The softwire : Virus on Orbis 1 Page 3

  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?”

  “Your new little girlfriend here told me about the central computer. Do you really want to get on that ring when the computer that runs the whole place can’t dock a ship?”

  “You don’t know that,” I said.

  “JT, just listen to what he has to say,” Max said.

  “Why? I’m just as worried, but this isn’t the answer. I mean, c’mon. What did you expect? Our parents made a deal with the Trading Council. Why wouldn’t they want us to honor that?”

  Ketheria was there, too. At first I thought she was with them, but she pushed through the crowd and stood next to me.

  “Why do you need me, Switzer? You haven’t said ten words to me in the past thirteen years that weren’t some sort of insult,” I said.

  “JT, we need you to ask Mother to help us,” Max said.

  “But I just —”

  “Are you with us or are you going to be a problem?” Switzer demanded.

  He was not going to take no for an answer. He motioned to Dalton, who revealed a metal oxygen cylinder he was hiding behind his back.

  “Have you all gone crazy?” I asked.

  “Just do it, JT. Ask Mother,” Max pleaded.

  I slowly shook my head as Dalton smacked the metal cylinder against his hand. For a moment the situation reminded me of those entertainment studies Mother played for us in the contest tank — movies, Mother called them. Someone was always being forced to do something they didn’t want to do and to choose between two sides, each as bad as the other. Now the choice was either life on Orbis as a slave or life on an errant seed-ship with Switzer as captain. I really didn’t see much difference.

  “It doesn’t matter, anyway,” I said.

  “Yes, it does,” Switzer said.

  “It doesn’t matter, because Mother no longer responds.”

  “JT, please help us,” Max said.

  “No, I’m serious. The computer will not respond to me anymore.”

  I looked to Ketheria for an answer. She knew I was telling the truth.

  Then Switzer stepped forward and snatched her up. “Maybe you need some more persuasion,” he said.

  “Switzer, don’t!” Theodore shouted.

  I saw the panic in Ketheria’s eyes. My mind went blank and I went on autopilot. I reached out and grabbed Switzer, wrenching his arm away. Ketheria fell to the side, but Max caught her. Switzer responded quickly, knocking me down with his forearm. Instantly, I spun on the ground and swiped his feet out from under him. Switzer fell to the floor with a thud.

  “Stop it!” someone screamed.

  But Switzer was bigger than me and quicker. Before I could get to him, he grabbed my arm, twisted it behind my back, then used his extra weight to grind me into the floor. A white-hot bolt of pain shot through my body.

  “This is not the time to start being brave, Turnbull. Tell Mother we want to take the Renaissance out of here, now,” Switzer demanded, and cranked my arm up a notch.

  “Stop it, Switzer!” Max said.

  “What do you care?” Switzer snapped.

  “I’m not following you if you’re going to treat us like this,” she said.

  “How do you think those Keepers are gonna treat us?” Switzer picked me up and slammed me onto the floor again. “Talk to Mother!” he demanded.

  There was nothing I could do. “You don’t understand. The ship’s computer has gone off-line. I think the Keepers now have control of our ship.”

  “Or maybe I was right all along and you never could talk to Mother,” Switzer said, leaning over and breathing in my ear.

  “I don’t care what you believe, Switzer. I only know what I can and cannot do, and right now I cannot reach Mother. Beat me with that cylinder if you want, but it will not give you control of the ship’s computer.”

  “Get off him,” someone else said.

  “Switzer, I don’t want to be a slave to some alien any more than you do, but don’t you think our parents knew what they were doing?” I said.

  “You’re an idiot, Turnbull. We’re nothing more than cargo to those two-headed freaks. C’mon,” Switzer said, getting off me and motioning to the crowd.

  Max and a couple of kids helped me up. Only Switzer’s loyal followers stood by his side. The other kids did not move, including Max.

  “Come on!” he said.

  “I’m not going with you,” Max said.

  “Me neither,” said another.

  “I’ll try my luck on Orbis,” someone else said.

  “Idiots. Then we’ll take the ship ourselves,” Switzer said, and he and his group pushed through the crowd.

  “Do you think it was wise not to get Mother involved?” Theodore said as we watched them go. “You could have gotten hurt; besides, they don’t know how to fly this ship.”

  “I’m telling the truth, Theodore. Mother no longer has control of the Renaissance. We belong to the Citizens of Orbis now.”

  I sat in my room playing with the piece of jewelry Ketheria had given me. I was now more confused than ever. Switzer’s endeavor to take over the seed-ship amounted to nothing more than banging on the control-room doors. The Keepers had locked us out. But that didn’t prevent Switzer and his gang from running through the ship pounding on everything they could find.

  Did he have a point? I stared at the face of my father on the tiny display. Why did you come here? What were you going to do? I looked at my mother’s face, but I didn’t see an answer there, either.

  “What are you doing?” Theodore said, and I jumped.

  “You scared me,” I said, slipping the picture of my parents into my pocket.

  “You thinking about what I’m thinking about?”

  “You mean Switzer?”

  “Yeah. I’m glad he didn’t get through that door.”

  “I know. Imagine what that would be like.” We both laughed.

  “I’m still scared, though,” he said.

  “Me, too. But I can’t help but think our parents took this trip for a better life. They must have known something we don’t. You know what?” I said. “I’m going to get off this ship and find out what that was. I’m going to do everything I can to make Orbis my new home.”

  “Well, it’s waiting for us.”

  “The docking bay’s fixed?”

  Theodore nodded.

  “Let’s go, then,” I said.


  When we returned to the restored docking bay, there was no need to help Ketheria with her things. She had none. The repairs to the docking station had destroyed whatever items we had left behind in our scramble to safety. Fortunately, the computer disc Max had made for me remained neatly tucked away in my pocket.

  Ketheria fidgeted next to me.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I said to her. “We’re doing the right thing. I just know it.” But I didn’t know why.

  The doors hissed open and I braced myself for another glitch in the central computer, but it didn’t come.

  “Hello, children,” Theylor said, entering the docking bay. “Welcome to Orbis 1. Follow me.”

  This is it, I thought as I stepped into the clear tube that stretched from the ship to the docking port on the ring. Behind me floated the seed-ship and a life I was eager to abandon — in front of me waited the New Arrival Processing Center on Orbis 1.

  It was like nothing I could ever have imagined.

  My nose filled with a silky sweet smell, laden with alien pollen from flowering plants that cascaded down the towering walls. And the aliens! Hundreds of them scurried about the atrium, basking in a pink glow from gigantic crystals that floated above our heads. All I could do was stare. It was a stark contrast to the interior of our gray, lifeless seed-ship.

  “Wow!” Theodore said.

  “Wow, wow, and wow,” Max repeated.

  Sculptures cut from smoky blue crystals bigger than Theylor peered down at us from cavities carved into the sloped stone walls. Melodic notes dampened the clamor of the port. It was sweeter than any music I had ever heard from Earth. If I wanted to describe paradise, this would be it. Instantly, I understood why our parents would risk everything to work here and start a new life.

  But then I remembered: they never saw digis of Orbis. No one has, for that matter. It is forbidden to take or transmit digital images of any part of the rings. Stories and rumors and little bits from the Earth Seed Project provided the only basis for my parents’ decision. They could never have seen this, let alone imagined it. And they never would, I suddenly realized.

  Theylor was motioning for us to follow him. As he moved through the crowd, everyone stepped aside. Some dropped their heads, while others made strange gestures that made no sense to me. I followed along a channel, which was carved into the floor and filled with a light green liquid. Under my feet, aquatic aliens raced through the covered waterway to some unknown destination. Then Max bumped into a small alien that looked like it was made from liquid glass or maybe silicon. I watched Max’s curiosity get the best of her as she poked the little alien. It squished under her fingers, and she reached out to touch the liquidlike creature again.

  The alien cried out at Max. The sound was nothing more than clicks and hisses, but the creature seemed angry all the same.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and pulled Max away. The being picked up little clear pieces of itself while still yelling at us.

  “Did you see that?” she said. “Unbelievable.”

  “I know, but I can’t understand a word,” I said.

  “It’s going to be hard.”

  “What about that thing Theylor mentioned? The trans —”

  “The translation codec?”

  “Yes. I want to get that,” I said.

  “Look at that one over there.” Max pointed to a gaseous mix floating in the air. Little sparks of electricity flashed through the mist, and I could make out something I thought were eyes.

  “Weird, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Wonderfully weird,” Max said.

  “Everything is so different.”

  “Not really,” she said. “We have more in common with aliens than you think. We both find food and fluids for our bodies. We all sleep, communicate, have children, and group together to some extent. We’re not that different.”

  Despite what Max said, it was obvious that we appeared very bizarre to the aliens. They all stopped and stared at us as we marched across the processing center, following Theylor. I guess it isn’t every cycle that two hundred human children arrive on Orbis 1.

  Theylor led us through an archway carved from a single piece of stone and into another chamber. Here, four more Keepers stood waiting, dwarfed by an oval window that ran the length of the enormous room. Through the window I could see the curved silhouette of Orbis 1 as it sparkled yellow, blue, and green.

  The room was sparse: a few benches, which looked like they were made of crystal and metal, were scattered around, and a few odd-looking machines rested near the Keepers. That was it. But everything, including the intricate stone design on the polished floor, revealed the same attention to detail as the rest of the New Arrival Processing Center.

  As we filed past, Theylor reached out and held me by the shoulder. Ketheria cowered toward Max. Theylor did not say a word; he just looked at me, tilting each of his heads. Then Theylor looked over at Ketheria, but she slipped behind Max.

  “Did I do something wrong?” I asked him, but the alien only smiled and ran both of his large thin hands along the back of my head. What was he doing? It really gave me the creeps, but I didn’t move. I just stared at the tracks of muscles and nerves visible under his bluish skin. He stared pretty hard at me, too. His eyes seemed like puddles of black oil.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Theylor simply released me and nudged me toward the other children. No explanation at all.

  “Now, that was weird,” Theodore said.

  “What do you think he was doing?” Max asked me.

  “I have no idea.”

  The other Keepers methodically lined us up in front of the strange machines, each operated by a metallic robot. The bots were no more than two arms extending from the back of a comfortable-looking chair. Except this chair had a place to rest your face. Switzer bullied his way past most of the kids.

  “Children,” Theylor said, “everyone on Orbis receives the translation codec, or ‘add-on,’ if you like. We upload this to your neural storage membranes, and it allows you to translate what every inhabitant on the rings is saying.”

  “How do I upload something to my neural membranes?” Max interrupted.

  “With your new neural synaptic hardware. The R5 here will implant the new device,” Theylor replied.

  “In my head?” Theodore said.

  I looked at Max. She was equally shocked. We both looked at Ketheria. She was horrified. I knew one of the little ones would start crying at any moment.

  “The process does not create pain. The hardware will take a few minutes to work as the synthetic neurons make synaptic connections with your spinal cord. It will eventually make a connection with your optical nerve to assist in reading . . .”

  That was enough. Two of the smaller children bolted for the door. Even Switzer stepped away from the machines and disappeared into the crowd. I looked for Ketheria, but she was gone.

  “Joo’gh homm,” one of the Keepers shouted.

  This wasn’t good. It would only fuel Switzer’s argument.

  “Do we need this codec?” I asked Theylor.

  “You will understand nothing without it,” he said. “This is part of living on Orbis.”

  “Theodore, you go first. Then the others will follow,” I said.

  “Me? No one’s ever followed me,” he replied.

  I looked at Max. “Maybe you should go first. They will follow you,” I said.

  “I don’t know about this,” she argued.

  “Please,” I said, and chased after my sister.

  Ketheria was quick. She had made it outside the processing room before I even got close to her. An alien with taut leathery skin and wide red eyes squawked at Ketheria when she bumped into him. Where she thought she was going, I had no idea. When I finally grabbed her shoulder, Ketheria thrashed about in my grip and would not open her eyes. I’d seen her do this many times while she slept in her nurture pod on the Renaissance.

  “Ketheria. Ketheria! They’re not going to hurt
us. We’re valuable to them.” But Ketheria would not budge. “We have to do this. Everyone gets them.”

  A frail creature dressed completely in white stopped in front of Ketheria. Its skin glowed, and it gazed at Ketheria with big pupils of solid blue. The alien caressed Ketheria’s forehead. My sister opened her eyes, but the alien did not say a thing. Then Ketheria smiled. The alien removed its hand and slipped away. Ketheria took my hand and led me back to the processing room.

  “What did that alien do, Ketheria?” I looked back, but the crowd had consumed the alien. My sister just looked up and smiled.

  When we returned to the processing room, several children were already showing off their new implants. The Keepers sat the kids with implants in front of displays that were similar to the O-dats on our ship but far simpler — just clear sheets of computerized silicon. Then one of the Keepers attached a thin clear cable to the neural port on each child.

  When she was finished, Max got up and darted through the crowd. “It’s nothin’ — look!” She pulled her hair away, and just behind her right ear was a narrow black port, no more than a centimeter long. Max’s skin was a little red, but she said, “I didn’t feel a thing.”

  “Slaahn drot bahmneya te foolnum che mung,” said one of the Keepers.

  “What did he say?” I couldn’t understand. It sounded like nothing more than vowels and tones with the occasional throat noise for emphasis.

  “Ha! He didn’t understand him. I did,” Max said to another girl. “I already uploaded my translation codec.”

  Ketheria and I were in line and slowly moving toward the R5. One appendage of the bot braced the person against the seat while the other administered the hardware.

  “Amazing technology!” I heard Max say behind me.

  The only thing I heard coming from the Keepers’ mouths were weird sounds. They were directing the children with the new hardware, who obviously knew exactly what the Keepers were saying. I admit, I was eager to get mine.

  Ketheria was next. She was no longer afraid. Whatever that alien had done, it worked. Before Ketheria took her seat in front of the R5, Theylor was back. He took me by the shoulder again.