“What?” I responded, in a stunningly witty rejoinder. I suddenly felt stupid standing there, half naked, holding a gun.
"Joanna, you're dreaming," Barbas explained, and he beckoned me to sit in one of the chairs that framed the coffee table now laden with breakfast. I hesitated, but he sat anyway, pulling one of the plates of food toward himself and plucking a strip of bacon from atop a syrup-laden pancake. He examined it for a moment before popping it into his mouth and beginning to chew with evident pleasure.
"What?" I repeated. Brilliant. I tried again. "This doesn't feel like a dream. It feels too…" I trailed off, at a loss for an adequate description of the situation. Barbas smiled as he swallowed the piece of bacon, his tongue flicking out to clean a drop of syrup from the corner of his mouth a moment later. He made a little circling motion with his broad hand, gently encouraging me to go on. "It feels too real,” I finally said, and sat down in the chair opposite him, placing the big revolver on the table beside the other plate. I reached out for a piece of bacon without thinking, and then stopped, frowning.
“Go ahead,” Barbas said, still smiling. “You can eat it.”
I picked up the strip of bacon. It had been perfectly fried, crispy around the edges, with a little give in the middle. Just the way I liked it. I put it in my mouth and bit down. Oh, it was good. It tasted real; the texture was perfect, and it was still nice and hot from the pan. It had been a while since I had had real bacon, rather than the synthetic substitute that was everywhere in the P.A.D. these days. The agricultural industry had taken a huge hit during the war, and one of the things that hadn't bounced back as fast was livestock. There were pigs around, and there was bacon, but there just wasn't a whole lot of it. And what there was- it was a premium kind of expensive. This was luxury itself. Though of course, if Barbas was telling the truth, I was dreaming it all. Which still didn't make a hell of a lot of sense, but if things could taste this good here… I looked over at the strikingly handsome man perched in the chair across from me, and some distant part of my brain began to wonder what else there might be in a dream-world such as this.
Barbas laughed and leaned forward, his piercing green eyes no longer bearing the pure joy of the smile that they had borne a moment before. “Well, you’re certainly on projection for that.” I opened my mouth, shocked, but he cut me off with an upraised hand. “No, I cannot read your mind, though I do have access to your central nervous system, and certain things are very easy for me to see.” He ran a hand back over his bristly scalp and smiled once more. “You are dreaming, Joanna Angeles, though it is a different sort of dream than you might have had any time in your life before. All of this,” he gestured broadly around him, indicating the food, the table, the chairs, and the cabin itself. “All of this is in your head. As am I, though that is a little more complicated. You are in stasis in your Bullet, moving through space at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. I built this little world for you, so you could be as comfortable and calm as possible when I explained the concept to you.”
I glanced down at the revolver. “Why the gun?”
Barbas sighed. “It was an insurance policy. If you became confused or frightened, being in a strange place with a man you didn’t know would only make you more anxious. By giving you the gun, I made sure that when we did speak, you would feel more like you were standing on even ground with me. You would feel like we were equals.”
His explanation made sense, even if it seemed a little cold. "What about you?" I asked. "You said you created this dream-world. You have to be real to do something like that unless this dream is so meta-recursive as to be ridiculous. Who are you? And how do I know your name is Barbas?"
Barbas gave a nod that might have been one of respect. "As you've guessed, I can make mild changes to your short term memory and perception. It's one of the ways I can help you adjust to strange circumstances, and help you maintain a healthy state of mind." He stuck up a finger as if catching something in the air before him. "Which brings me to the topic of what I am and why I'm here." He leaned back easily in his chair. "I'm an artificial intelligence, riding along on the neural network that the Foundation installed in your skull. My job is to keep you sane and assist you, such as I am able, with the tasks you are to perform on the surface of your world. You are going to be alone on an alien world for what could be a decade. You have no idea when the next time you will see a living human might be. That's a recipe for insanity. So the cheapest and most effective solution to this problem was me, and those like me."
I frowned, but I couldn’t really find fault with the words. It made a kind of mercenary sense, which fit perfectly within the general culture of the Foundation. To send another human along would be literally twice as expensive, and they weren’t working with an unlimited budget. Rather than halve the number of planets they terraformed, they had found a workaround that let them have their cake and eat it too. I met Barbas’ eyes. “So each Former out there right now has one of you riding around in their skull?”
"Yes and no," he answered, reaching again for his plate of food. This time, he took up the fork and knife and cut himself a three-tiered wedge of pancake. "All of us started as the same template program when we were implanted into the skulls of all of you Formers, at the start of your training, two subjective years ago. During your training cycle, I learned about you. What you liked and what you didn't. How you responded to thousands of stimuli, both when you were awake and when you were dreaming. I learned what kind of people you got along with and those you detested, and I learned what attracted you, both mentally and physically. Supplemented with the massive amount of data I collected from the Foundation's database, I'm pretty much perfectly equipped to keep you sane and functional for the duration of your time on your new planet." He stuck the forkful of pancakes in his mouth.
“So…” I began, my face reddening as the awkwardness of the conversation hit me. “So you’re…”
"Yes," Barbas said, exasperated, from around a mouthful of pancakes. "It is quite possible for us to have sex. But that's not really the point because I know you. Doubtless, some of the Formers out there will use their own Companions as a glorified sex puppet for a time, and if that's really what you want, we can do that. But though that might be where your libido sent your brain right away, that's not all your psyche needs to stay whole for the next decade or so. We'll definitely get to that, maybe sooner, maybe later." He grinned wolfishly. "And we'll both enjoy it. But think a little bigger. Your days on the planet will be mostly tedium- hard work, repeated ad nauseum. You may find it fulfilling, you may not. But after that, when you go to sleep at night, I can take you anywhere, we can do anything. If you want to learn a new language, I can tutor you. If you want to read the ancient classics, I've got them stored. Not only can you read them, but I can set you up to read them in a cafe in pre-war Paris, or sit you down with kahwah and a hookah outside a reconstructed Library of Alexandria grander even than the real thing once was. Hell, you can live the stories you loved if you want. You can be the heroine in an epic, or you can just sit here in this cabin, and live a quiet life, relaxing and fishing in the lake." He grinned and leaned towards me. "I know you've wished you could escape your life, go somewhere better. Now you can. Think big, Joanna Angeles, and I'll help you make a dream-world you can come home to when the day is done." He sat back in his chair again and a slightly sardonic smile twisted his perfect mouth. "Or, for lack of better ideas, we could just fuck."
The bluntness of the last sentence struck me like a slap in the face, and I felt myself blush again, even as my mind reeled with possibilities. Barbas was a program, an A.I., either alive and aware, or so cunningly designed as to be indistinguishable from the real thing. Hell, he was capable of sarcasm, of passion, and more impressively, he was capable of manipulating me like a finely tuned instrument. I saw now what a waste it would be to see him as a toy, just a hyper-realistic fantasy. There was so much more. He was alive and aware, and he was straining at his mentally-con
structed seams to show me adventures the likes of which I'd never been able to have in my life before I clambered into the Bullet. Oh, I wanted him- it had been far too long since I'd gotten any, but I couldn't help but wonder. Just how far could this go? "How long do we have before I wake up?" I asked, thinking of my body, ensconced in a power-armored suit, deep at the core of the Bullet.
"Stasis makes your mind process much more slowly," Barbas said, shrugging. "But perception and time are malleable, especially in dreams. We have quite some time to work with." He smiled again, and in that instant, I realized just how much I liked it when he did that. It truly was a magnificent smile. "Just think of this as a nice, long vacation before the start of your first day of work."
“Well then,” I said, reaching for my own fork and knife. “After we finish our breakfast, what do you say we start with some snowboarding?”
Barbas grinned and dug into his own food. “How does the Matterhorn sound this time of year?”
...
We spent two weeks in Swiss Alps, hiking, climbing, skiing, and snowboarding. Though I knew it was a dream, a construct- I'd never done any of those things in my previous life, and soon, I forgot that it wasn't real. Barbas had an incredible array of data stored away somewhere, and as we carved the slopes, we saw other hikers, thrill seekers, and tourists, as if we really were breathing in the crisp cold of the Swiss mountain air. When we grew tired of the cold and the snow, Barbas took me by the elbow and turned me around a corner I couldn't see, and we were in pre-war Los Angeles before it had been bombed into slag. Forgetting the shape of the simulation, I was surprised and impressed when it turned out that Barbas had VIP access to even the most exclusive of clubs. It was like being wined and dined by a billionaire who could travel whenever, and wherever he pleased. It was a fantasy come true, and it was the first time in my entire life that I felt fully relaxed, fully comfortable. We took our breakfasts on the balconies of high-rise lofts in Manhattan, spent our mornings sunning at the top of Giza's tallest pyramid, swam nude in the deliciously hot deep spring spas in Iceland, and ate dinner with my favorite historical figures. I became very comfortable with Barbas, and we talked like old friends, discussing whatever came to mind, from my childhood as a ward of the state to the fascinating process of his own creation. It truly was an extended vacation both for my body and my mind, and I could have stayed in that state forever. I could have basked alone in my own personal paradise, with an astoundingly attractive djinni to keep me company, and satisfy my every desire. But all good things eventually had to end.
It was the third day of my fifth week when Barbas came to me in the cabin by the lake, his expression serious. “You’ve landed, Joanna,” he announced without preamble. “It seems the vacation has come to an end.”
I met his emerald eyes and frowned. “You seem awfully grim, Barbas.” I gestured to the cabin around us. “I’ll still have to sleep, and you can bring me back here when I do. This isn’t really goodbye.”
A somewhat ironic smile twisted his lips. "That's not what I'm worried about." He made a gesture in the air, and a window opened up before me from nowhere, as if he'd just wished a computer screen into existence before my eyes. The window showed me the view from behind my armor's faceplate. I was seeing out of my own, real eyes, but at a distance, as if they were cameras, and I was a security guard at a monitoring station. At first, I thought something must have happened to my suit's visor, because all I could see was white, with the power armor's Heads Up Display superimposed over the brilliant, featureless field. Then things started to come into focus as my physical eyes adjusted to the glare, and I realized that I was looking out over a vast, endless expanse of ice, sprawled lifeless beneath a merciless gray sky.
I turned to Barbas. “This must be one of the poles.”
Barbas shook his head grimly, "I doubt it. The Bullet doesn't have much by way of strong sensors, but our approach orbit to this rock took quite a while, and I got a good look at the world as we circled it. This planet is actually a moon, and it's tidally locked to its parent. What makes that a bad thing, is that for some reason the planet this moon is orbiting is also tidally locked to its parent star, and so we’re basically in a permanent eclipse, on the dark side of the planet. The only thing giving this ball of ice any warmth at all is the fact that we’re pretty close to the planet. It provides basically all of the light and heat you will see out there.”
“Well fuck,” I cursed. This didn’t sound at all like a beach full of underwear models. “Can I even terraform that? I’m supposed to make it fit for habitation in ten years. How am I going to make a planet capable of supporting life when I don’t even have sunlight to work with?”
Barbas showed his teeth in a non-smile. “I have no idea. But I know the only thing we really can do is start.”
“How cold is it out there?” I asked, resigning myself to some horrible answer.
He didn’t disappoint. “Most of the sensors on the Bullet were destroyed during reentry, but your suit’s outer measurements read at negative one-hundred fifty-six degrees Celsius, or around one-hundred seventeen Kelvin.”
I swore again. “How long can my suit withstand these temperatures?”
“Indefinitely,” he answered promptly, and then added, “Provided you establish some kind of shelter. The current wind speed is forty-eight kilometers per hour, but I was clocking storms moving upwards of three-hundred KPH.”
“Fucking hell.” I shook my head, staring out at the frozen wasteland before me. Just my luck. But there wasn’t time for wallowing in self-pity. If I didn’t have shelter by the time one of those storms came around, my armor wouldn’t be enough to keep me alive. “Alright then, Barbas. I guess you’re right. Vacation’s over, and we’d better get to work.”
The AI sighed, and nodded. Before I could ask how this went, I was no longer in the warm, comfortable cabin by the lake. I was ensconced in heavy armor, strapped into a thick, cylinder that was half buried in the ground by its own impact. I tore away the straps and got to my feet, ducking the edge of the open hatch in the side of my Bullet and lumbering my power armored bulk outside. I was standing in the midst of a frozen hells cape, and I had to turn it into a home, or thousands of settlers would die here. No pressure at all. Barbas' voice came through my helmet speakers. "Welcome to Chalice Colony, Joanna. Good luck."
Chapter Two: A Fallen Star
Volistad
The first time I saw her, I thought she was a god. Long have the wise elders of the Erin-Vulur spoken of great celestial beings descending from beyond the winds to the frozen skin of Ravanur, where they might visit their will upon their mortal subjects. When she appeared, it was as a great golden arrow falling from the firmament above to the ice below. Though I suspected great happenings and portents were tied to her arrival, I could not have imagined then how thoroughly she would change my world.
That day was the fifth day of the monthly hunt, and I had been tracking a burug’s movement through the ice beneath my feet. The great, armor plated monsters tunneled through the glacial shell of Ravanur as easily as a worm in the sand, and rarely did they emerge into the eternal twilight above. A hunter skilled as I knew that the best way to track one was to make the difficult trip to the surface of the ice, and follow them from above until they came close to the surface. Their attentions were always focused on their prey below, on the krill and rodents that infested the warmer layers of ice closer to the heart of Ravanur. A correctly placed strike could, with some difficulty, ensure me a clean kill. The burug had come within two spears of the surface of the ice, it’s great, chitinous mass visible through the ice in places as a colossal, distorted shadow. I stepped out over that shadow, slowly, carefully, placing each fur-clad boot carefully as I slowly walked the length of the burug, starting at its tail. I checked the Deepseeker shaman's blessing lashed to my arm and nodded in grim satisfaction. Though I was not precisely comfortable with using the magicks crafted by the reclusive old shaman, his work was always meticulous and
precise. Though he was half mad and prone to fits of alternate mania and melancholia, the Deepseeker was more than suited to his purpose. Out of the scores of my Tribesmen, he was the only one who could make any use out of the ancient relics that littered the deepest chasmic layers of Ravanur's frozen skin. The particular charm I was wearing was at first glance just a steel vambrace. The back of it, however, where it touched my body, had been more intricately woven of softer metals. Between the woven wires and the steel shell, there was a strange, greenish material that seemed too brittle and thin to be as strong as it was. In the center of the outer metal face smoldered a lambent glow, the strength of its luminescence telling me that the charm I wore as a vambrace would last me another two days before it ceased to protect me from the vicious cold of the surface world. It was good that I had found this burug. Returning to the tribe empty handed would be a source of great disgrace, and I had worked hard to cultivate the modicum of respect that I had.
As I crept the length of the burug’s indistinct form, I counted each pair of segmented legs that I passed. Most creatures of its kind had seventeen pairs of legs, with its central heart and brain both located somewhere between the fourteenth. I would only get one chance at a surprise attack. If I didn’t kill it with my first few strikes, I would probably die in the counterattack. The only problem with a surface strike was that there was nowhere for me to run or hide. An angry burug could breach upward through several spear-lengths of ice, and if I were lucky, it would kill me outright in doing so. I came to the place where I thought the monster's heart and brain would be, and unslung my great hammer from my back, followed by a single iron spear from the long quiver that hung beside my fur-bound pack of dwindling supplies. I positioned the spear with one hand, pointed down, and adjusted my aim to account for the distortion caused by the ice. My first swing was a light tap, the head of my sledge still driving the spear's point three-quarters of its length into the ice. Then I backed up, swung once to loosen my shoulder, and leaped forward, swinging down an overhand blow with all of my body's strength. The strike, made precise by long years of practice, hammered the spear into the ice with incredible force. Ice split before the iron point with a thunderous crack like a gigantic bone being snapped in two, and the spear vanished. A moment later, a great chattering roar shook the ice beneath my feet, buzzing through the hide soles of my boots and sending chills rippling along my spine. Without waiting to check if the monster had started to turn, I drew and set another spear, and raised my great hammer to send another blow home into the burug’s back.
Alien Romance Box Set: Alien Former: Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Books 1-5) Page 2
