The Last Place for Many

No Space for Family [Chapter 19]

“We’re getting airspace data from Yuzumaru,” Grandma announced, following the directions Dad gave her.

“Good, let’s get in contact with their ground control,” Mom hummed. She was the one in the pilot’s seat at the time. “I doubt they’re very busy down there, but we still should find a place that’s out of the way.”

“I would get to that, but there’s some radio noise in the background,” Grandma huffed.

“Radio noise?” Mom repeated, leaning over to glance at the navigation console across the aisle. “Is there a solar flare in the area or something? We can’t risk something like that again.”

“No, it’s just random data. All garbled nonsense. It has a signature, though. It’s from… Seltun? Where have I heard that name before?”

“Seltun!” I exclaimed. “The salt planet.”

“Where Hows came from,” Mom added. “Jeff!”

I heard my dad grunt from the rear of the ship, followed by the sound of his feet pattering down the ladder from the loft. “What’s the matter?”

“We have a communication from Seltun,” said Mom, sliding out of the pilot’s seat. “Well, it’s not directed at us, and it may not even be a fully-fledged message. But who else could it be for? Maybe it’s encoded strangely?”

Dad nodded. “Can you play it for us, Aida?”

The speakers crackled and suddenly began playing low beeps of various lengths over and over. Dad shook his head and even dared to look at me. I just shrugged. “No prime numbers this time.”

“Okay, turn it off Aida,” Dad sighed as the silence returned. “Hopefully it’s not more malware installed via some binary-adjacent waveform.”

“It could also be someone trying to reach us,” Suggested Mom “We’ve been off the comms grid for so long. Dr. Pois, maybe?”

Dad nodded. “She would know how to encode something in a very specific way. Any ideas, Aida? Surely there must be a pattern somewhere.”

“The best I can tell you is when it starts and ends. So it is, I don’t know, looping.”

“Just trying to reach us when we happened across it,” Mom said.

“If Grandma can’t understand it, maybe it was some codec that we lost when she overwrote Hows,” I suggested.

“Codec…” Dad muttered to himself. “That’s it, Sola! The original Hows and our copy of him were supposed to sync up when we installed him at the destination. If that data is for a sort of synchronization… Aida!”

“Once again, don’t expect me to understand what that means,” Grandma said with a groan.

Dad pursed his lips and shook his head. “Our Hows isn’t around to sync up anymore, but if we put the data into an isolated container and use the parity algorithm from the kernel… we may be able to decode it. Aida, how’s that sound?”

“It sounds like a whole other language, but I’ll try.”

After the decoding process, we all gathered around the cockpit to hear what was brought out from the data. The old warm voice of the AI doctor came to us.

“Living data transfer from Hows core Origin. Operator statement: please contact me at frequency 1124222240 security code 504. End living data transfer.”

“That’s it?” Terren huffed. “I’m going back to sleep.”

Mom shrugged. “It means that someone is trying to reach out to us. Or have us reach out to them.”

“It can only be the doctor,” Dad asserted, tapping on the comms screen. “The fact that they knew how to get this data to us without anybody else being able to decode it… at least in the time frame we’ve had… it can’t be anyone else. But the longer it loops in the relays, the more likely it is to be broken into. We should reach out. Now.”

“I have to agree,” Mom said.

“Aida… hail that frequency.”

“Hailing… connection established.”

The silence went on for a long time even though it seemed like we were connected.

“…Hello?” said the feminine voice.

“Dr. Pois?”

“Mr. Umburter.”

Mom sighed. “I’m sorry, Doctor, it seems we’re both on edge here, worrying if we should be the first to speak. And worrying if it’s the correct person on the other end. It is us.”

The Doctor laughed with a bit of hesitation. “Thank the stars. No, this is no laughing matter. Mr. Umburter, I’m sorry we were cut off before. I’ve been trying to reach out to you for some time.”

Dad hummed. “No doubt. After our… well, let’s call it an escape… we had to skirt the border for a while, stop at a backwater planet for repairs, you know. We’re finally closing in on the Haru system.”

“Such a detour. But you made the right decision. The client… they reached back out to me and my boss. They’re not happy. With either of us.”

Dad shook his head. “I’m terribly sorry that our actions put you in this position, Dr. Pois. Are you alright?”

“I’ve slipped away from Seltun for the time being,” admitted the doctor before a long pause. “Hows’ original build is still there, of course. Finding someone else with your expertise and hardware to transfer another copy to our client is no easy task. That being said, Hows is still running. And the back doors I created are still open to me. He was the one sending out the coded message that let you contact me.”

“We both owe a lot to Hows then,” my Mom interjected. “Even though the copy of him that aided us is now overwritten.”

“Yes. You must fill me in on the details of the accident,” requested the Doctor. “I have mulled over the abbreviated tale you told when you reached out back then. As it were, that… functionality of Hows had not been tested on a fully sapient brain. We succeeded with various lab animals, yes, but no reasonable humanoid would have ever volunteered to be experimented on that way. If Hows was overwritten, then your… stepmother’s consciousness must now be digitized in your systems.”

“Aida?” my dad prompted.

“This is her,” Grandma responded. “You’re that little weird doctor from that nasty, salty planet, huh? I don’t know how any of this came to be— apart from my son-in-law flash-freezing my body— but my body and my mind are in two different parts of this ship. And I’d like to be back. Not that I haven’t learned a thing or two, but it’s all a bit overwhelming. And I’d like to hug my grandchildren again. If I don’t strangle my daughter’s husband first.”

“We’re willing to take that risk, Doctor,” said my mom.

“Fascinating!” Squealed the doctor. “So not only have her thoughts and memories been transferred to your memory arrays, but her consciousness has adapted itself to the AI core itself in place of Hows. And it seems that you’ve been able to access the voice modulator and replicate your original inflection. That means you’ve meshed with the Kernel effortlessly. Has she been able to access any other hardware?”

“I’ve bridged a connection for her to our ship’s central computer,” said my dad. “She has been allowed to monitor our systems and keep watch over us. She’s a bit too squeamish to pilot, though.”

“Driving and piloting were always my husbands’ jobs,” admitted Grandma. “Speaking of which, I have business that I need to attend to, and it will require my body at some point. So is there a fix for me or not?”

Dr. Pois sighed. “Hypothetically, yes. The original goal of this… unfortunate project was to freely move one’s consciousness back and forth between the body and a digital container. But as I’ve said, we haven’t fully tested on complex brain types. Our client was going to take that next step with their own test subjects. And it seems you learned about that space station’s true purpose, incarcerating the worst of the worst. They can easily justify it; if something horrendous happens to a prisoner on death row, there is little to lose.”

“We’ve saved some people that fate then, if only for a little while,” said Mom with a sigh.

“Which is why you have to be careful still,” insisted the Doctor. “Why we have to be careful. If they find you, they wouldn’t think twice about erasing, even destroying your AI setup as a whole to delete the sensitive kernel data. They wouldn’t think twice about whatever or whoever else is stored in there with it. And since the lot of you know a lot more than you should…”

My mom glanced back from her seat and looked me in the eye. “They won’t hurt us, Sola, don’t worry,” she said, shaking her head.

“Either way,” continued the Doctor, “we’d best find a way to get Aida here back into our own body. That way if… we have to turn over the core, she won’t need to go with it. Now, you said you were in the Haru system?”

“That’s right,” Dad affirmed.

“That nice settled planet there, Yuzumaru… no doubt they have care facilities. The first step would be to make sure the body is fit for habitation once again. I’d like to meet you there so we can discuss the next steps face-to-face.”

“That would be great.”

Frozen Assets

No Space for Family [Chapter 18]

After our return to clear space, we had to decide on what to do next and where to navigate. The stars out the front window were a refreshing view compared to endless fields of scrap and the possibility of exploding an abandoned warp core. Dad had left me and mom to work out our next stop.

My mom was scanning through her navigation window before she leaned out of her seat and joined me at the charting station behind. “I thought I recognized this section of the stars,” she said, leaning into me and working the screen with her hand wrapped around my shoulder.

“What’s out here?” I asked, looking up at her chin from below.

“One of my first jobs was out here, back even before you were born, Sola,” she said, dragging her finger across the readout.

“A consultation thing?” I asked.

“That’s right,” she nodded, searching through the index of nearby planets. “I had to lead my firm through a proposal for founding a new colony, right here. Yuzumaru, here in the Haru system. Then after we got the contract, it became our job to plan out the colony footprint to fit the natural layout and available resources.”

“Oh no…” I heard Terren complain from the common room. He poked his head in the door and glanced around mom’s shoulder to the green and yellow planet on the screen. “That’s not where I think it is, right?”

Mom nodded back. “That’s right.”

“What’s right?” I asked.

Mom smiled and stepped back, caressing her stomach. “Well, you’ve heard this story before, but your dad was a simple freight hauler back then, one of the first groups of people to touch down there to start the construction process. We got to know each other and eventually… well, it’s a long story, but I got pregnant with your brother here. We probably weren’t the most responsible we could have been, but we were in love. And honestly, colonies work the best when people are… proliferating.”

“Amelia Elizabeth Ankern,” Grandma hissed at us there in the cockpit. “This is not the story I heard upon meeting your husband here.”

My mom slapped her hand over her mouth. “Ah, well I guess I never told you the specifics of this story, huh, mom? But I’ll have both of my kids here know that I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Dad shuffled his way into the cockpit past Terren, smirking. “The Yuzumaru story, huh?”

“Jefferson Umburter,” Grandma muttered. “You two would best stop these frivolous recounts before your children think less of you.”

Dad sighed and settled into the pilot’s seat before glancing back at me with a nod. “It’s fine. What did I say before, Sola?”

My mind ran through a bunch of random possibilities before I recalled something recent. “Uh, do as you say and not as you do?”

He clicked his tongue and looked up at the ceiling. “Correct. And she does listen at that, Aida. So, we’re near Yuzumaru, are we? After everything we’ve been through, it would be a great place to regather our thoughts. Settle in, everyone.”

Mom went back to her seat and plotted the course. Terren took up his seat behind Dad and leaned forward. “Let’s just hope nobody remembers us.”

“Why? What happened?” I asked, prying a little more.

Mom watched as we went to warp before turning back in her seat. “Nothing crazy, I promise. But the whole pregnancy thing? Well, I stepped down from my lead position at the colonization firm. The job had too much footwork for someone pregnant and bloated and having to pee every thirty minutes. Second reason I stepped away was to get married to your father as is proper. After we had your brother here, we settled down for a bit. Of course, we did want to return to the colony and see how things were going, and how it was developing. When Terren was old enough to not need diapers and all that business, I returned to my firm and got a supporting role.

“The colony was already well settled, with plenty of permanent inhabitants, but all fresh settlements need some help to iron things out for the long run. We called Yuzumaru our home for about sixteen standard months.”

“It’s all old people,” Terren interjected.

“It’s a high-end retirement colony,” mom clarified.

“Sure,” sighed my brother. “And you know why I still remember that place? Well, regardless of race and species, old folks just love little kids and pinching their cheeks and picking them up and giving them kisses. Like I said, hopefully nobody there remembers me.”

“I can’t blame them, my little grandson,” chattered Grandma. “You were indeed very cute. And I don’t think you have to worry about their memories lasting too long.”

“You know, mom,” said my mom. “I talked to you about possibly settling down here a while ago. You barely even let me explain.”

“Out here?” Grandma scoffed. “Too many non-human weirdos.”

I saw a figure in my peripheral vision and I nearly forgot we had a guest aboard. “Hey, family,” Plip interrupted with a grumbling voice. “Speaking of non-human weirdos.”

My mom jerked back. “I’m so sorry, Plip. I guess you’ve learned by now that our AI has quite the… personality. We’re going to land on a nice, peaceful colony where we can let you get to your own business.”

Dad nodded. “That’s right. Now I don’t condone it, but there will be plenty of old folks there that could be tricked out of their credits. Maybe sell them a little bit of travel insurance.”

“And where would these old folks be traveling to?” He inquired impatiently. “Wait, I’m not even a real insurance salesman, you all remember that, right? And more importantly, I’m beginning to think you don’t have any sort of ordinary AI. You’ve called her grandma, she’s called you her family. I don’t know about this computer business, but why would an AI ever be programmed to act so erratically? To pretend like it’s incompetent despite sitting on some huge custom-cooled processor and stacks of memory banks.”

I pursed my lips and stared sheepishly at our guest while he looked back and forth between Mom and Dad in the front seats. They didn’t look back.

Dad shrugged slowly in place. “Are you prepared to sit and listen to a very long story?”

“Honestly, no,” Plip said with a shake of his head.

“Well, good, because I’m not in a mood to tell one.”

Our guest nodded. “Fine. I’ll be happy to depart once we land on this planet.”

It seemed like everyone stopped holding their breath at once when Plip turned back out of the cockpit. Grandma spoke up again to break the silence. “We’ll be in talking distance of a long-range communication relay, right?”

“It makes sense that the Haru system would have one,” Mom acknowledged.

“I still don’t know what we can do for you, Aida,” said Dad, “but we’ll keep taking step at a time.”

Grandma hummed. “Sure, sure. But before that… I should have been done spreading that husband of mine’s ashes back on Greenmire long ago. The lawyer watching over the estate probably is expecting to hear back from me.”

Dad let out a long sigh. “I understand. But we still may have people looking out for us. Sending out a communication directly from the ship might not be wise.”

“What if he thinks I’m dead?”

“He’ll have to wait for proof of that,” shrugged Dad.

“Do you know where the inheritance would go if I, the wife of the deceased, were pronounced dead or missing? It would go to my stepdaughter! And she’s a spoiled brat already!”

“Even more of a reason to take things one step at a time, Mom.”

“That’s right,” said Dad. “We can reach out when we’re on the surface of the planet. And we need to be extra careful so nobody outside of this ship catches on to your… condition.”

“I’m not dead!” Grandma huffed. “My body may be on ice, but my mind has never been better!”

“Some people might not see it that way,” said Dad. “Uh, about your body, of course. I mean, nothing like this has happened before. At least, not in any legitimate records. And I can’t say I’m not worried about the condition of your body, either.”

“Same here,” My mom said. “Hows told us that your body is in a delicate state. It won’t hold up if we don’t keep it under specific conditions. Same to resuscitate it. To resuscitate you, mom. When’s the last time we even checked on it, Jeff?”

Dad glanced back out the door, through the common room and to the back hallway where the lower bedrooms were located. “I programmed the ship’s computer to warn me if the temperature goes above a certain threshold. And it hasn’t. As long as we don’t go through any more binary star systems. But it’s still no medical facility. The cold will inhibit the growth of bacteria, but it’s certainly not sterile and barely humidity controlled in there.”

“I’m not going to get freezer-burnt, am I?” Asked Grandma.

“What about Yuzumaru?” Terren asked suddenly.

“What about it?” Mom responded.

“Plenty of old folks must finish out their days there. They must get returned to their families somehow. And not all cultures cremate their dead.”

“I do think they have something for such a thing,” Mom said, nodding. “Proper cryo preservations. In nice little pods.”

“Those are for dead people!” Grandma hissed at us.

“Better than being freezer burnt,” Dad joked. “Maybe we can work out a deal with them, just grab a pod and don’t tell them what it’s for. Let’s set in a course. Aida, just let us know when we’re in communication range of the planet.”

Copy of a Copy

No Space for Family [Chapter 17]

“You what?” Dad hissed as soon as we heard the news from my mom and brother in the cockpit.”

“Yeah,” Terren sighed. “All that flashing and flickering was for show. Gram was just messing with us.”

“Do you see how it feels to just be along for the ride, not knowing anything that’s going on?” Grandma taunted. “That’s how it feels like to be fed all these strange orders. Then whatever computerized business is going on in the background just feeds information to me and expects me to spit it out. I don’t even know what I’m saying half the time.”

Dad rubbed at his face and head, glancing back to make sure nobody else was listening. “Well, I guess it also scared Caddel into believing we were doing something necessary. For the both of us.”

“Yes, that little twerp needed to be put in his place,” Grandma chuckled.

“Yes, yes,” Mom sighed. “Let’s put the new data to work and get out of here.”

“I’d like that,” said Dad. “Aida, do whatever you need to do.”

“If I weren’t so keen on protecting my family, I could interpret that statement in many ways.”

“Does it work?” I heard Caddel shout as he walked into the common room, his pack returned to his shoulders.

Dad nudged me out of the way and met with the scavenger partway. “Seems like it will. Get us out of here, Aida.”

“Yes sir.”

I felt the pull of the warp engines creating their field. Seconds later, space and all the hunks of junk were distorting around us. Caddel huddled into the cockpit with us and glanced at the view windows and navigation screen. “Can’t see anything wrong with how it’s goin’.”

After a few hours, grandma finally made another announcement concerning the journey. “All unstable warp signatures on the scrapfield map are behind us.”

“Does that mean?” Dad asked from the door of the cockpit, leaning back to acknowledge the scavenger.

Caddel had been nursing a cup of tea silently at the common room table for a while. He nodded and turned his eyes up. “It means you may jet on out of here. And that it is also time for me to depart, too. Finally.”

“Amelia, take the controls?” Dad asked.

My mom had been cleaning the kitchen for those last few hours unendingly, like it was an impossible task. She finally wiped her hands and marched out of the space. “Got it.”

Caddel had yet to move. He looked up across the table as my dad approached him. “I suppose you want something before you leave,” Dad asked.

The scavenger nodded. “For the… unusual trouble we happened to come across, I wasn’t sure if some fancy new insurance policies were going to cut it. Which I do appreciate, Good Plip.”

Our guest jerked up in his chair, nodding to disguise him half-asleep state. “Yes, of course. And remember, we will absolutely contact you when your policy has been approved and activated.”

Caddel blinked and looked my dad up and down. “So, the sanitized version of the AI.”

“Follow me.”

The instructions were for the little man but I heeded them as well. Dad went back into the storage bay first. “Aida, all of that new data we just took on got isolated into a sole memory array, correct?”

“I think I did that.”

“And where would that be?”

“Let’s see… array 7, section A, bay 14.”

“And you’ve followed standard procedure with it?”

Grandma stopped herself mid sigh. “Yes.”

“Good. Unmount it and unlock the bay if you would.”

“Doing… and… done.”

Dad leaned down into one of the arrays, pulling at a rounded metal handle, and unseating one of the modules with a click. It was about the size of one of those old fashioned paper books, but bound in metal with lots of hexagonal holes about it. I could hear the sound of a fan coming through the vacated bay.

“It’s all yours,” Dad said, handing it off to the scavenger.

Caddel could barely hold it with both hands, but it managed to stay in his arms like he was hugging it. “Perfect. If you ever come this way again… well, hopefully, we don’t ever need to cross paths again.”

Dad walked him back to the airlock and his ship beyond. We watched as the doors closed and the controls indicated his departure.

“You just gave him all the data it took Grandma so much time to take apart?”

Dad smirked. “The copy. All data on those arrays is copied across two modules, should any one memory module stop working. And if anyone knew the value of a copy it would be him.”

Box of Shadows

No Space for Family [Chapter 16]

Cabbel rushed past Plip and up to the very front of the cockpit to lean on the frame of the front window. “If my navigation box is dead, then there ain’t no way we’re getting out of this.”

“Your repurposed, but still malicious, AI box that is,” my dad corrected.

I shook my head. “A stop code just means that its code got interrupted.”

“My daughter here is right,” said my dad. “Whatever processes were running simply got interrupted. Apart from destroying its physical core, It’s quite hard to kill an AI. Even if it’s older, they’re designed to self-preserve, be it through programming or just low-level sentience. That being said, I won’t allow it back into our system.”

Cabbel turned around and stomped. “You say that. Look where we are.”

I climbed into the seat at the back of the cockpit at my station to get a better look outside. Our drop out of warp had ended us up in a field of wreckage. Floating about in the void there were sections of ships that were bigger than the Ora itself. Between them were countless bits of smaller junk; old panels, lengths of wire, and hunks of old machinery that were once part of something greater.

I always wondered how we never just ran into that sort of stuff while going through warp. Well, it turns out the field generated by a warp engine is pretty dense. Things get knocked away by the wake, like skipping a rock on water, before they even get close to our ship. Getting around big things though was more of a problem, which Cabbel’s AI box probably had been scanning for and handling.

My dad bit at his lips and surveyed the area. “Surely if we go through this carefully, we can get out.”

“Careful, careful,” Cabbel mimicked unflatteringly. He hunched down and yanked the cords out of our access port before flopping them across his pack and the little box of bad programming. “You might have been more careful when sending your AI to do your bidding against mine. Or better yet, you might have told me you had this AI of yours aboard in the first place.”

Dad glanced at me with an indifferent look before sighing at our guest. “I guess we both should have been more clear with each other. And it’s not as if we’re dead in the water. And if you can’t do something for us, we can figure it out.”

The scavenger shook his head. “Can you? Miss AI with your mighty core and drives all full of knowledge. How far did we travel since I hopped aboard?”

“That’s you, Aida,” Dad said.

“I get that,” Grandma responded. “I measure .38… and some change light-years.”

Cabbel held his arms up. “Not even half a light-year. Do you know what happens to a ship when it gets exploded into little bits and there’s no gravity to act upon it?”

“Oh, this is Newton’s first law,” I said proudly. “An object in motion—“

“Ain’t gonna stop!” Cabbel interjected. “I don’t know who this Newton person is, but I bet he would’ve loved to see this place! We’ve got scrap that’s been floating for decades in all directions across almost a sphere of about two lightyears. You’re free to worm your way through here under thruster power, blind as a mixie, but you better clear your schedule, Mr. Jeff.”

“You’re not leaving us Mr. Cabbel?” Asked my mom.

The scavenger shrugged. “Sorry, miss, but I can’t complete this journey with you. I’ve obliged as much of myself as I hoped to, but we’ve reached an impasse here.”

With a swing of his arm, Cabbel hefted the pack up onto his shoulder before making his way through us and out into the common room.

“My good man,” Plip interrupted, blocking him on his path around the table. “Would you allow me to come with you? I don’t feel safe being dragged about by the whims of this crew any longer.”

Cabbel held his palms in the air. “I too am sorry, Plip. I’ll have to forgo the enticing offer you graciously wrote up for me. Maybe sometime in the future, I can take you up on some other offer. Alas, there’s only space on my craft for one.”

Plip stepped back in the scavenger’s path. “A shame, but perhaps one of your colleagues, one with a more spacious craft can come by and allow me transport? I could include many more add-ons to your policy, even extend it. Even if it means paying for it myself out of my salary. Of course, the woman and children would love being saved as well.”

“I’m not going anywhere without the rest of my family,” I announced.

“Don’t worry, you won’t,” said my dad, hugging me by the shoulder. “Mr. Cabbel, hear me out. How do your colleagues manage to navigate this place? Surely you are not the sole person able to ferry travelers through this place?”

Cabbel stopped in place, hands on his hips. “Of course not. I cannot be at all points along the perimeter at all times. We have stations all about this region. I might say that helping travelers can be as lucrative as the scrap business. As long as they don’t meddle.”

“And their navigation?”

Cabbel patted the side of his pack. “My colleagues? What do you think? They have a nav box like this of their own, a copy of this AI you are so afraid of. Even this is a copy.”

“Copies,” Dad hissed. “I of all people should have known. But usually, you need an extremely specific parity algorithm to package and reassemble the AI kernel in a new container without breaking apart its neural matrices. And you said you found that AI just among the scrap. How did you manage to make copies without the original documentation?”

“Wouldn’t a spy-type AI be made to easily move from system to system?” I suggested.

Dad clicked his tongue. “Of course. Never let me underestimate you, Sola. Mr. Cabbel, if you allow us our own copy, we will need to bug you no longer. As you’ve seen, we have the power to make AI work for us in our own ways.”

The scavenger shook his head and turned about. “Not a chance. This is a business secret. Proprietary. One of a kind. And you all seem like nice people, but I would rather take my leave before you get desperate and try something that will haunt you.”

My dad stomped his foot loudly before Cabbel could exit the common room. “We’ll remove the malware and give you a clean fresh copy so this same thing won’t have to happen again.”

I heard the little man huff. He relaxed his shoulders and slipped the pack onto the ground. “You lot are too smart for your own good.”

Caddel plopped his pack down next to the core. The lights glowed and faded in a regular pattern. “This won’t mess with the copy here in my kit, will it?”

“This will be a one-way operation,” said Dad, marching up to the core. He ran his finger across the smooth metal. “Aida, we’re going to plug straight into the core so this AI has to go through you before it reaches any of your data. Or the ship’s systems again.”

“I don’t have to tell you how I feel about that, Jeff,” said Grandma. “Let’s hope this is quick.”

“Such a fussy AI,” Caddel noted, looking over the core and its connections about the room.

“Fussy?” Grandma shot back. “I’ll show you fussy. I’ll make sure that door out back into your ship will never open again. At least not before you help out my family like promised.”

“Easy, Aida,” said my mom. “This will be quick, right Jeff? I don’t want to be out here adrift longer than we need to be.”

Dad sighed. “Depends on the complexity of this box’s defenses.”

“And how… temperamental your… system here is, apparently,” the scavenger added. “I’ve never seen an AI so… personable. Not that I’ve seen that many.”

“Might have to do with why this load is so valuable,” Plip suggested, watching from the doorway.

Dad hunched down and opened the data port on the floor just in front of the core. “Well, let’s just get things connected. Aida, do you understand what we have to do?”

“I suppose.”

“Well, first step is to stop the malicious parts of the code from invading your processes. Which shouldn’t be too hard, considering you have plenty more processing power. Just look for anything that’s try to feed back into itself, like you felt before.”

“I’m going to need so much therapy after this,” Grandma sighed.

“Therapy for an AI, now that’s something,” Caddel chuckled.

“I assure you, just that’s how she jokes. A bit of her programming that we all love,” said Dad, hiding his grimace. “So again, Aida, once you have the invasive bits under control, find and isolate the map of the scrap field. We’ll definitely need that. Then there must be some special algorithm in there to navigate through it while avoiding any unstable cores, right?”

“Aye,” Caddel nodded.

“Figured so. Look through our ship’s documentation for Dijkstra’s algorithm, Aida,” continued my dad. “The one from the box is probably similar. Anything else of importance, Caddel?”

The scavenger tapped away at his chin. “Hmm. The map should also include a database of warp decay readings. Like I was sayin’, for any of the cores we can’t avoid, we have to control and modulate your engines to avoid a wake that would disturb them.”

Dad nodded. “Got all that?”

The lights on the core began blinking slightly faster. They didn’t stop even as grandma responded. “I understand.”

Dad knelt down and handled the length of wire heading from the box. He lined its contacts up with those on the ground. “Okay then, I’m going to plug into your core here.”

It might have been me blinking, but I swear the core’s strobing lights paused for a half second before starting up again. “I feel it.”

Dad stood and stepped back, wiping his hands on his thighs. “And now we wait.”

“And I do all the work,” Grandma responded. “Let’s see, yes, it’s trying the same thing as before. I guess I can’t stop it all at once like I tried the first time.”

“You’ve got this Aida,” said my mom.

The main lights in the storage bay flickered. This time, I was sure it wasn’t my eyes. They flashed a few more times. The little fans inside the room’s modules began to run loudly, and I’m pretty sure I felt myself start to sweat a little.

A garbled message sounded out from somewhere else in the ship. “…ething… weir… flashi…” It was Terren from the cockpit.

“Amelia,” said my dad.

My mom nodded before hoofing it back to the front of the Ora. I held my breath a little and I realized my hands were stuck in tight balls. My dad marched to the wall to access the status readout for the core system.

“It’s all froze up here. What’s going on, Aida? Status report.”

“Holding back… the bad stuff… is more work than expected.”

“Try putting it into a logic loop,” I said, tapping my foot. “Keep it busy. A logical paradox! Tell it… this statement is false! Don’t think about it too much, just put it into its brain.”

“Thank you Sola,” groaned Dad. “But maybe let’s not. That can definitely work with older AIs, but let’s not see whether or not Aida will fall for it.”

“Ignore what I said before!” I shouted, nodding.”

The fans sped up even more. Caddel took several steps back, fanning his neck with his hand. Plip was in the hall, leaning around the open door.

There was more flickering from the compartment’s lights. Suddenly, they went off entirely.

“What is going on?” Dad huffed, pacing around the core and finally placing his hand on it. “Too much power? It’s not too hot here. We may need to…” he began to mumble, looking at the ground.

“Hey now!” Caddel stomped. “You must know better than to disconnect a device during a transfter like this.”

“What would you dare risk more? The copy of your little AI or your—“

“It is complete,” interrupted Grandma. The lights returned to normal and the hum of the fans died down. “I have put the unmodified AI to rest and stored a more docile copy into my memory with everything you asked for.”

I Spy

No Space for Family [Chapter 15]

Dad paced for a bit as Cabbel’s automated system guided us in and out of warp and about the field of old scrapped ships. Most of the time, he stood leaning against the door frame, looking out into space.

“I should have mentioned, Mr. Jeff,” the little man called up to him. “The warp fluctuations are normal. My device is just adjusting parameters to keep any warp field swells from reaching the cores. Yet another tried and trusted safety measure!”

My dad turned back and flashed a wide smile. “You are certainly detail-oriented.”

“One must have that approach to be a scrapper,” Cabbel said, stroking the tip of his beard. “I guess it goes into other parts of life. Sorry, please go on, Mr. Plip.”

Our first guest was busy drafting a fake policy on his tablet, sweating and stalling the whole time. “Yes, well, I can’t yet determine if any warp core-related damage will be covered under our policy… assuming that damage or degradation comes from the warp core of another ship and not your own. Which obviously, may be a concern for you in this particular job setting. I mean, let’s be honest, these old ships aren’t insured. I could… possibly… contact my supervisor once the cockpit is free. But as you might know… with all the radiation that might come about with such an accident… the company might write off a ship with such damage as being totaled.”

“Totaled?” Inquired Cabbel.

Plip rolled his hands about, coming up with more fake definitions. “It’s when… a ship is too damaged to be worth fixing.”

“I have never heard such a thing,” Cabbel scoffed, hand to his face. “Rarely is a piece of machinery not fixable. We are floating in nothing but a sea of spare parts.”

“There’s an old story from our planet,” I interjected over the pages of my book. I had been listening while pretending to read.

“Let’s not interrupt, Sola,” my dad said back.

“No, we have time,” Plip said, nodding at me with pleading eyes. “Go ahead, I’d like some time to… write up more of the terms.”

Cabbel nodded at our first guest and then looked at me. “What is this story, little one? You must have caught on that I love stories of the past, especially from other cultures.”

“It is called the ship of Theseus,” I declared proudly, resting the book I hadn’t been reading. “There’s this ship. Not for space, but one that floats on water. Made out of wood. Our planet used to have a lot of water on it. And a lot of trees for wood. But… I guess it could work too if it were a spaceship made out of metal. Now that I think about it, it might have been more of an idea than an actual real story. But how it goes is the ship gets its rotten or broken parts of it replaced over time. Eventually, most of the parts are changed out. And the question people ask is if it’s the same ship, even though all the parts are different.”

Cabbel rapped on the edge of the table, accompanying a healthy chuckle. “I see, I see. I’d likely say that many of the ships in the Otrice Salvage company are like that. All well used, all with various spare parts and panels recycled into it from scrap. How does Cycles Go ‘Round look at a situation like that?”

Plip stifled a scoff. I hid back behind my book while he began to mumble more fakery to his mock client. “Ah, yes. Well, I’d have to refer to the official book of… statutes, which would give me a hard and fast number. But if I had to recall from the top of my head… we would have to start an… inquiry at around 45%. That is important since… since your company does all its own repairs. Which comes back around to the compensation we discussed. You would have to keep track of your time cost and potential losses caused by breakdowns and other eligible disruptions of business.”

Cabbel nodded silently as Plip stared him down nervously, dreading further questions. “Would the percentage be based on the mass of the ship or area?” Asked the little man finally.

Plip tugged on one end of his mustache. “Mass, of course.”

“Not a problem, then,” nodded Cabbel. “We value precision ourselves, as to be fair to our clients.”

A voice from the speakers in the common room broke the deal-making process. “Warning, low refrigerant pressure in port storage locker,” said Grandma with a clunky inflection.

“Is that a problem?” Cabbel asked, pulling his attention away from the agent.

Dad slid away from the cockpit door and began walking to the back of the ship. “No worries, just a door seal I have to tweak every once in a while to stop it complaining. Carry on.”

I followed my dad’s movement over the top edge of my book before slapping it down on the table. “This book is boring,” I declared, getting up to follow after my dad.

I found my dad in the cargo pod, door mostly closed. “That was you, right, Aida?” He asked, glancing at me as I entered just after him.

“Something’s weird, Jeff,” Grandma said.

“In what way?”

“It feels like… it’s like how it feels to have a cotton swab pushed too far in your ear.”

I held the side of my head reflexively. “Mom says you shouldn’t do that.”

Dad shrugged. “I agree with mom but I also think it’s fine if you’re careful. I think I know what you mean, Aida. It’s coming from the systems in the cockpit, I imagine?”

“Yes. And more than just the systems the little stranger told us about. I’m having to… push back.”

Dad hummed. “I knew that little box was suspicious. What are you trying against it?”

“It trying different access codes, but they’re all in a sequence. Kind of like its counting, but with numbers and letters.”

“That’s a brute force, Grandma,” I exclaimed. “Just like what we did with the Froungles.”

“I thought so, so I changed my access keys to something longer. I thought that would help.”

“That’s perfect, Grandma,” I said with a clap. “Dad, did you ever think Grandma would think of that if she were still in a person’s body?”

My dad shook his head and didn’t smile. “No. But we still need to stop it. And get some answers from Cabbel.”

While he was rushing out the door, a thought popped into my head. “Grandma?”

“Yes, dear?”

“The box he plugged in is accessing our sensor data. If you make pretend there’s a new sensor on our ship, you could inject some code disguised as sensor data to maybe get control of whatever program’s in that box.”

“I don’t know what that means, but that’s never stopped me before.”

I rushed out the door, waving my hands. “Okay, good luck!”

Cabbel had already placed himself in front of the cockpit door when I came out, blocking dad from entering. “It wouldn’t be good for either of us to interrupt the process mid-flight.”

Mom was down from the loft, listening in. Dad was holding out his hands in a begging motion. “Listen, I’ve tracked some malicious code trying to gain access to our system. So it’s either your fancy navigation box or your ship. They may have picked up something bad from another craft that you’ve connected to before. If you have a way to pause it and disconnect it, I have ways to run it in an isolated code container just to make sure.”

Cabbel stomped up and down. “It is ridiculous. And not possible. It will complete its job. And it is only doing its job. Your simple system must have wrongly flagged the autopilot as some sort of bug. I have done this with many ships, you know!”

My dad huffed. “I swear on my daughter here that I am serious. This is no simple ship you’re on. You must see.”

Cabbel stomped again. “I will not leave this place.”

My dad pursed his lips and looked back. “Plip here is a neutral party in all this. Plip, watch over the cockpit so we can be sure nobody touches it.”

Our guest sighed and waddled to Cabbel’s place. “Got it. Mr. Cabbel, as our new client, I shall make sure your belongings go unmolested.”

With a growl and a crossing of arms, the salvager stepped away and followed my dad. “This is no more than a basic freighter. What is this valuable cargo you’re carrying?”

Dad showed Cabbel back to the cargo bay with the core and all the storage arrays in all their shining and flickering glory. “This is no ordinary load, as you can see,” he said with arm outstretched. “We’re hosting an advanced AI. She told me herself that something is trying to hack away at our digital defenses.”

Cabbel breathed out slowly before stepping back, head shaking. “Darn. Now I’ve done it.”

“I’ll ask again,” my dad huffed, following, “What is in that box?”

“Another AI. Off an old stealthy spy ship we found out here.”

“Luckily our AI knows how to defend herself,” I said smugly.

“Sola,” snapped my dad.

“Let’s hope that’s true,” Cabbel sighed. “You have more processing power here, obviously. The AI in that box is an old model, too. No personality, no unnecessary chatter. Just navigation and piloting functions. It was trained to get ships through minefields without being detected or blown up. When my company got our hands on it, it barely needed any configuration to meet our needs. But to think it had other processes running in the background…”

My mom hummed. “And you’ve connected it to how many other ships?”

Dad shook his head. “It’s probably been searching for an appropriate ship to dig its claws into. Something well-equipped. Or maybe it just wants to spread spyware wherever it can and send stolen information back to whoever created it. Even if they’re not around anymore. Either way, you now understand why why need it disconnected from our ship. Once we have control back, I think our own AI can—“

Dad’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden drop from warp. I held on to his leg while Cabbel and my mom leaned into the walls. Terren poked his head out of the bedroom with eyes half closed. “What’s going on?”

Plip was bent over on one knee outside the cockpit. “Nobody touched a thing.”

“Aida?” Dad called out. “Talk to me. All speakers are fine.”

“I put in a stop code to the baddie in that box.”