Numina code, p.8
Numina Code, page 8
“Sure.” Who didn’t? “Don’t they mostly just fund conferences and stuff, though?”
“They were really active, early on, in getting anything they deemed xenophobic pulled from circulation,” Daelia said. “Dad said it was pretty crazy in the early Twenty-Teens.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Me neither. But basically, anything with a negative view of abiota or our relationship with them got disappeared. You can still find it, but…” she trailed off, leaning toward the window. Her seat, whisper quiet, moved with her. “WALL-E’s a good movie. I liked it when I was a little kid. Mom liked it too. We watched it a lot. Bad guy’s abiota though, so I guess that’s what SAAL’s problem with it was.”
She was playing with her hair now, which was out of its customary ponytail for a change. Argo wondered briefly if she was trying to flirt with him and dismissed the possibility immediately. She didn’t seem the type. She was genuinely captivated by what was outside the window.
“I was never a fan of science fiction,” Argo said honestly. “Spent most of my time growing up outdoors.”
“In Alaska? What do you do in the winter?”
“My brother played a lot of D&D with his friends.”
“But not you.”
“It was little brother shit.”
Daelia laughed. “I don’t believe you.”
“Hmm?”
“All the pilots I’ve ever met are secret geeks. Maybe not geeks like Menendez or Garcia, but you’ve all got something.”
“Not really,” Argo said. “Never had the time.”
She gave him a look, like she didn’t believe him, and went back to her soup. Silence fell in their dining nook. Far from unpleasant, instead it seemed entirely natural. The preferred state of the endlessness around them.
The waiter reappeared a few minutes after they had finished, clearing away that course and setting down another. This was a main, some kind of gnocchi in a cream sauce. It was set into a clear bowl with an upward curving lip, the opening at the top just large enough to accommodate a fork. The bowl was set into an opaque base, a little arm arched up and over the hole.
“We do have a variety of presentations here, Miss Hall,” the waiter said, when she turned it around in her hands. “If you would like to know how it functions, I can demonstrate, or you can reference the dining guide.”
Argo frowned. It was a set menu here, and one that had been presented as a surprise. They hadn’t been given them anything to look at or read. “What do you mean?” he asked and gestured between him and Daelia. “We don’t have our devices on us.”
“Oh, of course. Forgive me, I thought the maitre d’ would have explained,” the waiter said, and laid his hand, palm flat, on the small table.
Instantly, the gold Aethera logo pulled up inside the acrylic window, slick as an AR projection. A keyboard and touch pad glowed within the table.
“We do have a hand interface here, as opposed to voice, as we encourage our guests to enjoy the silence of the stars as they dine. But should you wish to, you may access the full guest information system, or, if I may suggest it, a star map that will highlight specific points of interest in the sky for you. The retinal tracking isn’t quite as good as it might be if you were wearing a monocle, but it is surprisingly accurate.”
“Then you have cameras in here,” Daelia said.
“They only feed to Eos, who sits in the central database.”
“The abiota admin?”
“Of course. How else do you think we could manage a sky-tracking system this complex?”
That struck Argo as odd, and he realized what the man meant. “It’s not just the Nightsea that has this?”
“Oh, heavens, no. Every panel of acrylic in all of Aethera is impregnated with waterfall film. Another one of Tamm’s brilliant ideas, and let me assure you—”
“Yeah, Tamm’s a genius,” Daelia said, and speared one of the gnocchi through the bowl’s opening. As she pulled it out, a small gust of air from the base’s arm kept extra sauce inside the bowl, as opposed to it floating out into the room. “Now that’s a hell of a thing.”
The waiter made the wise decision to leave while she was distracted.
“Look at this,” Daelia said, and took another gnocchi out. Slower this time, clearly watching for the bowl’s reaction. “How clever is this?”
“Tasty, at least,” Argo agreed, grabbing a bite of his own. He pulled up the star map. Find Orion, he typed in.
Immediately, the constellation was highlighted, barely over the glowing rim of Earth’s atmosphere.
Tell us about Betelgeuse, Daelia added, and when he looked at her, shrugged. “What? I know a few stars.”
More information came up. A lot more, Daelia prompting for the academic-level explanation of the massive star’s known qualities, and then, all of a sudden…
“What is that?” Argo asked.
In front of them now, real as anything, was a star. Blue, vast, turning.
“I prompted it for the artist’s rendering,” Daelia said. “I mean, it’s not surprising. Waterfall film does give you a fantastic level of definition.
Argo set his fork back in the base and got up. He glided over to the window, touching its cool surface. The star got bigger; just a little, but enough to notice.
“And it changes with your own position,” he observed. “Did you just notice it get bigger?”
“No.”
“Interesting.”
“What are you thinking?” Daelia asked.
He went back to his seat and leaned over, lips almost touching her ear. “I think any window on this station can be programmed to display anything.”
Daelia pulled back, recognition on her face. “Ah,” she said, neutral now. “So we’ll have to try this trick with some other stars, won’t we?”
“Yeah,” Argo said. “Yeah, we will.”
Five courses and ninety minutes later, Argo signed the bill on the most expensive—and best—dinner he’d ever had.
The bill was more of an acknowledgment than anything else; the waiter had assured him everything was being tallied into the room charges. But the guy had done a good job, to the point where even Daelia had warmed to him by the end, and Argo wasn’t sure if Tamm was going to include a tip. So he did that himself, on his own card.
That alone was more than a top-end steak house back in Houston would have cost.
Daelia watched him, up over the top of an after-dinner coffee.
Worth it, he decided, and got up, offering her a hand.
“I think I’m getting a handle on how this zero-gee thing works,” he said.
“Yeah? Let’s see it.”
He managed to get them both out of the restaurant without bumping into anything, although it wasn’t as smooth as he would have liked. He almost ran into one of the waiters once and twisted them both up and around one another’s head.
Daelia was laughing by the time they got outside the doors, back into the asteroid proper.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “That was kind of fun, I’ll admit.”
“Like I told you, never turn down a free meal,” Argo said.
The main promenade of the station was busy, but not horribly crowded. Argo supposed there was a firm limit to how many people could be on the station at any given time, considering how set air and cooling and transport requirements must have been. AR signage glittered above dozens of little boutique shops, promising shopping or some kind of unique experience one could book.
“I’d like to go see the expo,” Daelia said. “If you think we’ve got time.”
“I’ve got an hour or so yet,” Argo said. “And I’m sure it’s going to take me a little time to…”
“Oh. Can we help you?” Daelia asked.
A kugu had just walked up to them. Which seemed strange. Aiden had always made it sound like abiota were as common out here as anywhere back on Earth, but Argo had seen very little evidence of them so far.
“No offense,” Argo said, “but whatever else Tamm has set up, we’re not interested right now.”
“Tamm not set up,” the kugu said, in a generic female preset voice. “Here to see you, yes yes.”
“Umm…”
“Humans done with biologic-stuffing. Spawn, you load combat plug-in for kugu this, eh?”
Daelia blew a piece of floating hair out of her face. “Emily?”
The kugu nodded.
And just like that, the spell cast by the meal was gone.
10
Daelia was almost relieved to see the abiota.
Dinner had been…well, dinner had been nice. Almost like she was up here with a guy for the sake of being up here with a guy, instead of on some insane space-rescue plan. Or whatever it was that Argo intended to do. The way he was looking at her…
Yeah, she told herself, and all it took was a thousand-dollar dinner and a borrowed cocktail dress.
He’d figure out it. She was a terrible idea. Guys always did.
Argo took the kugu by the arm, pulling it away into an alcove. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
A shrug. There was no AR presence to it at all right now. The only thing that gave it away as Emily was the voice. “Good time to take leave, eh? Have too much coin. SATCOM time expensive. Good things.” And it shrugged again. The lens-eyes turned to Daelia. “You fix AR for this.” It tapped the kugu’s chest.
“I’m not an illuminator, and I don’t have my laptop,” Daelia said. “I can’t design you an AR overlay from scratch right now.
“I have file. No load. You fix.”
“Yeah?” Daelia asked, confused as to why Emily would have a bipedal AR form. She’d never used one before, in all the years Daelia had known her.
“That’s going to cut into our, umm, exploration time,” Argo said.
The kugu made a weird noise. Probably Emily trying to snort. But a file popped up in Daelia’s monocle. TWO-LEGS.EXE.TGLP. Daelia blink-clicked it up, started reviewing it.
“You were going to track that contact of yours down, right?” Daelia asked. “I don’t need to be there for that. Let me get her fixed.”
If Argo was at all disappointed by that, he didn’t say. “Emily,” he said, “what are you doing here?”
“Want to see aliens.” The kugu made another noise. “In space. Not dying at Alamo under wings, yes?”
“You can’t kill anything up here, girl,” Argo warned. “I’m serious.”
“Yes yes yes yes,” Emily said, the kugu nodding. “Would need combat plug-in. Spawn, you supply this too?”
“You are not killing anything up here,” Argo repeated.
Daelia rubbed her left elbow. “I couldn’t get it for you even if I wanted to, which I do not.”
“How I protect you no plug-in?” Emily bobbed the kugu’s head again. “Is primary purpose.”
“I’m not your primary purpose, girl,” Daelia said, and closed out of the file. “I can get this working, if I can get on a physical machine somewhere.”
Argo checked his phone. “There’s a business center in the hotel. You can probably do it there.”
“We go,” Emily said, and bobbed her head again. “Yes yes, we go there.”
Daelia wasn’t sure what kind of nonsense the staff up here were used to. In her own limited dealings with the super-rich, she had noticed they tended to be highly eccentric. It worked in her favor that night, because when she showed up at the front desk in her borrowed finery, kugu in tow, asking about the business center and a mod kit, nobody so much as blinked.
There was a small workroom attached to the business center, complete with a diagnostics terminal and tool set. Anything one might need to work on an abiota.
She did get a hesitant warning from the clerk who walked her back there.
“Now, I am required to let you know that if your abiota is riding a rental kugu, while Aethera is happy to accommodate superficial preferences, any deeper adjustments to the mechanics or main processors may result in a repair fee, upon kugu return.”
“Is okay,” Emily replied. “Have…permission.”
Just looking at the data on her monocle earlier had gotten Daelia’s headache going again. The workroom, however, did have a pull-down waterfall screen. “Useful,” Daelia said as she rolled it out. The screen snapped taut between her and the kugu. “Can you pull up that file for me again, Emily?”
The kugu clapped its hands together three times, then spread them. A manual gesture for uploading the AR image. In the screen, Daelia could see a female figure, albeit it with a few alterations. Scaled skin. Cat eyes. Little bat wings sticking out of its back. Simple leather armor, similar to the stuff that Emily dressed everybody in in her virch.
Daelia checked the metadata. “This is too old for your kugu’s current OS. That’s why it’s not loading.”
“See?” Emily said. “You fix.”
“Why do you have this form anyway?” Daelia asked. She pulled out a fresh set of fiber cables for connecting the kugu to the terminal. She could do it via wireless, but this was faster, neater. “I’ve never seen you use a bipedal kugu.”
“Part of illuminator package.”
“Lara Menendez, right?”
“Yesssssss.”
The sound grated. Daelia tried to ignore it. “You should pull back into your machine body, ask her. She’s got a lighter touch than me.”
“She no answer phone.”
Huh. Weird. “Try Garcia, you know, Ivan of the network-keepers.” Emily made an indeterminate noise. Daelia figured it was a question. “He’s dating Lara,” she clarified. “He’d know where she is.”
“Dating, dating.” Emily turned the word over, like she was trying to figure out how to say it. “When human trade biologics, eh?”
“Sometimes,” Daelia said, and thought of dinner. “Sometimes it’s just about other people’s company.”
“Biologics,” Emily nodded.
“Come on, Emily, just because your people don’t really give a shit about relationships doesn’t mean—”
“Is primary purpose, of biota. Relationships.” Emily drew the word out, syllable by syllable, like it was some strange thing to be examined. “Make new biota.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Daelia said as she worked, “in a literal sense.”
“When spawn make new human?”
It was innocent, as innocent as something could be from a war machine, but it still bit at her. Daelia thought about Argo and dinner. She thought about her dad, and mom, and how all that had gone for them.
“That might not be my primary purpose,” she told Emily, and opened the hardwired connector port on the back of the kugu.
And then she saw it.
The discreet USSF logo stamped into the back of the kugu’s neck.
“Emily,” Daelia asked, “where did you get this?”
“Friend.”
“A friend at Space Command?”
“Have little unit up here, eh? None for rent. Navigation control emergent authorize for me.”
“They wouldn’t give you a flying unit?”
“No trust,” Emily said, and smiled. “So yes yes, you load combat plug-in.”
Daelia ignored that.
Emily insisted she was fine with the humanoid form, but Daelia adjusted a prior version of her dragon form as well. It wasn’t best practice to do that; Emily’s front claws would align with the kugu’s legs, with most of the form disconnected entirely, which would probably hamper any meatspace movement significantly. She could just hear the abiota bitching about it, though. Better to have it and not use it than listen to Emily whine about it for the next two days.
“How’d you even hear about us coming up here?”
“Base networks very noisy. Other places too.” The kugu shrugged. Emily cocked the head at a shoulder and did it again, testing the gesture. “Bellona never forgive, something happen.”
Bellona. Daelia stopped what she was doing. “What did you say about my mom?”
“Mom? Mom mom mom,” Emily repeated, then shook her kugu’s head. “No mom. Company. Lee.”
A little disappointed, Daelia hit the upload key, sending the corrected projections back to Emily. “He’s missing too right now.”
“Is he?” Emily asked, catching the data in the AR field.
Daelia glanced up at the camera in the corner of the room.
“Emily,” she said, “you want to run a test on your virch?”
Emily cocked her head, and her cave rose up around them.
We’re not up here to sightsee, Emily, Daelia typed. Argo’s brother is missing. He wants to go find him. That’s what he’s doing right now, tracking down somebody who’ll take us over there.
“Numina. Yes. Know this.”
What?
Base network. Noisy.
And that was some bullshit. Discussion for another time, though. Daelia wasn’t sure how long she could get away with the virch thing without Eos getting suspicious.
What do you know about the abiota system administrator here?
“Predictive,” Emily spat. “Galatea clone. Has tight quota on abiota who may come up.”
What do you mean?
“You see many kugu?”
Very few, now that Emily mentioned it. And even with as rare as the higher classes were—anything elephant and up should have been able to manage a trip up here—they didn’t take up oxygen. There shouldn’t have been a quota like there was for human guests.
What are you getting at?
Emily shrugged. She held up the kugu’s fist and unclenched it. The virch fell away. “Good test, good kugu. You go see exhibition with me now?”
Great. Even Emily was playacting at normalcy. It was going to be a long thirty-six hours. Daelia looked down at what she was wearing. She’d had to tie up the skirts in order to work on the kugu. In the Ring’s gravity, the garment lost its grace. Annoying. “I should change out of this.”
“Little pilot be sad.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Emily grinned. “Trade biologics, yes yes,” she said, and made for the door. “We go fix your plug-ins too.”
