To his surprise, he found Yi standing on the balcony as if waiting for him. “Good morning,” he said. “I thought you left.”
The soulbot smiled. “I’m Yi Two. Yi sent me to tell you to meet him at the caves when you can. He took Nona and the Historian with him. There’s a Colorima as well. Yi thinks you’d want to be there.”
It sounded like an invitation to a party. “Thanks, but we have a town to evacuate.”
“After will be fine. They’re probably only arriving now, and Yi actually doesn’t know what they’ll find. But he has some theories.”
Charlie always felt a little unsettled around the soulbots he didn’t know, at least the ones like this who looked and moved and talked like ones he did know. “Are you willing to share these theories?”
Yi Two looked out over the spaceport. “I can share one. You’d be safer there.”
Charlie finished the first cup of stim. “I’m glad you have Nona.”
The Yi asked, “Can I help with the evacuation?”
Charlie laughed. “You don’t have any secret soulbot stuff to do?”
“I do not.”
Charlie felt a little cruel for teasing. The Yis were so damned earnest. “Yes, I can use your help. But first, I need to finish my stim. We aren’t going to be ready for half an hour anyway.”
“All right.”
In the silence that followed, Charlie watched the sunrise color the clouds, and then fade as they covered the rising sun. “What’s it like to share so much? Yi told me once that you two have each other’s memories.”
“When you have a lover—particularly a new one—do you feel like you are blending into something bigger?”
“Yes.” The cloud moved off of the sun and bright orange spilled up and across the bottoms of clouds, even firing the ones just above their heads. “That good, huh?”
“I like it better than I liked sex.”
“But Jason doesn’t.”
The Yi nodded slowly. “That’s true.” He looked up at the sky rather than at Charlie, and in spite of the fact that he wasn’t human he seemed a little lost. He turned face on to Charlie and asked, “What can I do to help? Where are you sending people?”
“Wait,” Charlie said. “The new Chrystal. She doesn’t know anything about the old one, does she? Like they bifurcated at the point where the Next took you all away from the High Sweet Home.”
The Yi looked down for a moment and smiled softly. “From the moment they made us drink the juice that starts the process. They kind of get you stoned before they lead you away. That’s the last memory they share.”
“So they don’t back you up? If you die right here, Yi One won’t know we had this talk?”
“That’s true for us. The Jhailings seem to have a better deal.”
Charlie was almost done with his second stim. He turned the cup up. “Will you be like them?”
“Maybe one day. If we survive.”
“That’s good,” Charlie said. “That’s good.” He thought about the Historian. He hadn’t met him, but Nona had been disturbed when she heard he was coming.
Charlie could imagine how a historian might like eternal life. It might not be bad for a ranger either, since he could watch over his herds forever. Not that it truly attracted him, but he was less than halfway through his life. Maybe a lot later he would feel differently. He finished his cup. He glanced at the robot beside him. He wouldn’t have thought it possible for him in any circumstances a year ago. He shivered at the seduction. What would happen if they all turned one day? His voice came out brusque. “Come with me.”
Charlie led the Yi inside. The crowd by Manny had more than half dispersed, and Charlie was able to push up to the edge of the table. “Yi’s here to help, too. I’ll keep him with me. Do you want us to handle the north end of town?”
Manny looked like he was completely in his element, the town headman handing out assignments in an emergency, the middleman for every question. He smiled at the Yi. “Good to see you again. Thanks for the offer, and be careful. There are still people in town that don’t like soulbots.”
“I know.” Neither he nor Charlie revealed that he wasn’t the Yi Manny had met multiple times before, and Manny didn’t seem to notice at all. Manny handed Charlie two pieces of paper. One was a list of the people he was supposed to evacuate and the other the names of two skimmers to send them out in. “It’ll take two trips,” Manny said. “Get the first group off as fast as you can, and then you can gather the others. Decide based on who’s actually ready.”
“Okay.”
“What are you doing with Cricket?”
“Taking her with me.”
“Don’t let her scare the children.”
Charlie laughed. Manny had been telling him this ever since he adopted the injured predator. Five years, now.
The last family climbed the steep ramp into the second skimmer. A tall thin scientist named Lai held her three-year-old daughter on her hip and used her free hand to grip the rail. She turned and looked down at Charlie, her eyes wide with fear and gratitude. “Are you leaving, too?”
“Not yet.”
“Be careful.”
“I will, Lai; I will.”
Lai turned and ducked into the doorway. Shortly after, the pilot pulled the ramp in and closed the door.
While the machines warmed up and people inside finished settling, he liberated Cricket.
They stood beside Yi Two and watched the two machines take off slowly, fully laden, engines struggling to lift them above the closest houses before they sped up and shot away. Their departure left him more relieved than he had expected.
Cricket leaned against Charlie’s leg, her weight almost enough to unbalance him. She only leaned this hard on him when she felt he needed her; the tongat read his emotions more clearly than he did. Once in a while she seemed to feel obligated to point them out to him.
It was almost noon, but a light wind had kept the day from warming much. Even though Charlie knew better, he felt like Yi should be shivering in his short-sleeved black shirt. He envied the soulbots their easy way with the environment. Surely they would freeze if it got cold enough, but so far he’d never seen the soulbots react to temperature.
A dog crossed the street, glancing sideways at them and scuttling away, probably because of the tongat. “Let’s take Cricket for a short walk before we scare up the rest of the people. It will be a few hours before the skimmers are back anyway.”
“Okay.”
“We can go through the area we just cleared and make sure we didn’t miss anybody.”
They moved cautiously through nearly empty streets.
From time to time they passed bicycles left out beside houses. Yi closed open doors and windows and picked up a few bicycles, which made Charlie smile. People who grew up in space were almost always offended by clutter.
Cricket whined from time to time, but he couldn’t spot whatever was upsetting her. Perhaps she just found the empty town as eerie as he did.
“How do you intend to fight Nayli?” Yi asked between houses.
“Carefully.”
“You’re kidding.”
“We don’t know. We heard the Shining Revolution might be planning to take over the town. Manny sweet-talked the Port Authority into closing the spaceport for the day. They did it, but mostly because the Next allowed it. We’re keeping some fighters in case they’re useful, but we’ll house them near the edge of town, just in case that’s safer.”
They knocked on a door and got no answer. Yi listened until he appeared satisfied that the house was empty and then looked at Charlie. “You’re being careful.”
“Yes,” Charlie said.
“They’ll destroy you if they believe they have to. You should know that.”
“I do,” Charlie said. “Anything to live forever, damn them. Even though they will anyway, mostly. Even if Nayli does destroy Nexity, many of them will have enough backup copies or backup bodies or whatever. They’ll just live on.�
�
It galled Charlie. Lym was transitory, and so were he and Nona and Manny and Amfi and everyone else. The Next would live forever, and they were willing to destroy ephemeral humans in service to whatever they were here for. It didn’t make him mad at the soulbots, but beyond them there was a nameless, faceless power that wore a variety of bodies and only called itself by a few names that he knew. Jhailing Jim. Colorima Kelm.
“Whatever they want, they’re risking destroying something so precious I have no words for it.” Charlie found himself staring at Yi. “We hardly have any weapons here. After the last wars, Lym was declared a safe space, and we promised not to make weapons. Not real ones. We have hand weapons.” He touched the stunner at his side. “And a few small guns on a few of the skimmers. Nothing that could matter in an interplanetary war.”
Yi narrowed his eyes. “You’re angry, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“With us?”
“Not you. But with what you are becoming. What do you want anyway? Or the Next for that matter? Is there anything bigger than we know about? Does someone tell the Jhailings what to do?”
Yi laughed. “I would be angry, too, if I were you.”
There was something slightly odd in the robot’s expression, the kind of thing that would set off a small red flag if he were one of Charlie’s recruits. But surely it was just that this was Yi Two instead of Yi One, and they weren’t exactly the same, just so close that little things felt off. Charlie checked on Cricket, who was still right behind him, looking alert. “But you’re not angry that they killed you?”
“I was calm before that. I have always been calm. I used to meditate every day.”
“Do you still meditate?”
“Yes, although Katherine meditates even more.”
The idea of soulbots needing to meditate amused Charlie so much some of his anger drained away.
They reached the next house, a small square dwelling with flowers planted all around and sized for no more than two people. There was a note on the door that said, I’m staying. Drilling with fighters. Erin Grapple.
“I don’t remember that note,” Yi said.
“That’s okay,” Charlie said. “I know Erin. So you say you were calm before all of this happened. I bet Jason wasn’t.”
Yi Two smiled. “None of us feels as deeply as we did when we were human. Not even Jason.”
“Do your emotions feel the same, though? Is anger still anger?”
Yi bent down and picked up a stray toy, tossing it inside a fence. “I don’t have any way of telling. My feelings aren’t as strong. I get angry, but not so angry that I shake.”
“I’m not shaking.”
Yi put a hand on Charlie’s arm. “Stop,” he mouthed, his eyes wide.
Cricket let out a low growl.
Yi pulled them carefully backward between two houses. He put a finger to his lips.
Charlie gave Cricket the silence command: snap, set a hand on her head. She nosed him.
Footsteps.
A black forager bird cawed and flapped up into the dark gray sky.
For a few long breaths, nothing else.
Three people walked past, one street over but visible as they moved between two houses.
Charlie recognized them. Richard, Samil, and one of the men from the cafeteria. One of the real revolutionaries.
They were planning to take Manna Springs on foot?
Yi wouldn’t be safe, for sure. Charlie leaned over to the soulbot and whispered, “You’re faster. Can you get back to Manny? Tell him the Shining Revolution is in town.”
Yi raised an eyebrow and looked back at the three men. They hadn’t looked this way yet, although surely they would soon. They were scouting.
“Go now,” Charlie said. “Go fast.”
Yi’s eyes narrowed.
“Go.”
Yi faded back, sliding between the two houses, and then he was gone. He couldn’t hear Yi’s footsteps. He crouched down by Cricket, stroking her head as she stood tense and ready.
The three men had turned a corner and were going to be nearing him soon.
Charlie debated with himself.
Yi was safely away.
The men would probably see him. They were surely better armed. That would put Cricket in danger.
Who would have thought he’d keep making safe decisions to protect a predator? The thought brought a short-lived smile to his face.
He stood and gave Cricket another hand signal that demanded quiet. She regarded him calmly, and he waited until he saw acquiescence in her eyes.
They walked out the way Yi had gone. Perhaps the invaders would notice him but wouldn’t think anything of there being someone here. Perhaps they wouldn’t want him to see them. That might, in fact, be his best hope. Perhaps he was hiding from someone who wanted to hide from him.
Cricket was better at being quiet than he was; every once in a while he scuffed the ground with a foot. A few drops of rain startled him.
He and Manny had been worried about being attacked from the sky, or at least via skimmers. They had expected to see whatever was coming in time to plan.
Now, the danger was here. The skimmers wouldn’t be back in time and probably shouldn’t come back at all.
The center of town would be dangerous in a space-based attack.
Time to tell everyone left to leave, even if they had to do it on foot.
Rain fell in earnest, a soaking dampness that chilled him instantly.
He contemplated locking Cricket up in the skimmer to keep her safe. But if something happened to him, she could die there. If she was with him, she might be able to warn him about trouble before they found it. He knelt and looked into her eyes, doing his best to communicate the gravity of their situation. Silly, but it seemed worth doing.
She rumbled deeply in her throat, a growl that seemed to come from her center, from her heart. She knew.
He stood back up. “Come on,” he whispered.
He jogged toward the next house on his list, remembering Manny’s comment that she might scare the children.
If there were any left, they might need to be scared.
CHAPTER SIXTY
YI
Late afternoon sun still illuminated the cave’s entrance as Yi slid the skimmer into the landing spot at the mouth. He climbed out and left the door open, turning to help Nona and the Historian out. The small man immediately went and touched the dirt wall of the cave and some of the plants near the opening. Nona took his hand and said, “Careful. Some things here have thorns, and some insects bite.”
Yi didn’t have to help the next person out of the skimmer. A Colorima Kelm climbed out easily, her movements completely fluid. Every Colorima he had met before had been wearing a large silvered body, as if all of the copies of Colorima that existed identified with the same physical figure.
This one was different.
She had lodged herself in a human-scale female body that looked as much like a person as he or Chrystal, albeit more like a person from the Glittering than from Lym. She had chosen bright purple, blue, and silver hair, a skinny waist over wide hips, and longer legs than any un-modded human was actually born with. The clearest sign of her Next interior showed in her eyes, which were a deep matte black across the whole pupil and iris, with gold and silver sparkles that suggested galaxies inside of her.
Last, Chrystal flowed out of the skimmer, her tattoo bright in the sun. She and Nona had eyed each other during the whole trip out, but neither had said anything. Are you okay? he spoke silently to her.
Yes. I just so want some time alone with Nona. It seems awkward to say anything to her here. And she looks at me so strangely.
There will be time. I’m sure she wants that as much as you. She mourned you and yet you are here. I remember the same confusion when we first saw each other.
Chrystal smiled. You hugged me right away.
I was surprised and amazed. She had months to know about you before she saw you.
> True.
Let’s go.
Chrystal had always been better at worrying about other people’s feelings than at expressing her own. He pulled two flashlights, two headlamps, and two backpacks of food and clothes out of the skimmer and handed them to Nona and Dr. Nevening. “You may not need the lights at all, but guard them as precious. The lighting here is not of our making nor in our control, and if it goes dark, you will be in danger.”
The two looked at each other and nodded, taking the packs and looping one light each over their necks. The presence of Dr. Nevening seemed to make Nona more like him, her face earnest and solemn.
The Colorima and Chrystal each carried water and more food.
They started down the winding pathway, Yi leading and the others walking two by two, humans next to each other and the Colorima and Chrystal in the back, outwardly silent. Low lights spread warm yellows onto the floor and illuminated the walkers’ faces from below, producing a slightly eerie effect.
Because of the humans, they had to go slowly. They stopped to rest twice. Three hours and twenty-two minutes after they landed at the top, they reached the bottom of the pathway and Yi started them down the long, wide corridor lined with ships.
They stared at everything they saw and periodically stopped to whisper to each other. Yi started talking, trying to keep their attention mostly on him. “We’ll be going down an elevator. It’s very old, possibly from before the wars. When we found it, it still worked perfectly and ran smoothly. It was very surprising. There are some really interesting things at the bottom of the cave. The Colorima wants your help seeing the contents of the cave through a historian’s eyes.”
Dr. Nevening wasn’t as easily distracted at Yi had hoped. He eyed the ships tucked into stone alcoves by the walls. “What are these?”
“Old relics. We’ve only learned a little about them. Someday there will be time for you to explore them.”
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