The dragon roared again, coming to its feet and shaking off like Junkyard when he was wet. McKenzie’s green armor came into view, and she shrieked with surprise as she almost ran into the dragon. She veered around it.
McCall paused, afraid it would lunge at McKenzie and that those fangs would sink through her armor.
But the dragon must have had enough. It sprang into the air and flew back the way it had come.
McKenzie stumbled back, gaping at it until it disappeared. “I didn’t really think there would be dragons.”
“I didn’t think there’d be dragons that would breathe fire.” McCall looked down at her hands, her skin red as if from a sunburn. As if the hives hadn’t been insult enough. “What kind of genetic encoding allows for that?”
“If you’re going to create a fairytale creature, I guess you go all the way.”
“More like a nightmare creature.”
McKenzie walked over, then frowned and stuck her hand out. She pushed at the air, and McCall remembered the resistance she’d felt.
They moved forward together, and between one step and the next, the jungle they had been walking through disappeared, replaced by a grassy clearing framed by three stone walls, the end of the canyon. A waterfall fell into a pool, then flowed into a river, the one they had been following but barely hearing or seeing sign of it.
A couple of gray metal buildings sat in the clearing. Beyond them, caves pierced the cliffs, some with dark doors covering them, almost as if they were garages, and others open with ledges overlooking the meadow.
Sunlight shone down through a break in the canopy, a break that hadn’t been visible from above. McCall was certain of it. The Surfer had flown over this spot on the way in.
“It’s beautiful,” McKenzie said, turning a full circle. “So peaceful. You could work on anything here, come up with all manner of designs. Or finish ones you’ve started. Like a space elevator from Perun Central to the planet’s big orbital base.”
“You’ll have to tell me more about that sometime.”
“Gladly! I’ll show you my prototype before you go home. But now, let’s explore.” McKenzie skipped toward the buildings.
McCall walked behind more slowly, tempted to ask if her sister detected life signs now. The place seemed empty, with few sounds except for the rush of the water. She supposed people could live behind those cave doors.
Movement to the side made McCall jump. A large, floating black disc at the perimeter of the meadow fired into the jungle, a massive blue beam identical to the ones that had struck the dragon. She spotted other discs, also along the perimeter. Robot guards?
The closest disc sailed toward McKenzie. An intercept course.
“McKenzie,” McCall shouted in warning, jogging after her sister. “Look out!”
McKenzie had almost reached the first building, but she paused and lifted her hands as the disc flew toward her. McCall had assumed it kept animals—and dragons—out and let humans in, but perhaps that had been premature.
The disc stopped a few meters from McKenzie, its weapons port pointing at her chest. Would her armor stop such a big blast? The dragon’s nearly impervious scales hadn’t.
“State the passcode or solve the puzzle if you wish access to the sanctuary,” a woman’s melodious voice said, coming from the disc.
McKenzie looked at McCall. “Passcode? Did you come across that in your research?”
“No.”
“State the passcode or solve the puzzle if you wish access to the sanctuary,” the disc repeated. “Only the scholarly and peaceful are allowed here.”
“Guess they didn’t want escapees from the penal colony coming to visit,” McCall said.
“We’ll do the puzzle,” McKenzie said, looking toward the cliffs, as if she expected someone to come out and welcome them.
“And hope nothing happens if we can’t solve it.”
Four other discs drifted in their direction, then split to surround them. They effectively blocked the route back into the jungle.
“We’d probably just get kicked out,” McKenzie said. “But that’s not acceptable. I came to stay.” She spoke the words firmly, but her expression was uncertain as she gazed around again.
McCall had a feeling the sensors built into her armor weren’t showing her anybody around.
One of the discs floated closer, and she eyed it warily. She didn’t reach for her blazer, doubting her shots could damage the sturdy robot, but she debated on leaping into the air and using her boots to fly overhead. Would they follow her up? Or could she escape?
But what of McKenzie? The jets weren’t strong enough to lift two, and she couldn’t leave her sister. Her mother would have—
Light flared, as if McCall were looking into a sun. She flung her arm up and squinted her eyes shut. The sensation of falling came over her, and she spread her legs, struggling for balance.
When the light faded, she wasn’t in the meadow anymore. She was in a hospital room, sitting next to a bed with a patient hooked up to monitors and an IV. A familiar patient. Mom.
Her skin was pale, her body gaunt, her hair falling out, and she looked old, far older than her fifty-three years.
McKenzie sat in a chair on the other side of the bed, her eyes brimming with tears. McCall met her gaze, and her sister shook her head. Mom didn’t have much time left. The treatment hadn’t worked. She’d been too sick when she’d finally come to the hospital, the disease too far advanced.
“There’s hope,” a voice said at McCall’s ear.
An android stood there in hospital scrubs. His hair was short and dark, his eyes silver, and for a moment, she thought it was Scipio. But this was a different model. Besides, she hadn’t known Scipio yet when this had happened. Or was it happening now? She looked at Mom in confusion, trying to remember how she’d gotten here.
“We’re so close to solving the problem. Want to have a try at it?” The android opened his hand, revealing a netdisc, and a holodisplay came up. A close-up of blood cells, some bright and round, others dark and lopsided. Diseased. “Just move them around so the healthy ones win.”
It sounded stupid, more like a game than a solution to a health problem, but McCall lifted a finger, unable to keep from trying. The challenge called to her, as did the possibility that she was wrong, that this could help. That it could save Mom.
“McCall,” McKenzie whispered from across the bed. “She’s awake.”
“Good,” McCall said, but didn’t look away from the display. She found she could move blood cells around by dragging her finger. Surrounding the diseased ones with healthy ones caused the diseased ones to disappear. But there were so many more of them than the healthy ones. Was it possible to gain the upper hand?
“McCall,” McKenzie said, now holding Mom’s hand.
Mom’s eyes were open, sunken with dark bags under them. She looked so weary, but she lifted a frail hand toward McCall.
McCall started to reach for her, but she needed both hands to move cells around. She was making some progress. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Less than half the cells left were diseased.
“Be right there,” she said.
Her hands were a blur as she moved cells. The android watched on, but never spoke, never changed his expression.
The last diseased cell disappeared from the display, and McCall surged to her feet. “I did it!”
She looked toward Mom and McKenzie. Tears streaked her sister’s cheeks. Mom’s eyes were closed again, and the instruments monitoring her had stopped running.
“A valiant effort,” the android said, “but unfortunately you were too late.”
McKenzie shook her said slowly. Accusingly?
“But I solved the puzzle,” McCall whispered. How could it not have worked?
* * *
The sky was a deep blue, but a black circle obscured the edge of it. An eclipse? No, the sun wasn’t blocked.
McCall stared upward for several long seconds before awareness returned, along wit
h the memory she’d just relived. No, not a memory. In reality, she and McKenzie had sat together by Mom’s bed. She’d taken their hands, placed them atop each other, and held them with her own weak ones. She had elicited a promise that they would look out for each other, then whispered that she loved them.
McCall had been there for it. She hadn’t been ignoring her dying mother to play some game, so she found the false memory confusing. Admittedly, during those last weeks, she had spent a lot of time researching and trying to find a way to cure Mom, perhaps some obscure treatment the doctors had overlooked or hadn’t considered. After Mom had passed, she had wondered if she’d spent too much time doing that, time she could have spent being with her. But it had been so hard to be there, not knowing what to say or how to feel, wondering if a different daughter, a better one, would have been able to make her mother feel more comfortable and loved in the end.
The black disc floated away, leaving only the sky. And the grass pricking her neck. Why was she flat on her back?
McKenzie stepped into view, her helmet tucked under her arm, sweat plastering her hair to her face. “I guess you solved your puzzle too,” she said, her voice having a hollowness to it.
“I … guess.” As McCall sat up, the disc floated back to its sentry duty on the perimeter. “I feel like I failed though.”
“Mine was like that too.” McKenzie wiped her eyes—she’d also removed her gauntlets. Were those tears? Had she experienced the same moment? Or a different one? “But I knew I’d passed because the robots left me alone. So I could look around.” She waved toward the buildings and the caves. “And find that there’s nobody here.”
“Ah.”
“There hasn’t been for a long time. Everything’s old and dusty.” McKenzie looked skyward, her fingers flexing at her sides, helpless. “There aren’t any skeletons or signs of fights or anything. It’s like they just left. And forgot to tell anyone.”
“Maybe they didn’t want to admit their colony was a failure, that it wasn’t Shangri-La.” McCall couldn’t claim to be surprised.
“Fuck.” McKenzie kicked her pack.
McCall chewed on her lip. “I know you were hoping for a comfortable place to live.” She didn’t say fit in, since she’d never cared for that phrase. People weren’t jigsaw pieces to be slotted together. “But you can find that even back in the empire. If you’re creative, you can carve out a spot for yourself where you can be who you are. Sometimes, that’s what you have to do. Carve. Chisel. Jackhammer. Adjust the world, at least a small piece of it, to suit you.”
“Maybe I should get a purple spaceship.”
“Sure, why not?”
McKenzie smiled sadly at the abandoned buildings, and McCall didn’t know if that denoted agreement or not.
* * *
“Back to civilization,” McCall said, the lights of the dark side of Perun visible on the view screen. “Real-time communications and access to Tammy Jammy bars.”
“The latter being your primary concern, I surmise.” Scipio was busy piloting them toward the planet, but he nodded toward McCall’s sole remaining bar, a few pieces carefully preserved for emergencies.
She touched it lovingly, rustling the wrapper. At the back of the cockpit, Junkyard lifted his head from his bed, ears perking. Civilization also meant access to quality dog treats. Not that he was above Tammy Jammy bars.
“You surmise correctly. I should check on McKenzie.” McCall tapped her netdisc to look up the local time in Perun Central. Assuming her sister had gone back there. When they’d dropped McKenzie off a month earlier, McCall had worried that she wouldn’t know what to do with herself. She had been tempted to go down to the planet with her, but several jobs had come in while she’d been cavorting on Dragons Moon, so she’d only grabbed fuel and supplies before taking off again.
As McCall verified it was before midnight downside, the comm flashed. McKenzie’s face appeared in the holodisplay, and she smiled broadly. It was alarming since neither McCall nor McKenzie were the type to display so many teeth.
“You’re back,” McKenzie said. “I’m glad. I wanted to tell you right away—I had the surgery.”
“Oh.” Stunned, McCall didn’t know what else to say. After their conversation in the jungle, she hadn’t thought McKenzie considered the brain surgery even a last resort.
“Things are going better now. I got a new job. I’m feeling more comfortable working as a team member.” McKenzie’s smile widened. “My boss likes me. We went out to lunch yesterday.”
“Oh.” Realizing her responses were monosyllabic, McCall added, “Are you all right? Have there been any side effects?”
McKenzie hesitated. “No, I’m fine.”
“That’s good.” McCall wanted to pry, but doubted her sister would appreciate it.
“I find it a little harder to concentrate, but that’s all. I used to hyper focus on things I cared about. But I’m not so obsessed anymore. I’m developing more interests. That’s healthy, my doctor told me.”
“Working on any exciting new projects at work?”
“Oh, we mostly maintain old infrastructure here. There’s not a need for exciting and new.” McKenzie waved her hand, as if to dismiss this as a minor point.
“Any progress on the space elevator?”
“No, that was just a silly project. Who would ever pay for it? Anyway, you should come visit. We’ll go out to dinner. Mary Lee at the office showed me this great wine place. You’d like it. You’ll come, right?”
McCall forced herself to smile, though she was flailing on the inside. Or maybe wailing. “I’ll come.”
“Good. I’m much happier now, McCall. Why don’t you look into the surgery too?”
McCall’s thoughts drifted back to the sentry robots and that weird puzzle. Weeks later, the incident still disturbed her. She questioned the humanity of whoever had programmed that robot to prioritize puzzles over people. And the fact that she’d passed made her question her own humanity.
Was she different from others, as she’d always known, or was she broken? And was a surgery that could fix her brokenness a good thing?
No, she decided. Better to be broken if that was what it took to pursue unrealistic dreams.
“Not for me,” she told her sister, “but I’m glad you’re content.”
They said their goodbyes, and McCall leaned back in her seat, her chin in her hand.
“What surgery did your sister have?” Scipio asked. “She seemed fit and hale when she was here.”
“Yes.”
Scipio waited, no doubt expecting her to answer the original question because he was programmed to understand how social interactions worked. But she wasn’t, and she didn’t.
“It seems the outcome was good,” he offered.
“If nothing else, I think I’ll get along with my sister more easily now.”
“This is a positive development.”
“Or it’s the loss of something intangible but not inconsequential,” McCall murmured.
Scipio gave her a puzzled look, but she had nothing else to say.
About Lindsay Buroker
Lindsay has early memories of convincing childhood friends, pets, and stuffed animals to play the roles of characters in her worlds, so it’s safe to say she’s been making up stories for a long time. She published her first novel, The Emperor’s Edge, in December of 2010 and has written and published more than 50 novels since then, most under her own name, but a few steamier ones under a pen name.
When she’s not writing, she’s usually hiking with her dogs, practicing yoga, playing tennis, or eating entirely too much dark chocolate (she only does one of those things truly well, and she will let you guess which it is). She grew up in the Seattle area and still visits the Pacific Northwest, but after realizing she was solar powered, she moved to Arizona and now lives in the mountains north of Phoenix.
If you’re interested in reading more of her work, you can download The Emperor’s Edge, Star Nomad, and Balanced on the
Blade’s Edge for free in your favorite store.
The Gordian Asteroid
(a Space Lore short story)
by Chris Dietzel
1
“DOCTOR, ARE YOU SURE THIS IS A GOOD IDEA?”
Tragedy, an android that resembled humans—albeit with no hair on its head or body, slightly translucent skin, and irises that glowed any time it processed complex information—had said the same thing each morning.
Dr. Vongst grunted as the android assisted in getting him into a suit of space armor. Years earlier, he could have assembled his own suit while standing on one leg. Now, in his seventies, he sat down and allowed Tragedy to put on his metal boots, gladly waiting to stand until the reinforced joints and artificial support provided by the space armor gave him the stability and strength to stand without fear of embarrassing himself.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Although he was a scientist and not a historian, Vongst knew enough about ancient protective suits to know they used to add fifty or sixty pounds to the individual wearing it. Space armor was exactly the opposite. It weighed much more than older suits, but the joint controls made the wearer feel light and strong. With each piece Tragedy put onto Vongst, the old man felt more sure of himself. It was a pleasure having the helmet fitted over his head because the suit also gave him enough oxygen that he wasn’t constantly coughing or pausing to catch his breath.
With the last piece of his space armor on, Dr. Vongst stood and began toward the rear of the ship. The android followed. With each step, the doctor’s metal boots clanged against the metal floor. In his suit, which weighed hundreds of pounds, he sounded less like a frail and weak researcher and more like a soldier marching out to battle.
They were aboard a small research transport, so it only took ten paces to get to the rear ramp. There, he reached a thick, gloved hand to the side panel and pressed a white button. A pair of beeps sounded. The transport’s ramp began to lower.
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