Gun Runner

by B. V. Larson

  The android looked around with artificial intelligence in his false eyes. “This is an unusual ship. We suspect a violation.”

  “What violation?”

  “Search the lower deck,” he ordered. “Search the hold.”

  The model-Ks rushed off without acknowledgement or asking us for permission. We watched them go, frowning.

  “Sir,” I said, being extremely polite for a human addressing a skin-job like him. “We’ve got nothing to hide. We’re from Baden. We’d like to ask some of the local wealthy patrons for charitable aid.”

  “Ah-ha!” the captain said, spinning back around to look at me. He’d been scanning the deck, categorizing everything in sight. That process still took computers more time than it did humans. “A violation has been detected. Pan-handling and vagrancy are illegal in this star system.”

  “Vagrancy? Nonsense, my good man,” I said, complimenting him again. “We are not destitute. We are not begging. We are seeking a charitable contribution. Don’t you have charities here on Prospero?”

  The model-Q froze for a second, searching the local grid and his cloud of information. “Yes…” he said, sounding surprised. “We have charities. But they can’t operate without a license.”

  “There you go. Our first act will be to apply for such a license.”

  “The odds of acceptance are very low. No charity has been approved here for decades. Patronage is a requirement.”

  I pasted on a smile and spread my arms wide. “Not a problem. We have some friends here. We’ll be fine.”

  “Friends? Name them.”

  “Ah… I’d rather not. They’re humble people who’d prefer to remain anonymous.”

  The captain pulled out a pair of self-sealing hand-cuffs. He offered them to me.

  “Put these on, sir,” he said. “For your own protection, humans are offered the opportunity to self-arrest.”

  “What? Why?” Jort demanded, unable to keep quiet any longer.

  The patrol captain turned toward him and took his question at face-value. “In order to prevent injury. As we are not sensitive enough to know when we’re applying too much force with our grippers, we tend to injure humans during the process. I’ve judged this crew as non-combative, therefore I’m allowing—”

  “Captain,” I interrupted. “Why are we being arrested? I told you, we seek to open a legal charity.”

  “That claim has set aside the pan-handling charge for now. However, you are without funds in this system. We’ve searched, and none of you are in possession of a bank account that is accessible here. That makes all of you, by definition, vagrants.”

  Jort and Sosa stared, mouths agape. I frowned, thinking hard. We’d all given the patrolmen false names, of course. To admit I was the infamous Captain William Gorman would doubtlessly result in more than simple jail time.

  I soon came up with the only dodge I could think of. It was something of a long-shot, but it was better than drawing weapons and destroying all these patrolmen—even if we could manage it.

  “As I said, we have friends here. Contact Rose O’Neal, she’s the daughter of an Elector here on Prospero.”

  The model-Q opened his eyes widely. Perhaps that was some software programmed to demonstrate surprise—either that, or his brain was glitching.

  “An Elector of the Conclave?” he asked. “I will verify your claim.”

  His eyes became unfocussed, and he froze for a second. Right then, I knew I could ambush him. He was preoccupied, as were all of his artificial troops.

  Two heartbeats went by before I made my fateful choice…

  The moment passed, and the model-Q remained unmolested. His eyes returned to normal, and they did so without any interruption from me.

  Part of me was immediately regretful. Jort was making hurry-up-and-do-it gestures, spinning a finger in the air.

  But it wouldn’t have worked. Sure, we probably could have defeated the patrolmen and fled. That would have been it for Prospero, however. I’d have been forced to run and never look back. Even now, they might trace my DNA through samples. If I pulled anything dramatic now, I was certain to be blackballed on this planet forever.

  I hadn’t come all the way out here to burn bridges and leave empty-handed. I needed some help, and this was my best chance to get it before facing Kersen.

  The patrol leader looked surprised. “I’ve contacted the individuals in question. The family has all responded in the negative—except for one individual. The daughter, Rose.”

  “What a surprise,” I said. “What did she say?”

  “That you should be arrested immediately.”

  I heard a click, and I looked down. I saw my wrists had been manacled. Apparently, the android had decided to take it upon himself to perform the arrest the old-fashioned way.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Jort snarled, but I raised my hands with one-finger held high to stop him.

  “Can you forward a message to the Elector herself—Rose’s mother?” I asked.

  “It is possible, but pointless,” the patrolman replied.

  I shook my manacled hands. “Give it a shot. This arrest is a mistake.”

  “You claim an error has been made?”

  Androids were very touchy about errors, I knew. “I’m making that claim, yes.”

  “What message would you suggest?”

  “Tell her I have a yacht that may yet be returned.”

  The android looked unimpressed, but he relayed my words. A few moments later, a reply came back.

  “Hold them until I get there,” the patrolman said.

  “Ah-ha! You see? They wish to greet us personally. I’ll explain it all when they get here.”

  “Your analysis is lacking in several particulars.”

  “That may be, but you have your orders.”

  The patrolman seemed annoyed, but he didn’t argue. On Prospero, the law enforcement units were not independent from the rest of the government officials. The only way an order from an official could be ignored would be if a higher-level official countermanded it. As I strongly suspected, no other official in the system knew or even cared about our presence in the star system. Therefore, the word of the Elector could not be ignored.

  We stood around waiting for nearly an hour. Sosa managed to make an excuse about personal issues and retreated. She was allowed to leave, but a model-K followed her suspiciously.

  I wasn’t allowed to do anything. Neither was Jort, as he had been witnessed making threatening comments. We were under arrest.

  I could have told these toasters that Sosa was at least as dangerous as we were, but I refrained from doing so. Still, Jort and I became worried as time passed. What if the girl decided to take a break in the lavatory? It would be an easy, and arguably smart, move for her to irradiate the entire ship and pick up the pieces later.

  Model-Q units weren’t much more resistant to radiation than humans were. Model-Ds, on the other hand, were heavily shielded. As to the model-Ks… I wasn’t sure how they would fare. They were tough, but I wasn’t sure if their brain-boxes were lead-lined or not.

  Jort looked nervously at me. “Uh… do you think maybe Sosa went to bathroom?”

  I shrugged. “It’s possible.”

  “Perhaps we should go find her—to make sure.”

  The model-Q seemed confused by our remarks. “Does she suffer from some kind of disability?”

  “Ask your patrolmen to check on her, would you?” I asked. “We’re concerned.”

  “Immediately.”

  He communicated with silent transmissions. We heard the model-K units trundling about on the lower deck. A moment later, he turned back toward us.

  “One of my units has been disabled. Coincidentally, Sosa seems to be absent from the ship.”

  “Really? Did you check the lifepods?”

  “They’re all present and accounted for.”

  “This is quite a surprise. Perhaps she spaced herself.”

  The patrol leader turned,
looking at the instruments. “I don’t see any evidence of that, however…”

  He suddenly turned and moved toward the hatch he’d entered through. I tripped him the moment his back was turned. Jort and I fell upon him, beating him relentlessly.

  He was only a model-Q, but as a patrolman, his chassis was tougher than the rented captain I’d destroyed the day I escaped Prospero. He complained about our actions until the very end.

  “This violation has been logged and reported,” he said in the same neutral tone he always used.

  Jort hammered his skull with a coffee pot, despite the fact I’d told him that sort of attack was useless. None of these androids kept their control chips in their false heads. Jort crushed in the skull region anyway. The only effect was to cause the speakers to become muffled.

  “Assaulting a patrolman is a serious offense. Incarceration is mandatory. Your actions will be—”

  Finally, with a grunt of effort, Jort managed to shut him up by drilling a power-driver into his spinal region. Of course, patrolmen didn’t have spines, but they did have a wire harness connecting sensors, power supplies and motors. Damaging this had an effect similar to a spinal injury.

  The robot began to buck spastically under us, and we jumped free. It made odd, stuttering sounds before the gleam in its artificial eyes finally died.

  “He’ll have contacted the others,” I said, “come on.”

  Arming ourselves with pistols, we steeled ourselves. A rush of model-K patrolmen came up from the lower decks. There were three of them, and our only saving grace was they came up one at a time due to our limited hatch-size.

  The first climbed up rapidly, coming into view with his head turned toward the bridge. We fired and took him down, burning him until he fell clattering back down into the lower deck.

  The second bot did exactly as the first had. We, however, had taken the time to rush over to the far side of the hatchway. When he came up, head spun around one-hundred-and-eighty degrees so as to look behind him, we were on the far side.

  The programming of patrolmen was nothing if not predictable. We kicked and shot him unmercifully. He fell down to the lower deck, flopping over the first. Both were still squirming, but unable to stand or effectively use their weapons.

  The third model-K showed surprising initiative. Jort grinned, and I sweated while we waited for him to come up the ladder, but he took an alternate route.

  Fortunately, the secondary hatchway was rarely used. When the wheel spun, it creaked and the hinges groaned when the hatch was thrown wide with a clang.

  Turning to face one another, we all fired at once. I shot the patrolman, and he shot Jort.

  Taking cover behind the navigational console, I breathed hard. We’d hit the robot, but he wasn’t out. He could take more hits than any human.

  Jort lay on his back, gasping for breath.

  “Throw your weapon down, Jort,” I told him. “That’s an order.”

  Groaning, he tossed it aside. Patrolmen were programmed not to fire on unarmed assailants.

  “Jort surrenders!” I shouted.

  “That is an appropriate action, Captain Gorman. You should consider the wisdom of your ally and do the same.”

  I thought about it. I seriously did. The odds were against me.

  Then, I saw something on the ship’s security cameras. A door had opened on the deck below.

  Slowly, I raised my manacled hands and held up the pistol. “I’m surrendering!” I shouted. “Don’t shoot!”

  “Drop your weapon, stand with your hands up.”

  “I can’t stand, I’m hurt.”

  “My software registers no damage to your body.”

  “It’s wrong. It happened before you guys got here.”

  The robot laboriously climbed up the final rungs onto the command deck. It sounded slowed, damaged. I guess we’d managed to wing him at least.

  “Your continued obstinate refusal to accept authority has placed you in this situation, Gorman.”

  “Yeah? What does the law say about abandoned clones?”

  “Your query is unclear. Surrender your weapon and—”

  A gun went off. I never even heard Sosa sneaking up on the guy. She was a quiet one when she wanted to be.

  “You can stop bullshitting now,” she told me.

  I got up with my manacled hands still clamped together. I still held my pistol, but I was careful not to aim it at her.

  “We thought you might flood the ship with radiation,” I said.

  “I considered it—Jort?”

  To my surprise, she rushed to him and began to tend to his wounds. I was impressed. Despite her tough exterior, she did care inside.

  At least, she cared for Jort.

  With all the patrolmen neutralized, we had both ships to ourselves. We took steps to keep it that way. After getting my hands out of the manacles using a key chip we found on the destroyed patrol captain, I flexed my fingers in the air.

  “Feels good to be free again.”

  “Another ship is approaching, Captain,” Sosa said.

  “Is it a luxury model?”

  She hesitated. “Yes… I think it is.” She turned to look at me. “Don’t tell me…”

  I shrugged. “I have friends in every star system, what can I say?”

  Sosa shook her head and turned back to her console. “Jort is in the medical box. He’ll be in there for a while. Maybe we should just cast off and run, sir.”

  “No. Not yet. Let’s see what they have to say. Help me get these patrolmen back onto their own ship.”

  Grunting with effort even in half-gravity, we got the ruined patrolmen onto their own deck. Our two model-Ds from the cargo bay helped. They seemed to be exceptionally well-trained in the task of carrying bodies.

  When the ship looked clean, with only a few blackened spots of melted metal on the walls, we hailed the approaching ship.

  “Who is this person?” another artificial voice asked. It was hauntingly familiar—then I had it. The voice exactly matched that of the model-Q captain I’d killed when I’d hijacked Rose’s yacht months ago. Apparently, they had more than one crew ready and programmed at the rental place back on Prospero.

  I decided to try to fool the robot. It wasn’t that hard to do at places like Prospero. The androids weren’t used to tricky humans. The local populace was very docile.

  “I’m a patrol captain,” I answered in a monotone voice. “Dock with the civilian ship.”

  The other hesitated. Model-Qs were always thinkers. It was annoying.

  “Why aren’t you aboard your own ship, Captain?”

  “Because I’ve got prisoners to attend to,” I lied. “You’ve been given an order by a patrol ship captain. Are you refusing to obey?”

  “Not at all, Captain. We will dock shortly.”

  When they docked and we opened the hatches, we pointed Sardez rifles into their faces.

  There was quite a group looking at us. The rental yacht captain was in front, blinking mildly at us. Behind him were three others, they had to be Rose and her parents.

  “Hello Rose,” I said in a friendly tone. “Good to see you again.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Passengers,” the captain said. “I suggest you retreat to the ship’s lounge. There appears to be a difficulty I must attend to.”

  Rose’s parents were frozen in shock. They weren’t any more accustomed to violence and criminal behavior than Rose herself had been when I’d first met her.

  “William,” Rose said to me. “Don’t hurt anyone.”

  “I won’t, if you call off this rented dog of yours,” I said, pointing to the model-Q. He was a twin to the one I’d beaten down last time I’d seen Rose.

  “Passengers,” the captain repeated in exactly the same tone. “You might be in danger. I suggest you retreat to the ship’s lounge.”

  I nodded to Rose.

  “Captain,” she said to the model-Q. “We aren’t in danger. I know these people. Stand down a
nd return to your duties.”

  The model-Q hesitated. I could tell he was doing some deep thinking. He was supposed to protect the humans aboard his ship, but he also was programmed to obey the people who’d rented him.

  Rose took action, leaving her surprised parents and walking past the model-Q. She slid by and entered my ship. Then she addressed the uncertain android. “I’m not on your ship any longer, Captain. Take my parents down to the lounge. I’ll be fine.”

  “Rose!” her mother shouted suddenly. “You can’t let these pirates take you. Not for our sake.”

  “I’m not doing this for your sake, mother,” she said.

  The hatch closed between them. I saw Rose’s mother put her eye up to the porthole. She looked shocked and horrified.

  Rose turned toward me slowly. She looked somewhat hesitant.

  “I knew everything you said was a lie,” she said. “All that about returning my father’s yacht.”

  “Yeah… sorry about that.”

  “It’s okay, as I said, I knew.”

  “Do you know why I came back here?”

  She finally looked up, lifting her sweet face to gaze into mine. “For me?”

  “Damned right. I’m shorthanded. I need a new deckhand. Are you up for it?”

  Rose smiled slowly. “This time, I am. It was all too much of a shock for me when we first met.”

  “I’m going to be sick,” Sosa said suddenly. She turned and left us, shoulders hunched and head lowered.

  Rose looked after her, noticing Sosa for the first time. “Who is that?”

  “Um… that’s a crewmember. Don’t worry about her. She’s not good around new people. She’ll come around.”

  Despite my lies, Rose stared after Sosa for a long moment.

  “What are we going to do now?” she asked me at last.

  “We’re going to strip weapons from the patrol ship and send your parents home. Then, we’re going to fly out of here before another patrol ship shows up to blast us out of space.”

  “Sounds like a plan… Captain.”

  She said this with such a sweet smile that I swept her up and kissed her. She responded, but pulled away quickly.

  “That woman… Sosa,” she said. “You recruited her the same way you recruited me, didn’t you?”