Andrew Mackay - Infinity Claws

“Wow, can I sit in the seat?” Jamie ran over to the swivel chair parked in the middle of the unit.

“Sure. Please don’t touch anything, though.”

Tripp offered Emily a smile of contrition. He hoped that the debate they’d had in the corridor hadn’t shown USARIC in too bad a light.

His attention was drawn to the flight deck. Dimitri Vasilov talked to two men Tripp didn’t recognize.

“Jamie?”

“Yes, Tripp?”

“Over there, where those three men are. That’s the flight deck.”

“Wow.”

Jamie stood up and jumped on the spot. “That’s where you fly the spaceship?”

“Yes,” Tripp whistled at the three men. “Hey, Dimitri.”

The elderly man turned around, surprised to see that he and his colleagues had company. “Oh, yes. Of course. Hello, Tripp.”

Dimitri walked with the two men over to the communications deck. “Tripp, your timing is impeccable. I’d like you to meet our new intake. Communication officer Tor Klyce and engineer Baldron Landaker.”

“Ah, yes,” Tripp shook their hands in turn. “I thought you were due to arrive tomorrow?”

“Good to meet you, finally.” Tor Klyce, a thin man in his early thirties, spoke with a clear mid-western American accent. “Yes, we left Minneapolis Two a day early to run a few diagnostics on The Manuel.”

“You know what USARIC is like. Always ahead of schedule,” Baldron clocked Jamie and his mother – and the cat in the carry case. He seemed perturbed by their presence. “What’s this? Are we allowing civilians aboard our vessels, now?”

“Oh, no. Not quite,” Tripp explained. “Jamie and Emily are the owners of Jelly, here. The winner of the Star Cat Project.”

“Okay,” Baldron made eyes at the cat as it sniffed around the plastic bars. “One in a million, right?”

“Something like that,” Tripp smiled. “She’s a very special addition to Opera Beta.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Baldron cleared his throat and looked at Dimitri. “Sending a cat into space. I’m sorry, Jamie, but it’s ridiculous. Please excuse me.”

Baldron walked off, leaving Tripp, Jamie, Emily and Tor lost for words. “I’ll be with Wool if you need me.”

“I’m sorry about my colleague,” Tor said, walking over to the communications deck. “He’s a bit jet-lagged from the flight. He’s very concerned about the logistics of the whole cat thing.”

“How’s Manuel doing? Retained all his faculties?”

“He’s fine,” Tor said, punching a few buttons on the panel. “Fifteen brontobytes of data need to be reconciled. He booted up about an hour and seems bright and perky, which is a good sign. You want to meet him?”

“What is a… man-well ?” Jamie asked.

“The autopilot. A veritable data bank of knowledge,” Tor explained, pointing at the screen in front of him. “To activate him, all you need to do is click your fingers and say his name.”

“Okay.”

“Did you ever see Fawlty Towers?” Tripp smirked. “That old TV show from the twentieth century?”

“What is a TV show?” Jamie asked. “Is it like a screen?”

“Never mind,” Tor chuckled. “Just click your fingers and say his name.”

Jamie held up his hand and snapped his fingers. “Manuel?”

Snap .

A holograph of a book appeared in the middle of the room, floating on the spot, flapping its pages from end to end. “Good pre-afternoon. How may I assist you?”

Jamie blinked at the transparent object floating in the air. “What do I—”

“—Ask it anything you like. It has all the answers.”

Jamie looked around, taking the sheer wonder of the deck into his mind. He drew a blank for the first time in his inquisitive, young life.

“Uh, why are you called Manuel?”

Manuel sped over to Jamie and opened up its pages, displaying a black and white image of Pascal D’Souza.

“My full name is The Manuel. I was put together by my creator, the late Pascal D’Souza. Originally, I was referred to as The Manual, however, when they loaded me into USARIC’s mainframe the first time, an error was made. As you can see.”

The picture of Pascal D’Souza moved like a recorded video. Angry with his fellow scientist, he bopped him on the back.

“Why isn’t The Manual responding to my commands?”

His colleague pressed a button on his computer and pointed to the erroneous letter in the manual’s name. “There’s been a slip up. Someone must have pressed E when they meant to press A .”

Pascal shook his head in incredulity. “So we’ve christened our hyper-intelligent autopilot and data bank as… The Manuel ? What is this, some kind of joke?”

“I’m sorry, Dr D’Souza—”

The image paused, allowing Manuel the flip over by one page.

Manuel’s holograph turned to Jamie. “I am able to process close to one billion commands at any given time.”

“Wow, that’s a lot.”

Tor chuckled to himself. “We were just completing Manuel’s assessment. Would you like to see it?”

“Yes, please,” Jamie said.

“Manuel?” Tor asked. “What does USARIC stand for?”

“It won’t stand for anything,” Manuel said. “They are a very stern company.”

Emily and Tripp smirked at the crude joke.

“That’s not that I meant and you know it,” Tor said. “Please, give me the correct answer.”

“It was just a joke.”

“I know, give me the correct answer.”

“USARIC stands for the United States and Russian Intergalactic Confederation.”

“Correct,” Tor pressed a button on the communications panel. Manuel’s holograph lit up. “Tell me the genesis of the company, please?”

“Certainly. USARIC was formed in the year 2100, shortly after the disbanding of NASA.”

“Correct.” Tor winked at Jamie. “Good, isn’t he?

“Yes. I want one when we get back home.”

“Ha,” Tor punched in some data on the comms panel. “Manuel?”

“Yes, Tor?”

“Can you explain to our guest why USARIC was formed?”

“Certainly,” Manuel said, flapping opening and spinning to the end of his book. Footage of a space shuttle launching from its pad played out.

The United States and Russian Intergalactic Confederation (USARIC) is the result of a convergence of two states – the US state of Alaska, and the north-eastern territory of Chukotka in Russia. The Bering Strait lies in the middle, separating the two nations, which lent its name to the treaty drawn between the two nations.

The two states amalgamated to form Chukaska, across the start and end point of the international time zone.

In order to allay a second cold war, the presidents of both countries agreed that the two states merge jurisdictions, thereby forming an alliance.

The switch took place in 2087, two years after the Bering Treaty was formed. In 2088, it was decided that the two nations conform to a confederacy.

The result was the free movement of people from both the US and Russia into both jurisdictions.

In five years, both economies saw a surge in productivity. As a result, wages kept in line with inflation. Companies set up shop globally, at various points in both countries to quell the cost of distribution.

The most remarkable effect was the formation of USARIC. NASA was summarily disbanded. Its protocols and legislature was reconfigured to merge both the US and Russia’s efforts to explore outer space as one entity. In effect, any discoveries that were made would be shared equally. A combined space race, with certain caveats, if you will.