Letters To An Android
by
Wendy Rathbone
Letters To An Android
Copyright © 2014 by Wendy Rathbone and Eye Scry Publications
www.eyescry.com/html/publications.htm
ISBN: 978-0-9896938-7-5
TITLE: Letters To An Android
Author: Wendy Rathbone
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Description: Cobalt is a created human, vat grown and born adult, with no human rights and indentured to serve others for the duration of his life. Liyan is a young man with wanderlust in his eyes, embarking on a career that takes him to the furthest regions of space. The two become unlikely friends and create a memorable long-distance correspondence. Through Liyan, Cobalt gets to explore the universe, living vicariously through his friend’s wave transmissions. A strong bond develops between them that not even the stars can put asunder.
Length: 66,500 words
Piracy ruins lives.
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For Della
Letters to an Android
by
Wendy Rathbone
_____________________
(Warning: this novel contains starboats, spacesickness, poisonous green skies, emotional androids and haiku)
Part One
1. Liyan
Liyan had just finished repairs on a coupling unit in the spaceport’s huge workshop. A job well done. He threw off his work gloves for the last time and did not look back.
He went outside to breathe the ion-laced air of the tarmac, and looked up at the dark green, force-field encased sky and the space tunnel where a line of hovering round-ships waited for orders to set down. Laser repair lights winked scarlet on the landing field. A rare rocket stretched its white fume into the emerald atmosphere. It would create its own tunnel to escape the force-field without an atmospheric breach. What they were testing with it he had no idea. Nor did he care. This was his last day of work here.
Earlier in the week he’d gotten his flight posting. The one he’d dreamed of and worked toward, attending school 25 hours a week as well as holding down a first level mechanic’s job.
At age 20, he would be entering the world of C&C Starlines at full ensign ranking. He’d gotten the go-ahead seven days ago. Barely enough time to give notice to his landlord and pack his small room and the few personal items he wanted to take with him.
Adrenalin rushed through him. He gasped a deep breath of the ashy air and realized he was grinning. A co-worker clanked by him in a black-scarred, bulky silver protective suit. The helmet made a square silhouette against the backdrop of the river-hued sky. Evan looked like some old fashioned robot from the cover of an ancient Earth magazine about aliens and metal men. Evan said, voice muffled from the helmet, “We’re gonna miss you around here.”
Liyan wasn’t going to miss any of this. But he said, “Thanks. Me, too.”
“Come by the Aurora later.” He sounded like he was speaking around a wad of tissue from an echo chamber. “We’re all going to Rory’s. We’ll buy your drinks.”
The Grand Aurora was the port’s only five-star hotel with the biggest and most popular bar called Rory’s Bar.
Liyan said, “I’m staying there until tomorrow when we get shuttled to the starport. My apartment’s already rented to someone else.”
“Good, then we’ll see you at Rory’s!” Evan clomped across the threshold and disappeared inside the workshop.
*
Even the cheapest room at the Aurora dripped luxury. Silk and damask. Real oak furniture. Satin comforters and tapestried walls.
For a few minutes, Liyan rolled on the bed in soft euphoria. A crystal chandelier sang its refracted violetpinkgold essence into his brain. He smelled a fine mist on the air, something like spice and fresh grass and a kind of creamy soap used only in bubble baths. He actually intended to have one of those. But later.
Now, he got up and changed into more trendy clothing: a furnace blue button up shirt and black trousers with low-heeled, newly polished work boots. He would have a uniform at his new job, but tonight he could still choose his own colors. He combed his smooth brown hair which was a bit long to the shoulders now. He figured C&C would take care of any hair style they required from him, so he hadn’t rushed for a haircut.
When he felt presentable enough, he grabbed his key and moneycard and headed for the bar.
His friends greeted him with high enthusiasm. Liyan smiled until his cheeks ached.
Beer. Whiskey. Expensive wine. His friends offered him anything he wanted. Such good men and women. They had been fine co-workers, but he hadn’t gotten close to any of them. His schooling and his dreaming got in the way of any social life. But they were still generous and they all clapped him on the back as if he were some hero going off to save the universe.
In fact, he was going further than most of them ever hoped to get in a lifetime.
The bar-light was warm and gold. The drinks weren’t as watered as usual and packed a punch.
Not wanting to be hung-over on the shuttle ride the next day, Liyan slowed his drinking pace. He wandered away from the crowd toward the shadows by the end of the long, curving counter, and asked the young man making tall, fizzing concoctions of something purple and glittery for a glass of water.
The man turned, slim and graceful, hair the hue of Technicolor seas on old ‘wave’ programs about true-Earth when it still supported life. He had to have been supremely distracted not to have noticed this man until now. His face had such a fine-tuned edge to it, angled and curved in just the right places, the eyes wide and down-turned enough to be coy but still masculine. Even more shocking, perhaps: the irises were the same shade as the violet fizzing drinks he’d been preparing.
The man placed a glass of ice water in front of him. Liyan hadn’t meant to stare, but the man didn’t appear to mind. The bartender asked, voice a low tremor on the air, “Is the celebration going on over there for you?”
“I’m leaving tomorrow, a job on a ship with C&C Starlines.”
“I see. New realms. New experiences. A new life.”
“That’s about right.”
“Then I, too, would like to wish you all fortune in your travels.”
Liyan blinked, oddly pleased though this man was a stranger. “Thank you.”
“Where to, first, if I may ask?”
Before Liyan could answer, a waiter came to pick up the three purple drinks. Soon they were alone again. Liyan had completely forgotten his friends. He said, “When the crew are settled and the ship readied, I’m told the first destination is Fair-Orb.”
He nodded, his eyes going from mauve to gray in his neat attention. “That far. You’ll be a true star-man, then.”
“Technically, yes. I passed the tests in the top fifth percentile in nav. I’ll be going on the long-hauls
.” Most people didn’t pass them at all, not their first time or their tenth.
“Impressive,” the bartender said.
“For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted this. It’s been all work and no play for me.” He sighed, finally remembering his friends, looking over his shoulder. They hadn’t missed him yet. They were all occupied with their drinks and their jokes.
“They say on Fair-Orb the stars meet the sea,” the bartender said.
Liyan raised his eyebrows at such a beautiful but true statement. “It is made of mostly water.”
“And at night the towers that jut out of the sea look suspended in space. You truly cannot tell where the seas end and the stars begin. Alas, I will never see it.”
Liyan lifted his glass and took a sip of the cold, plain water. It cooled him, but the heat of excitement did not wane. He set the glass down and held out his hand. “My name is Liyan.”
The man raised his hand to meet his palm to palm. “Cobalt. I am at your service.”
“At my…?” It was a confusing line, one Liyan had not heard before.
“Perhaps I should explain. I will never see Fair-Orb in my lifetime. I am locked into my work contract here. Forever.”
“Work contract?” Liyan frowned. “Oh. I didn’t realize…you’re an android?”
“It is a compliment that it was not obvious to you.”
“I thought you were a really pretty…human.” He chuckled. “That’s all.”
“Thank you,” the android said. “Of course now that you know this fact about me, you know I have no rights. Despite the longing in my thoughts.” His full, pink lips curved into a tiny smile. “I can only travel in other people’s stories. And I travel in my dreams.”
Liyan did know that androids had no human rights. But he knew little else. “You dream?”
“Of course. All beings dream.”
Liyan said, “I’ve always been taught that androids are machines and that it’s wrong to think they aren’t. But I know you have organic components.”
“Yes, all my components are organic.”
“So you’re just like…like a person.”
“I am.”
“It’s sad, then.”
“What is?”
“That you can’t leave.” Liyan looked at the purple eyes and blue hair of his bartender. The skin of the face was such a perfect, smooth bronze. He should’ve guessed. But he’d never met anyone like him before. All he knew was that androids were bought and owned by the extremely wealthy who were the only ones who could afford them. So why was this one working at the Grand Aurora? “The hotel bought you to tend bar?”
“I do whatever is required. All jobs here. The owner inherited me five years ago.”
“Oh.” Liyan watched as a drink order came in and Cobalt began preparing it. The android had not dismissed him, so he waited. It seemed such a waste, someone with the capacity of Cobalt in mind and body mixing beverages in a hotel bar. Android brains were grown for obedience and brilliance. He would’ve passed the C&C company tests in the first percentile.
When Cobalt turned his attention back to him, Liyan said, “I have an idea.”
Cobalt shifted his head in question.
“Maybe you can’t leave here, but I could write you on the wave. Tell you firsthand of my adventures.”
The android managed to look authentically wistful. “I would like that.”
“You’re thinking maybe I’ll forget as soon as I leave here, but I won’t. I will write to you. I promise.”
Cobalt said, “I’ll be waiting to hear from you, then.”
Liyan watched the long, perfect fingers of the android drum the countertop as if in human anticipation.
“Do I wave you here at the hotel?”
“Yes. My name is my address on the hotel’s system.”
“Cobalt,” Liyan said. “I won’t forget it.”
2. Cobalt
Cobalt waited two weeks and heard nothing from Liyan. He did not expect any correspondence, but he had hoped for it. Just a little. As much as he allowed himself any hope in his life of menial servitude.
Sometimes he looked toward the green-storm harbors of the shipyards, watching the agate skies roil and roll in the vapors the ships left in their wakes and he would recall his conversation with Liyan verbatim. He would remember the young man’s hands, how they trembled against the water glass in excitement and maybe even a little anxiety. He would remember the exact shade of his hair, autumn-leaf brown, and how deep that youthful, brown-eyed stare.
It made him content to know Liyan was out there somewhere beyond the port, moving into the enchanting embrace of other worlds and beyond, into the darkrush of driftless void.
He really didn’t expect Liyan to ever keep his promise. But if he did, Cobalt wondered what he would do if he received a wave. Should he respond? What did he have to say, to give? His life consisted of work. He wanted beauty, too, but he had never really found it. Was there any point in describing the fine suits he wore when he was concierge, or how deftly less-than-gentle men took them off him when they rented him from his owner for a night?
And what about his owner? An old man who couldn’t care less about him except that he earned. Cobalt did everything he was told. A letter attesting to that seemed, to him, a very boring one indeed.
Sometimes, when he tried to see the stars through the oily gaseous skies of the port, he actually hoped Liyan would not write, that he would stay away and never look back. Just go. Go.
It was what he wanted to do himself. He could only imagine it. But now he had a face to put to his imaginings. He could live vicariously through Liyan.
*
One particularly unfortunate and annoying night, as Cobalt bathed in a lilac-scented tub and attended to handprint-shaped bruising on his thighs, he heard his wavescreen chirp.
His wavescreen only did that when his owner wanted him for a job. But he’d done his job for the evening. He’d been given the rest of the night off to repair and sleep.
What, then, could this be?
Slowly, he rose from the tub. He dripped onto the bathroom rug, delicately drying his sensitive skin, then put on a robe and went to see what it was.
The amber light blinked: Message. Message.
He lit the screen and read the odd address. Unfamiliar. His heart twitched in his chest.
He reached out, hesitant at first, and touched the address.
The message appeared.
Dear Cobalt:
I have not forgotten you. Not for one moment. I even hope you might have missed me. I don’t mean to be cruel in saying that, only hopeful because we have only met once and I think I am presuming far too much. I may have passed C&C requirements at the top of my class, but I’m still a bit remedial in social interaction. But I made a promise to you. And I want to keep it.
Also, you made an impression on me. I can’t forget your face. I think I miss you more than the friends I worked with for two years. Isn’t that strange?
And now I want to erase that last paragraph. But I won’t. I am very young compared to a lot of my ship-mates, so I think you should allow me to be a bit dumb.
I want to tell you where I am. And I want to make it good for you. You might be able to see a picture on the wave, but it’s still not the same as being here.
The starport for the liner, and other stop-over ships, is a giant cube with fifty floors. Inside that cube everything is uniform, the rooms and offices square and all the same. It isn’t much to speak of. But looking at the port from outside is like looking at a black metal square window floating against the immortal dark. It’s a blank, dark page in space waiting for words. And there are starships in the margins. They hang there as if doodled by some insane, giant hand.
In every distance are tiny swarms of stars.
I hope these words help you see what I see.
The starliner is almost ready. I am well.
Your friend
,
Liyan
Cobalt let the milky light of the wave bathe his face as he read it a second time. And a third.
This was a first for him. Never before had he received a wave from anyone who did not want something from him, but only wanted to give.
He touched ‘reply’ though he had no idea what to say in return. He began slowly.
Dear Liyan:
From my room in the Grand Aurora I sit and read your words. They give me a unique vision that I greatly welcome. I will take that vision with me to my work.
Now when I look at the green-marbled skies of this port I will not be as sad.
And I will keep seeing your starships in the margins.
You fulfilled your promise to me. I thank you.
Your friend,
Cobalt
He brushed the ‘send’ light with the tip of his forefinger.
When he went to bed, he’d forgotten all about his pain.
*
The next night he saw another wave message light flashing in his room.
Dear Cobalt:
We leave tomorrow. While in foldspace there will be no waves. Navigation in this instance is always unpredictable. It could be days or weeks before I can respond.
In the meantime, I wanted to say I had no idea you were sad. But of course this is my oversight. You are trapped at the Grand Aurora for your lifespan which, in the research I have done on androids since I met you, appears to be quite long. The unpleasantness of your situation affects me. I wish I could do something to help. Instead, I will write you when I can. I will tell you of my journeys. That I can do.
I am packed and ready to leave. My uniform is stark white trimmed with black ribbing. There is an optional hat, like a flat cap. I refuse to wear it. My boots are black. The C&C logo is embossed on their sides, the Pegasus image a silver brand we wear there and on the cuffs of our shirts.
Letters to an Android Page 1
