SoliS

"Radio?"
"Yes. Wolf Star is communicating with Mr. Charlie in his own medium."
"I don't understand. Why don't they just go in and unplug him?"
"Mr. Charlie has been too clever for that. He's found a way to rig the bore-drill explosives to detonate on his command. He's threatening to blast apart the whole of Phoboi Twelve unless he gets certain assurances. He says he'd rather die than be locked into a machine again."
"Incredible."
"Wolf Star is promising him everything he wants. They're sending in a psybot-a handroid with a neural mesh-to hook up to his brain, to serve as his eyes, ears, and limbs."
"Phoboi Twelve is an Ap Com processor. Don't we have access to all the master codes? If we want, can't we defuse the explosives?"
"I've already thought of that. All the codes for Phoboi Twelve have been uploaded to our console. We are now in complete control of the processor. But that won't do us any good so long as Wolf Star has their androne in place."
"They already have an androne down there? Can you tell who it is?"
"It's a demolition androne Wolf Star calls Aparecida. I've tracked her salvage-rights declaration to the Commonality expediter on Vesta Prima. She's already filed for Ares Bund to sell Mr. Charlie's hippocampal gyrus, parietal and occipital lobes, and neocortex to four separate companies for use as functional wetware. Mr. Charlie doesn't know it, but he's already been legally dissected."
"Then they're lying to him."
"Baldly."
"We've got to do something." Mei floats before the transparent curve of the flight bubble and sees only a few barbs of starlight among the tattered blackness of the waste clouds. "Look-Mr. Charlie's brain is still encased in the core chamber of the ore processor, and we've got all the codes. Can't we selectively detonate the explosives so that the core chamber Is left intact? Then we can pluck Mr. Charlie out of space on our flyby."
"I can't do that."
"What do you mean? We have the codes-"
"Aparecida is on Phoboi Twelve now. If I detonate the explosives, she will be destroyed. It is illegal for me to offensively destroy another androne."
"Illegal?" Mei gives him a look of stupendous incredulity. "Munk, we're going rogue. You said so yourself."
"Yes. But my intent has never been to destroy anyone."
"How the hell did you expect to get Mr. Charlie away from the Bund?"
"He is a sentient being, Jumper Nili. I have always expected he would elect to come with us. That's why I needed you to accompany me-to woo him to us with your humanity."
"And the Bund? How did you expect to woo them?"
"I had hoped to get here before they docked. Wolf Star is a goliath-class prospector. I thought it would take longer for such a bulky vessel to moor."
She levels a cold look at the androne and says, "So we've lost out to a silicon miscalculation, is that it? Well, what do we do now?"
"Mr. Charlie has not yet agreed to go with Aparecida. If you approach him, we may still be able to convince him to come with us."
"Forget that. Aparecida is a demolition androne who has already filed salvage rights. If I interfere, she can legally destroy me."
"You will have to be careful and clever."
"Me? Why don't you go in there and face down this demolition expert?"
"I am an androne." He slightly lifts his thick, blackly iridescent arms to his sides as if to reveal himself. "I cannot possibly be as persuasive to Mr. Charlie as you would be."
"Okay, okay-I have a better idea. Let me use the codes to explode Phoboi Twelve and liberate Mr. Charlie."
"If I give you the codes, I will be in violation of my primary programming. I can't do that."
"Can't-or won't?"
"For me, they are the same."
"Really? I don't think so, Munk. You're not some solder-seamed handroid like Aparecida, patched together by the Commonality. The Maat created you. You were just bragging about your contra-parameter program that fires you with human wonder and capacity. Remember? That's why you're here. That's why you dragged me out here. You have free will. Use it."
"I cannot."
"You can. It's either that or we forget about Mr. Charlie and go back to Ap Com. Is that what you want?"
"I must save Mr. Charlie. My C-P program insists-but not this way. We must work together. There is no time for debate. Won't you help me? Go down to Phoboi Twelve. Aparecida does not yet know we are here. When you are in place, I will break radio silence and inform Mr. Charlie that Ares Bund is deceiving him. Then you will reveal yourself to him, and he will come with you."
"And Aparecida?"
"Aparecida is three times your size, designed for destroying obsolete structures, not for pursuit. You can evade her."
"Right. And if Mr. Charlie won't come with me? What then?"
"I control all the codes to the ore processor from here. I will unclasp the mag locks that fuse him to the core chamber. He is only a brain, after all, and even with the plasteel capsule housing him and his glucosupport pump, he won't weigh more than three kilos."
Mei throws up her hands in disgust and swims across the cabin to the pressure hatch. What choice does she have? Having come this far without requisition or flight plan, she is sure to lose rec privileges, and without midstim, Apollo
Combine offers her no solace.
After donning work boots and gloves and a clear statskin cowl that zip-seals to the collar of her flightsuit, she straps on a jetpak and moves to test the com-link under her shoulder pad. Munk dissuades her by holding up his blunt-fingered hand.
"Don't use the com-link till after I break radio silence," he warns. "Wolf Star will detect any kind of ordered flux. Also, when you exit, use the jetpak as little as possible. Stay in the shadow of the slag clouds until you reach the drop vector to Phoboi Twelve. Surprise is essential."
"Don't patronize me, Munk," she says, staring sternly at the androne. "I know what I'm up against out there. Remember, you got me into this. I'm counting on you to get me out."
Before Munk can reply, the pressure hatch winks open, and Mei jettisons into space. The sleek and perfectly black silhouette of The Laughing Life dwindles swiftly into the starry distance, and the vacuum cold prickles her flesh through the sheer filaments of her flightsuit.
Mei executes a slow body twist to orient herself. She is comfortable in the void, having spent much of her working life there, and she readily locates her destination. Phoboi Twelve is a small asteroid, two kilometers long, half that wide, blotting out a tiny portion of the spangled stars and barely visible among the obscuring tendrils of slag clouds that the ore processor has exuded. The sprawl of tenebrous vapors is what enables Mei to spot the asteroid so quickly, and she uses one short burst from her jetpak to send herself hurtling into the slag cloud toward her goal.
Her flight is dangerous. With her sight obscured in the smoke from the processor, she could strike a sizable rock, which, at her velocity, would rip her statskin cowl and expose her to the vacuum. Statskin, a micro-sandwich fabric that blocks radiation, admits visible light, and reclaims oxygen from exhaled carbon dioxide, was designed to enable people to work in airless environments but was not meant for long jumps through space. In the past when she had to cross wide distances in a cowl, she avoided blind trajectories or used a field projector to clear the way ahead of her. But she carries no projector, for that would expose her to Wolf Star.
In brief glimpses as she slashes through gaps in the slag fumes, she spots the prospector vessel. It is indeed large-a fifth the size of the asteroid itself-and luminous, guidelights and floodbeams shining from its bubble turrets, scaffolds, and conning towers, a huge phosphorescent arachnoid perched on the cratered and jagged rock. Then her flight takes her behind the asteroid, and with one tiny burst from her jetpak, her course deflects away from the mute stars and into the darkness of Phoboi Twelve.