Elizabeth Bear: Worldwired

Richard patted his hands against his thighs to a bossa nova beat. “Wait until somebody figures out that the nanite infestation falls under the third Kyoto and the second Kiev environmental accords, and that it's a violation of both. Potentially harmful particulate contamination of international ocean waters. That's us.”

“An environmental lawsuit is the least of our problems.” Riel rubbed her eyes and stifled a yawn. “I have to sleep if I'm going to be pretty on camera tomorrow. In thirty seconds, Richard, outline your plan of attack.”

“Easy.” He held up his spidery fingers and ticked off goals one at a time. “One, mitigate climate changes. Two, mitigate extinctions. Three, protect individual human lives. Four, try to help the team talking to the Benefactors. Meanwhile, you set up a world government, get the Chinese under control, keep the rest of the commonwealth in line behind us, and figure out how to revitalize a collapsed world economy. Does that sound like an equitable division of labor to you, Madam Prime Minister?”

“It sounds like I'd better get busy,” she said, and reached up to touch the connection off. Her hand hesitated a centimeter from her earpiece. “Richard. We'll have population problems if the death rate drops.”

And the AI sighed and laced his fingers together. “The death rate's not going to drop, Constance. The trick is going to be keeping a significant percentage of humanity alive .”

1110 hours

Friday September 28, 2063

HMCSSMontreal

Earth orbit

I'm just finishing my PT, wiping the sweat off my face onto one of the Montreal 's rough, unbleached cotton towels, when Richard starts talking in my head. “Captain Wainwright would like to see you when you're free, Jen.”

Thanks, Dick. Is this good news or bad news?

“Ellie asked about EVA plans, as you requested, so your guess is as good as mine.”

Your guess is as good as most people's certainty, Dick. I head for the locker room, tossing the towel overhand at the laundry chute as I go by. If the chute had a net, it would sink with a swish. The Montreal 's variable, lighter-than-earth grav takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it it's pretty darn sexy. Puts a spring in your step. Except you have to work twice as hard to stay in shape. Dammit.

“She doesn't see fit to keep the AI apprised of everything.”

No, but she's catching on pretty quick to using you as an intercom. The locker room is empty, midwatch, except for one master corporal who is leaned into her locker, curling her hair in the mirror. I peel off my sweat-drenched tank top, kick my sweats aside, and step into the shower.

I feel him shrug. “It costs me almost nothing in terms of resources, and if it leads her closer to accepting me, it's a very small price to pay.”

The water's metered, but it's steamy. The hot water pipes run alongside the outflow pipes for the reactor coolant. Nothing wasted on a starship, especially not heat. I get wet, wait for the water to kick off, and lather up with a handful of gritty soap. Think she's gonna go for it?

“I think you're going to have a fight on your hands.”

Tell me something new about my life. I punch the button for another metered blast of spray and scrub the suds out of my hair, turning one quick pirouette to get the last of the lather off my skin. The master corporal is long gone by the time I thumb lock open my locker and dress in the crisp rifle green that makes me look like a red ant in a nest of black ones when I'm out among the air force types. There's something else that stands out about me once I'm dressed; the sidearm pressed to my right hip. Valens never rescinded his order to keep it within reach.

I slick my damp hair back— neat and under control— and stuff the comb into the vinyl hanging pocket beside a mirror small enough to only show half my face at a time. Damn, I'm still not used to wearing this face. You'd think I would be, by now. It's been almost a year.

Richard's presence shifts in my head. “You want to get out there as badly as I do,” he says.

“Do you think it's worth the risk, Dick?” Out loud, provoking a smile in spite of myself. I unholster my sidearm and check the plastic loads, designed to squish flat against the Montreal 's hull instead of punching a hole and letting the vacuum outside in. Or the air inside out, more accurately.

“What risk?”

The risk of provoking the Benefactors somehow? The pistol's weirdly light in my hand. I replace the clip, make sure the safety's latched, and slide the weapon back into its holster, securing the snap. I can't look at it anymore without remembering Captain Wainwright pointing one very much like it at me. Without remembering Gabe's daughter Leah, and the fury I feel that I can't even pretend her death was the kind of stupid goddamned waste that kids dead in war are supposed to be. God damn it.

If it's futile, at least you don't feel guilty getting mad.

My hand falls away from the holster. If I never have to touch a weapon again, it will be too fucking soon.

Richard rubs his long, gaunt hands together, fingers mobile as the sticks of a fan. “That's the thing, Jen. We stand just as much of a chance of infuriating them by doing nothing as we do by wandering over and knocking on the door. We just can't know.”

Besides. We're both going nuts sitting on our asses.

“Correction. You are going nuts sitting on your ass. I am shoveling like Hercules in the Aegean stable, and to about as much effect.”

Maybe you need to divert a river.

I feel him pause. That never happens. Richard exists on a level of teraflops per femtowhatsit, words that Gabe throws around like they mean something, but which promptly fall out of my head and go splat all over the floor. Whatever, Dick thinks a hell of a lot faster than I do, even with my amped-up brain — although Dick will be the first to claim he doesn't necessarily think better . The practical application is that when Richard pauses in conversation, it's to be polite, or to seem human, or to give us meat types a chance to catch up.

This is different. He's hit a dead halt, and he's thinking . I can feel it. Feel the seconds ticking over like boulders gathering momentum down a hill. Dick? What did I say?

“A river,” he says, that topographic smile rearranging his face like plate tectonics. This one's at least a 6.5. “Ma'am, I do believe you've just given me an idea.”

And you're going to sit there and look smug about it, too, aren't you?

“I want to run some simulations first.” The sensation of his virtual hug is like a passing breeze brushing my shoulders. “I've been looking at the problem the wrong way. When change is inevitable, the solution isn't to fight it, but to work inside the new system and learn to live in the world that's changed.”

I've heard cruder versions of that sentiment.

He laughs, twisting his head on his long papery neck. “You look beautiful. Now go beard the captain in her den.”

“Great, the AI's blind as well as insane.” But he can feel my grin as I can feel his, and together we move spinwise and inwheel, toward the captain's conference room.

Wainwright looks up, glowering, as I duck through the hatch and dog it behind me. Momma bear with only one cub, and I square myself inside the door and wait for her to indicate my next move.

We have a funny relationship, Captain Wainwright and me.

She shuffles papers across her interface panel and stows them in a transparent folder mounted on her desk. You never can tell if the gravity will last from minute to minute, or so they say, although I've never seen it fail. She sighs and stands up, coming around the desk, as starched and pressed as me and eight inches shorter. “I want to thank you for not springing your radical idea on me in front of the scientists, ma'am.”