Connected to what? The boat’s main computer? If the vessel’s original design had allowed for carrying cargo, maybe a crew member with a portable terminal would have fed in inventory data from here. In a fishing boat leased to Anthrocosmologists, I didn’t have high hopes that it was configured to do anything at all.
I unbuttoned my shirt, while invoking Witness. The software had a crude “virtual terminal” option which would let me view any incoming data, and mime-type as if on a keyboard. I unsealed the interface port in my navel, and stood pressed against the wall, trying to align the two connectors. It was awkward—but after wriggling out of the fishing net, this seemed like no challenge at all.
The best I could get was a brief surge of random text—and then an error message from the software itself. It was picking up an answering signal but the data was scrambled beyond recognition. Both ports were sockets, designed to be joined to an umbilical’s connector. Their identical protective rims kept them too far apart—their photodetectors a millimeter beyond the plane of focus of each others signal lasers.
I stepped back, trying not to vent my frustration audibly. Kuwale touched my arm, inquiringly. I put vis hand to my face, shook my head, then guided vis finger to my artificial navel. Ve clapped me on the shoulder: I understand. Okay. We tried.
I stood slumped against the wall beside the panel. It occurred to me that if I buried the ACs’ confession, EnGeneUity might still get the blame. If Helen Wu and friends, in hiding, tried claiming responsibility after the fact, they were more than likely to be written off as obscure cranks. No one had ever heard of Anthrocosmologists. Mosala’s martyrdom could, still, break the boycott wide open.
I could already hear myself reciting the comforting rationalization over and over in my head: It would have been what she wanted.
I took off my belt and forced the prong of the buckle into the flesh around my metal navel. There was a thin layer of bioengineered connective tissue around the surgical steel, sealing the permanent wound against infection; the sound of tearing collagen set my teeth on edge, but there were no nerve endings to register the damage. A couple of centimeters down, though, I hit the metal flange which anchored the port in place. I levered the flesh away from the tube, and managed to force the prong past the edge of the flange.
It had seemed like a small enough piece of DIY surgery: enlarging the existing hole in the abdominal wall by seven or eight millimeters. My body disagreed. I persisted, digging around under the flange and trying to twist it free, while conflicting waves of chemical messengers flooded out from the site, delivering razor-sharp rebukes and analgesic comfort in turn. Kuwale came over and helped me, pulling the aperture open. As vis warm fingers brushed the scars where I’d slashed myself in front of Gina, I found I had an erection; it was the wrong response for so many reasons that I almost burst out laughing. Sweat ran into my eyes, blood trickled down toward my groin—and my body kept on blindly signaling desire. And the truth was, if ve’d been willing, I would have happily lain down on the floor and made love in any way possible. Just to feel more of vis skin against my skin. Just to believe that we’d made some kind of connection.
The buried steel tube emerged, trailing a short length of blood-slick optical fiber. I turned away and spat out a mouthful of acid. Mercifully, nothing followed.
I waited for my fingers to stop shaking, then wiped everything clean on my shirt, and unscrewed the whole end assembly, leaving the windowed port naked, unencumbered. More like circumcision than phalloplasty—and a lot of trouble to go through for a millimeter of penetration. I pocketed the metal foreskin, then found the wall socket and tried again.
Large, cheerful, blue-on-white letters appeared in front of me— unable to dazzle, but no less of a shock.
Mitsubishi Shanghai Marine
Model Number LMHDV-12-5600
Emergency Options:
F—launch Flares
B—activate radio Beacon
I hit all the possible escape codes, in the hope of finding some wider menu—but this was it, the complete list of choices. All the glorious fantasies I hadn’t dared entertain had involved reaching the ship’s main computer, gaining instant access to the net, and archiving the ACs’ pre-recorded confession in twenty safe places, while simultaneously sending copies to everyone at the Einstein Conference. This was nothing but a vestigial emergency system—probably built into the design as a minimum statutory requirement, and then ignored when the ship was fitted out by a third party with proper communications and navigation equipment. Ignored—or disconnected? I mimed typing B.
The text of a simple mayday broadcast flowed across the virtual screen. It gave the ship’s model number, serial number, latitude and longitude—if I remembered the map of Stateless correctly, we were closer to the island than I’d thought—and stated that “survivors” were located in the “main cargo hold.” I suddenly had a strong suspicion that if we’d bothered to search the rest of the hold, we might have found another panel, hiding two fist-sized red buttons labeled BEACON and FLARES—but I didn’t want to think about that.
Somewhere up on deck, a siren started screaming. Kuwale was dismayed. “What did you do? Trigger a fire alarm?”
“I broadcast a mayday. I thought flares might get us into trouble.” I closed the panel and started rebuttoning my bloody shirt, as if hiding the evidence might help.
I heard someone heavy running across the deck. A few seconds later, the siren shut off. Then the hatch was wound halfway open, and Three peered down at us. He was holding a gun, almost absent mindedly. “What good do you think that’s going to do you? We’re sending out the false-alarm code already; no one’s going to take any notice.” He seemed more bemused than angry. “All you have to do is sit tight and stop fucking about, and you’ll be free soon enough. So how about some cooperation?”
He unfurled the ladder and came down, alone. I stared up at the strip of pale dawn sky behind him; I could see a fading satellite, but I had no way to reach it. Three picked up two pieces of discarded rope and tossed them at us. “Sit down and tie your feet together. Do it properly and you might get breakfast.” He yawned widely, then turned and yelled, “Giorgio! Anna! Give me a hand!”
Kuwale rushed him, faster than I’d seen anyone move in my life. Three raised the gun and shot ver in the thigh. Kuwale staggered, pirouetting, still moving forward. Three kept the gun aimed squarely on ver, as vis knees buckled and vis head sagged. As the shot’s reverb faded from my skull, I could hear ver gasping for breath.
I stood and shouted abuse at him, barely conscious of what I was saying. I’d lost it: I wanted to take the hold, the ship, the ocean, and wipe them all away like cobwebs. I stepped forward, waving my arms wildly, screaming obscenities. Three glanced at me, perplexed, as if he couldn’t imagine what all the fuss was about. I took another step, and he aimed the gun at me.
Kuwale sprang forward and knocked him off his feet. Before he could rise, ve leapt on him and pinned his arms, slamming his right hand against the floor. I was paralyzed for a second, convinced that the struggle was futile, but then I ran to help.
Three must have looked like an indulgent father playing with two belligerent five-year-olds. I tugged at the gun barrel protruding from his huge fist; the weapon might as well have been set in stone. He seemed ready to climb to his feet as soon as he caught his breath, with or without Kuwale’s slender frame attached.