Aebris rising a science.., p.1
Aebris Rising: A Science Fiction Thriller, page 1
AEBRIS RISING
by Benjamin X. Wretlind
AEBRIS RISING
Copyright © 2023
by Benjamin X. Wretlind
Cover image: Sergey Nivens
Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters, locations, and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the author.
Electronic Version. This book can also be found in trade paperback (979-8376173992) and hardcover (978-1088105610).
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023908257
www.bxwretlind.com
La’akea
ON THE MAGNUM ASINUM MARE
1
A
ll good fishing stories start with the phrase “So, there I was.” It’s the way of the world, the way narrators from the dawn of man have done things. Or the dawn of woman. Or the dawn of whatever it is dawned first. Homo habilis, the handy man, some 2.4 million years ago. Did they start stories?
Did they fish?
Surely they fished.
So, there I was on the Magnum Asinum Mare some light years from the dawn of that first storytelling man...or woman. All I wanted to do, mind you, was fish. It was my time—to be away from the hell that was the prison kitchen, away from the nagging expense reports and other piles of useless managerial paperwork that clogged up the circuits on my work pad, away from that godawful smell. You don’t get much of an opportunity to get away, not on the Amesware Abyss or any other prison mining rig on this watery rock known as Minor Pales. No, the company makes sure you’re well-employed, and if that means you don’t get time off, so be it. At least the local prisoner union—UPW 31—had negotiated a working day no more than sixteen hours with two fifteen-minute breaks and twenty minutes to eat. It was not the same on other rigs, or so I had been told.
I had this coming. All of it, I suppose. But before I get ahead of myself, I’ll go back to the beginning, back to when it all started.
Where was I? Right. On the Magnum Asinum Mare, or about to be. I was actually in a pleasure craft I’d leased for the week, one of those sleek models that holds ten for a party or a safe trip back to the company’s home platform Prospect Shallows (provided there was enough fuel and at least two way stops), two to three (sometimes four) for a quick outing on open waters, or one (never two) for a fishing trip.
I dialed up the harbormaster. “Amesware Pleasure Seven out with one.”
The crackle of the radio hissed in my ear. I could have used the earpiece, but the ancient radio sounded more authentic to my planned vacation, like a blast from a past I’d never experienced but watched on film. And I had a lot of time to watch films in the prison library. What else was I going to do?
“Amesware Pleasure Seven, this is Harbor One. Deliver your manifest and stand by for release.”
I did as requested. The manifest was easy: one name—Levi Hurley—but the stand by was unacceptable. Interminable, as my pop would have said. I’d been waiting almost a year for release. I pressed the comm. “How long?”
“Stand by.”
Jerk.
While I waited for my craft to be released into the water below, I ran through my itinerary, counting off on my grungy fifty-three-year-old fingers.
One: fish.
Two: eat.
Three: sleep.
Four: repeat as necessary.
I figured I could do that for four days, five tops. I had a newly serviced outersuit, my collection of three ancient Earth fishing reels, a spool of nanocarbon line, my pop’s old tackle box, and some fish offal from the kitchen I could use as bait. I quietly wondered if Homo habilis had the proper equipment. Maybe they just fished with a pointy stick.
“Amesware Pleasure Seven, state your destination.”
Christ. Ninety-seven percent of Minor Pales is one big ass ocean, and the only things that resemble land are the two frozen poles. I stifled as much sarcasm as I could. “Destination Magnum Asinum Mare.”
There was an audible sigh on the radio, which when coupled with the crackle sounded a little like static derision. “I figured that much, Levi.”
“Mason?” I looked up at the ceiling of the pleasure craft—no, fishing boat—stupidly thinking I could see through the three titanium layers of protection, the bottom of the mining platform, and directly into the harbormaster’s office.
I could not.
“Who did you think would be up here?” Mason’s voice was scornful. “Got to make the day’s wage since you stole it from me.”
I swore to myself, then pushed the comm. “It was a fair game, Mason. No one forced you to play poker with me.”
There was a slight pause during which I imagined multiple expletives spilling from Mason’s mouth without the comm triggered.
“Amesware Pleasure Seven, state your destination.”
“Destination Magnum Asinum Mare.”
“Specific destination?”
As much as this part of leaving the rig irritated me, I realized I had no specific place in mind. I just wanted to fish. I said as much. “Where the fish are.”
“Fish are everywhere. Please enter your coordinates and stand by for approval.”
As my pop would have said, Christ almighty on a corndog stick. Quickly, I glanced at the navigation map displayed on a terminal in front of me. I could go anywhere, really. The leasing office said I only had authorization to travel for one hundred kilometers in any direction by contract, but given how much fuel these sorts of vessels did not contain, that was a pretty generous estimate of the capability of the Amesware Pleasure Seven. Most excursions were no more than two or three kilometers from the rig.
I closed my eyes and stabbed the map with my finger. Opening them, I read out where the computer estimated my finger landed. “Forty-two fifty-three west by eleven thirty-two north.”
“Enter it into the terminal.” Mason sounded more irritated than before. “You know the rules.”
I did as instructed, then waited. How long did it take to approve a fishing trip to the middle of nowhere?
One minute, thirty-three seconds, apparently.
“Your request has been denied,” Mason said. This time I heard the sick bastard’s smile through the radio.
I hit the comm with my thumb. “Denied? How can the company deny it?”
“I don’t make the rules. I just follow them.”
Bullshit. Mason followed very few rules.
“Hold on,” I said. I returned to the terminal and looked at where my finger had landed. Apparently, it was in the middle of a restricted area, a mostly transparent gray box around it.
“What about forty-nine sixteen west by eleven forty-one north?”
“Enter it into the terminal.”
Another wait. I looked at the clock in the upper right corner of my heads-up display above the dash. I had so far wasted thirty-one minutes of my vacation waiting to be released into the ocean. The response about my new destination took a few seconds less than before.
“Approved.” Mason sounded depressed, beaten. It reminded me of our last poker game.
“Thank you. Can I go now?”
“Release in ten.”
I quickly buckled myself into the pilot’s seat. Being dropped into a swirling ocean in a tin can from nearly four hundred meters up is not pleasant. Of all the advances humanity had made over the last thousand years, you would think they would have devised a cushioning system for situations like this.
Mason’s voice came over the speaker. “Release in five.”
I clenched my hands on the armrest, digging my nails into the hard plastic.
“Four. Three.”
My stomach noticed the drop first, followed by my head as Mason released the clamps early.
Bastard.
2
T
he Magnum Asinum Mare is basically the only geographic feature on the planet Minor Pales (as in “pal-ess”) which rests firmly within the habitable zone of the star Gliese 1061. Its cousin planet, Maior Pales, has about the same orbit, and enjoys much better advertising. It is also much livelier. It has landmasses, lakes, mountains, canyons and nowhere near the amount of water that covers Minor Pales. It is home to nine hundred unique settlements. There is Free Point, Roman, Cherryfield, Villa de Pales, Sagittaria and more. Originally built by the AIWU Local 26—robots with a union—the settlements were planned as destinations for the rich who could afford to leave Earth two hundred years ago in the burgeoning first days of interstellar travel. The AI robots are still around, but their union bylaws keep them on a near permanent break from labor. Now those settlements are vibrant communities for, well, still the rich.
That’s where Minor Pales comes into play. To better facilitate effective interstellar travel, hydrogen positride is required. While it is possible to make this exotic compound on Earth in minute and unstable amounts, it’s much easier to mine for what’s needed and process it elsewhere where labor is cheap and accidents can be covered up. That place is Minor Pales. Do not ask me to explain any more than this. I’m a cook, not a physicist.
I will say that the For eaas Corporation, who owns and operates the nine prison mining rigs and one administrative platform on this watery ball of doom, is said to have made trillions already. That’s with a T, not a B, not an M. And to ensure they continue to make trillions, all rigs—to include the Amesware Abyss where I lived—are run and operated by criminals with small paychecks and life sentences in a medium-security setting. You don’t leave this place once you arrive, even in a body bag.
Yes, that includes me.
Even though there is freedom to move around the rig, truth be told, the Amesware Abyss is a maximum security facility. Escape is impossible, considering there’s no place to go. If you do swipe a pleasure craft, you’re going to run out of fuel quickly and die adrift on the ocean. If by some miracle you actually had enough fuel to reach another platform, well, that’s a prison, too.
I often wonder what the real maximum security prisons are like. I suppose I am lucky in that regard.
So, there I was, falling toward the Magnus Asinum Mare in a pleasure craft I’d leased for the week to go fishing. The sea was kind enough to greet me with a salty, icy, smelly swell. If I weren’t strapped into the pilot’s seat, I would have hit the ceiling with a crunch and been unable to proceed with my planned vacation activities. I’ve always been thankful for the swells, because dropping four hundred meters from the underbelly of a rig into a trough is like hitting concrete. Dropping into a swell is more like hitting dirt. Gratefully, the Amesware Pleasure Seven was built for this kind of abuse.
I was not built that way. I’ve broken bones, had my liver replaced, and have two appendages I was not born with. Mind you, none of this was recent. You lose an arm on the Amesware Abyss, and you might as well learn to do things with your other arm because you won’t be whole again. My left arm and right leg are both silicon and titanium and easily replaceable. They are ugly, too, but functional. Despite other deformities—a scar running down the left side of my face from my forehead to my chin, a cloudy right eye from a botched retina transplant, and an extraneous nipple—I’m not an unhealthy person even if I look like it. I couldn’t imagine being frail and dropping into the sea like this. How many people have actually died that way?
The ship settled onto the surface of the sea after a good hundred meter dive. Most of the Amesware Pleasure Seven, like all pleasure craft, was surrounded by a titanium and carbon-fiber shell, with only a few places to step out and enjoy the weather. Not that you could enjoy the weather on Minor Pales. There were a few days a year when the wind blew at over two hundred knots, the sky was covered with a thick blanket of dark, undulating green clouds, and the waves were around fifty meters. Most days, however, the atmosphere was relatively nice—two degrees centigrade, wind calmer at only fifty knots, horizontal acidic rain, and sea swells at five to seven meters. You could go out on the bow of your pleasure craft provided you were fully encased in an outersuit and tied to one of the support beams.
I’d had my outersuit recently serviced and cleaned. It’s no fun to step into one that smells like someone took a shit or vomited and left it for the life support guys to ignore. I did that once and I still feel the pangs of regret. My suit was stowed away near the bow hatch and would be ready when I was finally at my destination. Once there, I would put it on, grab my gear, and tie myself to the bow.
This assumed the weather held. Forecasting on Minor Pales is like a shih tzu reading chicken bones. I read once that the atmosphere is so unpredictable, it makes little sense to guess what was going to happen more than twenty-four hours out—not like on Earth, where AI can model conditions out to four weeks with a surprising amount of accuracy. No, on Minor Pales, you’d be lucky to be half right about what was going to happen in an hour. The sole meteorologist on board the Abyss, Craig something or other (I never caught his last name), was a moron.
Honestly, it made fishing fun even if getting there was a vomitous ride through a watery hell. I remember the first time I came out to fish after three years on board the Amesware Abyss. I threw up four times in the first kilometer. After that, my stomach was empty.
I had eaten a synthetic banana before I left this time, however. The rig doc promised me it would taste the same going down as it does coming up.
3
I
t may seem like freedom from prison is only a boat ride away, but that’s not the case on Minor Pales. Where would an escapee go? There are approximately five thousand prisoners per rig, and of those, about five hundred who have jobs that put them in positions where they can jump onto a pleasure craft and take a joyride on the Magnum Asinum Mare. I was one of those lucky people.
Sentenced to life for murder in the first degree (with justification), I was given a choice: fulfill my final judgment in the general population on one of the orbiting prisons around Earth’s moon, or serve out my remaining days as a cook on board a prison rig on Minor Pales. If I chose the former, I would have had an opportunity for supervised visits with family back on Earth, but my status as a former cop and SWAT officer would have put me in immediate danger. I’m sure I was responsible for the incarceration of at least thirty hardcore prisoners, unpleasant fuckers I did not want to meet again. If I chose the latter—a one-way trip to Minor Pales—I would be put into hypersleep, transported twelve light years across the sky, and given a job that meant a little something with a history that could be expunged. No one would ever know I had been a cop unless I told them.
I chose the latter.
With no family to visit on Earth, it made little sense to stay within the solar system. Out here in God’s wasteland, I believed I could at least fulfill a purpose. It’s what I told myself before bed, anyway.
My first three years as a line cook on the prison rig were not pleasant, but after my supervisor had his throat cut following a nasty game of chess wherein he cheated by piping in prospective moves into his AR contacts, I was given a new title. A new title meant a few dollars more I would likely never be able to spend, but also the right to take a pleasure craft out on a fishing trip provided I’d served long enough to bank a few vacation days. The UPW 31 had negotiated two per year provided you kept your nose clean.
I also got my own berthing unit—a full fifty square feet of bed, desk, and shitter. Who could ask for anything more?
If I ever made it to kitchen manager, I could bank more vacation days (three per year) and be allowed furlough on the corporation’s home platform Prospect Shallows. There, I could spend all that money I’d earned on gambling or watered-down liquor. I really don’t care for either of those things, so I happily remained a supervisor with no desire to move up the corporate ladder—or prison pecking order. I just had to keep my wits about me when playing chess with any number of gangs that roamed the passageways and dark alleys of the Amesware Abyss.
Chess gangs are the worst.
As I sat in the pilot’s chair watching the terminal tell me how far the Amesware Pleasure Seven had traveled from the rig and how long it would take me to get to my “ideal” fishing spot, I realized I had yet to rummage through my pop’s old tackle box to ensure I had the right lures. I unbuckled myself, ignored the warbling alarm of the pleasure craft’s AI to buckle myself back up, and reached around to the back where I’d stored my fishing gear.
There are a gazillion species of fish on Minor Pales, as there’s no sense in life evolving anything else. I say a gazillion, but in reality, Foreaas astrobiologists had so far only identified around five hundred different water dwellers, from the smallest—and aptly named—minima piscis to the rather enormous could-swallow-a-prison-rig-if-provoked piscari cum hiatu, or fish with a chasm for a mouth. Astrobiologists apparently have a strange sense of humor and no imagination. Neither of these two fish were on my list of things to catch, however.
I was interested in the piscis sapidum, a delicacy on the prison rig and one for which the rig warden, one Dorchester Riley, would pay handsomely. Piscis sapidum are typically a meter long with seventeen sharp fins, three eyes in the front near a needlelike nose and two in the back on what might be considered a tail. They are predators with several rows of sharp teeth, but their tiny mouths only open up far enough to take off a human finger. They look a little like they’ve just sucked down a lemon in that regard. They range in color from red to just slightly less red, and their meat tastes oddly like bacon. I’ve heard it called a pig fish, but other than the taste, there’s no resemblance.
