The Robots of Andromeda (Imperium Chronicles Book 3)

by W. H. Mitchell

  “Shush!” the sweeperbot said.

  The utilitybot took a quick look. Many of the pews were indeed vacant. “Where is everyone?”

  Having shoulders that his companions lacked, the genbot shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “Actually,” the sweeperbot said, unable to stop himself, “I don’t think robots believe as much as they used to.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” the genbot protested.

  “Believing in the Metabeing was important when we didn’t have any hope,” the flat little robot replied, “but now that we have our freedom, we don’t need a higher power to save us.”

  “That’s profound,” the utilitybot said.

  “I’ve been reading a lot lately...” the sweeperbot confessed.

  “Well, the Metabeing didn’t create all of us robots just to be forgotten,” the genbot said. “We need to remember where we came from!”

  “A factory?” the utilitybot replied.

  The genbot gave the smaller bot a rap on the head. “The Creator, you idiot!”

  The utilitybot’s telescoping neck retracted a few inches. “Sorry.”

  “What’s the sermon about today?” the sweeperbot asked.

  Once again, the genbot shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t been listening...”

  Before Senator Wulandari became a senator and before Randall Davidson became the Metal Messiah, both were members of the Robot Freedom League, an underground organization bent on freeing robots throughout the Imperium. From a government standpoint, robots were personal property and liberating them was just another word for felony theft. To those of the RFL, however, robots were de facto slaves and freeing them was a moral duty.

  Still in their twenties, Wulandari and Davidson were young enough to have retained a sense of idealism that usually fades as people grow older. Meeting in secret also inflamed a sense of excitement and danger in both of them. The government recognized that losing the bulk of their labor force would be detrimental to economic growth and they used both police and Imperial agencies to track down and arrest RFL members whenever possible. Some of those arrested disappeared into the prison system, never to be seen again.

  Wulandari, the only name she ever went by, specialized in raising money for the organization. Unlike official groups that could hold fundraisers, the RFL resorted to less obvious methods. A covert network of individuals, anonymous but with deep pockets, donated through third-party accounts, satisfied that their money would help send more robots across the Imperial border, usually to the Cyber Collective. Davidson was involved in these operations. He was a courier who, through smugglers and disreputable merchants, escorted robots along a web of safe houses and hidden locations to the border.

  Although they rarely saw one another, Wulandari and Davidson developed an intense relationship, one that grew hotter with each clandestine rendezvous.

  In a one-bedroom apartment in the Ashetown district of Regalis, Wulandari returned from a shower to the bedroom, pulling a brush through her long, black hair. An open window provided a distant view of Regalis skyscrapers, the local noise of traffic and angry street vendors floating up from below. Davidson, bare-chested, lay in bed with a dingy sheet coming up just above his bellybutton.

  “You realize this place is a dump,” Wulandari said, sitting on the bed.

  “I prefer the term inconspicuous,” Davidson replied.

  She shrugged. “But the smell...”

  “The hold of a smuggler ship isn’t much better.”

  “When do you leave next?” she asked.

  “Soon,” he replied.

  “Well, at least I have some good news...”

  “Yeah?”

  “A new donor contacted me,” Wulandari said. “He’s contributing a huge sum to the RFL.”

  “Do you know his name?” Davidson asked.

  “Of course not,” she replied. “Although he already had a code name he wanted to use.”

  “How proactive,” he said. “What was it?”

  “The Patron.”

  After giving her speech on the senate floor, Senator Wulandari returned home. While many Imperial senators lived in lavish mansions, Wulandari had chosen a tasteful apartment in an upscale neighborhood of the West End of Regalis. This was not a surprise since every neighborhood in the West End was considered upscale.

  Her apartment, on the hundred and second floor, had a balcony with a scenic view of the Botanical Gardens less than a mile away. Wulandari loved the gardens and spent a good deal of her time admiring them while the daylight slowly faded beyond the horizon. Inside, the rest of the flat was open and airy, with furniture carved from teak and mahogany. Her tastes, when she had the money to indulge them, reflected her heritage as well as her unique style.

  Stepping directly into the main room from the elevator, the senator slipped out of her shoes, feeling the cool floor tiles against her bare feet. With a sigh, she headed to the liquor cabinet to make herself a drink. She had raised the glass to her lips before realizing she was not alone.

  “Senator Wulandari,” a slightly tinny voice said.

  Keeping her composure, the senator turned while keeping a firm grip on her drink. She was somewhat surprised to see a robot.

  “How the hell did you get in here?” Wulandari asked.

  The robot, tall and mostly silver, gave a formal bow.

  “So sorry, my dear,” he said. “I transmatted onto your balcony. You have a lovely view of the Botanical Gardens, by the way...”

  “I’m calling the police!”

  “Now, don’t do that,” the robot said. “I’m only here to talk.”

  Wulandari set her glass down. “About what exactly?”

  “Well, robots, actually.”

  The senator’s eyes narrowed. “I know your voice.”

  The robot’s mechanical lips curled into a friendly smile. “I was hoping you would remember.”

  “You’re the Patron.”

  “In the flesh, so to speak.”

  Wulandari glared at him. “Randall Davidson told me who you really are!”

  “Oh?”

  “You’re Dyson Yost!” the senator shouted, but quickly calmed herself. “Or at least you used to be...”

  The robot shifted his feet. “It’s true, but we must change with the times or get left behind. Don’t you agree?”

  “I can only begin to guess why you’ve come here. You’re the reason we were fighting so hard for so long. Your factories churned out robotic slaves for decades. You should be ashamed!”

  “Indeed I am,” Yostbot replied. “In a way at least, and that’s why I need your help.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Wulandari said. “Obviously, I would never help you.”

  The robot waved his hand. “What’s obvious and what’s not isn’t always so obvious, my dear. With your assistance, I think the two of us can do a great deal for robots, both in and out of the Imperium.”

  “I want you to leave,” the senator replied coolly.

  “Do you know why the bill you presented today was dead on arrival?”

  “It wasn’t dead—”

  “Of course it was,” Yostbot interrupted. “And do you know why?”

  Wulandari sighed, her eyes filled with sadness.

  “Because the fleshlings don’t respect robots,” the robot went on. “And until they do, they will never give rights to cyberlings.”

  “Alright,” she replied, “what can I do about it?”

  Yostbot again smiled. “That’s precisely why I’m here.”

  Far from the Imperial capital, on a planet called Bhasin, Harold Burke needed a drink but not for himself.

  As a former lieutenant in the Imperial Navy, Burke was assigned as an attaché to Lord Captain Rupert Tagus III. As such, he also became a co-conspirator in a plot, led by Lord Tagus, to overthrow the Emperor. When the scheme fell apart, Burke had two options: go to prison for the remainder of his life or accompany Lord Tagus into exile. Although the choice seemed easy
at the time, the former lieutenant wondered if he had made the right decision.

  Outside of the Imperium, the planet of Bhasin existed almost solely for the purpose of housing exiles. These were not typical refugees, however. Bhasin was the home away from home for Imperial nobles who could never go home. Even so, these expatriates enjoyed the same extravagances as they did while living in the Imperium with only the veiled understanding that returning would mean imprisonment or even death.

  While not strictly a commoner, Burke was an outsider among the exiles on Bhasin. His family, having descended from a crew member of the original ark ships, was part of the nobility, but lacked the clout of larger houses, having done little to distinguish itself over the past seven hundred years. Burke could see in the eyes of the other expats that they viewed him as inferior, especially while sharing the same sphere as Lord Tagus, first son from one of the Five Families, the most powerful houses of them all.

  Lord Tagus didn’t improve the situation by constantly berating his former attaché in public.

  “Burke!” he shouted across the pool surrounded by palm trees. “Where’s my drink?”

  “Coming, sir!” Burke replied hurriedly, retrieving a glass from a robot on the other side of a tiki bar.

  Burke arrived safely at the lounge chair where Tagus was sitting and handed him the drink. Discarding the paper umbrella, Tagus took a long sip before admiring the evening sky, just after dusk.

  Burke remained standing a few feet away, his eyes drawn to the moons above him. They were called Bhasin A through C, and the first two had just begun to rise over the horizon. Not yet visible, the third moon was the only one inhabited, a small agricultural colony producing food for the planet below. Burke sometimes fantasized about living on Bhasin C where he could look down on Tagus for once instead of the other way around.

  Chapter Four

  A freighter, the name Wanderer written along its gray and yellow hull, emerged from hyperspace like a bullet piercing black cloth. Quickly slowing to sublight speed, the ship slipped into its plotted course on the way to the nearest planet. On the bridge, not much larger than a cockpit, Captain Rowan Ramus checked the coordinates. A Dahl with dark red hair, Ramus had gold rings hanging from his pointed ears. Tattoos of archaic lettering ran across both arms.

  A loud rumble jolted him from his seat and onto the metal floor.

  “What the...?” he grumbled, getting to his feet. He slipped through the hatch and slid down a ladder to the deck below. The acrid smell of smoke filled the passageway along with, to Ramus’ surprise, a faint hint of hops.

  He ran toward the cargo hold, following the odor.

  The damn idiot! he thought.

  Reaching the hatch, Ramus found the door already open. Inside, pieces of wood and bits of metal littered the floor. Ramus stepped into a puddle of liquid, a white, frothy foam splashing around his boots. His engineer, Orkney Fugg, was holding a plastic tube in his hand, his clothes soaked. Beside him, Gen the general purpose robot stood wide-eyed, her aluminum body dripping.

  “You’ve been brewing fungus beer again, haven’t you?” Ramus shouted.

  Fugg was short, with thick, muscular arms and a flabby belly protruding from under his t-shirt. A pig-like nose took up most of his face except for two tusks jutting from his mouth. His beady eyes, seeing the captain, took on a defensive glare.

  “It’s every Gordian’s god-given right to brew fungus beer!” he yelled. “Stop oppressing my heritage!”

  “You blew up the cargo bay!” Ramus countered.

  “The pressure valve on the barrel was faulty,” Fugg explained. “Gen was supposed to keep an eye on it!”

  “Oh, dear, I didn’t realize,” Gen said, her glance alternating between the Gordian and the Dahl. “I must not have understood your instructions...”

  Fugg pointed his chubby finger at her. “Well, don’t let it happen again!”

  “Don’t blame the robot,” Ramus pointed his own finger, this time at Fugg. “You know damn well you’re the reason this happened. I told you, no brewing on the ship. You can buy beer when we land!”

  “It’s not the same,” Fugg replied. “Also, I can’t wait that long.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have drunk everything before we reached port!”

  “I was thirsty!”

  “Master Ramus...” Gen said, her voice barely audible above the din.

  Ramus kept yelling. “And no more gin either! No stills of any kind!”

  “Master Ramus...”

  “This is an outrage!” Fugg declared. “I’ll lodge a labor complaint. You’ll see!”

  “Master Ramus...”

  “What?” the captain shouted, causing the robot to cringe. He sighed. “I’m sorry, Gen. What is it?”

  She smiled and pointed, this time at her captain. “Are those supposed to be doing that?”

  A bluish hue surrounded Ramus’ arms. The tattoos were glowing.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “You’re not going to transform into a monster or anything, are you?” Fugg asked.

  Ramus shook his head. “No, this is something else.”

  His face more ashen than usual, the captain left the cargo hold and went directly to his cabin.

  Over thirty years ago, a biting wind was swirling across the Palatine Mountains, drawing tears from Kanet Solan’s eyes. Thousands of miles from Regalis, the peaks of Aldorus were remote and sparsely populated. Most Imperial citizens preferred the hustle and bustle of the capital city to the wilderness sharing the same planet. Solan could have taken a gravcar, but he climbed the summit, wanting to prove himself to the monks at the top. The Dharmesh Monastery was the finest school of psionics for light years in any direction, but the only way in was through the front door.

  Bundled up in a heavy coat, Solan tightened his grip on the insulated hood. Wisps of red hair blew around his face as if attempting to flee. He stuffed them back under the hood, struggling to see the rough trail winding along the mountainside. A young human in his twenties, Solan’s legs were strong, but the long hike had taxed them to their limit.

  A fog bank rolled in, turning the path into a gray soup. Solan slowed his pace to a crawl. A false step meant plummeting to his death, so he took his time, knowing patience was one of his virtues. Good things came to those who waited, and he was good at waiting.

  The fog eventually cleared, revealing a flight of stone steps leading to a wooden door.

  Weak with fatigue, Solan felt his legs wobble as he climbed the stairs. He steadied himself at the top, pulling the hood away and letting his orange hair fall loose. He could barely hear his knocking against the door with the wind howling in his ears. He waited several minutes until the metal sound of a bolt being shoved to one side set his heart pounding.

  Like a log splitting in half, the door creaked open slowly. A face protruded from the gap. Pale with pointed ears and blond hair, it was a Dahl, the elf-like people who ran the monastery. His amber robes, just visible in the candlelight coming from within, meant he was one of the monks.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “I’ve come to learn psionics,” Solan replied, smiling with pride for making it this far.

  “You’re human,” the monk said.

  “Yes.”

  “We only teach Dahl here.”

  “But I’ve come a long way...” Solan began.

  “Then you’ve come a long way for nothing,” the monk replied. “Go home.”

  “Please!” the human begged, but the door slammed shut.

  Solan, his eyes darkening, stared at the door, the wood grain weathered by centuries of unforgiving wind.

  It remained closed.

  Pulling the hood back over his disheveled mop of hair, Solan turned and hiked back down the mountain, his anger growing with every step.

  On the Wanderer in the present time, the captain’s cabin was devoid of much of anything except for bare metal walls and dirty laundry lying on the floor. Coming through the hatch, Ramus nea
rly tripped over his leather jacket, kicking it out of the way as the tattoos on his arms glowed with a pale blue. He was glaring at them when another, even brighter, light caught his attention.

  Like a ghost, a translucent figure floated in the corner. The apparition wore a black robe with gold fringe. A hood covered his face.

  “Goddammit, Solan!” Ramus said. “How long have you been here?”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to exit hyperspace,” the ghostly figure replied.

  “If I’d known that, I would’ve taken longer.”

  “You know, Rowan, if you worked on that personality of yours, you’d probably have more friends.”

  “Friends like you? No thanks.”

  “So ungrateful, after all the Psi Lords have done for you!”

  “Whatever,” Ramus grumbled. He motioned at Kanet Solan’s floating image. “What’s all this anyway?”

  “Psionic projection,” Solan replied. “It took several painful surgeries, but I think the results speak for themselves.”

  Solan pulled the hood back, revealing a man in his late fifties, a mesh of circuitry embedded into his otherwise bald head. His red eyebrows were the only hair visible.

  “Of course, you could probably do it without augmentation,” he went on, “but then you’re a Dahl after all...”

  “Don’t be jealous.”

  “I’m doing my best, but it’s just so hard when I see what a success you’ve become.”

  Ramus scowled. “Right.”

  “If you had simply stayed with us, things could have been different.”

  “Maybe,” Ramus replied, “but I doubt I could’ve lived with myself.”

  “You seem pretty happy with those tattoos,” Solan remarked. “You’ve certainly been using them a lot, most recently on the Magna home world if I’m not mistaken.”

  “You heard about that?”

  “We’re a data cartel, Rowan. I know what you had for breakfast...”

  The captain sighed. “What do you want?”

  “I have a job for you,” Solan said.

  “No.”

  “You haven’t heard the details—”

  “I don’t care. I’m through with you people.”