2.

Far from the raging civil war—past Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus—orbited blue Neptune. Hundreds of habitats orbited it, and many colonies had sprung up on its various moons. The majority of the space habs had been constructed out of weird ice, making them glittering, colorful motes in the eternal night of space. It insured that the Ice Hauler Cartel was one of the major powers in the Neptune System.

The continuing, growing thirst for weird ice and the constant need for new sources of water had finally led the cartel into experimental ship construction. IH-49 was the third of its kind. It was being readied for a long and hopefully momentous journey. However, within the command module things had already started to go wrong.

“That’s impossible.”

“What?”

“My game froze.”

Osadar Di frowned, not sure that she’d heard correctly. Paranoia came easily to her. Thus, she always checked and rechecked everything that could possibly go wrong. It made her an excellent space pilot.

Osadar shut down her scanning program and pushed VR goggles onto her smooth forehead. She had short dark hair, dark worried eyes and a scratch on her nose. A bit too tall for an ice hauler, she had long shapely legs highlighted by her blue-colored jumpsuit. The suit had a red IHC tab on the left shoulder. The cramped command module held screens, consoles and claustrophobically close bulkheads. The commander sat in the middle of this mess, the pink-faced life support officer to his left and Osadar to his right.

The commander, a tough old man with short silver hair, experimentally tapped his VR monocle.

“What game could you possibly be playing at a time like this?” asked Osadar.

“Antiquity.”

“The Antiquity Game?”

“Not Earth’s. Neptune’s.”

Because light moved so slowly, three hundred thousand kilometers a second, each planetary grid only linked with computers in its near vicinity. The time lag of say from Earth to Mars—something over five minutes—was too much for players of a complex game like Antiquity to react successfully to each other’s moves.

Osadar checked a screen. The commander used ship’s AI (Artificial Intelligence) to run his ultra complex character. A laser lightguide system hooked him into the nearby Neptune III Net.

“What’s wrong with this thing?” he complained.

“Explain.”

“I just ran a diagnostic, and Ajax checks out.”

“Who?”

“Ajax!” He scowled. “My character in the Trojan War.”

Osadar shook her head.

“The Greeks and Trojans, Achilles and Hector? Didn’t they teach you anything in the Jupiter System?”

“Give me the code,” Osadar said.

“Eh?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Oh. Thanks. The code word is Asimov.”

Osadar put her goggles back on and manipulated her gloves. “There isn’t anything wrong with your character.”

“That’s what I said!”

“So what’s wrong?”

“Ah ha! Found it. The laser-link is down.”

Osadar frowned. It was her habitual look. She tried to squeeze off a message to the nearest IHC station. Zero. She ran a diagnostic on communications. Check. So she sent another flash. Another zero. Either the diagnostic lied or IHC had gone off-line, which wasn’t possible. For that would mean IHC no longer existed. The Ice Hauler Cartel owned communications out here—they even owned her at present. Any space hab orbiting Neptune or one of its moons used their patented lightguide net-web.

The commander cursed in old Angelic. Sometimes he took his historical excesses to extremes.

“Now what?” Osadar asked.

“Ajax crashed! Do you know how much time I put into him?”

“Ask the AI why he crashed.”

“AI isn’t responding.”

Osadar’s stomach clenched. She tried the AI. The ill feeling grew, producing a touch of nausea. Then her eyes, those worried dark orbs, glistened with fear. The AI couldn’t answer because its entire ram was being used. What in the devil was going on?

“Ask computing what’s wrong with the AI,” the commander told the LS officer.

“…Can’t, Commander. Something’s jamming inter-ship communication.”

Fear stabbed Osadar’s heart. She tore off her VR goggles and shucked off the gloves. Breathing deeply, she tried to control her panic. Then she unbuckled herself and floated to a portal.

“What are you doing?” asked the commander.

Osadar grabbed a float-rail and pressed her palm on the lock. Nothing happened. She floated to the other portal. It, too, refused to open. She bit back the moan that tried to rush past her teeth. As calmly as possible, she flipped a terminal-head and punched in override. Then she cranked open the portal by hand. On impulse, she set the locks so it couldn’t slide shut on her.

“Commander, I’m getting a red reading in computing.” The pink-faced LS officer looked up in confusion.

“Osa?” asked the commander.

“I’m going outside to manually override the laser-link. I want Dominie Banbury to hear about this.”

“Do you really think that’s warranted?”

“Don’t you?” she asked.

The commander pondered a moment and nodded. “Wait a minute, though. I’m going with you.”