Ella looked distinctly confused.

  Shadataga, 24.4.530 FSC.

  Shadataga was a warm planet, but it was phase-locked in orbit thanks to its rather close moon. The days were almost a standard month in length: fourteen and a half days of light were followed by the same length of darkness. It varied a little over time, but with the long ‘dawn’ and ‘dusk’ periods you could hardly tell.

  Whatever, it was best to make use of the sunshine while there was some. It had been the tail end of dawn when Gwy had put down on the planet’s surface, and the sun would be dipping slowly below the horizon again in about five days, so Aneka was lying beside one of the pools in the accommodation area enjoying the warmth on her synthetically manufactured but essentially organic skin.

  ‘Aneka?’ Winter’s voice sounded a little hesitant and Aneka opened her eyes to look up at the ex-spy mistress. ‘Could I interrupt?’

  ‘Sure. I’m not even reading. I think Al’s chatting to Cassandra. Just enjoying the… well, the nothing. Not much we can do, so I’m enjoying being helpless.’

  ‘Quite. The lull in our activity gives me the opportunity to bring up… something I’ve been working on for you. An option you may wish to take up.’

  ‘Uh… okay, what?’

  ‘It’s best if you come and see. Is Ella available?’

  ‘She was in the university building discussing curricula with Gillian.’

  ‘I’ll request she join us. It’s in the basement of that building.’

  Frowning, Aneka slipped off her lounger and followed Winter across the patio. What was the woman up to?

  ‘We shall have to wait and see,’ Al informed her, pragmatic as only an AI could be.

  ~~~

  The underground section of the university building held, among other things, a hospital for over a hundred people and, right at the bottom, the primary computing core for the AIs, but it also had a nanofabrication facility of formidable capacity. That was quiet now since the needs of the few residents could easily be met by the far smaller units in the accommodation block. In one corner of it, however, was something which looked a bit like a stasis tank and in it was…

  ‘She looks like Aneka,’ Ella breathed.

  ‘Well,’ Winter explained, ‘I wasn’t going to alter the original design.’

  ‘The hair’s a little different,’ Aneka commented. ‘It’s more… natural.’

  ‘Well, except for that,’ Winter conceded.

  ‘What is this, Winter?’

  ‘You, if you want it to be.’

  ‘I… don’t get it.’

  Winter walked over to the tank, looking up at the figure inside with its mop of silver-white hair. The face was partially obscured by a heavy face mask with tubes running up from it to the ceiling of the tube, but it was clearly Aneka, down to the tough, muscular body and the over-sized breasts.

  ‘When we designed you, Aneka, uh, that is, the body you now have, we were limited by the technology available and the need to ensure you remained undetected. We improved a few things with Yrimtan, but neither of you was designed for today’s environment. When I sent you off to Herosia I decided that I should do something about that. So I built this.’

  She turned, her face still serious. ‘The basic structu
re is the same, but I’ve dispensed with the organic components. I very much doubt that you’ll be able to tell the difference, but the skin is a synthetic polymer. It’s an ablative armour, meant to soak surprise damage. The primary defence is an integral force screen with cloaking configuration. There are now two pulse weapons, mounted in the arms so they can be a little larger. Power comes from a total conversion cell which will last, essentially, until the stars burn out and since we don’t have the organics, there is no real need to eat, drink, or breathe.’

  ‘If it doesn’t need oxygen, why the mask?’ Aneka asked.

  ‘It’s being maintained on external power through that. The mask looks better than having cables down its throat. We’ll bring the cell online if you decide to use it. All the computers have been updated to the latest specs. Al will be more responsive. Your own brain has sufficiently increased capacity that the background tasks can be done in real time. You won’t need to sleep. However, I included a sleeping mode if you need it. You can actually sleep through long ship journeys if you wish.’

  ‘Oh yeah, now,’ Aneka replied, ‘when we’re going to be hopping across the galaxy in a day.’

  Winter’s expression shifted into a smile. She had been worried Aneka would be displeased, but jokes seemed like a good sign.

  ‘What would you need to do to get me in there?’ Aneka asked.

  ‘This model has a data port in the back of the neck as well as the wireless facilities, so that’s covered. Your current body is another matter. We will need to get you onto a surgery table and access the port in your skull, under the skin. Then we take you offline, transfer everything across, and activate the new body.’

  ‘Are there risks?’ Ella asked.

  ‘I won’t lie and say there are none,’ Winter replied, ‘but they are minimal. The process is akin to that used when I create a new avatar, or the one the Xinti employed when occupying a body. It will take several hours and there will be a period of adjustment. For the first few days it will be possible to go back without loss of information. After that, the translation to the old hardware would undoubtedly result in some memory loss. Very occasionally a transfer to one of my avatars fails in some way. The Xinti had the same problem. Generally we can spot problems fairly quickly and the worst that happens is that we have to wake up your current body and tell you it didn’t work.’