“Nor to flirt with a woman, I’m afraid.”
“Tork is not a woman.”
“No, I meant Princess Oku. Sorry, I’m thinking of my own problems instead of yours. That’s selfish.”
“Are humans not selfish by nature?”
“Not entirely, I’d like to believe. I suppose our genes do compel us to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about mating, since that’s traditionally been a requirement to reproduce, and if we don’t reproduce, our genes don’t get passed on—genes are definitely selfish. But there’s a little brain space left over to think about the needs of others.” Casmir hoped his actions hadn’t led Zee to form that opinion about human selfishness.
“Humans seem paradoxical. I have observed that they are inherently social creatures and seem to have a physiological need to co-exist and work together in communities, but they also celebrate individualism and self-reliance, often seeking to obtain personal glory.”
Casmir realized this was the kind of conversation he’d caught Zee having with Tork and might not reflect on anything he’d actually done. Maybe Zee missed his philosophy buddy. A buddy who was, in a sense, as alien as he was and could study the species around him without personal bias.
“That’s more true in some societies than others,” Casmir said. “Cultural tendencies toward individualism or collectivism usually date back to monolithic events that took place on Old Earth and caused certain beliefs to be widely adopted into the religions of the time. Many have been carried into space to these new systems.”
“Tork and I have discussed this too. It is fascinating that some societies have changed very little in their centuries in a new star system with new events to shape them, whereas others have forgotten their roots and created new cultures as a reflection of the space habitats or moons or planets that have become their homes.”
“Perhaps we should try to get Tork back one day,” Casmir suggested. “He seems to have become a friend for you.”
“Tork is an inferior android. I will wait until one of the crushers becomes interesting.”
“While continuing to play games and chat with Tork in the meantime?” Casmir smiled, knowing Tork would take just as many potshots at Zee if he were here.
“It is acceptable to play games with a lesser being.”
“Does he ever win?”
“Only if well-established rules and tactics will suffice. I am the more creative thinker. I am fluid.”
“It does take a creative and fluid soul to avoid the notice of security guards by turning into a couch.”
“Yes.”
Casmir, a message came in from Asger, reminding him of the three earlier messages and Asger’s insistence that Tristan was somewhere on the Fedallah. Are you there?
Yes. Casmir looked at the time stamp on the message, noted the lack of significant delay in the delivery, and decided the Stellar Dragon had to be close. Had Bonita learned that the missing Scholar Sunflyer was in Dubashi’s base?
Maybe it would be possible to get Rache to slow down and let Casmir switch ships. Though he would have to come up with a more plausible reason than “I don’t think you’re going to let me kidnap Dubashi, so I want to ride with someone who will.”
Any update on Tristan? Asger asked.
No, but per your instructions, I didn’t let Rache know he might be on the ship.
I’m concerned. It’s been several days. Is he just going to hide until the Fedallah gets to the moon base? Does he even know where Rache is headed?
Are you sure he’s here? Casmir asked.
He told me he sneaked aboard that shuttle right before you took off. There’s nowhere else he could be. Either he’s still on that shuttle or he’s slipped off into the rest of the ship.
But you haven’t been able to contact him since?
No. I thought he might be worried about Rache’s communications people picking up on unauthorized transmissions. Maybe he turned off his chip. Can you look for it?
I’d have to know his chip ID. Especially if it’s offline. Someone shouldn’t be able to locate one at all if it’s offline, but I know a few tricks.
I thought you might. I contacted Princess Nalini. She has his chip ident. I’ll forward it to you.
Thank you. I’ll check again. Uh, what should I do if I find him?
Keep the mercenaries from killing him. Asger’s grimace appeared in Casmir’s mind as if he’d sent it with his words. I know how Rache feels about knights.
Right. I’ll see what I can do.
Are you a prisoner there?
There’s a guard at my door that follows me when I go to eat or use the lav.
Casmir. Why did you go with him?
I didn’t want Kim to go alone, and I wasn’t sure when my next chance would be to get to Dubashi’s base. It was always possible Jorg would send more people to the station to ensure I was complying and ensure I’d go nowhere except back to his ship with the completed crushers.
I hope you’re able to get to him. And I wish I was walking in with you to help. Tristan would be useful too.
A good reason for me to find him.
Before Rache does, please.
I’ll do my best.
The door opened. Casmir lurched up in his bunk, worried some intelligence officer had detected his transmission and didn’t approve.
The lights flared to life, and he squinted at the dark figure who walked in. The dark hooded figure.
“You’re supposed to ring the door chime and wait to be invited in,” Casmir said.
“It’s my ship. I own all the cabins. That means I can go where I wish without an invitation.” Rache strode in, unlocked a stool from the deck, and sat down to face him.
“What if I’d been naked?”
“What if you had?” Rache twitched an indifferent shoulder.
“We would have ended up comparing penises rather than discussing whatever pressing matter you have on your mind.” Casmir didn’t want to do either. Something about Rache’s stiff pose made him think he was about to be questioned. And that he might not want to answer the questions. Zee took a couple of steps closer to the stool, an act Rache didn’t miss, and loomed near him.
“I doubt there’s much difference.”
“I don’t know. The nobility isn’t known for practicing circumcision, even though it makes hygiene easier.”
Nervous babbling, nervous babbling… Casmir clamped his lip in his teeth and forced himself to take a slow inhalation and exhalation.
Meanwhile, Rache dropped his masked face into his hand and rubbed his temple. “I can’t believe Kim voluntarily spends time with you.”
Casmir bristled at hearing her first name on his lips. Thus far, at least in his presence, he’d usually called her Scholar Sato. He reluctantly reminded himself that the relationships she pursued were none of his business.
“Crushers do not have genitalia,” Zee announced. “And thus no need to clean them. However, I do occasionally rotate my molecules as part of a dust-sloughing procedure.”
Rache lifted his head, looked at Zee, then looked at Casmir. “Your crusher is getting weirder by the day. I don’t think you should let the other ones spend time with you and get imprinted with your personality.”
“No? Maybe Jorg wouldn’t want them then.”
“Thus your master plan is revealed.” Rache dropped his palms onto his thighs and studied him. “What are you really doing here, Dabrowski?”
“Casmir.”
“And why did you bring them? For the supposed intelligence-gathering mission you’re on. Please tell me you don’t have some deluded plan of infiltrating Dubashi’s base and killing him.”
“I don’t kill people. I have qualms about that. I’m already upset enough that others have died because of decisions I’ve made.”
“So what are you doing?”
“Maybe I came along as Kim’s chaperone.”
“You and your twelve killer robots.”
“It’s not as if I alone could
stop you if your intentions toward her weren’t honorable.”
“I think she could stop me if my intentions weren’t honorable. She side-kicked one of my armored men across a submarine and knocked him out.”
“Good. I approve.”
“For someone who doesn’t like violence, you’re smiling rather gleefully.”
Casmir decided it wouldn’t be appropriate to envision Kim side-kicking Rache across a shuttle. “I don’t object to self-defense.”
“She was hijacking my submarine.”
“She’s a complicated woman.”
“Yes.” Why did Rache sound like he was smiling when he said that?
Casmir scooted himself around on the bunk to sit cross-legged and face him. What could he divulge that wouldn’t be an outright lie and that would prompt Rache to help him rather than impede him?
“I mostly left because we were tipped off that Bjarke—Sir Bjarke Asger—was coming to get Kim and take her back to Jorg’s ship. I didn’t know if he also planned to pick up the crushers that were ready.” That was true. Casmir had no idea what Bjarke had intended or been ordered to do in relation to him and the project. “In a couple more weeks, the rest would have been done, but I automated production, so I didn’t technically need to stay.”
“Rest? How many are you making?”
“One hundred and one. The extra one was for Sultan Shayban, in exchange for the resources he gave me to make the others.”
“How much were those resources worth?”
“He allowed the use and retooling of a portion of his manufacturing facility for free, so there was no cost there. I didn’t check the current market price for the metals used in the alloy, but the raw materials that went into the project would have been worth roughly five million crowns.”
“Five million? And he gave you all that in exchange for one crusher?”
“Surely a good deal. You can’t imagine that Zee would go for less than that in an auction, can you?” Casmir had no idea what a crusher would go for, but he’d heard of wealthy entrepreneurs spending millions on old sports memorabilia, so it seemed plausible. Zee was worth far more than a football signed by a sweaty athlete.
“I don’t know. Is he going to discuss genitalia when he’s up there?”
“Demonstrations of Zee’s personality would only increase the bidding frenzy.”
Rache removed his mask and hood, either so they could have a frank conversation with eye contact or so he could push a hand through his short hair. It had been a while since Casmir had seen his face, and he decided anew that it was disconcerting to have a twin who was so different from him, so hard and angular and quick to glare. He wondered what Kim had found out about his past. She’d said she wouldn’t share.
“Dabrowski—Casmir—tell me what you hope to accomplish here? With these.” He waved at Zee and toward the corridor, though the door was shut on the rest of the crushers.
“On your ship? Nothing. I’ve actually realized that it’s unlikely that Kim needs a chaperone and that I have no purpose here.”
“Is that really why you came along?” Rache leaned back on the stool, indignation flashing in his eyes.
No, Casmir almost said, but maybe it would serve him if Rache believed that. He couldn’t tell Rache the truth. “She’s my best friend. And you kill Kingdom subjects whenever you get the chance. Even now, aren’t you going to Dubashi’s meeting because he’s offering to pay people to attack the Kingdom? How can I not be concerned for a friend who’s… talking to someone like that?”
He prayed Rache didn’t tell him they’d been doing more than talking. He didn’t want to know.
“She’ll be kicked out of the Kingdom if someone in Royal Intelligence figures out she’s your buddy now,” Casmir added, feeling hypocritical since he’d come up with the plan that had brought Kim here. But Rache seemed willing to go down this line, to believe it was the reason Casmir had come.
“What did you intend to do to stop it? Throw your crushers at me?”
“I just want her to be safe. You should want her to be safe too. If you care, why let her risk her career to spend time with you?”
A muscle jumped in Rache’s jaw when he clenched his teeth. But he looked away instead of rebutting. Was it possible he agreed on some level?
Whatever he thought, Rache didn’t answer.
Casmir cleared his throat. “Anyway, I know it’s her choice. Would you mind if I contacted Bonita and asked if she would come pick me up? I can take my crushers with me. She’s heading this way, I believe, so it shouldn’t be hard to arrange a rendezvous point.”
“I’ve noticed.” Rache recovered his equanimity and dry tone. “I’d ask if she also has the capacity to track my ship, but I suspect we’re just heading in the same direction.”
“She’s trying to track down a missing scientist. All roads lead to Dubashi’s base, it seems.”
“Is that why you want to join her? To help her collect some bounty?” Rache sounded doubtful.
“I will certainly try to retrieve the scholar for her if I chance across him. But I’m going to stop a war.”
Rache’s snort was skeptical, but the follow-up squint appeared to be more contemplative.
“I’ll let your freighter find us and hook up for an exchange,” Rache said, “but you promise me that if Kim doesn’t want to go with you, you won’t try to talk her into leaving.”
Kim wouldn’t leave anyway. She wanted to check the base for a bioweapon, and she’d more easily gain access to it with Rache, even if she had to play the role of his prisoner.
“You have my word that I won’t try to talk her into leaving,” Casmir said, delighted Rache would let him go, though maybe it wasn’t a surprise. What mercenary would want twelve Zees on his ship who weren’t obedient to him? “I shall assume that I don’t have to ask for your word that you won’t tie her up and force her to stay.”
“How respectful of you to assume I have integrity.” Rache stood and pulled his mask back on. “Contact your ship. If you want to leave behind any crushers programmed to obey me, I’ll allow that.”
“Considerate of you.”
“Yes.”
Asger donned exercise clothing and headed to the Dragon’s lounge to use one of the treadmills, but when he neared the hatch, he heard the whir of the belt and the rapid clomp, clomp, clomp of someone already running on one. He stopped in the corridor. Yes, it was cowardly, but he didn’t want to pull out the adjacent treadmill if his father was in there.
A part of Asger wished he had stayed on Stardust Palace instead of coming along when his father had chartered—manipulated Bonita until she’d complied and taken him on—the Dragon. But he was worried about Tristan as well as Casmir and Kim. There was no way he could have twiddled his thumbs and waited for someone else from Jorg’s fleet to come pick him up while his friends were in trouble.
He stepped inside, resolving to get a drink and leave if his father was there.
But Qin was the one running on the treadmill, her long legs traveling faster than most people could manage at a dead sprint. She was barely sweating, her hair still soft and dry, back in a tail and bouncing between her shoulder blades. Her two pointed ears protruded from the dark locks, and one swiveled toward him slightly. Somewhere in their travels, that had stopped seeming weird.
“Hi, Asger.” Qin lifted a hand though she hadn’t looked back.
He supposed her ears were good enough that she could identify him by his gait. Or maybe she’d smelled him coming. An odd thought. He resisted the urge to give his armpits the sniff test.
“Did you come to run?” She barely sounded breathless, despite the fast pace.
He wondered if he could keep up. He’d always worked hard to maintain his fitness, but he wasn’t genetically engineered. Still, his competitive spirit made him want to suggest a few races.
“I think so.” Asger pulled out the other treadmill and maneuvered it beside hers.
“You’re not sure?”
&n
bsp; “The last time I came up here, I ended up getting slightly inebriated and flapping my lips to Casmir.” Asger stepped onto the treadmill instead of heading over to examine the contents of Bonita’s liquor cabinet. Tonight, he felt less like getting smashed and more like burning off some of his tensions.
“He probably didn’t mind.”
“No, he seems to like talking.”
Asger strapped himself in, glanced at the setting on Qin’s machine, and decided he needed to warm up before attempting that speed. He also noticed that she had chosen a forest trail to show on the display as she ran, ferns and mossy tree trunks blurring past. He remembered her leaping from branch to branch in the park in Zamek City and wondered if he could talk Casmir into creating a program for the treadmill that emulated such a journey.
One of Viggo’s robot vacuums whirred into the lounge and did a few laps around the perimeter, then positioned itself in front of Asger’s treadmill. Though it had no eyes, it seemed to gaze at him, indicator lights blinking in some kind of idleness pattern.
“Now I’m really tempted to sniff my pits,” he muttered.
“What?” Qin glanced at his face, then at his armpits.
“I thought you might have smelled me coming when you guessed who it was without looking.”
“I did.”
“Because of my armpits or just my overall scent aura?” Was there such a thing? He didn’t know.
“It’s true that armpits are strongly scented areas. And, uh, certain lower areas.” She glanced at him, her cheeks red, but he didn’t know if it was only from the exercise or if she was embarrassed to bring up his lower areas. He would only be embarrassed if she told him they were offensive to a sensitive nose. “But when I smell someone at a distance, I guess you could say there’s sort of a collective aura. I’m going to do some sprints if you want to join me.”
“I thought you already were sprinting.”
Her eyes crinkled. “No, warming up.”
“The clock says you’ve been on there for an hour.”
“Yes.”
Asger shook out his arms and increased the speed. “I’m ready. Are we racing or just encouraging and supporting each other?”
Planet Killer (Star Kingdom Book 6) Page 33
