Chapter Two: The Floating World

April 27th [Same Year]

“Madre de Dios!” Dante exclaimed. “It looks as big as Phobos!”

Mohammed joined Dante at the viewscreen. Ukiyo-e floated about 500 kilometers outside of the Artemis. Small for an asteroid; only five kilometers long and two in diameter. The tips of the long axis tapered, making the rock look much like a giant American football.

Mohammed glanced back at Dante. “Why aren’t you wearing any clothes? What did I tell you about floating around in your underwear on the bridge?”

Dante grinned. “You told me that you didn’t like it, Captain.”

“I thought as much,” Mohammed sighed.

“How long until we have to dock?” Dante asked.

Mohammed slapped his Visier down over his eyes and glanced at the time. “About five minutes before we have to be on duty.”

“Plenty of time for me to put on pants.” He pulled himself from the bridge, chuckling like he was sharing a private joke with himself.

Mohammed watched him go and shook his head. The five-person crew aboard the Artemis was more like a mildly dysfunctional family when they were off-duty, with Mohammed pretending to be the frustrated parent with four unruly kids.

His mensajero icon indicated incoming from Hector. He command-thought, Answer:standard, and a tank containing Hector appeared in his CdlV. “Hector, hi,” Mohammed said.

“Hi, Mo. I’m sending you the latest trajectory info I’m getting from Ukiyo-e.”

A small closed window split itself off from Hector’s tank and queried. Mohammed glanced at it and command-thought, accept. The window opened to reveal the mathematical string that represented Artemis’s planned docking procedure with Ukiyo-E, and indicated it came with a 3-D modeled animation. Mohammed didn’t bother to look at it, and command-thought to move it into the icon representing Artemis’s net, to be filed in the official ship’s records section.

“Thanks, Hector,” Mohammed said. “You all ready to go?”

Hector’s face glanced down. “I just have to put on some pants and I’ll be ready to burn.”

Mohammed settled back into the Captain’s chair and pulled the acceleration web around him, enjoying the scene through the viewport as Ukiyo-e slowly loomed larger and larger.

After while he heard the bridge door open behind him. He turned to see Jeanne float in. She was getting dressed as she floated, zipping up her free-fall tunic. She looked up at Mohammed and smiled, her face all aglow with obvious contentedness. “Good afternoon, Mo.”

“Hello, Jeanne. Where’s your wife?”

Jeanne jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “She’ll be along. She’s just putting her clothes back on.”

Mohammed sighed. “Since when did my ship become a nudist colony?”

Jeanne pulled herself over to him and tousled his thick, curly black hair. “If you were cooped up in the same tiny ship as a gorgeous woman for months at a time, let’s see how long you could keep your pants on.”

“I’ve been cooped up with two gorgeous women, Jeanne, but point well taken,” Mohammed grinned. “Though I doubt you or Anita would be able to keep your clothes on around each other no matter how large a ship you shared. And speaking of the lovely lady…”

Anita pulled herself into the bridge, her face also all aglow and her long hair kinked into disarray at the moment. Her eyes lit up when she saw Jeanne. “There’s my girl!” She pulled herself forward with a kiss for Jeanne and a hair tousle for Mohammed. “What’s for dinner, Mo?”

“It’s mid-afternoon! You’re hungry already?”

“I always get hungry after…” Anita glanced at Jeanne and blushed.

“Well,” said Mohammed, “I’d tell you to grab a snack but there isn’t time. And I’m glad marriage hasn’t dulled your love life.”

Hector floated into the bridge, looking upset. “Did I miss them talking about their love lives again? Did they give you details? I want details, man!”

“This is a CIS Cruiser, not a brothel!” Mohammed cried in exasperation.

“Well, good.” Hector pulled himself into the pilot’s chair and strapped in. “This ship would make a terrible brothel. We only have two women and they’re only interested in each other.”

Mohammed command-thought, Marble:mensajero Dante.

“Yes, Captain,” Marble answered.

After a few moments a tank opened in Mohammed’s CdlV and Dante’s face appeared within it. “Yeah?”

“Dante, get up here. I don’t care if you’re naked or not.”

Hector raised a hand. “I care,” he said. Jeanne slapped his hand down.

"Sorry, I’ll be right up," Dante said. "With pants.” His tank closed itself back into Mohammed’s mensajero icon.

Mohammed glanced over at the rest of his crew. Jeanne and Anita were floating at the front viewport, each with an arm draped around the other’s waist. This three-day burn from Mars to Ukiyo-e had become sort of an unofficial honeymoon for them. Hector, meanwhile, was deep in concentration, his eyes focused on his own CdlV.

He turned as Dante yanked himself into the bridge. “You missed it!" he scolded. "They were about to go into details!”

“What?! Damn, just my luck.”

Mohammed cleared his throat. “People, it’s time. Get on duty.”

“You heard the man,” Jeanne said with a sly grin. “Let’s Kiss the Captain.”

They all pulled themselves over to the Captain’s chair. Jeanne and Anita simultaneously planted big wet kisses on Mohammed’s cheeks while Dante planted a chaste kiss on the top of his head. Hector, already strapped in, kissed his own hand and patted Mohammed on the head with it. Mohammed couldn’t remember exactly how this started, but whenever his crew went on or off duty they enacted the “Kiss the Captain” ritual to symbolize shifting from private lives to public duty. They all pulled themselves to their respective seats and strapped in for acceleration.

The complicated process of docking with Ukiuo-e — matching velocity and spin with the asteroid, the delicate process of hydraulic lifts securing the Artemis in an available berth, the attaching of airlock seals to the exterior of the ship, and dozens of other vital functions — were handled automatically by rapport between the Artemis's net and Ukiyo-e's. By the time they were all cleared through quarantine and stood waiting at the inner door to the passenger receiving area, a remarkable transformation had taken place. Dante's hair was pulled back sharply in an immaculate braid that fell to his waist. His black robe with the orange stripes of un Juez Menor was absolutely immaculate. His face bore a look of serene wisdom and dignity. Mohammed, too, in his black-and-purple Juez Senor robes was the very vision of fairness. It was thus that they stood, with the rest of the crew a few meters behind, when the door finally dilated open and a man stepped in.

A wide grin spead across his wrinkled face. "Juez Senor Mohammed Little, Captain of the Artemis, it is an honor to have you as my guests," he said, his Spanish tinged with an Asian accent.

Mohammed bowed deeply. "The honor is ours, President Masahiko Michiba."

Michiba waved a gnarled hand in dismissal. "None of that 'president' stuff around here. I'd prefer to be called Masahiko, but if you find it necessary to use a title when referring to me, I'd rather you called me 'Mayor.' It is much more fitting than President."

Mohammed allowed himself to crack a smile. "Mayor it is, then."

Michiba seemed pleased. He motioned for them to follow him out of quarantine room. Curiously, there was no one else within sight; just the elderly ruler of this world. "I'm certain you'll find your stay on my 'Floating World' a pleasant one. Our 'bots will gather your luggage. Allow me to escort you to your apartments."

Jeanne almost gasped. Hector's eyes widened.

"Mr. Mayor," Mohammed said, "Certainly you've more important duties than personally showing us--"

Michiba cut him off. "Captian, the first thing you must learn about our community is that after a certain point rank and pomp and ceremony are needless. There are only 2,600 people on this rock at the time, each of whom requires very little supervision. I do what I like with my spare time. This way, please."

Without further protest, the elected president of Ukiyo-e led the five through the docking bays, and then up towards the central axis of the station. They all felt themselves getting lighter and lighter until they found themselves floating in a massive circular corridor 100 meters wide, that began just behind them and stretched unneringly straight ahead for almost a full five kilometers.

"Your apartments are on the outermost level," Michiba began to explain, "which has a simulated gravity equivalent to that of Mars. We'll go forward about a kilometer and then straight down to the skin of the rock."

Jeanne and her wife exchanged glances. "Um, Mr. Mayor?"

"Yes, my dear?"

"Do you think that maybe before we do that, we could see...?"

Michiba chuckled warmly. "Ah, yes, it's been so long since I greeted any visitors that I almost forgot. Certainly you'd like to see it. It's in the very center of the asteroid, about 2.5 kilometers. We'll be there shortly. If you all would like to follow me?"

With dexterity born of long habit, Michiba turned himself to that he was belly-down to the surface of the tubular corridor. The surface was dotted with small hand-and-foot holds. He effortlessly reached out and began to propel himself along the wallof the corridor, towards the center of the asteroid.

The others, also long used to free-fall, were easily able to keep up with him. They worked up to a comfortable 15 kilometers an hour, with only an occasional finger or hand against the wall to correct their courses and speeds. Mohammed found that the fact that the tubular wall of the corridor was actually rotating at [scitech] revolutions per [time unit], while it didn't exactly give very much simulated gravity to the corridor, tended to skew their courses so that they spiraled down the corridor rather than moved straight along. He glanced back and noticed that Hector, bringing up the rear, was a good 30 degrees higher on the curve of the wall than he was.

Various machines, people, and spider-shaped robots about the size of a golden retriever would periodically pull themselves out into the corridor from some side corridor, and pull themselves along for a while before ducking back down into another corridor.

Up ahead now they could see that the corridor opened up into a larger, very brightly lit chamber of some kind. Mohammed felt his heartrate increase slightly. He'd heard about this—everybody had heard about this—and seen pictures, of course, but to be actually about to see it in person... he hadn't even really realized that when he was posted to Ukiyo-e that obviously he could see it whenever he wanted. Like being told you've won the lottery, it didn't seem quite real.

Michiba stopped himself just short of the chamber. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said formally, "welcome to the First Wonder of Space." He gestured for the group to precede him.

Jeanne eagerly thrust herself forward and leapfrogged over all the others, practically disappearing in the brighness forward. Mohammed gently eased himself forward into the light. After blinking a few times to adjust, he looked around himself. And involuntarily gasped.

He floated in the middle of a spherical chamber about 200 meters in diameter. The walls were all transparent plastene—so transparent that they could hardly be seen at all. A kilometer beyond the plastene in all directions was the curving inner surface of the asteroid. But the ground could hardly be seen at all, due to the seemingly endless masses of giant bamboo trees that reached towards him from all directions. The coriolis effect from the spinning station had made them spiral as they grew, so that almost 1.5 square kilometeres of bamboo forest twisted and weaved upward towards this central viewing station. In the low gravity some of the trees reached heights of over 500 meters.

"Allah preserve us," Mohammed heard himself mutter. He had never seen anything like it in his life; it was impossible for pictures to do this justice.

After quite some time—Mohammed was unsure how long—he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw Michiba smiling at him. "Come," the Mayor said, "you have two years during which you may view El Bosque dentro de la Piedra <The Forest within the Rock>.

Mohammed took a long look at Michiba. More than fifty years ago this frail old man, then a vibrant member of the "Famous Ten," had planted the beginnings of this forest inside this great cavern.

Michiba and Mohammed gathered up the rest of the team. Mohammed at first hadn't even noticed that there were probably two dozen other people inside the plastene sphere with them; all he had seen were the tops of the trees rising to meet him. Michiba led them forward into the central corridor for about 50 meters before leading them to an elevator that brought them "down" towards the skin of the rock.

It was a strange sensation to gain weight with each passing second.

When they finally emerged they weighed almost the exact same as they had on Mars. Mohammed stepped out of the lift and blinked twice. He managed to resist his temptation to stare or rub his eyes in disbelief.

Hector had no such compunction. "Dios santo en el cielo!" he blurted out.

Michiba chuckled. "Yes, I never tire of such a reaction. Everyone of course knows about our great forest, but few realize just what kind of community we have brought to life out of this dead stone."

Mohammed took a few steps forward and—seemingly—and several centuries into the past. If he had not just stepped off of a spaceship into an asteroid and ridden in an elevator, he would have sworn he had been somehow teleported to a 17th century village in Japan.

A couple in their 80s walked by, wearing what the haute couture world was calling "Samurai Chic."

Michiba lead them down charming, winding cobblestone streets past small one- and two-story buildings.



Michiba bowed deeply. "I trust you will enjoy your time with our community for the next two years."

Mohammed returned the bow. "I have no doubt, Mr. Mayor."

They all stood and silently watched the old man walk away. When he had dissappeared around a corner they all turned to Mohammed. "Off duty, Captain?" asked Hector.

Mohammed nodded. "Off duty."

"Kiss the Cap'n!" Jeanne squealed. They all took turns grabbing mohammed's head and kissing the top of it before running off to their new apartments like excited getting a new toy.

Mohammed turned to Dante. "Meet me back here in a half hour, then we'll meet the Chief Justice."

"Right." Dante hurried off to his own apartment.



Their apartments were thoughfully within a few blocks of the asteroid's main governmental sector—all three buildings, stately castle-looking affairs each of which faced an open courtyard. In the center of the courtyard was a fountain, which behaved in a fascinating way. Due to the nature or physics, the spray of fountain water actually weighed less and less the higher it shot into the air. That coupled with the coriolis effect to make the water travel a not-exactly straight path. It was more like a lazy spiral of water as it fell back down to the pool.

Mohammed and Dante stopped to watch it for several minutes before entering the courthouse.

Inside, an Asian woman in her late 20s glanced up at them and quickly slapped her Visier down over her eyes. "Konnici-wa," she said with a slight bow. She was wearing the robes of a Junior Justice. "Welcome to Ukiyo-e, Justice Escobar, Senior Little. I am Junior Justice Mei Morita."

Mohammed and Dante both returned the bow. "A pleasure to meet you, Justice Morita."

Her eyes lit up and she dimpled a little. "The pleasure is mine, Senior." She gesture to a door on her right. "Please, the Chief Justice will see you now."

They opened the door indicated and once again received a culture shock. Mohammed wondered wryly how many more they would experience today. The interior of Justice Furtado's office was about as different from its surroundings as possible. A far cry from the escetic Asian aesthetic that dominated the asteroid, the walls, floor and ceiling of the long, narrow office were painted boldly in riotous greens, yellows, and oranges. Potted tropical plants lined the walls so thickly that it gave the impression of walking into a South American rain forest. At the far end of the room, seated behind a desk made out of rough-hewn wood lashed together with thick hemp rope was the Chief Justice of Ukiyo-e. He was small and round, with jovially smiling eyes and a natural grin. But Mohammed hardly even noticed him, so dwarfed was the man by the mural that took up the entire wall behind the desk: a brilliant stereo picture of some ancient ruin--Aztec? Olmec? Mohammed couldn't tell. It was so oriented that it looked as though one could walk straight out of the room and into the jungle primieval beyond.

Furtado stood up as they entered and held his arms wide. "Gentlemen!" he cried. "I am so very happy to meet you! Please! Come in, come in, sit down. Make yourselves at home." He rushed around the desk and quickly arranged three chairs there before rushing over to a wall. He brushed beautiful flowering plant aside and opened a panel in the wall, revealing a very well-stocked bar. "Anything to drink? We're on duty, but I of course have water and juices and anything else you can probably think of. Hmmm..." He put a hand to his chin and squinted into the recesses of the bar.

"Water will be fine," Mohammed said as he stepped forward into the office.

"Some orange juice, perhaps?" Dante enquired.

"Of course, of course!" Furtado's hands moved with a blur and came out with two glasses. He rushed over and passed one to each of his guests then gestured at the three chairs in front of the desk. "Please, let's sit."

They did. Pleasantries were easily exchanged. Mohammed found Furtado to be a jovial, ebullient little soul, with the demeanor of a lazy cantina owner combined with XXXXXX???? Furtado congratulated Mohammed on hiw work with Mars, and Mohammed expressed admiration at the relaxed, peaceful feeling of Ukiyo-e.

Furtado waved it off. "Boring you mean? But, no, it is very quiet here. Most of our citizens are of the senior variety; they're not interested in making trouble. Every once in a while there's some minor squabble, and then Constable Tanaka trots them down here to the courthouse to argue in front of Mei or myself, and we square them away and send them home. I can't remember the last time there was actually a crime here. Constable Tanaka haven't needed any deputies since, well, practically forever." He chuckled. "That's why this situation has caught us rather flat-footed, I'm embarrassed to say.

"Seems the research being done here by La Compañía Independiente de Transmisión de Campo. [The Independent Field Broadcasting Company] hit on something that the Science Council thinks could be potentially very dangerous technology. They've ordered a halt on all research and have locked CITC out of their own lab.

"Whatever this technology is that CITC has developed, the Science Council thinks it might be so dangerous that they ordered us to sever the lab completely from Ukiyo-e's net until such time as they can send someone out here to physically retrieve its entire contents. That we could do no problem. But they also want a physical guard on the laboratory premises to make sure that nobody'll break in and take whatever's in there."

Furtado shook his head. "I don't know who they think would ever try it here, but The Science Council is The Science Council, and the Justice Council is The Justice Council. They make policy about technology, and we enforce policy."

Furtado gestured to the door. "But Mei, Constable Tanaka, and I are only three people! The Science Council specifically stated that only members of the Justice Council were to be guards. Mei, Tanaka, and I would be hard-pressed to keep this community going all by ourselves. And besides," he chuckled, "who ever heard of the Chief Justice of a country acting as a security guard?

"We've got Tanaka sitting guard on it right now, but with the two of you here we could have a four-person rotation going. With eight hour shifts, that would mean that each of you would have to sit guard only once every 32 hours. Still plenty of time to relax and enjoy life here in The Floating World."

Next: Chapter Three - Suspicious Characters