Random Chance and the Paradise that is Earth (7 page)

He flicked on the video, and Mia’s smiling
face filled the bubble of the viewport.

She had loosely curled shoulder-length
auburn hair and hazel eyes, both of which, along with her skin,
she’d occasionally color, though, he reflected, rarely in garish or
clashing or trendy hues. Her features were young and soft, almost
girlish, including her ready smile. She had her manic moments,
certainly, and she had her down times. But rarely were they, from
what he knew of her, too manic or too depressive. She was a steady
soul, all told, and it showed in that smile. “There you are!” she
exclaimed. “You’re lookin’ good there, Probability.” She looked up.
“And how are you, gooey Hewey?”

“Momma Mia, don’t you look fine today,” said
Hewey. “Long time, no see, angel.”

“You been takin’ care of my boy?” she
asked.

“I thought I was your boy!” said Hewey
indignantly, chuckling.

“You two can have this fight later,” said
Random. “It’s really good seeing you, Findlay. I’ve got a new
friend I’d like you to meet. Cubey? You there?”

A couple seconds passed. “Confirmed, Random
Chance.”

“I didn’t interrupt more contemplations on
elation, did I?”

“Negative. I am experimenting with rest.
Thank you for defining its parameters. I have been sending the data
back to Phobos.”

“Cubey, this is Mia Findlay. Mia,
Cubey.”

Mia blinked. “You mean you’ve
got
another
computer friend?”

“He was languishing on Phobos,” said Random.
“He freed me, so I freed him. Or … actually it was the other way
around. It doesn’t matter. He’s with us now.”

Mia’s smile vanished. “Are you okay, Random?
Thank you for letting me know before you got here. Are you okay?
Are you, Cubey?”

“I am performing optimally, thank you, Mia
Findlay,” said Cubey. “How are your systems?”

She laughed. “All systems are a ‘go.’ And
please call me Mia. I’m certainly better now that you and gooey
Hewey and my favorite hippie are here.”

“Updating files,” reported Cubey.

The Pompatus of Love
bumped up against
The
Glowing Girl
, and Random heard the RV’s
systems begin to cycle down.

“Get in here!” she said. “I just pulled a
cherry pie out of the oven!”

~~*~~

She and her housemates were waiting at the
airlock. One was a displaced Urantian named Tony, who made a very
handsome living supervising mining bots. The money he made he
unselfishly shared in exchange for a room, food, and company. The
other housemates were women, Chandra and Sileen. Sileen was
transgendered; she had done the extraordinary thing of smuggling
himself to Venus aboard an outgoing Vestian cargo transport to get
the necessary nanobot injections to become female. The Oligarchy
outlawed such injections several years ago, and to let everyone
know how serious they were about enforcing them, publicly
incinerated ten transgendered people and broadcast it live via the
SolarWeb.

Sileen’s bravery inspired Random, who always
delighted when hearing how someone defeated the Oligarchy. Random
had thought of her more than once as he sat imprisoned on Phobos,
and he told her that now.

“I’m glad to hear I helped,” she said as
they hugged.

Mia was next. They came together in a tight
embrace, then a light but lingering kiss. She looked up at him and
said just above a whisper, “You have been missed, Probability.”

He kissed her again, then released her and
hugged Chandra, then Tony, who said, “We’ve got to hear more about
Phobos. Up to sharing?”

“Give the man a break!” chided Mia. “He’s
probably still traumatized. Let’s get him comfortable and then we
can talk about that—if he wants.”

“Actually, I would,” said Random.

~~*~~

The means to produce gravity
artificially without using centrifugal effects was only three
hundred years old. In terms of humankind’s slow expansion
throughout the solar system, that was a small chunk of time.
The Glowing Girl
had been
built before APG; its shape, therefore, like so many other
spacecraft of its time and earlier, was a large independently
moving donut with pilot systems at the front of the shaft through
its middle, and tremendous ore holds in the rear.
The Girl
had been powered
by nuclear fusion; those engines had long since been stripped by
previous owners and replaced with far safer solar-electric-ion
thrusters that were almost never used. There was room to spare, and
Random appreciated that.

“What’s your APG set at?” he asked. They had
eaten dinner and had a slice of cherry pie followed by hours of
chat; now he and Mia walked into the donut towards her room.

“Zero point eight-seven,” she said. “This
ol’ boat can’t handle more. If I tried to set it at Earth-normal,
parts of her would fall off. Feelin’ a bit light there,
Probability?”

He pulled her into him and kissed her, this
time much more passionately than when he first boarded. They
parted, and she ran her fingers along his cheek. “I’ve definitely
missed those.”

“Think they’d be better in
Earth-normal?”

“You want to go back to
The Pompatus
?”

He thought for a moment. “Nah. Let’s go to
your room.”

There was a privacy function in his link to
Hewey, and he used it now. “Hewson, I’d like to have a little
privacy. You mind?”

“Let Mia know if she wants a real stud, to
send her my way,” replied Hewey. “Treat that angel right, y’hear?
Good night, amigo …”

“Thanks, Hewey,” said Random. He heard a
quick beep, then a click, and knew the privacy function had been
enabled.

“He wants you to know if you want a ‘real
stud,’ that I should send you his way,” he informed her.

Mia laughed. “Gooey Hewey is a good
friend.”

At the door to her room he got
an idea. “You know what? You should download Hewey into
The Girl
’s central
computer. Cubey too. You couldn’t go wrong. They don’t need food or
oxygen; they’re loyal; they make excellent friends; and they’ll
keep you and Tony and the girls much safer. Whaddya
say?”

Mia thought for a moment, her
face creasing into a disappointed frown. “I don’t think it’d work.
Our central computer … it’s ancient, Rand. Hewey and Cubey run
on
The Pompatus
’
mainframe, which is …” she shook her head disbelievingly “… didn’t
you tell me once it’s military-grade or something?”

“Would you be interested in upgrading?”

“You mean, make myself
even
more
indebted
to you? No thanks, Probability. I already feel guilty enough for
all you’ve done.”

He leaned in for another kiss. “Don’t be
silly,” he said when their lips parted. “You owe me nothing. At
least promise me you’ll think about it. We can augment that
mainframe with some top-shelf workings, and then Hewey and Cubey
can watch over you. At least think about it.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said. She pressed
the button that opened the door, which swished silently aside. “In
the meantime, I’d like to think about other things.”

“You’re built like a car,
you’ve got a hub cap diamond star halo / You’re dirty sweet and
you’re my girl …”
He sang as she led him by
the hand into her room.

The door closed behind them.

~~*~~

She held him in the dark, her
head resting on his chest. The quiet whir of
The Girl
’s life support was hypnotic
and pushed him gently but insistently towards sleep. She pressed
her fingers into his ribs, tickling him and keeping him from
nodding off.

“I’ve missed you,” she said.

He kissed the top of her head. “You’ve been
on my mind, too.”

“In a good way or bad way?”

“Good, of course,” he said with a chuckle.
“Why would it ever be bad?” He stroked her hair. “Feelin’ a little
insecure there, Findlay?”

“No …” she murmured unsurely. “Life just
feels better when you’re within reach. When you waved me about
Phobos, I freaked out. I was genuinely scared for you.”

“I was scared for me, too.”

She ran her fingertips along his belly and
played with the trail of hair there. “Tell me about Cubey.”

“What do you want to know?”

“He sounds remarkable.”

“He was—he
is
—a prison processing
program.”

“You told me.”

“He woke up.”

“I like that image. ‘He woke up.’ Waking.
You have an astonishing gift, Probability.”

“It’s how I like to think of it—as a gift. I
try to treat it that way. I asked him on the way here to prove that
he felt elation when he first saw Earth. His vital functions went
way down, as though I had given him too much to think about. You
want to know what he told me when he came out of it?”

“Yeah, sure. What did he say?”

“He said, ‘I am that I am.’ That was
it!”

“Isn’t that a verse out of a holy book or
something?”

“Yeah!” chuckled Random. “It is! I think it
appears in scriptures all over the place!”

“That’s really interesting.”

“I agree.”

“Do you think he and Hewey are friends?”

“I know they are.”

“Oh? How do you know that? How do you know
Hewey doesn’t resent someone moving into his virtual space?”

“He would’ve told me,” said Random. “He’s
very honest, Hewson. I think he’s actually quite happy about the
new arrangement. I get the feeling that he enjoys sharing his
‘virtual space’ with someone. I can only imagine the interactions
they have in there.”

“No kidding!”

He kissed her head again. “Are you havin’
second thoughts about my offer, Findlay?”

She held up. “Do you help the other girls
you visit the same way?”

He knew she’d eventually mention them. He
played with her hair. “No.”

“Truth?”

“Truth.”

“If I asked Hewey, would he say the same
thing, or would he cover up for you?”

“Want to ask him now?”

Mia shook her head. “No. It’s okay.”

“Sure you’re not feelin’ a little insecure,
Findlay?”

“Maybe a little. I like you,
Probability.”

“I like you, Findlay.”

She rose from his chest and
kissed his lips. “Okay. I’ll take you up on your offer. I’d love
Hewey and Cubey to live here on
The
Girl
. If I can’t keep you within reach, I
can at least keep your best friends close by.”

It was then that Random realized that while
he had enabled the privacy function keeping Hewey out of Mia’s
bedroom, he had forgotten about doing the same for Cubey. He gazed
up at the ceiling, shook his head, and chuckled.

“What’s wrong?” asked Mia.

“Cubey?” he asked. “Are you there?”

“I am, Random Chance.”

Random scrunched his face and
looked sheepishly down at Mia, who had heard Cubey as well, who was
speaking through the interface between
The
Pompatus
and
The
Girl
. She blushed, then started
laughing.

“Oops,” said Random.

“Random Chance?”

“Yes, Cubey, what is it?”

“I am new to the various methods by which
humans copulate. Would you and Mia Findlay perform the technique
whereby she …”

“Okay, okay, stop,” said Random.

“I would like to measure tensile stresses
between your …”

“Cubey, I’d like you to exit this bedroom
and not come in here again unless I or Mia tell you it’s okay.”

“Updating files. Please enjoy your
copulating activities, Random Chance and Mia Findlay.”

They heard the beep and click that told them
that Cubey had done as asked.

~~*~~

Vesta City wasn’t exactly a destination
stop. In fact, in a SolarWeb vote a year ago it had been voted
“Armpit of the Solar System.” The Vestian government and various
associated commercial and civic councils protested loudly,
predictably, all of which went largely ignored. In response,
Vestian council members ran ads promoting Vesta City as a great
place to vacation and work, and talked up the almost nonexistent
crime rate and the clean parks and shops under the biodome, as well
as the many exploration opportunities: Vesta had countless tunnels
and caves from all the mining that had gone on there for over a
thousand years, of which many were kept up for explorers, who rated
their adventures very highly.

Vesta City’s biodome was invisible, a
perfect merging of nanotechnology with the dark iron-nickel rock
surrounding it. It had been enhanced with radiation shielding: the
city forbade miners who hadn’t been properly deradiated from
entering.

The city was clean and well-lighted. Much of
it was green with thick vines and stands of tall trees and pleasant
parks. The farms were on separate floors below, and were large and
lush. A huge wildlife reserve below that was considered one of the
best in the solar system.

Random chuckled under his breath. The armpit
label was apt for this city, though perhaps not in the callous way
outsiders imagined it. Many of the buildings were very old and
looked it. Vestians were a pragmatic lot, and so didn’t replace
something until it was on its last legs. Mining culture did that,
especially in the endless dark of interplanetary space. You used
something to its very end. If that made your city look like a
makeshift patchwork of bare steel and mismatched technologies, then
so be it. If it worked, keep using it.

Random thought it looked like a well-managed
ghetto, but in his more truthful moments, he admired Vestians for
their stubborn pragmatism. He remembered Cubey asking him if Vesta
was nice, and he and Hewey laughing. The truth was, though, he had
a soft spot for this way station to the Outer Planets.