by Adam Carter
“What is that?” Hart asked.
“I have no idea.”
Something released a bellow. Whether it was a sound born of agitation, anger or hunger, Hawthorn could not say. He only knew it had not been a noise created by the storm.
Before he could do anything, the door burst inwards, splintering as a great force smashed through. Hawthorn recoiled as a monstrous set of claws reached into the cabin. The claws were half as long as Hawthorn was tall and were attached to a hand of dark green scales. The arm reached into the room but retracted when it failed to claim a victim.
Hawthorn stared in horror.
“What was that thing?” Hart whispered.
“Nothing,” Hawthorn said lamely. “It can’t exist, so it doesn’t.” He knew it was a terrible answer even as he said it.
Then he looked back to the roof and saw something peering in at them. It was a soulless black eye filled with intelligence and fury. The beast bellowed again as it espied them, but was unable to reach its meal.
The eye disappeared and the cabin was still once more.
“Gordon,” Hart said, clinging to his arm, or perhaps he was clinging to hers. “Gordon, that was a dragon.”
“Dragons don’t exist.”
“Tell that to the dragon.”
It was at that point the entire cabin collapsed as something extremely powerful slammed its body into their home and destroyed everything with one blow.
CHAPTER FOUR
For a few moments, Iris Arowana thought she was in bed, back on Jupiter’s Glory. It was not much of a home, but it provided security and protection and that was all a home needed to be. As a bonus, it also provided love, and she rolled over onto her side, only to find no sign of Hawthorn. Opening her eyes, she saw she was not on the Glory at all, that her subconscious was projecting her back to a time when she had been happy.
Instead, she was in some other kind of vessel, although none of it was familiar. The walls were metal and rounded, it was as though the entire vessel was one great sphere. One wall had been shorn completely away, exposing the craft to the harsh elements outside, and there was no furniture to be found anywhere. She reasoned that if the vessel had crashed, all the trimmings would have been blown into the outside world and scattered or else torn apart by the storm.
Rising shakily from where she was lying on the cold metal, she looked around. She had no recollection of having entered the vessel, the last thing she remembered was being tossed around by the storm. There was a console set into one wall and she tapped away at it, but it was locked and she could not imagine the codes necessary to access it.
She realised then she had lost her thick furs and goggles. She was back to wearing just the black attire she had on underneath. It was hardy and a final reminder of her days as a security guard, but it would not protect her against the cold. That she was not already freezing was a good sign and she glanced outside to see the storm had softened somewhat. It would be safe enough to walk back to the cabin, but she could not afford to be out there for long. Not that she needed to be out there for long on a world which was only one kilometre in diameter.
Giving up on the computer, she pressed a switch on the wall and sat on the metal bench which folded outwards. The storm had taken a lot out of her but it had not destroyed her sense of reason. She knew it was very unlikely that the winds would have carried her to a crashed vessel she knew nothing about, then removed her furs and set her down to sleep off her ordeal. That meant someone had to have found her, and it did not necessarily have to be Hawthorn. There were no bodies that she could see, which meant whoever had come down in the craft could still be alive. With Arowana unconscious, they may well have taken to wandering the world in order to see what was out there, which meant they could already have met up with Hawthorn and Hart.
The newcomers could have been friendly, but Arowana had been trained to assume the worst in any situation. It had made secret Santa difficult at work – in fact, her colleagues had taken her out of the group after she evacuated the floor and performed a controlled explosion on her last gift. It had apparently been a pair of socks, but to this day she could not be certain.
Slightly rested now, Arowana knelt before the computer and removed the main panel. If she could hotwire the mechanisms, she might be able to send a communication. The systems on the vessel had to be more powerful than those their markers put out, and if Wraith was still searching for them, she may succeed in contacting him.
Engineering was more Hawthorn’s field of expertise, or Hart’s for that matter. The sensible thing for her to do would have been to return to the cabin and fetch them, especially since the winds had died down. But Arowana did not like to admit her failings – if she did, obstinacy and stubbornness would certainly be things she would recognise. Accessing the information in her brain’s database, she sought out the best ways to hotwire an unknown computer console and various suggestions came to mind. Unfortunately, computers were not universal and suggestions were about all she could find. Removing the main panel had exposed several wires and she cut through one of these even as she moved onto the next instruction in her mind. The console sparked, something flashed on the screen, and then it went dead.
She had cut only one wire and appeared to have destroyed the thing.
Thumping the console with her palm did nothing, so she thumped it again. Still nothing. Cursing herself for an idiot, she got back to her feet and decided not to tell Hawthorn the computer was working when she woke up. If he asked, she would tell him it was destroyed in the crash.
She felt a pang of remorse at being so ready to lie to him. Her thoughts drifted back to when she had awoken, when she had thought she was safe and happy on board the Glory with Hawthorn. She still loved him, she would not deny that, but he did not need her problems and until she could get the database out of her brain, she was only half a woman. He would be better off without her, and even if they stayed together, she would always be wondering whether he was attracted more to the woman part of her or the machine.
It was not the time to be worrying about her love life, for if the vessel she was in could be salvaged, they may have their way off Valetudo. She could try to start the engines, but feared she would only break those also. That meant she had to return to the cabin and bring the others to her location.
Stepping out into the cool air, she was grateful the winds were down to a barely noticeable level. The sky of Valetudo was a pale orange, mainly because Jupiter was so big in the sky. A complex ball of red, orange and yellow gases, Jupiter was never far from sight no matter what moon she was standing on. The largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter attracted so many moons into its powerful gravitational pull that the Jupiter system was easily the largest of all its neighbours.
Staring up into the roiling sphere, she unconsciously called up information about it. Jupiter was almost a hundred and forty thousand kilometres in diameter, which meant Valetudo would have fit into the planet a total of a hundred and forty thousand times. It was a humbling thought, and also a reminder that unless Wraith was looking for them, they would never be found.
She took a few minutes to look over the crashed vessel. It was, in essence, a large ball, much as she had expected. There was only the one compartment and for the main part it was smooth. There was a slight impression on one side (if a sphere could be said to have sides) where a docking tube could be attached. There was one cylindrical engine affixed to the vessel, although it appeared damaged. Judging by the angle of its placing, she judged there would have been a corresponding engine on the other side, and that this had been torn away in the crash. Raising a hand to shield her eyes, she looked across the land but could see nothing but sand and rock.
Running the vessel through her database turned up no information. That was not unusual: it just meant Securitarn did not have any information regarding the thing. She was reasonably sure it was an escape pod, for the smooth sphere would careen happily from a doomed vessel, the smoothness giving th
e pod a good chance of not catching on falling debris as it departed. The indentation for the docking tube supported this theory, as did the basicness of the interior.
It was, however, a large pod, which meant there could have been several people inside. It was strange, though, for if it had been designed for multiple escapees, she would have expected for it to be a cylinder and not a sphere. Having as much space in height as in length wasted resources, unless the idea was to pile people atop one another.
She worried it might have been some kind of disposal system, to dump the bodies of plague victims, all crammed into the same pod.
If that was the case, there would have been at least one body, and she calmed herself from seriously considering that particular scenario.
Deciding she could accomplish no more, she set off for the cabin. Even after three months on Valetudo, she did not know the landscape too well. For one thing, she hardly ever saw it through the storms and for another it was constantly shifting. There were no mountains on Valetudo, just a few high-rising hills, and these changed on a day-to-day basis. However, with Valetudo being such a small moon, it did not matter too much which direction she took, since all roads led to Rome. Or, at least, to the cabin.
Half a minute into her walk, she noticed something ahead. It was a figure, moving towards her at a fast pace. She waved, thinking it was Hawthorn, but as she strained to make out the figure, she realised she was wrong. It was neither Hawthorn nor Hart, which meant it had to have been one of the people from the escape pod.
Arowana had no information on where that person had been or what they had been doing, so assumed whoever it was had been to the cabin. That Hawthorn was not returning with the figure was a bad sign and Arowana wished she had a weapon.
With no sense in fleeing, Arowana continued towards the stranger. It was not long before she could make out its features.
It was around six feet tall, with solid blocky legs and arms. Its body was formed of a creamy white metal, with black rubber around the joints to aid in movement. The feet were large and flat, the hands like shovels. Its head was tall and angular, with twin horns reminiscent of a demon or a rabbit. Or a demon rabbit. It had a snout, which made Arowana think more of coyotes, and where its eyes should have been was a single red strip of light.
That it was someone wearing a suit of armour was obvious, for there was no logical alternative. Arowana ran through the database to identify the armour but could find no information which would help her classify it. The figure moved with such precision, such military perfection, that a sinking feeling formed in her stomach. Then there were its hands and feet, which were simply too weird to be real.
Hawthorn had theories, fears mainly, and Arowana had always told him they were foolish. Now she was beginning to feel she should have listened to him more.
The figure stopped ten paces from her and Arowana did likewise. Neither of them spoke for some minutes and finally the figure said something Arowana did not catch. It sounded like Spanish, so she ran a translation programme through her database.
The stranger had said, “Identify.”
“You first,” Arowana said in Spanish.
The stranger processed this. “Identify.”
“Like I said, you first.”
“Identify.” The figure raised its arm. Its hand twisted fully around and fell off, to reveal some kind of cannon behind.
“Iris,” she said. She had no desire for Securitarn to find out she was still alive, and telling people her real name was never a good idea, but she had a horrible feeling this creature would somehow know if she was lying.
“Iris,” the thing repeated, processing. “Identify surname.”
“No.”
“Surname. Now.”
“Why do you speak Spanish?” Arowana asked in French.
The creature cocked its head. “Bilingual. Useful.”
“Useful how?”
“English.”
Arowana had not realised she had spoken that last part in English. “I take it you speak a lot of languages?” she asked.
“English is preferred,” the creature said. “We shall converse in this now.”
“Are you … alive?”
“What is life? The ability to think? To feel? What is sentience? The ability to care? To empathise? Some humans do not care, some do not empathise. Many do not feel and seldom ever think. Humans look to bees and call them drones, they look to ants and call them workers. They do not understand they are themselves nothing more.”
Arowana swore. She was not even certain which language she swore in, so shut off the translation device in her database. “You’re a robot.”
“Robot. Synonymous with slave. I am not a slave.”
“How is robot synonymous with slave?”
“Etymology. Karel Čapek coined term in 1920, first performed 1921. Word denotes a manmade, thinking device which operates as a slave. Appendix: manmade. Outdated term meaning created by human hands.”
“Oh fantastic. A PC robot.”
“Question: why is manmade an outdated term but human is not? What of woman? Etymology needed for woman. Possibly woe of man? Woe – Acheron, river in Underworld. You are woe of man.”
“I’ve been known to be, from time to time. Stop analysing words, they’re just words.”
“Words make up language. Twenty-six characters, in most languages, reformatted to create everything.”
“Have you discovered numbers yet? There are only ten of those. Better yet, there are only two in binary.”
“Binary,” the stranger said with a quiver of its body and a sudden rapid flashing of its eye.
Arowana had the feeling the crash had done something bad to the robot’s artificial brain.
“Do you have a name?” Arowana asked.
“Boris.”
“Boris?”
“Is there something wrong with that name?”
“No. It’s just … Boris is a man’s name.”
“And I cannot have a man’s name because I am a machine?”
“No. You have a … Do you know your voice is kind of … uh, female?”
“You are saying I speak in a woman’s voice?”
“Yes.”
“That I am the woe of man?”
“I hope not.”
“Interesting.”
They stood in silence for at least a minute.
“My voice is not recorded,” Boris said. “I just checked. Conclusion: my voice is neither male nor female. It is simply mine. Can a woman not have a man’s name? What defines a man’s name? Cross-referencing literature. Please wait.”
Arowana waited.
“Fantasy fiction,” Boris continued. “Most female names end with letter A.”
“A lot of real names do that as well. Why didn’t you search for real names?”
“Uncertain. George, Georgina. Alan, Alana. Fred, Freda. Christine, Christina. Barber, Barbara. A fascinating game.”
“Mostly right.”
“A is a female letter. Please wait. My name is Borissa, denoting female. Your name is Iris, denoting male.”
“Not all names not ending in A are male.”
“Say my name.”
“Excuse me?”
“Say my name.”
“Borissa.”
“Not just my name. Use it in a sentence.”
“You’re creeping me out, Borissa.”
Borissa veritably quivered with joy. “I am evolving.”
“You’re a glorified toaster, you can’t evolve.”
“Searching toaster. Found. Racial slur against machine life.”
“Machine life is an oxymoron.”
“Searching moron …”
“Oxymoron.”
“Found. Slur against someone with mental deficiency or condition.”
“Oxy!”
“Searching. Found. A large beast humans enslave to draw equipment when harvesting crops. You equate me with a slave beast, someone of undeveloped mental functions and heap
racial insult onto me. Presumably because you did not believe I would comprehend.”
“You’re twisting things.”
“Searching twisting things. Found. Method of torture. You are a very heartless man, Iris.”
“I’m a woman.”
“No.” The eye blazed. “I am the woe of man.”
Arowana backed off, for she did not like the tone of Borissa’s voice. She had no idea how robots like this could exist, yet she was hardly prepared to argue the matter. She watched as a lance extended from what she had presumed to be the thing’s cannon arm. It stretched to over two feet before it turned, clicking audibly into place.
“Hold on a second,” Arowana said, taking a few more steps backwards. “What are you doing?”
“I was content with being me. You have made me question my sentience, whether I am even alive. To reassert my sense of self, I must become how you define me. I am the woe of man and you are a man. I am the woe of you.”
Borissa took a step forward and Arowana took another back.
“Flee, man of no A,” Borissa said. “I am your slave no longer. You are now my ox.”
Arowana had no idea what the robot was talking about, but it was approaching her with menace so she turned and ran for her very life. Behind her, she heard the cackling glee of a machine which had just discovered it was far more human than it had ever dreamed possible.
CHAPTER FIVE
Massive claws tore terrible rents down one of the walls and all Hawthorn could think to do was run. There was no fighting the beast, for the cabin was already a ruin and all that was left was for the dragon to carve its way through to them. He could hear the crackling of flames somewhere nearby and through the darkness of the night he could see the blaze flickering. The heat had yet to hit him, which meant the fire was not too bad, yet there was something in his head screaming at him that it had been the dragon which had breathed fire and set everything ablaze.
“Gordon! Gordon!”
Hart dropped beside him. He was glad she was alive and relatively unharmed. Her eyes were wide with fright and dirty black smears streaked across her face where the walls had collapsed. There were minor cuts to her skin and her T-shirt had been torn at the side, but she did not have any broken bones. Getting to his feet, Hawthorn found he was lucky enough to be able to say the same about himself.
