My Outcast State (The Maauro Chronicles Book 1)

by Edward McKeown

  Yep, she’s mad, I thought. Machine-speak always meant temper with Maauro.

  “It’s a gift, Maauro,” Jaelle interjected. “It’s a last gift. He didn’t want you to have to kill Dusko.”

  Maauro’s face was blank with confusion. “Why, Wrik? I have killed thousands of times. What difference could one more make?”

  “You were a warrior then,” the words came spilling out of me, “in a war with no quarter asked and none given. But we aren’t at war now. This…this would have been murder. If Dusko has to die to preserve our lives, than either I or Jaelle have to do it. I knew neither of us could, so I couldn’t allow it that you’d have to commit murder on our account. Not for me.”

  I turned to Jaelle. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to talk this over with you.”

  “I’m glad you did it,” she said. “Glad for you and for Maauro, too. Some things are wrong no matter why they are done.”

  Maauro shook her head. “I realize that I understand you even less than I thought. I cannot sin, any more than your laser could. Why endanger your lives for my… my what? My soul?”

  Jaelle walked over to Maauro and placed her hands on the smaller android’s shoulders. “I said I was glad and I meant it. I’ve never been as a good a friend to you as I should have been. This then is amends. I don’t believe you’re a mere machine; I was just angry and afraid.”

  “Yet I cannot deny the truth that I am a servant to my programming, my choices are proscribed.”

  “Are we so different?” Jaelle replied, bitterness ringing in her voice. “I aided and abetted my father’s thieving and crimes all my life. Why? Simply because he is my father and biology and culture made me respect that. Maybe our programming is just less obvious.”

  Maauro sighed, always a deliberate act for her. “How I wish I could stay with you both. How I wish this imperative was not dragging me away from all I know, all I have so painfully learned.” Jaelle stroked Maauro’s hair in mute sympathy.

  For the first time, I saw true misery in Maauro’s delicate features and I couldn’t bear it. I would not again desert a friend. I opened my mouth to say the words.

  Maauro raised both hands to forestall me. “Do not, Wrik. I have struggled almost to the point of shutdown to acquire the freedom to leave you behind. Do not unbalance the equation. Do not say what it is that you wish to.

  “You have given me a last gift and you must take this one from me. Once we land our ways must part and our friendship end. I must go on alone to whatever fate awaits me.”

  We stood in the lengthening silence. I started when the ship’s computer announced, “Entering Ebosue’s outer control zone. Planetfall in three hours.”

  Jaelle let her hands fall from Maauro’s hair and walked over to me. “I’ll be below packing our stuff until we land. I’ll leave you two alone.” She disappeared down the gangway.

  Maauro turned to the control and keyed a panel. The covers slid back from the glassite viewports. I moved until I stood shoulder to shoulder with her.

  “Aren’t the stars beautiful, Wrik?”

  I reached over and took her hand, her original one. It felt warm and pliable in mine. “Yes,” I finally managed. “I see them differently since we met. Can’t even look at them without thinking of you.” Her hand, capable of tearing metal, squeezed mine very, very gently.

  Chapter 22

  I sat up in the bed of the Ebosue spaceport hostel, staring at the window. I knew I couldn’t see the ship, Maauro’s ship, even if I slid back the heavy drapes.

  Jaelle stirred beside me. She rose on one arm, the sheet falling away. “You can’t sleep?”

  “No,” I said. “There are a million things running through my brain. I feel like my head is being squeezed in an iron band.”

  “Would you like a back rub?”

  “Not now, thanks. I’m restless. I can’t stop thinking about Maauro.”

  She sighed. “I know. If there was any way to keep her with us—”

  “I know. It’s just that…she looks so much like a person, she seems so much like a person, it’s hard to believe she can’t make her own choices.”

  “I think she suffered a great deal to make the one that placed us safe here.”

  “Yeah. Still I feel...I feel like I’m failing her. There’s got to be something more I can do. There’s got to be.” I stood and began pacing like a fretted animal.

  “Don’t work yourself up so much,” Jaelle said. “We need clear thinking. Maauro set us here with all the money and weapons we can use but we will still have to establish ourselves.”

  “Here?” I said absently continuing to pace.

  “Yes, Wrik, here. Where she left us. In case she comes back.”

  The iron band around my head seemed to tighten further.

  “Jaelle, honey, I have to go out for a walk. I can’t, I can’t sit still.”

  Jaelle frowned. I could see she didn’t like the idea. “Ok, but don’t go too far. Take one of the stunners. I’d rather you took a laser, but this is a civilized port.”

  I smiled down at her sadly. “I don’t deserve you.”

  She yawned, displaying sharp canines. “Nope, but you still show promise.”

  A laugh burst out of me, short, but it felt like champagne.

  I dressed hurriedly and slipped a stunner under my travel cloak. Our room was on the second floor of the hostel. The place was clean and unostentatious. We had money for far better, but the habits of a lifetime made me cautious. We no longer had Maauro’s protection.

  I used the back stairs to slide out into a street in the industrial section of the port. Circular warehouses and boxy buildings jostled each other in this area. In the distance I saw the noses of ships poking up. Streetlights were well-spaced down the street. A few shops stood shuttered nearby, and I could see a restaurant or bar in the distance, orange neon beckoned. A drink would be welcome, but it seemed too much a part of my old pattern, the pattern before Maauro. No, I owed both of us more than that.

  I turned in the other direction and walked. What I wanted was to walk to the Stardust but that, too, I could not do. It would only pull open the wounds. Maauro had not contacted us since she’d landed. I knew a steady supply of fuel and supplies were being trucked out to the ship. She’d wasted no time, ordering some of the material as we finned down.

  But her imperative had fully seized Maauro. Our goodbyes said, she’d only opened the hatch for us to walk down to greet the customs agent. Or perhaps she could not bear the pain of a slow parting. Even after all we had done together I could not say for sure.

  So I wandered aimlessly in the early-morning hours, down mostly empty streets, passing only a few port-workers. A patrol groundcar cruised down the boulevard. Force of habit made me take cover until it passed. I stopped at a small window-front serving night-workers and grabbed a sandwich of spiced meats and tangy mineral water. My feet turned down street after street as memories of the last year cascaded over me. I felt like a ghost flitting around the port, unseen, unfelt, unregarded. Perhaps I could not escape my old existence after all?

  But there was still Jaelle. I thought of her lying in the bed and wondered why I had gone out into the dark. Maybe I needed the dark to see the light?

  I looked up again, taking note of my surroundings, and began to retrace my steps. It took an hour to regain the area near the hostel. Now that I wanted a robocab, there were none. The slidewalk nearby went in the opposite direction, so I trudged on. Morning couldn’t be that far off, for all it was still black as pitch. This world’s small yellow moon shone dimly, a small crescent near the horizon.

  As I turned onto the street of our hostel, two robocabs passed me and I cursed under my breath. I sighed as I looked up into the unfamiliar stars.

  “Tres bien, mon ami. No?”

  I spun, reaching for the stunner, but hands clamped on my arms wi
th irresistible force. I kicked as more figures emerged from the shadows. One backhanded me and snatched the stunner from under my cloak.

  A thin red beam struck the man, who collapsed with a cry.

  “Zut chat!” my captor said. I could only see him out of the corner of my eye, an apish human, with tattooed arms, a broad chest, and a beret on his close-shaven head.

  The shadowy figures with him produced weapons and snapped shots at the window from which Jaelle had fired her laser. She must have been waiting, watching for my return.

  “Wrik, hang on,” she shouted and fired again.

  I struggled, knowing this was my best chance, but there was no escape. A vehicle roared up behind me. Again the thin red beam struck down, but this time hit nothing.

  “We must go,” said the man holding me. “The patrol will be here soon. Le Chat we will deal with another day.”

  “As for you, mon ami, the Collector has been waiting to meet you.”

  The Guilder flung me into the back of the truck. It knocked the breath out of me for a second; then I struggled up to a sitting position. I spilled over again as the vehicle lurched into movement

  “Oh well,” said a familiar voice, “I suppose it is a small galaxy.”

  I peered into the dimness. “Dusko!”

  “In the flesh, or what is left of it.”

  As my eyes accustomed to the dark, I saw the bruised and battered Dua-Denlenn on the floor opposite me.”

  “How the hell did you get here? You’re not supposed to even land until tomorrow evening.”

  “I didn’t,” he said, grunting as the vehicle rounded a curve and threw us both off balance. “I orbited as you planned, but unfortunately there was a Guild ship in orbit and an escape pod taking up an orbit naturally roused their curiosity. I suspect that the Collector has ships along the half-dozen likely paths we could have taken. Her assets are even greater than I suspected.”

  “They don’t seem to have welcomed you with open arms.”

  “No, thanks to you and Maauro, that Morok captain seems to have embellished the tale of my aiding you.”

  My stomach churned. “I assume you did your best to sell us out to them.”

  “Of course, but they weren’t interested in bargaining and filled me full of babble juice. Far less effective, since they weren’t smart enough to ask the right questions. Now I am disinclined to volunteer information.”

  “So your membership card has been revoked. Guess they haven’t discussed their plans with you.”

  “Oh, our long-armed, muscular friend was quite free with the information. We are off to see the Collector, or you are anyway, though I suspect that we may both end up in the same compost bag when they’re through with us. Unless of course, Maauro is coming to our rescue?”

  “I wouldn’t count on it, Dusko. She doesn’t know what happened to me. Maauro let us off at the port yesterday; we made our goodbyes then. Even if she does learn of it, I doubt her imperative will allow her to depart the trail to look for us.”

  Our vehicle mounted an incline. Then came a series of metallic bangs and thuds and the sound of shouted orders. The doors opened and a number of armed Guilders stood there. But it was the tattooed man who leaned in and pulled us to our feet. He disdained any weapons other than his powerful arms. “Come on, mes amis,” he said in his curious accent. “We have nice cozy cabins for both of you.”

  I looked about. We were in the belly of a starship. One so large it came with roll-on-roll-off ramps for vehicles.

  “Ah, now that we have you,” Tattoo said, adjusting his beret, “we can get off this backwater.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked, my belly muscles tensed for an expected punch.

  But Tattoo seemed in a good mood. “Parts unknown, mon jeune homme, parts unknown. You have a date with the Collector and she is always off in some hinterland overturning rocks to see what is under them. Do not worry. We have left enough breadcrumbs for les femmes to follow us. Though I am glad to leave dealing with your metallic petite amie to the Collector.”

  Chapter 23

  I prepare to take off on my lonely mission. I have made every provision I can for Wrik and Jaelle, offloading all funds and specie from the ship that I did not need for fuel or repairs. I have also sent a file to the port authorities with all the data that there is on Dusko. Whether they credit the anonymous source or not, there is more than enough to imprison him, or at least make him very unpopular with both the authorities and the Guild.

  My imperative drives me as I prepare the ship for voyaging, a process rendered longer without Wrik’s skilled help. He remains uppermost in my thoughts. I hope that I have enriched his existence as he has mine. There were still many improvements and repairs to be made there. He remained partially crippled by his shameful failure and rejection by his primary network on Retief. Unlike Jaelle, whose rejection of her primary network was principled and just.

  I continue to my system’s check for blastoff, as lost in my thought and memories as is possible for me. A security system bleeps and I look up to see a vehicle racing toward me. It is open-topped and I can clearly see Jaelle, hair streaming in the wind, waving and shouting. This betokens extreme alarm, possible disaster, as she knows she cannot be heard.

  I leap up or try to. My imperative disallows the motion.

  “Negation. Continue to primary objective.”

  “Objection: Level 1- Mission-critical intelligence is being brought to me.”

  “Negation. Improbable that useful mission-critical intel will be gained from this source. Proceed to launch.”

  We have reached crisis, my temperature is rising, threatening to scorch the pads on which I rest. Either I must give in, or engage in a brute force struggle with my programming. Either I will prevail or I will shut down, possibly not to reawaken.

  “Emergency Override Level 5. Primary network biological is not present. Return of secondary biological indicates attack, casualties, threat to primary mission, possible imminent enemy action against this unit.”

  My primary program is backed off by the use of my ultimate override. It releases sufficient control for me to stop the countdown and open the lowest access point on the ship, given the gantry and supports have rolled back. But I am still bound to my flight chair. I now understand how it is that humans grind their teeth in frustration.

  I hear the pounding of Jaelle’s feet as she approaches the flight deck. A human would be out of breath on arrival, but Jaelle spits out, “The Guild has captured Wrik!”

  Anger courses through me. “Tell me all that has happened, but understand that I am helpless. I almost shut down, forcing myself to hold launch for you. My imperative will soon drag me off or shut me down.”

  “Perhaps I can help with that.” She holds up a mail holo and triggers it. “The port officials stopped me on the way here and gave me this package for you. The return address only says, The Collector.”

  “Greetings, Maauro,” comes a female voice. My analysis indicates an older human woman. “I am the Collector, though you may call me Emma if you wish. I have something to show you that will hold your interest.”

  A crystal-clear image appears, so real that I must suppress my attack reflexes. I am looking at an Infestor warrior drone as it skitters across an enclosure. From the size and coloration, it is a juvenile.

  “I imagine that I have your attention now.” The older human female wanders into the frame. She wears a blue-helmet, incongruous against her expensive business suit. Clear, gray eyes look out at me from a curiously unlined face. “I understand that you call them Infestors.

  “I have not grown these to be mere pets. I plan for them to be keys to unlock something the Guild found long ago. We call it the Artifact, though what it actually is… well, perhaps you would know better than anyone. It orbits a dying star in a seldom visited section of space. We know it is ancient, hidden
in a fold of space-time and that it was made by your enemies.

  I intend for the Artifact and its treasures to be mine. There will be dangers, surely. That, my dear, is where I hope you will come in. Would you care to learn more? Then come to these spatial coordinates.” She rattles off a series of numbers that I file.

  “Do not bring the military or Confed authorities with you and, formidable as you are, do not plan to assault me. I am well protected, with enough firepower and resources to deal with even you. But that should not be necessary. If you are receiving this message then I have one or both of your new friends. Their continued existence will depend on your actions.”

  “I am not necessarily your enemy, Maauro, and will do no harm to you or yours unless I must. Consider rather that I may be a partner in a fascinating adventure of discovery, the search for things that no longer should exist. I do hope you will come.”

  “Like she’s inviting you to tea,” Jaelle rages, her teeth in evidence and her hands arched into claws.

  I rise from the seat, my imperative no longer active now that Wrik’s survival is wrapped into my need to assault and destroy the Infestation by this new intelligence.

  “Impossible things have come to pass,” I say. “I have analyzed all the metadata in that message and it is a true and accurate representation. She was standing outside a glassite enclosure containing a live Infestor.”

  “This Collector must have learned to fish at one time,” Jaelle growled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We have been lured across space. It’s obvious to me now. She spread Infestor artifacts and a message that she knew would cause you to come in this direction. I don’t know whether she planned to snatch Wrik, or all of us. She may have operatives across all the hyperspace routes leading to Ebosue. She needed to get her hands on Wrik to have any hope of controlling or limiting your actions.

  “Now that she has Wrik, she dares meet you face to face, to add you to her collection. Maauro, she is controlling our every move!”