This, of course, was why the foxgirls used synthetic bodies instead of organic ones like Naoko. They wore light skinsuits on the job, and their athletic builds were put to good use clambering over giant machines and shimmying in and out of tight spaces. The environment didn’t faze them at all, and they usually didn’t even bother turning on the lights. They all had high-res radar systems, and unlike me they could afford to run them constantly.
“I really hope I get some kind of power source online soon,” I grumbled at one point. “Even eating the way I do, food just doesn’t give me enough energy to run stuff like that. If you stopped emitting I’d have to find my way out on passive sonar, and some of these spaces are so quiet that would be hard to do.”
“Oh, quit your bitching,” Jenna shot back. “Do you have any idea how amazing it is that you can see with someone else’s radar? Especially a synthetic aperture system like we use. Whoever wrote your sensor algorithms was a frickin’ genius.”
I chuckled. “I guess you’re right. It’s just annoying to have to watch every watt of energy use.”
“I bet you’ll grow a power cell now that you’re eating right. You’re obviously meant to be an engineer, or maybe a super-soldier, and either way not having a good onboard power source would be crazy. But if you’re in a hurry I guess you could always add a sensor pack to your suit like a normal person.”
I took her advice on that, since my suit had plenty of reserve power and fabbing up a radar module turned out to be cheap. But I found that I wasn’t crazy about relying on tools for something that essential, so I hoped she was right about the power cell.
By then I’d gained back the weight that I’d lost during my long trek through Felicity’s jungles, and the supplements were starting to have an effect. A lot of new interfaces were popping up in my head, giving me better control over features that had been limping along on some kind of emergency backup programming. One of those new modules even let me set priorities for my own physical development.
Unfortunately it didn’t show me what I was going to look like when I finished growing, or give me a list of all the mods that were still developing, or anything practical like that. But just the fact that I could assure it I’d have a plentiful food supply for the immediate future was a big deal. I could feel the foundations being laid for all sorts of ambitious projects, some of which would make me a lot harder to kill. Being a spacer did seem to be a bit dangerous, so I was glad of that.
I could also sort of point out recent experiences that I thought might keep happening, and challenges I needed to adapt to quickly. I spent some time playing with that feature in between training classes one night, with interesting results. The next morning I met Mina with my helmet stowed, and a big grin on my face.
She paused at the airlock into engineering. “Don’t forget your helmet, Alice.”
“I don’t need it anymore,” I crowed. “I got my respirocytes in last night.”
“Respirocytes?” I watched her access the ship’s datanet to do a search. “Oh, an internal air supply?”
“That’s right. I had a classic Freitas-style system in my design database. I can store about a four-hour oxygen supply now. I’ll deploy my helmet if I run low, but I wanted to see what Engineering smells like.”
She smiled tolerantly. “A keen sense of smell can be a surprisingly useful diagnostic tool. Alright, Alice, but don’t push yourself. You don’t take chances with life support. I want you back in your helmet if you drop below an hour of reserve air.”
“No problem, Mina. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. I really like being able to go into the tunnels with you guys. I’m not going to mess that up.”
“Sounds like our insidious plan is working, then. At this rate we’ll turn you into a techie in no time.”
I liked the sound of that. Maybe I could get qualified as an engineering tech, and do this kind of work for a living? I was still working through fifteen or twenty hours of classes a day, taking advantage of my VR tank’s fast-play feature to zip through the content at triple speed. The piloting and navigation classes were fun, but they were so easy it was hard to see them as serious subjects. Engineering, on the other hand, was something I could really sink my teeth into. The introductory courses were mostly about how to manage automated maintenance systems, since all the routine work on a ship is done by bots. But once you get beyond the basics you have to actually understand how things work, and that was a huge topic. I could spend years studying it and still barely scratch the surface.
The idea of tackling something that hard, and eventually mastering it, was exhilarating. Especially since I wouldn’t be on my own. The foxgirls were obviously happy to give advice, and even explain things the lessons didn’t cover. Unfortunately there were also downsides.
“Most humans think of engineering as something the techs take care of,” Kara advised me one afternoon, after I’d brought up my career options.
“Is that a problem?” I asked.
She sighed. “Alice, a tech is a type of serf on most colonies. Think about that for a minute.”
I did. That led me to look a few things up, and do some more thinking.
“Androids can be fabbed, and the Merchant Association lets captains adopt whatever sapience recognition rules they like aboard their own ships,” I finally said. “So, do most ships just fab their engineering crew? That would be a lot cheaper than hiring people, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes. Now, what does that mean for a human who wants to study engineering?”
That seemed obvious enough. “If I’m doing a tech’s job people will treat me like a tech. I’ll never make any money that way. Only, when I search the open source database for tech designs the results I get all have class two or three AIs. Wouldn’t it be really dumb to try to run a ship without a human or a class four to supervise?”
“It depends on your line of business. My pack sisters and I could easily keep an unmodified cargo ship running, especially if we had the manufacturer’s skill packs. But older ships can be balky, and damage control is a nightmare. A lot of major corporations run ships with no human crew at all, but anyone who ventures into Dark Space or deals with the wrong side of the law is going to want an engineer with human levels of creativity on board. Of course, the production of class four AIs is banned on almost all colonies that practice serfdom. They’re a lot harder to keep under control than class threes, and a lot more dangerous if they rebel.”
“I get it. So if I ever left the Square Deal I’d be stuck supervising a crew of serfs who belong to someone else, and I’d have no way to free them. Or else I’d have to hold out for a ship that actually pays their engineering crew, and that means I’d lose all my bargaining power and have to settle for whatever jobs I could get. That sucks. But I wouldn’t have to leave the Square Deal, would I? I like working with you guys, and it seems like the ship could use more crew.”