Lightspeed: Year One

From afar just a glitter. Then, closer, a silver-sided chest, the size of a foot locker but covered with golden triangles. An odd, glittery powder encrusted the hinges and catch as it spun in space.

We brought it in.

Pippi’s gloved hand reached to undo the latch. I waited, holding my breath.

Nothing hissed out. A glass sphere inside, clouded with bubbles and occlusions. As Pippi slipped it out of the gray material surrounding it, we could see oily liquid filling it.

“Could be useless,” Pippi said, her voice unhappy. “Plenty of stories like that before.”

“Could be beaucoup bucks,” I pointed out.

“Of course,” Pippi said, her voice loud and angry, “it’s the time you bring someone along, to split it three ways, that we actually hit a lode.”

“I don’t want any claim,” Star said.

Flummoxed, I stared at him. What must it be like, to have enough to not need more, to have just that one extra layer against yourself and poverty? My parents had left me enough to buy my snipship, but all my capital was tied up in that rig.

“I just wanted the company,” he said. “I thought it would be interesting.”

“Fucking tourist,” Pippi said. “Want to watch the monkeys dance? We’ll kiss for another five grand.”

He backed up, raising his hands. His feet clattered on the deck. Before he had moved quietly. Did he choose to make that sound to remind us he was a machine?

“Thought we’d just love to take the walking vibrator on tour?” Pippi said. When he remained silent, she turned on me. “See, it doesn’t have anything to say to that.”

“He,” he said.

“He? What makes you a he, that you’ve got a sticky-out bit? I bet you’ve got a sticky-in bit or two as well.” She laughed. Meanness skewed her face.

“Enough,” I said. “Let’s tag the find, in our names, Pippi.”

She dropped back. I clung to the rigging, started to thumb in figures. She pushed forward, “Let me, it’s faster.” Fingers clicking, she muttered under her breath, “Get us all home faster that way.”

I took over after she’d tagged the spot and put the coordinates in. I was trying not to be angry. Hope mellowed out some of the harsh emotion. It could be a significant find. It was nice of Star to give up his claim.

Back in the ship bay, the lights laddered his face till he looked like a decoration. Pippi was strapping our find into a jitney.

“Why not a place where there’s rain?” I said.

“That could only be Earth,” he said. “Do you know the worst thing about rain there?”

“What?”

Pippi tied a rope into place, tested it with a quick tug, glanced over her shoulder at us.

“Rain there has gotten so acidic that if I stand out in it I have to come in and shower after a few minutes. It damages my outer skin.”

I tried to picture the cold, then acid burn. Luna was better.

“I’m sorry about Pippi.”

She honked the horn.

“Go ahead. I’m taking the tram over to the Cluster,” he said.

I hesitated. “Meet me later?”

“I’ll call you.”

He didn’t, of course. We cashed in the case—a lump sum from a company’s R&D division that doubled our incomes and then some.

I texted him, “Come celebrate with us, we’re dockside and buying dumplings.” But he didn’t reply until three days later. “Sorry, things got busy. Bought house. Come out and see it.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning. I’ll make you breakfast.”

I left in the morning before Pippi was awake.

His place was swank, built into a cliff-side, with a spectacular view of the endless white plains below. He made me waffles with real maple syrup. He was an amazing cook. I said so.

“I was programmed that way,” he said, and made a sound that was sort of a laugh.

The sexbots—all of the AIs struggling for emancipation lately—had had to demonstrate empathy and creativity. I wondered what that had been like.

He was standing uncomfortably close. I leaned forward to make it even closer, thinking he’d draw back.

He didn’t.

“I’m programmed a certain way,” he said.

“How is that?”

“I want to please you. But at the same time I know it’s just the way I’m programmed.”

“It can’t be something more than that?” My arm was pressed against his surface. It was warm and yielding as flesh. I couldn’t have told the difference.

He pulled away. I bit my lip in frustration, but I liked him enough to be civilized.

I drank the last of my coffee. Real Blue Mountain blend. He kept his kitchen well stocked for human visitors—who did he hope would stop in?

As it turns out, Pippi. Next time I came through on a quick flight (I might be rich, but who was I to turn down fast and easy money?), she told me how he’d fed her.

“Pasta,” she said, rolling the words out. “And wine, and little fish, from Earth. And afterwards something sweet to drink.”

She said they’d fucked. I believed her. It wouldn’t be her style to lie. It would never occur to her.

So I did and said I’d fucked him too. She didn’t respond, not right off the bat, but I caught her looking at me oddly by the time I said toodle-oo and went off to sleep in my ship.

It wasn’t the first time I’d slept in there, not by a long shot.

I wished them both happiness, I supposed.