by C. Gockel
“Something like that,” 6T9 replied. They were completely obscuring the bodies. Did that count as psychological first aid?
Davies called from up the exit stairwell. “It’s clear up here.”
Shen’s thoughts buzzed again. “I was afraid there would be bodies.”
Pressing his lips together, 6T9 turned his attention back to the kids. “Up to the top, and wait with Mr. Davies.”
As the children filed up the stairs, Ms. Shen said, “Mr. Davies can connect to our ether, SUGAR.”
“He can’t. He’s Luddeccean,” 6T9 said, and then hastily added, “They came to help.”
“Oh,” Shen said over the ether. “Wow. We’re friends with the Luddecceans now? That’s amazing. Sad that it took an invasion to heal that rift. Sad that he can’t connect, too.”
Shen showed none of the fear of Luddecceans that he’d seen aboard Time Gate 5. She wasn’t cringing at the sex ‘bots or calling Luddecceans etherless savages. She was calm and caring in a crisis, and considering she was commanding teens, probably had more leadership ability than he did. Surveying the square they were in, her presence was a gentle surge of electricity in his mind. This area was a mixture of working class and humans who subsisted entirely on the planet’s universal basic income. Although it was further down the canyon than the manufacturing district, its elevation was higher, and it was colder than the area he and Volka had visited. On top of some of the buildings, he spotted evergreen trees and some greenhouses, but light wasn’t piped down to street level. A cold breeze sent garbage wafting down gutters. There was no one in sight except a cat slinking along a wall to the west. It hissed, and Mao said, “The Infected are coming. We must get these people to cover fast!”
6T9 relayed the data to Davies, and the sergeant said, “I’ll put some ‘bots on guard.”
6T9 nodded, and said to the nearest of Shen’s charges, “Follow me.”
He took off at a jog across the street. First floor windows were narrow and covered by bars in this district, but the building he was approaching did have a wide entrance with wide doors and walls made of glass. Before he could be dismayed, he noticed rectangular shadows within the building. He blinked. The shadows were furniture stacked high as barricades. He strode over quickly and submitted to the iris scan at the front door. One of the large glass doors swung open, revealing a dresser that went to chest level … and the barrel of a pistol that had been standard issue in Fleet over twenty years ago. At the end of the pistol was a man in a cheap medical mask and goggles. “No one comes in or out who doesn’t live here.”
A mechanical voice scratched from behind the man. “It is Android General 1. He must be allowed in.” A battered security ‘bot rolled into view, older than the pistol.
6T9 held up his hands. “I came with Lieutenant Michael Snow. I have uninfected survivors.”
The man scowled at the kids. Behind 6T9, a sex ‘bot declared, “A human of legal age! Hello, Sailor!”
Mao meowed and spoke across the ether. 6T9 blinked at the cat and said aloud, “You’ve brought reinforcements?”
The eye at the other end of the barrel widened. “Reinforcements? The sex ‘bots?”
Mao hissed. “No, someone more useful.”
There was a shriek and a cry from behind 6T9. “That cat scared me!”
Before 6T9 could turn around, the cat he’d seen earlier leaped onto the dresser at 6T9’s left. The creature had ragged black fur, was missing a piece of an ear, and its tail was permanently broken, but muscles bunched beneath its rough coat. Another voice, colder and older sounding, came over the same channel used by Mao. “I am Eric Hoffer, you may call me Hoffer. I will be able to tell you, Mr. Suwardi, if someone attempting to enter is infected.”
The man at the end of the pistol shook his head as though trying to get a bug out of his ear. 6T9 immediately guessed the “bug” and the man’s name.
“Mr. Suwardi,” 6T9 said, and the man’s eyes widened. Definitely his name. “Answer the Unidentified caller,” 6T9 continued. “This cat is possessed by a member of The One, and it is here to assist you.”
Hoffer abruptly rose from his haunches, twisted in the direction he had come, and hissed, all the fur on his back rising. Mao yowled.
Ms. Shen and her pupils had gathered close behind 6T9, but over their heads and past Davies, 6T9 saw the faces of four children he recognized coming out of an alley between Suwardi’s building and the next, skipping toward them, faces vacant. His Q-comm flashed white. When his vision cleared, he had already pushed past the teens, and his pistol was raised. He’d shot the four infected children before Davies had even raised his rifle.
“They’re children!” shrieked Ms. Shen, pulling the girl she held closer to the building. “You shot children!”
They were children, a few that Volka hadn’t killed with phasers and the Luddecceans hadn’t managed to eradicate with their atom bomb on the pirates’ planet. They were more neatly dressed than when 6T9 had seen them last, but their faces were dirty … or maybe that was just the smoke from his phaser fire.
“They were infected,” 6T9 said, his voice cold and machine-like. Shooting them had been expedient.
“Monster!” Shen said. “You’re a monster!”
Suwardi suddenly had a change of heart. “Ma’am, come here,” he said urgently. 6T9 glanced behind him and saw that Suwardi and another human within the building were rapidly hauling Shen and her students inside.
From above someone shouted, “Murderer! Get out of here!”
He looked up and saw humans on the building’s balconies, holding bottles and lighters in their hands. His Q-comm sparked. They were Molotov cocktails ready to be lit.
“Eric Hoffer,” 6T9 called aloud. “Don’t let them touch the corpses.”
Golden eyes narrowed at him. “By any means necessary.”
“Get out of here!” someone else shouted from above. A bottle crashed between 6T9 and the bodies, it shattered, and flames rose up conveniently around the infected corpses.
“By any means necessary, Hoffer?” 6T9 whispered. Had the cat mind controlled the thrower? His Q-comm sparked. Eric Hoffer had been a stevedore who’d written The True Believer, the preeminent treatise on mass movements. Could the cat control the minds of masses?
“Absolutely,” the cat replied.
Static crawled beneath 6T9’s skin.
Another bottle landed among the dead. The door behind 6T9 slammed, and the ethernet channel between him and Shen went dark. Staring into the flames consuming the infected children, he didn’t feel the conflict that Volka had felt killing Infected, although his circuits were dark where once Shen had touched his mind.
6T9’s sensory receptors cooled, and a bitter chuckle rose in his throat. It was illogical to believe in Karma, but sometimes events had patterns. “We’re connected, Volka … but in a good way? A way that is enough?”
“Sir?” Davies said. Mao meeped.
Which was when 6T9 realized he’d spoken aloud. He needed a reboot, but all he said was, “Come on, let’s move.”
33
Reunion
Galactic Republic: Time Gate 1
Carl sat on Volka’s shoulders as she walked along Time Gate 1’s promenade, Alexis and her children just behind her. Volka had her hand loosely clasped around the werfle’s tail—for her security more than his.
Getting Alexis and her children through security had gone much easier than she had expected. Whoever had made the decision was far away, and she wasn’t sure of their motivation. They’d been waved out of the Fleet section of Time Gate 1. Now Volka’s eyes scanned Time Gate 1’s promenade. People were flowing around them, and the threads that made the universe were flowing after them, like the ribbons of a Maypole, but chaotic, random, and tightening around Volka. Trying to extricate herself from the threads would mean following them to their sources, and following them to their sources would mean hearing the thoughts of said sources. So Volka didn’t allow her brain to follow any threads except t
he threads between her and Alaric’s eldest son, Sam. Sam, unlike his little brother, understood that they were in the Republic, and it filled him with fear. Sam’s fear was better than the cacophony of the minds of thousands of strangers.
One of Sam’s thoughts fluttered to her. “Are robots reading my mind?”
Volka sighed. Not the robots, little one.
She tried to withdraw—and slipped into Alexis’s thoughts instead. The woman was furious, terrified, and determined. If Alaric thought he was going to leave her and their children, he had another think coming. Volka’s shoulders fell. Alaric would be furious if—when—he knew his wife’s doubts. It was an insult to his honor. The hair on the back of Volka’s neck prickled—she was insulted for him.
Sam gulped audibly, and his consciousness whooshed back into Volka’s skull. Sam knew the big word for what he thought his mother might be doing, defection, and it filled him with shame.
He was so small and such a beautiful child, so aware. Slowing, Volka’s hand rose—she almost touched him.
But then Carl’s voice reached into her mind. “Don’t. You’ll just upset Alexis.”
Volka fought the urge to growl. Silently, she argued, “Why would me trying to comfort him anger her? I saved her life. I’m trying to help her save her marriage. She has everything …” Her eyes slid over the beautiful little boys. “She has Alaric’s loyalty … she could be nicer.”
Carl sighed. “She wants more than his loyalty; she wants his love. She is still insecure in that … and his loyalty was questionable not so long ago.”
Volka’s cheeks burned. “We didn’t do anything wrong!” But they had been tempted. Her stomach fell. Sixty had been there and even apologized for getting in the way. Could Volka blame Sixty for being suspicious? One of her ears flopped sideways … though it was strange that Sixty was jealous, when that was a trait in humans he didn’t approve of.
If Sixty was jealous, was it any wonder Alexis was? Alexis was a good mother and a good friend to Silas. She was horribly cruel to Volka, but in her place, how kind would Volka be?
Carl quipped telepathically, “You wouldn’t be in her place because you would have had it out with Alaric years ago instead of burying your feelings and play acting the part of a wife.”
Solomon’s voice hissed into her mind. “Alexis’s ability to play act is what makes her so valuable to Alaric. I love him, but he is rubbish at it, just like your Volka.”
“Must you insult my pets?” Carl silently seethed.
“It’s not an insult; it’s a fact. Why must you always be so emotional?” Little Solomon replied.
Carl hissed in the real world, and his and Little Solomon’s thoughts winked away. Volka’s ears folded in shame. Carl was right. The gesture, no matter how well intentioned, wouldn’t be well received. She clasped her hands behind her back and tried to restrain her mind as well, but Sam’s thoughts were too desperate.
Sam wondered; would they see Uncle Silas again? Would they see Grandmother and Grandfather Darmadi? They already didn’t see the other grandparents—Mother said they’d gone away, but he’d heard Uncle Silas whisper that they’d committed treason. Sam didn’t mind that so much, as they’d never been very nice. But he liked Father’s parents and their farm. He liked Uncle Silas and his house, and he liked the Guardsmen who played ball with them on the lawn. Aloud, the little boy burst out, “Are we going to stay here?”
Volka almost said, “No,” to make the knot in his stomach disappear, but she realized she wasn’t sure if that was true. Alaric’s loyalty to Luddeccea wasn’t absolute. Or rather, his loyalty to Luddeccea was to what he believed was in Luddeccea’s best interests. If he felt he could serve Luddeccea’s best interests here, he would remain. She remembered Alaric’s comfort with James; he didn’t mind machines anymore. He’d been disabused of his notions about them as quickly as she had, maybe quicker. His mind moved so fast.
Alexis’s heels clicked on the floor. “We’re going to see your father.”
Volka’s stomach twisted at the evasion—Alexis didn’t want to lie to her children.
“An admirable quality.” Little Solomon purred.
Sam gulped.
Lucas, the younger child, stopped suddenly, drawing everyone to a halt with him. He pointed up at a holo hovering beside a shop. It featured a silly cartoon dog. A thought bubble popped into existence above the cartoon dog’s head, and then the holo thought bubble filled with dog butts. Laughing, Lucas shouted at the top of his lungs, “Dogs think about butts!”
Carl and Little Solomon both erupted in silent laughter. “It’s true!” Volka only kept Carl on her shoulder by holding onto his tail.
Dozens of people on the promenade stopped and stared. Alexis, Volka, and Sam sighed. Someone said or thought, “From the mouths of babes.” But not all thoughts were so nice.
“Three young children all at once—so irresponsible!”
A man muttered or thought, “Children should be rounded up, sent to boarding schools, and not allowed in public places.” Volka searched the crowd, trying to find the source, wanting to glare at the person.
“Lucas Darmadi,” Alexis admonished quietly. “We use our inside voice here.” At her words, the holo shimmered, making Volka blink up at it. A familiar form started to emerge in the glowing light, and her eyes widened.
“Yes, Mommy,” Lucas said.
“Errr …” Volka said, as another unfamiliar female form began to emerge in the hololight, body pressed to the first.
Pointing at the holo, Sam blurted, “Is that Daddy?”
Alexis straightened and spun to the holo.
“Yes!” shouted Lucas. “Why is he kissing that lady’s neck?”
It was Alaric—or a slightly too-perfect version of him—and in the holo, he was kissing the neck of a lady with long pink hair, elven ears, and swirling facial tattoos. She turned her heavily made-up face toward Alexis and Volka. “I’m holo-artist Star Darling. Do you want to see my passionate night with the Luddeccean Barbarian? Tune into my ether channel for this tale of forbidden love. Over two million views already! Have an avatar? Put it in my place and subdue the savage yourself!”
The crowd’s attention turned from Lucas to the holo.
Two women near them chuckled.
One said, “I am definitely subscribing to that!”
“I’m updating and inserting my avatar,” said the other.
“Gonna get a little insertion done?” said the first.
The second whispered over the ether, “We’re talking aloud.” They both giggled.
A man thought, “Women, always saying they want nice guys, but they really want to be dominated.”
Another thought, “If there isn’t a man-on-man version of that, I’m making one!”
The rest of the thoughts weren’t words, but they were pictures. Very. Intimate. Pictures. Blushing, Volka scrunched her eyes shut … and then the mental pictures were dissolved by a wave of hurt from Alexis.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded, sounding furious. But Volka knew the fury was a lie. She was afraid. She thought it was a trick.
“It’s not a trick,” Volka said. But she wasn’t sure what it was. She babbled. “I don’t know … It’s not my fault!”
Alexis wanted to go home. She wanted to run. This was too much.
“No,” Volka whispered, imagining going back through Fleet security … and then having to explain taking Alexis in the first place to the ambassador on Luddeccea and to the Luddeccean Guard. Her ears sagged in dismay. She was never going to try to save a marriage again. She’d failed … and might wind up in a Luddeccean prison.
“She was beautiful, and you want more of her,” Sinclair said to Alaric.
Alaric bit back a sigh. He couldn’t deny he’d loved flying the ship. The S301 Braunschweig had slid in and out of atmosphere like a lake ptery rose in and out of water, her time bands diverting all the friction of reentry and giving her incredibly smooth lift on exit. She didn’t have
Net-drive, but James had said that the Republic would have gate-less drives soon. Alaric did sigh. They’d have it sooner if he stayed, but … “If I were to stay, she wouldn’t be mine. Defectors don’t get to fly for Fleet.” He’d be a traitor. Fleet wouldn’t trust him—with good reason.
“But you wouldn’t have to fly for Fleet,” Sinclair said. “Plenty of commercial and scientific endeavors use those ships. You’ve proven yourself in combat and been in hostile first contact situations; that is what they would care about. The pay would be excellent. You’d do extremely well for yourself.”
Not combat … Science. Exploration. He’d see more of the stars than he ever would on Luddeccea. For a moment, he imagined it … and then he ruthlessly cast aside the aspiration. He could never do that to his family. His parents, brothers, and sisters would be fine, but Alexis? His boys? He wouldn’t bring that shame down on them on purpose.
“Alexis and your boys,” said Sinclair, as though reading his mind. He drew to a halt, tapped his temple, and met Alaric’s eyes. “They’re here.”
Alaric turned to him. “What?”
“They’re here,” Sinclair said, scanning the floor.
“Why?” Alaric asked, and then noticed a group of young women pointing in their direction and smiling. Not again.
Head bowed, eyes vacant, Sinclair said, “I don’t know.”
“Where?” Alaric demanded.
Sinclair’s head snapped up. “Last seen heading toward the hospital.”
Grabbing Sinclair’s arm as the gaggle of women approached, Alaric began dragging him in that direction as fast as he could walk, and then jog.
Sinclair must have noticed the fans at that moment, because he groaned. “Not again.”
Alaric’s breath was coming in short, shallow breaths, and he felt his lungs compressed by the scaffolding that was holding him together. His jaw clenched. “I can’t breathe in this girdle.”
