AE in the Irish Theosophist | Page 4

for doing this to you guys," I say. The men all nod. "It's okay."
The doctor stands up. "Don't you dare sympathize with him like that. When the Air Guard rescues us we're booking charges. All of us."
"I . . ."
"Look, does he even know any of our names? Did he even bother to check our names before he took us all hostage on his crazy last spacer joyride?"
I try to recall if I checked their names. I don't think I did.
"That's right," she says. "Didn't even bother, did you?"
I have nothing to say to that.
The man closest to me speaks up. "Well, my name is . . ."
"Don't do that," she yells. "Don't give him your name. You don't want him showing up on your doorstep one day, do you? Don't forget, he's probably unstable. He's got some sort of implant problem. Just wait until the Air Guard gets here. Don't talk to him anymore."
She sweeps past us all, hoop skirt bouncing, to go use the bathroom. The men look anywhere in the gondola but at me or at the door to the head.
I distract myself similarly by wondering if her waste will suffer the same fate as the keys to my handcuffs? I imagine the carbon-based remains will be compressed into the form of diamonds by the time they reach the core of Riley.
Back when Riley was colonized, scientists tried to study what the pressure did to things dropped in Riley's lower atmospheres, but apparently the depression killed the more speculative kinds of exploration like that. And any diamond prospectors formed up during the first years of colonizing Riley had quickly turned to finding other ways to make a living.
Like making airships to trade between the great floating cities.

#

It's a long, quiet hour before the Air Guard ship snares us. The gondola shakes a bit, and then a long snaking tube attaches itself to the airlock. My cuffs are still on, so I'm sure that will just make their job easier.
Someone knocks on the door to the airlock. The doctor opens it, and Suzie walks in. She's frail, but wearing her old blue and red Air Guard uniform and projecting authority.
"Get up the chute," she orders the colonists.
The men grab the pilot's body and scramble up awkwardly through the tube with it. I watch as the doctor pulls off her hoopskirt.
She looks back at me.
I start to ask her name, but Suzie steps between us and the doctor starts scrambling away.
"Hi, Suzie."
"You wouldn't believe the strings I had to pull to get here this quick. I had to get back aboard one of my old ships just to come after you." She shakes her head.
"But thank you so much," I say. I reach out to hug her. She pulls out a stun gun, fires it at my chest, and I drop to the floor of the gondola, convulsing.
"You self-involved asshole." She grabs the ball gag from the corner of the room and ties it back on me.
"Mfff?"
"I've had sixty years to despise you. My secretary program, on the other hand, based on a younger version of me, is quite infatuated with you. Well, at least my memories of you." Suzie is quite strong for a ninety year old. She's hogtied me with a piece of rope around my ankles and the handcuffs, and dragged me to the back of the gondola. "But she came up with quite a compromise. We come get your Id, which is the real you that we always loved anyway. I always sensed he was in charge when we were together back then. And then I get to kill you." She points the stun gun right at my temple. "I'll turn you into a vegetable right now unless you boot your neural network up and give us Vince."
I need little convincing. She can have him. I hold up my cuffed hands. Suzie grabs it them. A data link opens, using the very conductivity of our skin to transmit all the necessary information, and I reboot my entire neural net. All those chips in my spine warm up.
Vince appears, looks around, and swears as I allow the data transmit. He dissolves, fading away in the air in front of my eyes. Suzie's body network has him now.
He's gone, and Suzie has a big grin on her face as she lets go of my hands. She headbutts the wall, giving herself a bad bruise on the cheek. "I'm going to tell them you resisted my attempt to save you," she says, walking over to the airship controls. She kills all the communications, then takes out her stun gun and fires it into the control panel. Sparks fly. I check. I'm unable to piggyback a signal out of the gondola. "That you were crazy right there at the