Independent Living, page 1
Independent Living
Eccentric Enterprises Circuit Ship
Copyright 2019 by E. M. Foner
One
“You call this fish chowder?” Harry demanded indignantly. “It’s last night’s scrod special mashed up with milk.”
“Next, please,” the serving robot intoned in a mechanical voice. “One entrée per customer.”
“Forget it, Harry,” Irene told her husband. “It’s just a bot, not artificial intelligence. You won’t get any satisfaction there.”
“As soon as we finish this so-called lunch, I’m going to track down Ms. Jane Hasslewraith and get our money back.”
“We’ve only been here one night and we skipped breakfast to finish the leftovers from the meals we bought on the space elevator. Give it some time.”
“If the food is this bad already, imagine what it will be like after we leave Earth orbit. Where’s the cook going to find scrod in space?”
“You don’t even like fish,” his wife pointed out as she slid her tray along the cafeteria counter behind his. “Why didn’t you take something else?”
“If you didn’t notice, the other options were grilled cheese sandwiches that looked like they were made last month, and peanut butter and jelly with purple goo seeping through the white bread. The brochure claimed there would be a team of nutritionists working up custom diets for us!”
“It is independent living, after all, not a nursing home. Jane was very specific about that when we signed the contracts. And she said we could expect things to be a bit rocky until the ship leaves orbit because the staff are all vacationing on Earth and they’ll take the last space elevator capsule up.”
“Just look at this coffee,” Harry complained. “It’s so weak that I can see the bottom of the cup. If it wasn’t for that giant display panel behind the counter showing the ship, I’d think I was in a prison cafeteria.”
“Things can only get better. Why don’t you go find us a couple of seats together while I make myself a cup of tea.” Irene started rummaging through a cardboard box of individual tea bags that looked like they’d been purchased at an odd-lots store. “Maybe some of these people have been here a few days so they’ll know more about what’s going on than we do.”
“The place is three-quarters empty,” Harry muttered, but he took her advice and found a table with just two open seats to maximize the chance of learning something from the other residents. “Does anybody mind if my wife and I join you?”
“Is she invisible?” asked a bald man wearing a vest and bowtie who looked to be in his mid-seventies. A hand-printed sticker over the breast pocket of his shirt identified him as Dave.
“Irene is making herself a cup of tea,” Harry explained, setting down his tray and pulling back both of the unoccupied chairs. “Hey, where did you get those club sandwiches?”
“You have to ask the bot,” a tiny woman labeled Nancy told him. “It can’t hold a conversation unless the ship’s AI takes over, but it makes sandwiches to order if you ask.”
“Hello, everybody,” Irene said, placing her own tray on the table and bobbing her head at Harry as he slid in the chair as she sat. “Oh, were we supposed to have name tags? Nobody told us.”
“There used to be a stack of them at the end of the cafeteria line, but they ran out two days ago and the bots don’t know where to get more,” Nancy told her. “You can make your own from paper and pin them on until you get to know everybody. I have pins if you need them.”
Harry dipped his spoon in the fish chowder, raised it, and then let it fall in disgust. “Hey, did anybody else get woken up by a loud recording this morning? Something about calisthenics?”
“Every morning, and it’s not a recording, it’s the ship’s AI,” replied a fit-looking man whose sticker identified him as Jack. “She lets you slide your first day on board, but if you don’t get out of bed and into the corridor tomorrow morning, she’ll run the temperature in your room down to freezing, strobe the lights, and play this horrible whistling through the speakers.”
“Dollnick opera,” the tiny woman told them. “And the AI’s name is Flower, the same as the ship.”
“Which ones are the Dollnicks again?” Harry asked, pushing aside his chowder.
“You going to leave that?” Dave asked, eyeing the bowl.
“It’s all yours.”
“The Dollnicks are one of the intermediate space-faring species that breathe an oxygen-nitrogen mix,” Nancy explained. “They’ve had faster-than-light technology for a couple of million years.” She noted the lack of comprehension on Harry’s face and added, “They’re the tall ones with four arms and feathered crests.”
“Oh, right. So why would the ship’s AI play their music in our apartments?”
“To get your lazy bones out of bed,” Jack told them. “This is a Dollnick ship, after all, and Flower is a Dollnick AI. She probably likes their music.”
“What do you mean we’re on an alien ship? The saleslady promised us that the independent living facility is one hundred percent human owned.”
“Actually, I’d feel better about my investment if this place was being run by the Dollnicks. I was a contract worker on two of their ag worlds, twenty years on the first and twenty-five years on the second. I would have signed up for another hitch to finish out my life, but they have rules about that.”
“It’s their version of mandatory retirement,” Nancy told the others. “The Dollnicks have actuarial tables for all of the species they employ and they won’t let you work full-time past eighty percent of your life expectancy.”
“Don’t want to get stuck paying for medical problems, I’ll bet,” Harry said.
“They’re not like that,” Jack insisted, his obvious sincerity coming through. “Respecting the elderly is a cultural thing with them. With all of the aliens I’ve come across.”
“Well, Harry and I have never been off of Earth before, which is the main reason I let him talk me into giving this independent living place a try,” Irene said. “We had to sell our home to come up with the deposit and it’s not easy finding buyers in small towns these days. We were lucky that a young couple who worked for us were interested in taking over our bakery, so we sold them the whole building, along with our apartment upstairs.”
“You were bakers?” the bald man asked eagerly. “I’ve been on board for two weeks now and the food in this cafeteria wasn’t any better when I arrived. Maybe the two of you…”
“We’re retired,” Harry said forcefully, leaving no room for misinterpretation. “What did you do back on Earth?”
“Salesman,” he replied, wiping out the now-empty chowder bowl with a slice of flimsy white bread. “I signed up for this independent living in space thing because of the startup discount. They say that people who wait for Flower’s next visit to Earth will have to pay twice as much to buy into the complex.”
“That was the main motivation for me as well,” Nancy said. “I suppose there’s a risk involved in anything new, but I never could have afforded it if I waited.”
“I just wanted to get off of Earth, it was depressing going back there after forty-five years,” Jack said. “I felt like a salmon returning home to die without the bonus of breeding. I didn’t know anybody on Earth or own a home there, so I started looking into independent living places, just so I wouldn’t be alone. This one place I actually visited was only three hundred creds a month for rent, but you had to take at least one meal a day.”
“What did that cost?” Irene asked.
“A thousand creds a month.” He laughed. “I could have rented an apartment on a Stryx station and ordered a take-out meal a day for that, with change left over.”
“It was the same with the places near me,” Nancy confirmed. “Some made you buy the unit you lived in, some rented, but all of them included a minimum of one meal a day whether you ate it or not. This place doesn’t even start charging for meals until Flower leaves the solar system. After that, it’s optional whether we eat here or at the main food court, and there must be hundreds of restaurants on board.”
“Excuse me, but what day is it?” the bald man asked.
“It’s Tuesday, Dave,” Nancy informed him. “Do you have a date?”
“In addition to the morning calisthenics, Flower insists that everybody on board take up a team sport, but she makes an exception for health issues. She told me this morning that I have to go see the ship’s physician after lunch.”
“The ship’s AI talks to us?” Irene asked.
“More than some of us would like,” a woman without a nametag whispered.
“If she can hear us at this table, whispering won’t change that,” Nancy said. “The Dollnicks used voice commands for everything—well, whistling commands, in their case. There are speakers and microphones embedded throughout the ship, though you can find dead spots in large rooms like this when there are a number of conversations going on.”
“What if the cafeteria were empty?” Irene asked.
“In that case, Flower will certainly hear if you speak clearly, but that doesn’t mean she’ll always answer. She’s a bit eccentric.”
“So why do you need to know the day if you already knew about the appointment, Dave?” Harry asked.
“Haven’t you ever been to a doctor? That’s the first thing they ask after you hit seventy. If you say you don’t remember or get the day wrong, they start running tests to see if you’re losing your mind.”
“Our doctor on Earth always asked Harry if he remembered his n ame,” Irene contributed, drawing an annoyed look from her husband.
“The doctor’s name or his own?” Dave asked.
“My own,” Harry grumbled. “He had a weird sense of humor.”
“Well, I’m set for that as long as I’m wearing this nametag, and I memorized where I live the first day I was on board. Deck 17, Corridor 3, Suite 62.”
“You’re two doors down from us,” Irene observed.
“What do I need to remember all of that for?” Harry asked. “The saleslady said that the ship has smart lifts that will take you wherever you ask.”
“And our home address is now Deck 17, Corridor 3, Suite 64,” his wife told him. “Surely you don’t expect the lift to remember where you live.”
“What’s wrong with saying, Shady Elms Independent Living?”
“Is that who you signed up with?” Nancy asked. “I’m with Shady Oaks.”
“Shady Pines,” Jack contributed.
“I’m Shady Elms too,” Dave said. “That’s probably why our cabins are so close together. I came up on the first elevator capsule when the ship arrived at Earth and I must have eaten at least one meal with everybody. We’re all in Shady-something or another. I think the individual sales reps on Earth work as independent contractors for tax reasons.”
“That makes sense,” Harry allowed. “We had the same attorney who did the closing for our building go over the contract for this place and he said it was all pretty standard. I just wish we could have gotten in without the big deposit, but it’s a money-back guarantee.”
“That’s what convinced me,” Nancy said. “I lived in an apartment so I had to cash in part of my annuity to pay the key money. I used to be a teacher,” she added, “but with so many parents keeping their children home to study with the free teacher bots, I could barely pay my bills.”
“My wife and I shopped all over Earth but this place was a better deal,” one of the other diners spoke up. “What really sold me is the eighty-percent Earth-normal gravity. My cardiologist said I’d live five years longer if I got my weight down twenty percent.”
“This isn’t what the doctor meant,” his wife said in a stage whisper, drawing a laugh from their tablemates.
“I’m sure you know that all of the interesting places on board are on the outer decks,” Nancy said and began ticking off attractions on her fingers. “The bazaar, the food court, the library—”
“What difference does that make?” the overweight man demanded.
“Our new home is a converted Dollnick colony transport, and like all large spaceships, it’s built as a giant cylinder which creates gravity, or the feeling of gravity, by spinning on its axis. I believe there are eighty concentric decks in all, and the spin rate is calibrated to keep our weight on the inner surface of the hull at just over Earth gravity. The main business and recreation decks are all at higher gravity than this one.”
“Just how big is this ship?” Harry asked. “The Shady Elms brochure had a lot of photographs of attractions but there weren’t any plans with dimensions on them.”
“I don’t remember seeing her exact size listed anywhere, but I know that Flower was designed to carry a community of five million Dollnicks on long distance colonizing missions,” Nancy informed them. “The inner decks are traditionally given over to storage since it’s easier to move things around in lower gravity and there’s less strain on the structure that way. I believe that most of the decks are currently dark because the ship is so underpopulated, but the AI keeps the agricultural decks under cultivation and sells the excess.”
“Where did you learn all of this?” Irene asked.
“There’s a pamphlet they give away in the food court. Here, I think I have it in my purse. I can always pick up another one when I go out for dinner later. I can’t face another night of mac-and-cheese with artificial cheese.”
“Welcome to Flower,” Irene read off the cover of the glossy booklet, which was divided into four photographs. One showed a giant cylinder hanging in space with Earth in the background, another showed a lush agricultural deck growing some alien cereal crop, the third was a giant swimming pool or artificial lake where the surface of the water was strangely curved, and a picture of an enormous old-fashioned bazaar rounded out the collection. “All of these things are on board?”
“I’ve only been here a week myself, so I’m still finding my way around,” Nancy told her. “I don’t have any reason to believe that they’re lying. It’s an official ship’s publication.”
“Check the back cover for fine print,” Harry advised. “That’s where they always hide it.”
“Just more pictures,” Irene reported. “Look at all of the little children in class. I wonder if they take volunteer helpers?”
“We’re retired,” her husband reminded her.
“Oh, it does say something at the bottom but I can’t make it out without my glasses. You read it, Harry.”
“You didn’t get your eyes fixed?” Dave asked.
“Harry and I try to stay away from doctors,” Irene replied. “I know that the eye surgery is supposed to be fool-proof, and if I get cataracts I’ll certainly have them taken care of, but I don’t mind wearing glasses for reading. I honestly think they help me focus in more ways than one.”
“Printed and distributed by the Galactic Free Press,” Harry read.
“There’s a section about the ship’s rules near the front,” Nancy told them as she rose from her seat with her tray. “I have to get going because I’m interviewing to volunteer at the library. I hope they don’t discriminate against old people.”
“Think of it like handicapping a horse,” Jack called after her. “They make us carry weight because it wouldn’t be fair to the young folks otherwise.”
“I better get to the doctor,” Dave said, standing with his tray. “I’ll see you folks later, and welcome to Shady Elms.”
“What are the rules, Harry?” Irene asked her husband after the bald man took his leave. “We may as well find out before you complain to the management.”
“They don’t make any sense,” he replied, after skimming a few pages. “It’s like we’ve joined a summer camp.”
“That sounds nice.”
“I’m not sure I like being told that if I don’t keep my cabin clean and free of vermin, a maintenance bot will be assigned to do it and the purser will bill us or debit the amount directly from our account.”
“It makes sense that they’d want to keep the ship clean,” Jack observed. “I don’t quite need a maintenance bot to pick up after me yet, but I imagine the day is coming.”
“How will anybody know what’s going on in our cabins?” Irene asked. “Don’t tell me they have hidden cameras!”
“Weekly inspection,” Harry announced grimly. “It’s all done by maintenance bots, and according to this, the ship’s crew quarters are subject to inspection as well.”
“What was that business about exercise that Dave was talking about getting out of?”
“Exercise and team building,” Harry read. “All crew and inhabitants will take part in morning calisthenics on an assigned schedule. The ship’s AI will provide verbal coaching for age-appropriate stretching and exercise in the corridor outside of your cabins. If you have a condition that limits your ability to participate fully, an examination by the ship’s physician is mandatory,” he concluded angrily.
“I’ve been doing the calisthenics for a week now and I feel great,” Jack told them. “I can’t wait until we get underway and the leagues start up.”
“Leagues?” Irene asked. “Read more, Harry.”
“All ship’s crew and inhabitants, whether permanent or in transit, will participate in a league sport to enhance their physical fitness and improve cohesion and morale. If there isn’t a species-appropriate sport available, solo activities such as swimming, jogging, or weight lifting may be acceptable.” Harry paused and frowned. “I wonder what they mean by ‘species appropriate?’”
“I’ve seen at least four different alien species with stands in the bazaar and the food court,” Jack said. “I think they’re just trying to make a living like everybody else.”
“Jane didn’t say anything about aliens,” Harry grumbled. “I’m looking forward to giving that woman a piece of my mind.”
