Letters to an Android

by Wendy Rathbone

  Liyan’s disarming and gentle nature was only partly why. The other factor was that Liyan treated him as if he were a true friend, a normal guy.

  That had never happened to him before.

  Their lengthy correspondence, and now this second meeting, had him utterly bewildered.

  For hours they talked. After dinner when they had loitered long, they ended up at Rory’s bar.

  They talked of Liyan’s friends, his job, and Cobalt asked him questions about all of it. They discussed everything from the philosophy of the sea-djinn of Sariha V that death was a cluster of infinite bloomings into infinite lives, to where in the galaxy one could get the best hot dog or pizza. Liyan insisted it was Starsher and Qutnoy, in that order.

  As the hours passed, they did not want to leave each other.

  But Cobalt could see Liyan was tired from his long flight and the excitement of them finally meeting again.

  “You must rest,” he insisted.

  They agreed to meet for a late breakfast.

  Cobalt slept well on the first night off he’d had in his lifetime.

  *

  7. Second Day

  Today Cobalt observed that Liyan did not dress in his uniform. He wore more casual jeans and a black renaissance shirt that billowed at the arms which he said he’d bought at a Doomsday celebration on Palenza, one of fifty orange and ochre moons orbiting the gas giant Zir.

  They walked along the star-wharf, past the import vendors and alien collectibles. Rockets rattled in the distance. The emerald dawn of the port’s false light lasted twelve hours. The moon only came at night, unlike on real worlds.

  Ionized air stung Cobalt’s nose.

  “I used to come here and walk when I’d studied all night and was too hyped to sleep,” Liyan said.

  “I came here once when my previous owner, Pela, visited her brother. But after I came to live with Pel, I’ve never left the hotel.”

  “Not once in all these years?”

  “Not once.”

  “I grew up on Xatar. It’s a farmworld.”

  “I know of it.” Cobalt said. They had not talked much about their childhoods, both real or programmed, in their correspondence. He was interested to hear more. In fact, anything about Liyan greatly interested him.

  He had his hands in his pockets. Liyan had mirrored him as they both sauntered, side by side, down the sidewalk.

  “My parents wanted to move on to Crim. I didn’t want to go. I had big dreams. They didn’t have the money to help me. So I was 18, on my own, and needed a job. This is where I ended up. I knew I couldn’t stay here forever, so I started taking classes with my eye on C&C.”

  “And because you’re pretty smart,” Cobalt said with a smile, “it all worked out.”

  “Yes, it all worked out.”

  The human’s grin came again, lighting up Cobalt’s insides.

  They had orange flavored ices as they stood at the end of a pier looking out at the marbled sky above and below them. The double force-field around the port flashed off and on like lightning.

  They had hot coffee at a little hut decorated with old true-Earth tikis.

  Liyan sipped as steam rose from his cup, and spoke softly. “I love my job, but ever since the bearded dragon incident I’ve had my share of anxiety. I never told anybody all the stuff I wrote you about it. Maybe I was too naïve when I first started the job to realize how…how big it all is.... Sometimes I dream of the void all around me and it can’t hear or see me. I’m utterly lost. As if I’ve taken a piece of it inside me.”

  “We are in it now, though,” Cobalt reasoned, “with only a force-field between us and instant frozen death. All that void.”

  “That’s not comforting.” But he laughed as he spoke.

  Cobalt continued his thought. “Foldspace has been mastered, but that doesn’t change the fact that the stars are vastly far apart from each other. No matter where you travel, it’s all the same… a great big nothingness.”

  “It feels different, though, when you live somewhere stable. Like here. Maybe it’s because this port is stationary,” Liyan said. “I didn’t know how to write this to you, but sometimes I’m very afraid. I don’t talk to anyone about it. All my friends in the crew say it happens to everyone. The usual anxiety of space travel. But I don’t like to acknowledge that. This job is my dream job. I can’t let anything like fear of space keep me from it. I don’t want my friends to know, either.”

  “You feel shame?”

  Slowly, he nodded.

  “You shouldn’t. Fear spurs us on. It’s an instinct for survival. Nothing else. If you act on it, you may find surges of brilliance that, in the moment, don’t seem extraordinary, but in hindsight you see they are. If you felt nothing, would you try as hard to solve a problem or escape a perilous situation?”

  “Embrace fear. That’s what you’re saying.”

  “Yes.”

  “What have you feared, Cobalt?”

  He glanced away but still sensed Liyan’s heavy gaze on him. “More than you would think.”

  “I’m sure just like everyone else you fear pain, loss, or being lost.” His head tilted.

  Cobalt let his gaze move over the steaming cups on the table and back to Liyan’s pensive face. “I do. It is the rare human who recognizes that, as you do. Most consider my emotions to be half-baked, rudimentary, or a part of programming that to them is not real and therefore invalid.”

  “Reality is in the eye of the beholder, a lot more subjective than most people think. Reality may appear to contain objective black and white issues. But I’ve learned that’s a pretty…or ugly…illusion these past few years. Travel does tend to expand the mind.”

  “Your mind was expanded before you left. You’re quite unique.”

  Liyan laughed. “As are you.”

  Cobalt liked to hear him say that.

  A little later, Liyan said, “Sekina, who is a scientist and desires accuracy, still doesn’t forget to ask, ‘What does your intuition tell you?’ She’s a very good teacher. ‘Follow your heart,’ she tells the newbies when they become confused or begin to panic. ‘You’ll get there’.”

  “Does she still have blue streaks in her hair?” Cobalt asked.

  “Something called plum right now. It catches the light.”

  “I like hearing about your friends.”

  “They’re all interesting, different. Even amidst human dramas they are good people. Loyal, too. Ship-board marriages are common.”

  “Yes, you told me of Lark and Tiri. And you? You have not written to me of lovers or similar such experiences.”

  To Cobalt’s delight, Liyan’s cheeks actually flushed. He said, “Since that horrible one time, no. I’m busy a lot. And Tiri stopped putting ‘Enchantment’ in people’s drinks after she was punished.”

  “Then you don’t…” He hesitated. It wasn’t really his business.

  Liyan shrugged. “I haven’t found interest in casual contact so far. And I’m young. I have lots of time to fall in love.”

  “You believe in love, then?”

  “What?” He frowned. “Yes! Of course I do. Don’t you?”

  His fingers caressed the edge of the table. “Sometimes. I don’t know.”

  “You’re young, too,” Liyan offered.

  Nodding, he scratched the table-edge with his fingernail. “In true-years the same as you. However, I have been adult for all of them. You were a child.”

  “Your memories…the ones they gave you…do they teach you of love?”

  “Caring for others, maybe. Not so much love. And not adult love.”

  “You didn’t love your first owner?”

  “Pela?” He winced. “She barely said any words to me in five years. She was anti-social and self-centered. She required nothing from me but my status as a symbol of immense wealth, which she thought gave her an identity. But I think I bored her as all her toys did. She would no more try to have a conver
sation with me than with a fiction story on the wave. I was her doll on the shelf.”

  “You didn’t…weren’t required to sleep with her?”

  “She was too neurotic to think like that. I don’t think she wanted anyone or any thing close to her. She rarely slept with her husband. Their marriage was a convenient stage play for them. She collected expensive toys, played games, saw movies, shopped and had parties. The parties were all show. She did them for attention saying all the right things. But none of it meant a thing to her. Later, before the coach crash, she began drinking to excess. Compared to her brother Pel, she was unhappy. Though she did not like me to respond, sometimes she would confide things to me. Once she told me she felt about as useless as a flower in a vase in a room no people entered.”

  “But Pel requires a lot of work from you?” Liyan asked.

  “I like to keep busy. It’s better than doing nothing.”

  Grinning, “I like my job, too.”

  Cobalt did not correct him. He didn’t say he liked his job. Some of the things he did he hated. Some he enjoyed.

  But this time spent with Liyan was the best time of his life.

  8. Third Day

  “The towers were steepled like rockets. The city looked as if it would shoot up into the sky at a moment’s notice. It was a cluster of needles stabbing at clouds.” Liyan had described Fellar to Cobalt over breakfast the final morning. Fellar had been his last stopover, where he’d caught a shuttle to the spaceport.

  As beautiful as Fellar’s goldenrod skylights were, he had not wanted to stay. He’d rushed for the first flight out to see Cobalt. He had not even taken the time to say good-bye to his friends.

  Every moment with Cobalt these last two days brought an exhilaration of energy. His skin had been hot for two days. His conversations with the android spun like fever-dreams of intense, persistent pleasure.

  No one in his life had ever listened to him with such devotion. He often thought he was talking too much, not asking Cobalt enough questions in return, but Cobalt kept up the interviews until they were both dizzy, hungry, tired, collapsing from too much fun and maybe too much wine.

  There were many moments his heart almost lurched from his chest; once, when Cobalt said, “You are my ticket away from here. I travel with you.”

  The worst time came when he had to leave, his job and his star-faring soul calling to him. Cobalt accompanied him to the shuttle lobby, lips curving up wistfully but lavender eyes grim.

  He did not ask, nor did he hesitate as he had when meeting Cobalt again after two long years in space. He simply reached out and hugged him, breathing in the android’s soapy, ever-clean scent. He felt a tremble in the limbs.

  “You’re shaking,” he said.

  Cobalt’s warm, smooth cheek rested against his for almost a second. Matched in height, they came together gracefully. Cobalt’s chest rose against his, a tremor in the breath. The android whispered, “Liyan, maybe I won’t see you ever again.”

  “Don’t think like that.” He had to force himself to step back and grin. “I plan on having my own ship by the time I’m 30. Then I can come here whenever I like…ur, uh, well, within reason.”

  The flutter of Cobalt’s laugh came laced with grief. “I know you will get everything you hope for and more.”

  He winced. “How do you know that?”

  “I just do.”

  Liyan caught his lower lip between his teeth. “You’re one of a kind, Cobalt. Never let anyone lead you to think otherwise.” As if the hug had not been enough, Liyan reached out and clasped the slender shoulder. “I have to run. I will wave you.”

  Then he turned and hurried through the glass doors before the android could see how the warmth in his eyes stung in more than normal moisture.

  The shuttle waited in a pool of auburn light.

  *

  As Cobalt walked through green air and hurrying humans toward the Grand Aurora Hotel, his chest ached. He thought: I can let you go because it is how I will survive.

  But his hands formed fists as he made his way down the sidewalk, his head bowed low.

  Part Three

  9. The Swan Boats of Davenda

  Earlier in the evening, Cobalt had said to Pel, “I don’t like him. I certainly don’t want to go with him to some party at the penthouse.”

  “You don’t have to like him. The money is good. That’s what matters.” Pel had not inherited his sister’s wealth when she died and he resented it. Most had been her husband’s to begin with. There had been a pre-nup. Pel had his own wealth but it was never enough. He did not own the hotel outright. He had four partners. He always looked to Cobalt to bring in high figures of personal extra cash from specific, wealthy clients.

  “But last time he hurt me.”

  Pel looked up frowning. “You never complained.”

  “I…”

  “I’ll make it clear to him. A heavy fine if you are damaged. Will that suffice?”

  “The money means nothing to him.”

  “Let me put it this way,” Pel said. “You do this favor and I will let you see your friend whenever he comes in to port. If you don’t, my generosity may waver.”

  It took him only seconds to say yes. But he must’ve shown some hesitation, because Pel, who was not really a bad man, said, “I’ll speak to the client and make sure he understands the rules. He should not hurt you.”

  Cobalt nodded and went back to work.

  When he retired to his room in the middle of the night, a present was waiting for him on his computer.

  *

  Dear Cobalt:

  I’ll set the scene: Under a moonstone sky, picnicking on the copper sands of Seventh Lake and letting the light soak our bodies, skin like sponges in the pools of bronze warmth, all hazy and no clouds and lots of wine. That is what I remember, that and the lake that smelled of distant thunderstorms with its scintillating flashes of liquid amber.

  Oh yes, and the huge swanboats, black on gold, parting the lake surface in clean silence. A dozen of them at least. And they were alive! Humungous trained birds bridled and waiting. You climb aboard and literally sit in cushioned down, the black feathers rising up around you as they paddle out on the gleaming water in a gentle glide.

  The softness of their backs. The sweetness of the water as it mists up and you breathe the candied air.

  Tiri was up front steering with the silver lamé reins…always wanting to take charge. Lark leaned back toward the tail. With my eyes closed, rocking, I could feel him looking at me before he said, “What’s wrong with you?”

  “What?” My eyes shot open. The tricks of the light and mist against my face made him look as if he had two heads. I smiled and said, “I think I read a poem like this scene…once when I was a kid.”

  His two heads shook. “We gotta get you laid,” was his only response.

  I realized the mist was not from the lake. Tears had been trailing my cheeks.

  Ever since I was a kid I get this way when I’m happy or extremely moved.

  I expected Lark to tease me as others have because my eyes too easily tear up at the oddest moments. He didn’t.

  I swiped the back of my hand across my cheeks and stared up at the shining sky, grinning.

  My very next thought was how to describe all this to you.

  I once took a poetry class when I was 14. I managed trite haiku. My teacher said, “Let your mind sink, drown in the view, the feeling, the story. When you come up for air, gasp out the first words that come to your mind even if they are nonsense.”

  The advice was about accessing the subconscious mind. You can’t force it or control it, but you can help it speak if you just let go.

  When my shuttle stretched into the tarnished skies of the spaceport, leaving you behind, I let myself sink.

  Good advice, because I hated leaving you.

  I know you know that.

  So, there’s that.

  But the problem
is I haven’t come up for air yet.

  While composing this, I’ve already gotten up, walked around my room five times touching things, my walls, my comb, my bedspread.

  Sometimes I speak aloud in my waves to you. But this one I spelled with my fingers, a silent tapping.

  I feel filled up with the springy air of Davenda.

  I will be 23 next month.

  Cobalt, do you have a birth day?

  Your friend,

  Liyan

  *

  Dear Liyan:

  I do the silent tapping, too. I don’t like to speak my waves. It doesn’t feel right.

  Your words made me feel the soft glide of the swans, and smell the amber lake. I saw that translucent, moonstone sky.

  How very welcome, the relaxation of your words.

  I cannot report anything so astonishing from my own life. You know the port too well from living here. How many ways can one describe a toxic green sky in manufactured light because we have no sun? I deal with glittery, spoiled humans all day long, tourists who have not come here to gawk, but are only stopping on their way to somewhere else. They are always bored, except for the very young who are refreshingly content with swimming pools and free mints.

  Adults require more attention and entertainments. You would think it would be the other way around, but not here in the life of the hotel.

  I would like to tell you that Pel has made a promise to me, knowing how I valued our two days together, that I may see you any chance you get to come back here for a visit.

  That is nice to know. He could have forbidden it. Then I might be forced into thinking of how to break android law, which of course my programming will not allow. Luckily I did not have to test that programming. We made a deal.