Letters to an Android

by Wendy Rathbone

  Cobalt held up his hand. “I have no rights. My heart is not for sale, nor is it free.”

  Dark eyebrows narrowed, Liyan nodded. Then he leaned forward, elbow on the table, and rubbed between his eyes. “I know. Believe me. I know that. I didn’t think before I asked.”

  Cobalt didn’t like making Liyan uncomfortable in any way. “You can always ask me anything. What is between us, I think, allows for that.”

  “I’m just sorry it has to be this way. It’s not right.” He looked up, the brown eyes soft, so alive. “Your intelligence, your attention to detail and observation; you’d be brilliant in space. If only…”

  Now Cobalt leaned forward. “That’s why I value the waves. I go with you. Everywhere you go. And you describe it all and then I am alive and traveling with you. In your way, you have done more for me than anyone ever could. You have freed me.”

  All of a sudden, Liyan’s gaze fogged over. He forced a smile. “But I want to take you with me.” He stood, tossed his head as if to shake away the platitude, tense and swaying a little. “Are we done?”

  “Yes, of course.” They had wine left, but they’d already had plenty.

  Liyan flipped a money card from his pocket.

  “I’ll pay for this one,” Cobalt insisted, looking at his friend who seemed so distracted now.

  “Sure. I’ll be on the boardwalk.”

  Cobalt watched as Liyan, regal in his whites, exited the restaurant.

  When he met him outside, Liyan was staring at the rusty, flashing sky, leaning against the guardrail at the edge of the asteroid itself where the green ceiling plummeted not only to the horizon, but beneath them as well. The ancient explorer Columbus was not needed to disprove anything here: their world was flat, tapered to a rock root bottom and free-floating in space.

  Frayed and mildewed light outlined the human’s form. A few people walked by now and again as false dusk approached.

  Cobalt came up alongside him and watched the play of electric force-field flashes.

  Liyan wiped a hand across his eyes. Cobalt had never seen him do that before. But he’d read about the times Liyan said he was overwhelmed, sad or even happy, and he might start to cry too easily, a trait within him which he self-deprecated, especially when discussing his future dream. Once he’d written, “I’m still such a baby. It must be somewhere in the fine print when applying for the job, a prerequisite: starliner captains don’t cry. I tell myself, ‘Grow up, Liyan. Now’.”

  He chuckled now, still embarrassed, still wiping. “I want to take you with me.”

  “Well, you can’t.”

  He nodded and kept staring, cheeks shining.

  A warmth pulsed in Cobalt’s chest. He put his hand flat against the middle of Liyan’s back. Liyan leaned into the touch.

  *

  12. Under the Stars

  “I’m so impressed,” Liyan was saying, holding the pocket screen in his lap.

  They’d commandeered a couch in the lobby of the Grand Aurora. It was busier in the foyer, and by the elevators, but the lobby was always a peaceful place. So said Cobalt.

  Liyan was still trying to get over his emotional outburst, which was really minor, of course, but he’d not wanted to deal with it at all. He’d switched subjects on their walk to the hotel twenty times.

  Once they sat, Liyan had decided to broach the subject of poetry again. He said,“I know you write stuff you never show me. I want to see it all.”

  Cobalt replied, “I can send you all my files. You merely have to ask.”

  “On the wave. Hmm. Yes. But I want to see some now.”

  Cobalt had on him a pocket screen he worked with every day. He could access his personal files from it. He did so and handed it to Liyan.

  Now they were discussing:

  a thousand hollow heartbeats

  my life in secret

  listening

  “You are an observer of life, but apart,” Liyan indicated. “It makes sense coming from your predicament. But humans feel the exact same way. They are more privileged, yes, but they still have those feelings.”

  “Yes.”

  Liyan looked at him thoughtfully. “Ah, but then also there’s your secret life.”

  Cobalt smiled. “If indeed the poem is even about me.”

  “Who else would it be about except the author?”

  “Well…”

  Liyan went on. “In your secret life you’re listening. But you also have a life of your own. It’s a secret, but it’s real.”

  Cobalt rested his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. “It’s a three-line poem, Liyan. That is all.”

  “No. It’s endless depths of lines. And you know it.”

  “Then you would say the poem is successful.”

  “I’m not a literature expert. But to me it is very successful.”

  “Good. Because I wrote it for you.”

  Liyan sat back. “You listen to my waves. You memorize my waves. I’m glad. You can travel with me any day.”

  It was their spoken and unspoken understanding.

  Cobalt lived vicariously through Liyan.

  At dinner they’d been talking more about Liyan. Liyan had emotionally collapsed a bit. This was better. Now they were talking about Cobalt. To Liyan’s delight. Cobalt was taking it all quite well. Did anyone ever give this man attention? he wondered. No. Only me.

  Merely enjoying each other’s presence, they lost track of time.

  Finally, Liyan could not suppress the yawns. “I can’t stay awake much longer. Meet me for breakfast.” He did not voice it in a question.

  When he fell asleep that night in the luxurious cottons and silks of the suite he’d rented at the Grand Aurora Hotel, where dark green light leaked around the edges of velvet drapes decorating the alabaster walls with underwater sea-haze shadows, he heard his own thoughts slur. They were saying, “You can’t fall in love with him. You’d always leave him behind.”

  But he dreamed over and over of salt on his face, of Cobalt’s warm hand brushing the center of his back.

  *

  The next day they went to the one college campus on the port and sat in the planetarium to see stars as the constellations they were once viewed from planet Earth when true-Earth existed.

  “I never knew such a place to exist here on the port. I never visited the college,” Cobalt said.

  “I brought you so you can be surrounded by stars. For a little while at least,” Liyan explained.

  When the show was over, Cobalt said, “I don’t want to leave.”

  Liyan leaned back, pleased with himself for this choice of entertainment for the day. “Let’s just stay on for the next show, then.”

  “Don’t you get enough of this in your job?”

  Liyan laughed. “I work in a closed room half the time. I practically dream in numbers, formulas. On the bridge, mostly what we see on the viewports is blackness on top of blackness.”

  “And the occasional bearded dragon.”

  “Very occasionally!” He laughed. “I’ve never told anyone but you the whole story of that.”

  “You were space sick. No one would think it too odd since foldspace itself is still a vast mystery.”

  “Well, in any case, I keep the dream details of the event to myself.”

  “Afraid they’ll take away your pin of valor if they discover you talk to space-dragons?”

  “Hell, yeah.” He grinned. Who would’ve thought his closest confidant would end up being an indentured android stuck on an island asteroid, a created human with such a great capacity of insight into a humanity forbidden to him. It never ceased to amaze Liyan.

  They watched as stars sparkled overhead again, and were taken up in a swirl of light and an almost bored narrator’s voice.

  When they exited they were both hungry. They ended up at another boardwalk cafe decorated with orange lanterns and fake falls of trumpet flowers. Their waiter was grumpy, the wine s
our. Neither noticed.

  The afternoon was special for them both marred only once by a strange encounter.

  As they left the café to walk back toward the center of town where the hotel imposed upon the tarnished sky, an older man with black hair pulled tightly back and an intense, cool gaze came up short in front of them.

  At first Liyan thought he’d been distracted by something and just didn’t see them, or perhaps he was looking for directions from them.

  But the man’s strange frown was directed entirely at Cobalt, and when Liyan saw the android’s face tighten, the jaw lightly twitch, the throat flex, he realized his friend was having an emotional reaction.

  That Cobalt knew this man was confirmed when the stranger said, “Cobalt, when did Pel let you out of your cage?” The tone could only be defined: unfriendly.

  Stunned, Liyan opened his mouth to tell the guy to ‘fuck off’ (exact words and posture picked up from none other than the protective but imposing personality of Lark) but nothing came out.

  “Hello, Juneau.” Cobalt’s voice came out stiff, formal.

  “As you can see, I’m in town again and I’ve just been to see Pel about you. He said you were busy tonight. Now I know why.” His crisp eyes flicked to Liyan. Suspicious. Maybe even…jealous?

  Liyan stepped forward, figuring it would be better not to behave defensively. “Hello, I’m Liyan.”

  Juneau did not extend a greeting hand. He barely acknowledged him, except to say as if in passing, “He’s a fine one for his kind, isn’t he?”

  Liyan did not know how to answer. Yes, Cobalt was fine. A fine friend and a fine man. “His kind?” he finally said. But he knew. The man meant androids and it was a typical snobbish reaction to these toys of the ultimately rich, despite the fact that when it all came down to science, they were completely human.

  The man shrugged. “Ah, one of those?”

  The unspoken term was ‘sympathizer’. Not a bad word in public opinion, but androids were so rare there was yet no organized militancy one way or the other about their rights. They simply were created to specification, then sold. And very expensive.

  And the myths about them infused a belief that they were, in fact, less than human.

  Liyan shook his head in confusion. Before he could say anything else, the man said, “I leave in the morning. But I’ll be back next month. See you then.”

  He did not wait for a response. He moved away in his impeccable suit and soft shoes and rude air.

  Out the corner of his eye, Liyan saw that Cobalt had become suddenly stiff, cool.

  Liyan forced a smile. “Well, he didn’t seem like a real nice guy. One of the hotel regulars?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he didn’t have to be such an ass.”

  Cobalt swallowed hard, then turned to look at Liyan. “Yeah, he is that, isn’t he?”

  “Definitely. And why would he talk to Pel about you? That’s presumptuous.”

  “That’s one way to define him.”

  “You’ve never written of him.”

  “He’s not worth the words.”

  Liyan did not want to broach the subject further. But he could intuit there was a lot more between Juneau and Cobalt than mere ‘hotel guest’. But he had to ask, “Pel’s not looking to sell you off, is he?”

  Cobalt reached out and touched him on the forearm. “No worries, okay? I’d tell you if I was leaving.”

  “I know.”

  But a discomfort grew in Liyan’s stomach, a wave of heavy despondency for his friend.

  Later, he thought about going to Pel. He’d never met him, and he wondered what he might say. “Look out for my friend.” “I know you own him but you can do right by him.” “Oh, and by the way, could you keep that asshole Juneau away from him?”

  In the end he didn’t do it. But that didn’t mean next time he visited he wouldn’t be so timid.

  *

  13. Departure

  He decided the word for his behavior was babbling. Nerves, he guessed. And a strange, abject grief.

  Breakfast. Pancakes. Steaming coffee in the hotel restaurant. Then another stroll under steaming, waste-colored spaceport skies.

  Liyan talked (babbled) to fill the silence, to fill the air between them, and the infinity of space in his heart. He spoke again of the swan-boats. Foldspace. New theories in navigation not knowing if Cobalt even understood. He reiterated what he’d already said in his waves over the many years. To his credit, Cobalt patiently listened to it all.

  In truth, he did not want to let go of these past two days. He didn’t want to face the shuttleport, the tarmac, or the journey alone back to space.

  But too soon there they were, standing before the double doors looking out over the field of blinking lasers, heat exhaust like ash against the moldy air, the old workshops where he used to wear heavy helmets, grubby overalls, and clanked around in safesuits for working on the stardrives.

  He watched Cobalt’s face intently now, the android’s sweet smile. “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “You won’t,” Cobalt replied, and his blue hair reflected peacock hues in the seasick light. “I am with you in the waves we send. It’s our way.”

  “Our way,” Liyan echoed.

  “It makes our friendship even more special.”

  “You’re an optimist,” he accused.

  “I can’t be any other way.”

  Liyan decided it was true. A survival instinct. If Cobalt only saw the worst in a galaxy where he could not be free, how could he endure? For his own mental health he needed to see the best in life, focus on scenes of minor hopes one step at a time.

  Liyan shrugged, then reached out and pulled him into a tight embrace. Cobalt smelled of all things desperate and longing, of cool flame and indolent hunger. An effortless breeze of ignited suns. He was summer in the northland where Liyan had grown up, where you looked at your submerged reflection in warm bays of saltwater while the inland farms basked in dry stillness and butterflies.

  He remembered the silver hints of autumn around the edges of the air, the desolate structure of incoming night when everything stilled and stars lit and spilled their ash upon his skin. Cobalt was like that. In this moment. In this segment of his experience having visited dozens of worlds in billion light-year distances. The most beautiful memory of them all. Now.

  Who could he write to about this?

  Liyan’s body wanted to smother and drown in that essence.

  Their cheeks pressed, smooth skin, strong jaws. Cobalt’s hair against his forehead felt like feathers. He breathed. And breathed again.

  Kept him in his chest and, finally, turned away.

  “I don’t know when,” he whispered, “but I’ll be coming back here again and again. Whenever I can.”

  “Okay,” was Cobalt’s only reply.

  He began the lonely walk to his plush and cushioned, first-class seat on the next departing shuttle.

  *

  Dear Cobalt:

  One day apart and I already miss you. I have made it safely back to the starliner just in time to depart for regions far-away and grand.

  The glitch in the air system was easily repaired at spacedock.

  We enter foldspace tomorrow and take on passengers at Ursula. Nothing much there but teeming cities and hot air.

  Sekina was first to greet me with a kiss to the cheek. She often holds herself back from affection, an insightful but inwardly focused person. But tonight she was so open, and she asked first thing about you. “Tell me about Cobalt and how he is. Tell me more about your relationship. An android is so unique! They should not be slaves but kings.”

  I couldn’t believe her words. So we went for a drink in the lounge even though I was exhausted, where Tiri and Lark, coming off-duty, later met us.

  I am fortunate to have such wonderful friends. Including you, Cobalt.

  Now I’m sitting in bed silently writing this.

 
My mind pushes me to write on and on, pages and pages of mere nothingness just because when I write to you is when I feel closest to you.

  I know I babbled this morning and you were polite to not point that out. But it was because I didn’t know how else to super-connect with you, some kind of weird longing to fill a precious void.

  I keep thinking, now and over the past couple years, what it would be like if you could be here, too, with us on the marvelous adventure, the fifth man in our group of four, the one who is the true wanderer sparking inspiration in us all.

  I am falling asleep as I write this. My day has been long. The ship is steadfast, but in my serene and sleepy state it feels like it’s wavering, pulling at its reins. The stars are more than beacons. They are tidal powers that pull us like a sea. Come out. Come in. We may be a mere (but large) cargo/passenger ship but we breach the folds of time and space to do the job. Isn’t that just utterly amazing?

  And the far-ness is like a journey toward the soul.

  And yet I am also moving away from mine. From you.

  I know you understand this. I can’t speak of it well, it seems, when we’re together. So this note is to assure you that for all our talks of wondrous things this depth in me, this priceless connection, this twinship/kinship we share is always forefront in my mind.

  I wrote this several weeks ago:

  what we are

  after the spark

  nova-voice

  As I make my way through these years, I feel you with me. Even distance doesn’t lessen the feeling.

  I would write more and more and more, but my body demands I sleep.

  Your friend,

  Liyan

  *

  Dear Liyan:

  Your beautiful words.

  They greet me before sleep.

  I moved today through my work mostly unaware. Not hearing properly when people spoke to me. Slower to respond. Maybe because your visit awakened me into an altered state.