Lost in Transcription

By Ann Somerville

Pilot Bancilhon Pax doesn't expect anything but relaxation during some planetary downtime, but news of missing children possibly trafficked for sex can't be ignored. Pax investigates, a decision which turns the pilot's ordered, predictable life upside down, and has strange and unexpected consequences for other connected to Pax in ways no one could ever suspect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ann Somerville
• Release date: Jan 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310284090

Ann Somerville

Ann Somerville is white, Australian, heterosexual, cisgendered. She/her.

Book preview

Lost in Transcription

Ann Somerville

This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Lost in Transcription Copyright © 2015 by Ann Somerville

Cover art copyright © 2015 by P L Nunn. Editing by Amanda Ching

All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For more information please visit my website at http://annsomerville.net

Smashwords Edition 1, January 2015

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Published by Ann Somerville

Lost in Transcription

The Aslam dropped out of hyperspace above Lepaute, and oceans and continental masses filled the view screens. Byrd clapped hands in excitement at all the water, then looked up at me.

Blue! We go there now, Pax?

In twenty-three minutes, squirt. Go get ready to land.

The puggle, perfectly trained in the routine by now after dozens of planetary and off-planetary descents, ran off to the crew section. Two minutes later Cosi came through on my audio feed. Thanks for letting Byrd watch.

No worries. I still get a kick out of the drop myself. You both ready for descent?

I’m already harnessed. Binen’s doing the kiddo. You?

Just finishing up.

I’ll be glad to be planetside. Fresh air will be welcome.

One point three gees, don’t forget.

Good for us.

I snorted and closed the feed. Getting used to standard plus gravity after the 0.6 gees onboard was always a drag, but the Federation regulations insisted on a month in standard or greater gravity after every three months in space so our skeletons didn’t turn to jelly. With a kid on board, no way I would fudge that, even if Byrd’s loving parents would think of doing so.

Besides, we had Lepauten cargo to deliver, repairs to make, recreation to enjoy, and sweet air to breathe. After three months on board, the air smelled deader than asteroid dust.

And even someone as allegedly antisocial as me needed time interacting with humans other than the same three people, away from the ship and instrument panels and monitors.

I’m not actually antisocial. Up to my eighteen birthday, I’d been a normal member of my society, a team player, well-liked and comfortable with my peers. Ever since then, I’ve been the odd one out, the one nobody can figure. Antisocial.

Fortunately, the Aslam, my co-crew—Cosi, Binen, and their youngster—were all the society I needed. But for everyone’s sanity it was a good idea to have a change of scenery once in a while.

The scenery came up sharp and fast as the Aslam headed planetwards, but the ship set us down with the gentlest of touches. As soon as I could move, I reached out and patted the console. Some people believe machines have souls. After five years flying this ship, I couldn’t argue with the concept.

The heavier gravity hit us all like a giant hammer in the back, even me with my genetic advantages. It would be a day or so before walking didn’t hurt. Good for us, I told myself. Huh. Still, the air was fresh and the sun was warm, and I smelled the ocean. Something marine, at least.

As pilot, my job was done until we took off again, and though most space ports had seen everything at least twice, I tended to keep my head down in new places just to avoid unwanted curiosity. Cosi, as our cargo master, dealt directly with the space port staff, with Binen’s help. All I had to do for a couple of hours was amuse and feed Byrd, and see if I could line up accommodation for the four of us.

I drove the rover to a quiet corner of the hangar and got Byrd settled with a protein snack before beginning my research. Our little family of three wanted to stay in an apartment during the layover. I was happy enough with a spacer hotel—there were two large ones to choose from. The planet’s main role was to act as home port/resupply station for the miners working three of the twelve moons. The mines would ship output direct from space, but like us, miners had to come down to normal gravity from time to time. Lepaute’s higher than standard gravity was a physiological bonus for spacers, so it was also a small but important rest point for cargo ships passing through, like ours.

The gravity had already worn out the puggle, but after I fed Byrd a meal, trying to impose a nap got me nowhere despite the constant miserable grizzling about how hard everything was. I gave up and let the kid help me find a selection of serviced apartments that were affordable but not too nasty. There was a definite preference for places with a sea view. Byrd loved water in all its forms, also the colour blue. My skin was a constant fascination.

My crew came over, wiping foreheads and clearly knackered. All done, Binen announced, flopping into the rover’s front seat. Cosi climbed in behind, and Byrd crawled over onto the parental lap. Whatcha find for us?

I turned the screen so Binen could read it. A few. Pretty decent prices.

The first one made the grade. That’ll do. Cosi nodded in agreement. What you think, piglet? Like that one?

Byrd pointed at the pictures. Like this one. Big windows. Blue!

Then blue it is. Binen tapped in a payment code, and the transaction was done. There. What about you, Pax?

I’ll head into the city, see what’s there. You know me.

Cosi pulled a face. Okay, but if you can’t find somewhere you’re likely to wake up with both your kidneys, you come find us.

Will do. Ready to go?

They had more gear than most spacers, but less than most parents. Byrd was almost as seasoned a spacer as I was, but there’s some kind of universal law that kids need a lot of junk. And we were staying for a month.

The road into the city was straight, perfectly made, and built through the most boring landscape I’d ever encountered on a planet. Even the ocean couldn’t make up for the fact that the land around the spaceport was pretty damn flat and uniformly dull. All the mountains and interesting geology were far to the east, but it wasn’t a place for nature lovers. According to the Aslam’s database, ten thousand years ago, unknown terraformers had supplemented the only life forms to have evolved on the planet—simple bacteria—with more efficient oxygen-forming phytoplankton. Four hundred years before the current settlement, ‘Second Wavers’, colonists with mid-level technology and imported farm animals, had colonised about twenty percent of the fertile land mass, releasing fish into the empty seas and encouraging useful off-world plant life to spread. While no one was allowed to export food or essential minerals from a populated planet’s surface, the twelve moons were fair game, and miners had come to explore them seventy years ago. The Second Wavers could have prevented the establishment of the space port, Lepaute City, and the lunar mines, but they apparently never tried. They kept to their farms, and away from the industries in which they had no interest, trading any claim on the spaceport land and mining rights for technology, preferential import channels, and a small cut of spaceport fees, which paid for anything they might want to buy off-world.

Lepaute City had a permanent urban population of about a hundred thousand people, but transients could boost that by fifty percent depending on traffic and timing of the moons’ orbits. Some miners had families, some had company to keep, and the very size of the population demanded services and administration. Local industries, mainly to do with food production and equipment repair and manufacturing, thrived.

Lepaute sounded stable and boring, perfect for a child and family needing a safe place for a gravity break. I intended to find out what weight-bearing fun I could have on land and sea, and I could always supervise maintenance on the Aslam. I’d been trained to handle boredom. I’d been trained to handle a lot of things, but I could always