Jeff Carlson - The Frozen Sky

There was only one survivor. They pulled her from the ice after four days alone in the dark, coated with blood and dust, her suit damaged at its knee, chest, gloves, and helmet.

The rock dust and frozen water vapor encrusted on her armor were extraterrestrial. So was the organic tissue. It belonged to Europa’s sunfish.

The blood inside the crippled suit was her own.

“You can’t delete him!” Vonnie said from her hospital cot, trying to sit up.

Administrator Koebsch shook his head. “We’ll leave most of the files intact.”

“I owe him my life. If you erase his personality—”

“Your AI is badly corrupted.”

“That’s not his fault. It’s mine.” Vonnie’s hand throbbed as she held a comm visor near her face, allowing them to see each other. Her cot was in a separate structure from Koebsch’s command module. Fresh muscle grafts on her temple and cheek kept her from using the visor properly, but her hand wasn’t much better off. Five bones in her fingers and wrist had been set with glue, and that was her good hand, her right hand. Her left was a swollen club. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been such a struggle to sit up.

As Vonnie rose, her blanket fell away, leaving her naked above the waist. By trade, astronauts could not be body conscious in their perpetually crowded living quarters.

Maybe she let the visor dip to her breasts and bandaged shoulder on purpose. Koebsch was a politician. If he was agitated by her body, it might rattle him enough to listen. Despite her injuries, Vonnie was lean and well-toned with clear skin and a long, slender belly.

“Let me help,” she said. “We can copy the files you want, then isolate them.”

“That’s what we’re doing.”

“But don’t delete the rest! Lam was a Chinese national. Human-based AIs aren’t illegal in his country. I know we can’t send him back to them. He knows too much. But we can give him sanctuary with us. It would be wrong to strip him down to pure data.”

“I disagree.”

Koebsch was forty-eight, blond, and Earthborn like Vonnie. Unlike Vonnie, he’d arrived on one of the high-gee launches five days ago. He had yet to adapt to low gravity. His face was always flushed. Vonnie wasn’t sure if she’d embarrassed Koebsch, so she tried again.

“You’re afraid of him,” she said. “I get it. You don’t need any legal problems on top of running our operation, but Lam is a proven resource. He’s the only one who’s communicated with the sunfish.”

“The sunfish are a separate matter,” Koebsch said.

Like everyone in the ESA crew, he’d adopted her name for the Europans. Her experience had been too sensational. The media loved everything about her odyssey, and, according to the news feeds she’d seen in the past day, most people were using the term sunfish across the solar system.

Her fame gave her leverage. “The sunfish are the only thing that matters,” she said, but Koebsch wouldn’t let her change the subject.

“Your AI attacked our diagnostics,” he said.

“That was a misunderstanding. Let me talk to him.”

“No. You’re… emotional.” Koebsch obviously intended to say more, but checked himself. “Get some rest,” he said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Vonnie shouted. “Wait!”

He cut the connection.

What should she do? The medics had stuck two intravenous lines in her arm, delivering simple fluids and complex mood stabilizers. She had trouble walking in any case. But she couldn’t let her friend die again even if that was what the real Lam might have wanted.

The ghost was too human. It had found its equilibrium while it was limited to her suit, using her armor like its own body, but after they were rescued, it had destabilized when it was subjected to an interface with their central AIs.

That didn’t mean he shouldn’t be saved. Vonnie knew he could be a formidable ally, and yet she had another incentive to save him besides the relationship they’d developed. More important than her personal loyalty was Second Contact with the sunfish. Koebsch needed every tool available before they went back into the ice.

Vonnie tugged her IVs loose and stood up, although there was no way to sneak out of the lander where the medical droids had operated on her skull and hands. Her med alerts chimed as soon as she disconnected the IVs.

A young woman in a blue insulated one-piece stepped into the compartment. Her freckled nose and big hazel eyes gave her harmless look, which she dispelled by barking like a cop. “What are you doing? Get back in bed.”

“I can’t,” Vonnie said. “There are complications with my suit. I need to assist with data recovery.”

“You need time to heal.”

“I’m okay.” Vonnie squeezed by the young woman, then nodded to the two men in the next compartment as she hurried past.

The lander’s floor was only fifteen meters square, but it held eight rooms, many of them as small as closets. Striding through the lander felt like running through a maze of steel. It reminded her of the ice. Vonnie realized she was grinding her teeth, driven by a rising sense of hysteria. She moved faster and faster until she reached the ready room, the largest compartment in the lander.

The young woman caught up and said, “Stop. We talked about your trauma levels. Your injuries aren’t just physical.”

“Koebsch asked me to come over,” Vonnie lied. Then she tried a different argument. “It’s good therapy, isn’t it? I should stay busy.”

“I guess.” The young woman gestured to the men behind her.

Vonnie heard one of them on the radio. “This is Metzler in Zero Four,” he said.

She ignored him and opened the first locker on the wall. Inside was a pressure suit. It weighed twelve times less than the armor she’d worn, but the pressure suit felt heavier. It was inert, whereas her armor had walked with her, magnifying every nerve impulse.

“Why don’t we sit down for a minute,” the young woman said.

Vonnie donned the pressure suit with her ruined hands. Nearby, three sets of armor hung on chain winches like empty metal giants. Vonnie might have climbed into one if the biometrics weren’t calibrated for each individual. She could use someone else’s armor, but clumsily, and the likelihood of hurting herself was too real.

“Stop,” the young woman said. “If you won’t—”

“Help me.” Vonnie met her eyes. “Please. You can drive me to the command module.”

The young woman nodded uncertainly. Behind her, the man leaned into the room and frowned. Vonnie knew they were all a little in awe of her, and, thinking like a sunfish, she stood erect and shrugged into the sleeves of the pressure suit, projecting confidence with her shoulders and chin.

“Koebsch is making a mistake,” she said.

Vonnie’s thoughts quieted as the air lock cycled, depressurizing to match the near-vacuum outside. Beside her stood the young woman, who’d joined her.

They didn’t speak. The young woman flitted through a display inside her visor, while Vonnie’s thoughts consumed her.

Was it claustrophobia that had driven her to suit up and leave Lander 04? She expected to have nightmares the rest of her life, but she was loaded with no-shock and antidepressants. She wanted to believe she was in control of herself. Yes, it was out of character for her to have flashed her body at Koebsch. She wasn’t a show-off. But she also felt like she was beyond foolish little things like shyness or self-doubt.

She’d changed. Some parts of her had died in the ice, and the woman who remained was impatient to set things right.

Her entire race was watching. Every decision would be scrutinized across the solar system and in history files for centuries to come, which was why Koebsch had his stiff caution and why Vonnie thrummed with compassion and fear.