The softwire : Virus on Orbis 1 (3 page)

“What does the food taste like?” someone asked.

“Wonderful. We have food from every corner of the universe, especially in the markets, where you can barter for superb items from anywhere,” said Theylor’s left head.

This is going to be great,
I said to myself. I looked at Ketheria and smiled. I knew how much she loved food.

We were all talking to each other. The chatter grew louder, but Theylor kept answering questions. Then the Keeper asked a question.

“May I meet with the adults now?” he said.

Everyone fell silent. Adults?
He doesn’t know.

“They’re dead,” one kid said.

Both of Theylor’s heads said, “Dead? All of them?”

“Before we were born,” Switzer said.

“This is not as we expected,” he said.

Theylor’s heads moved slightly from side to side, almost as if he were having a conversation with himself, but no words were spoken aloud. Finally, Max stood up.

“Hello, my name is Maxine Bennett,” she said, interrupting the Keeper’s thoughts.

“Hello, Maxine,” Theylor replied.

“You can call me Max. Everyone does.”

“All right, Max. Do you have a question?” Theylor asked.

“Yes, I do. Who will look after us?” Max asked.

“We don’t need anyone to look after us,” Switzer said defiantly.

Theylor looked at Switzer. “Well, your Guarantor will now,” he said after a long pause. “We will have to designate you several Guarantors, I suppose. This was already established for the adults. You will live with your Guarantor and work for your Guarantor.”

“Work?” Dalton said.

Things suddenly got very quiet. None of us were very fond of chores. This was obvious from the mess we’d left on the ship — but
work
? That was a whole new concept.

“Why, yes. Your parents were sponsored by a group of investors who paid for their travel in exchange for four years of work on Orbis — one year on each ring. Since the adults from the
Renaissance
are all dead, the Council for the Center for Impartial Judgment and Fair Dealing will have to grant the investors ownership to replace that debt.”

“Ownership? Ownership of what?” I asked.

“Ownership of you, of all of you,” Theylor answered, and gestured with his hand. His thin red fingernails clicked against the dark metal bobbles that trimmed his velvet robe. It was the only sound in the room.

Can this be true?
I wondered.
Ketheria and I are now the property of some alien?

“What does that mean?” I asked the two-headed alien.

“You will work for your Guarantors in exchange for your existence on Orbis. Your parents’ debt must be repaid,” Theylor said matter-of-factly.

“But only four rotations. That’s all, right?” I said to Theylor.

“After four rotations, the trading council will review your work record. Only then will they decide if their debt has been repaid.”

“You mean we could have to work longer,” I said.

“It is possible. It will depend upon your behavior during your work rule.”

“Could we end up working on Orbis forever?” Max asked.

“That has happened only on rare occasions,” the Keeper replied.

Forever? Forever!
The thought screamed inside my head. Why would my parents do this?

“And what if I don’t want to?” Switzer asked.

“I do not understand,” Theylor said.

“What if I refuse? What if I don’t want to be a slave for some alien?” Switzer continued.

I could see by the puzzled look on the Keeper’s face — both of his faces — that he did not understand our reluctance to accept this arrangement.

“Do you mean you would refuse the honor of fulfilling your parents’ debt, let alone the opportunity to live on Orbis?” Theylor asked.

“Absolutely,” Switzer said.

“You are now the property of the Guarantors. That will be up to them,” Theylor said.

“Has anyone ever refused this — this
honor
?” I asked.

“Actually, yes. I do recall some examples.”

“What happened?” Max asked.

“They were extinguished,” Theylor said.

“You mean killed?” I said.

“Yes. I mean killed.”

“Every time?” Switzer said.

“Every time.”

Some of the children left the rec room after Theylor’s pronouncement. I just sat there, too stunned to say anything.
Slaves?
When no more questions were asked, Theylor broke the silence.

“I am surprised this information has disturbed you. Trust me when I tell you that this is a very wise decision for your care and welfare at this time. Once your debt is repaid, you, too, will be allowed to apply for Citizen status or have the choice to take a journey through the wormhole. You may choose anywhere in the universe as your destination, but I am sure most of you will decide to stay.”

This did not cheer me up. For so long I had dreamed about my life on Orbis. But now my freedom would be gone the second I stepped off the ship. I didn’t know what to think.

“I will leave you now. I will be back in one cycle to collect all of you and your belongings,” Theylor said, and he left the ship.

I sat in the tube and stared at the rings.
Why?
I wondered. Why did they do it? Why did our parents want to come here? Did they know
we
would be put to work? I looked to the rings for answers but found only more questions.

The atmosphere on the
Renaissance
was very different now while we waited to dock on Orbis 1. I didn’t think the younger children really understood what was happening, but I worried they might. I went to see what Ketheria was doing.

I found her in my room, rummaging through the items I planned to leave behind. Clutched in her right hand was a plastic bag, and she was stuffing shirts, shoes, and even toilet paper inside. Pretty much everything she saw.

“You can’t take all that stuff,” I said. “Besides, that’s mine.” I pulled the shirt from her bag.

I sat on my sleeper and looked up at my sister.

“Ketheria,” I said, “do you understand what’s happening? This isn’t what I expected.”

She looked away and continued to pillage my room. She soon discovered the memory disc Max had made for me. “Don’t touch that,” I said. “I am taking that with me.” She put it back next to the O-dat. “C’mon, Ketheria. Does this feel right to you?”

Ketheria set the bag in the center of my room, then rifled her way to the bottom. She pulled something out and placed it in my hand.

“What’s this?”

It was a crude piece of jewelry cut from the organic polymer of an O-dat display, like the stuff Max carried in her pocket. A small chip was forcibly melted to the back of it, and the whole thing hung on a piece of wire, six-gauge, I think.

“Did you make this?” I said, but Ketheria shook her head.

“Did Max make it?”

She nodded and squeezed the strange trinket. The faces of our parents alternated on the mini O-dat. They were the same rank-and-file pictures that were stored on the ship’s computer. I stared at the face of my mother. I could see Ketheria’s fine cheekbones. She also has Mom’s shiny auburn hair. We both do. Mom’s eyes, too, not brown but almost yellow. Dad’s picture was different, though. I couldn’t find Ketheria in his face. His was too rugged and leathery. He was a man’s man. I hoped to look like him one day.

“I can’t take this,” I said, and handed it back to her.

She pushed my hand away.

“No, Ketheria, this is yours. This is special.” I returned it to her bag.

Ketheria took the piece of jewelry, put it in my hand, and pushed it against my chest.

“What?” I didn’t understand. “This is yours.”

She pushed again. I felt the wire pressing through my shirt.

“All right, I’ll take it.” I held it up. “Thank you,” I told her, and she smiled.

I put the piece in my pocket along with the memory disc and grabbed her bag. “C’mon, I’ll help you,” I said. “We’re docking soon. Let’s see what our new life’s gonna be like.”

Ketheria pointed to another full bag in the corner. I grabbed it, and we headed out the door.

Ketheria and I reached the ship’s docking bay just as the
Renaissance
was making its final maneuvers. We stood waiting with all the other children as the
Renaissance
made contact with the Orbis 1 station. Ketheria grabbed my hand. I knew she was nervous. I was, too. But I was also excited. The inside of the seed-ship was my whole universe, and now I was about to leave behind everything I knew and enter a completely new world. What would it smell like, look like, feel like? Who would I meet there?

The ship jostled as it made contact with Orbis.
We’re here,
I thought. Then, without warning, the
Renaissance
twisted from a massive shock wave and I was thrown across the room. Everything slowed down: I saw my sister’s bag burst open and soar across the docking bay. Somewhere, maybe next to me, I heard Theodore yell.

“What’s happening?”

Max screamed. The seal on the door ripped, and the thick metal portal crumpled like paper under the ship’s weight.

“Get away from there!” someone yelled; I think it was me.

An alarm ripped through the bay as the breach gobbled up the oxygen. But that was nothing compared with the horrifying screech that poured in through the tattered opening. The sound vibrated my bones. I covered my ears, but the sound was inescapable. It was inside me, clawing at my every nerve ending.

“We have to get out of here!” Max shouted over the noise, and I grabbed Ketheria. I began pushing people toward the door. “Back into the ship! Everyone,
now
!”

We scrambled. Some appeared hurt — just cuts and bruises. I helped a few more kids to their feet, but my lungs struggled for oxygen and the temperature in the docking bay was plummeting.

“Seal the door, JT!” Max yelled.

My ears were still ringing as the last child escaped the ship’s docking bay. I hit the control panel, sealing off the deathly chamber. Then I looked back through the portal and saw all our possessions abandoned on the floor.

“What was that?” Theodore said.

That
was not a good start.

After checking that Ketheria was not hurt, the three of us bolted to the observation tube to get a glimpse of the damage.

“What do you think happened?” Theodore asked, rubbing a bump on his head.

“I have no idea. Maybe they had problems docking the ship,” I said.

“The ship was already docked,” Max said, running past me.

When we reached the observation tube, we all scurried to get a better view. Any damage was blocked from our sight, but it was obvious that the
Renaissance
was not sitting straight in the port. I could see a flurry of activity around the point where the ship had made contact with Orbis I — the point where we had just been waiting. Blue electric light emanated from small robotic welders already hovering over the damage and repairing the docking station.

The three large O-dats on the entrance wall flickered to life with an image of the Keeper Theylor.

“Does anyone need medical attention?” Theylor asked.

“Not that we can see,” Theodore said.

“What happened, Theylor?” I asked.

“First indications point to a small foreign codec within the port computer array. It is very unorthodox. Everything should be repaired shortly, and we will have you in your new home in less than a cycle. Until then, please relax, and I will return shortly.” Theylor’s image disappeared.

“What kind of place is this revolving junk heap?” Switzer spat.

“Shut up, Switzer,” Max said, but he was already huddled with his gang. Max turned to me and said quietly, “I’ve read about the central computer on Orbis, and it does not make mistakes — ever. The thing is practically a sentient being, with more processing power and backup systems than an army of computer scientists. What just happened
should not
have happened.”

“You’re talking about the computer that controls every aspect of our new home?” I said.

“Yep.”

Normally Max did not share these things with me, but then again this was not normal. I leaned in close to Max and said, “Don’t tell the other children what you just told me, okay? You know — about the central computer?”

“Why?” Max asked.

“Please?” I said, and Max shrugged.

“I’m going to see if Mother can tell me anything about what just happened.”

“Let me know what you find out,” she asked, as if we’d been friends forever.

I nodded. I liked having Max as a friend.

I returned to my room while most of the kids stayed and watched the repairs.

“Mother, can you tell me what happened with the docking procedure?”

There was no response from the computer.

“Mother?”

Still nothing.

“Very odd. Mother, access all correspondence with Orbis.”

No answer. Mother was just not there.

It was strange and unsettling not to get a response. I always felt the comfort of that annoying computer just a question away. I attempted to log on to the O-dat to check the damage but still got no response. What could have happened out there in the docking bay?

In the dining hall I examined the chow synth dispensers to see what was available. Not a lot. Anything behind the little plastic doors must have been getting old, anyway. I settled for a hydroponic apple and sat in front of an O-dat. I tried again to call up Mother, but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. I checked the connections and even attempted a local reboot, but still nothing. The computer on the
Renaissance
was dead.

I moved to another display, but I was stopped by a large group of children entering the dining hall. Randall Switzer was leading them.

“We’re taking over the
Renaissance
and getting out of here,” Switzer said.

“What?”

“You heard me, Turnbull. We’re not sticking around here to be the slaves of some freak-headed alien. None of us traveled halfway across the galaxy for this.”

“Does everyone feel this way?” I asked. Then I saw Max step out from behind Switzer. I was stunned.

“Max?”