by Cara Bristol
It wasn’t fair! She had had no control over the circumstances of her birth. She couldn’t help the lack of an Odgidian ridge made her an abomination—or that the Great One had spared her by marking her shoulder, warning He would smite any who would slay her.
It probably would have been better if she had expired at birth than to live the full span of her years as a pariah. Her bouts of anger at being ostracized caused a deep well of guilt. She should be grateful for the gift of life, not angry at those who righteously wished not to be reminded of her ugly presence.
She sank onto the stool, and, with her back to the reflection glass, unclipped her veil and buried her face in her hands.
I’m going to be mated.
The prospect gladdened and terrified her in equal measure. It lifted her heart because it had to mean her father had softened toward her. He must have searched long and hard and paid a hefty dowry to find a male who would accept her.
No Lamis-Odg would.
Better a mate of a different species than no mate at all. And perhaps they would share affection and companionship in addition to physical relations.
Was Zog aware of her imperfection? Surely her father would have informed him. Maybe because he was an alien, he could overlook her appearance. She knew little of alien races, having received only a smattering of tutoring on the subject of other world creatures. Most of her education—which her siblings and their mothers had considered a waste—had centered on how to please and pleasure a mate.
I’ll finally have the opportunity to use my education. And to serve my planet. If becoming a concubine could assist in establishing an outpost, that was important, wasn’t it? Even her sisters, who had been mated with influential males, couldn’t boast of such an achievement. Only her young brothers might achieve greater recognition. They were still in tutoring, but when they reached maturity, they would enter the military and defend their people and homeland.
Though she hadn’t lived on Lamis-Odg since early childhood, she remembered the planet as a place of harsh beauty. The tapestries adorning her quarters did not do it justice. Its landscape was ever-changing. Mountains of sand undulated over vast areas then formed new patterns when unpredictable turbulent winds whipped the individual grains into stinging missiles. The planet had a short growing season during which a profusion of vegetation erupted overnight, including the hala, beautiful, but lethal flowers. A rendition of those decorated the walls of her bedchamber.
After she left for Katnia, would she ever see Lamis-Odg again? Or the space station where she’d spent the past twenty years of her life?
She spun around on the stool and flinched at her image, revealed without kindness or tact by the reflection glass and the harsh light. Her face was so blank, it appeared inchoate, like the Great One hadn’t finished with her yet. Its shape was more oval than broad through the forehead and temple, as was characteristic of Lamis-Odg people. Thankfully, her eyes, lashed by cilia the same hue as her brown hair, were normal. She’d often thought the contrast between her abnormality and the averageness of her other features heightened her disfigurement.
How will the Ka-Tȇ react when they see me? Until her father had ordered her to remove the veil, no one had gazed upon her face in years. If Janai’s horror hadn’t been enough to confirm she looked as bad as she always had, even R981 had jerked. She had managed to startle an android.
There are more important things than beauty.
She’d always told herself that in a vain hope that perhaps it was true. If she could help her people get the outpost on Katnia, maybe she would be able to believe it. Her fears about mating with an alien were insignificant in the grand scheme.
Trust in the Great One. He never gives one a burden he cannot bear.
Mariska glanced at the minute audio transmitter hidden among the whorls of a lacquered jar. The listening dot blended in with the design. If her former android hadn’t discovered it, she wouldn’t have known it was there. Unfortunately, the jar’s cosmetic contents couldn’t camouflage her deformity the way its exterior concealed the device.
How ironic that the one room where she could escape the prying eyes of the monitors was the one place where she couldn’t hide from herself.
* * * *
An alarm signaling a sewage overload added to the deafening cacophony of clanking, whirring machinery. The noise and the smells of Waste Recycling ensured few organic beings ever visited, making the unit one of the most private places on the station. In addition, the robots here had scarcely more intelligence than the machines they monitored. An android marched to clear the clog before sewage flooded the station, and Kai slipped by him into an unused storage room and activated his wireless through the microprocessor implanted in his brain. On a secure channel, he hailed Carter.
HM9014C? The Cy-Ops director replied, seeking a corresponding passcode.
ZR2156Z, Kai verified.
Report?
The situation has changed. Obido is sending Mariska to Katnia.
When?
A cyberoperative witnessed death all the time. Caused some it. Hosticide was part of the job. So was collateral damage. The impending death of the daughter of a terrorist shouldn’t bother him, especially when he’d had no hand in it himself. Not saving her wasn’t the same as killing her. He shouldn’t feel guilty. She leaves tomorrow, he replied.
Shit. You’re headed to Katnia, then?
Negative. R981 will be reassigned.
To whom?
Don’t know yet.
This could be positive for us. You said Mariska didn’t know anything about her father’s operations. You might be assigned to someone closer to Obido, more knowledgeable.
That’s what they’d hoped for when Cy-Ops had intercepted a communique that Obido’s middle daughter would be receiving a new service android. They’d intercepted the shipment and substituted C684, but after three days, his transmissions back to Cy-Ops had gone dark. Not until Kai had gotten in, had he learned C684 had been dismantled—and discovered how little their target knew of her father’s operations.
It’s bad for her. She won’t survive the mating.
Unfortunate, but we need to proceed with the mission. Your cover is still strong?
He’d slipped once or twice, but only in front of Mariska. I believe so. The chest implant has passed all the identity scans. The plastique ridges have melded with my skin perfectly. No problems there. Other than the fact that the facial adherents itched like motherfuckers. No one suspects I’m anything but an android.
Good. Keep it that way.
I intend to. He estimated his life expectancy at 3.4 seconds if they discovered the service bot they’d purchased was a cyborg operative. They’d kill him on the spot. He paused, still haunted by the unveiling. I saw her face today.
How deformed is she?
Let’s say ugliness is in the eye of the beholder.
Oh?
She is missing the Odgidian ridge. I didn’t find her unattractive at all. Understatement. She was probably the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Obido has to be aware sending her to Katnia will result in her death. It’s a deliberate act to kill her.
Why now?
I don’t know.
Well, keep me informed, Carter said, his verbal indication he was about to sign off.
If I can finagle a way to accompany her to Katnia, maybe I should go.
Negative.
The general wants to establish a base. Perhaps I can throw a wrench into the works.
No. I need you on the station. We’ve waited a long time to plant an operative inside. If you leave, R981 might be replaced with an actual android, and there’s no telling if we’ll get another opportunity. This is our best chance for locating Lamani.
Kai’d had a hunch that would be Carter’s response.
Lamis-Odg called their reclusive, elusive leader Lamani and considered him to be both the prophet and incarnate of the Great One they worshiped. High
in rank, Obido probably knew the identity, if not the hideaway, of the terrorist mastermind.
To this point, Cy-Ops, the Association of Planets, and Terra United had fought fires, responding to terrorist attacks after the fact. Finding and neutralizing Lamani would save many lives.
A lone woman’s tragic circumstances couldn’t scuttle an entire mission when the fate of the free galaxy was at stake. Carter was right.
Understood, Kai replied. I’ll stay here.
Chapter Three
“I have come to escort you to the shuttle,” R981 said when Mariska let him into her quarters.
“I’m ready.” She pointed to the two large cases she’d packed with clothing, personal care items, and mementoes. Uncertain if she’d ever see her homeland again, she’d removed and rolled up two of the smaller tapestries. One of the hala and another of the sand dunes.
“You are sure you have everything you need for your journey?” The android moved around her sitting room. He lifted a pillow from a divan. “Perhaps you will need this?”
“No, I have everything.”
He gestured to a lamp. “Or this?”
“No.” Was he malfunctioning?
R981 grabbed the emblem with its hidden device. He juggled it from palm to palm. “How about this?”
Definitely not that. “I do not have room for it in my case.” Other than her emotions, she had nothing to hide. She would miss many things, but being watched wasn’t one of them. It would be a relief to relax her guard once in a while and perhaps release some of her despair without being judged.
Thunk. The android dropped the statue.
“I apologize,” he said, but, after picking it up, he dropped it again. The spy device, half the size of her smallest fingernail, popped out. When he bent to retrieve the icon, he accidentally stepped on the transmitter and crushed it. Oblivious to the destruction, he set the emblem back on the table.
What was wrong with him today? The R-series android was supposed to be the most technologically advanced bot ever manufactured. Was he a factory second? Despite automation, a few androids rolled off the assembly line with small blemishes or defects. Manufacturers claimed the imperfections did not affect performance, but she’d never seen an android malfunction this way. Imperfection is something we share. Despite his lack of trustworthiness, she realized she’d grown fond him. Though oversized, if he’d been a living being, he would have been considered quite handsome. A catch for any woman who desired attractive offspring.
Her only chance for mating was with an alien. She suppressed the wave of homesickness threatening to weaken her resolve. If emotion took hold, she would never survive this.
“Are you sure you want to go to Katnia?” he asked.
An odd query from an android. Worse, it fed her insecurity. She stiffened. “Of course I am.”
“Have you done any reading about the Ka-Tȇ?”
“No. You should know I have not.”
“I have been informed there is a library.”
“I have been told that, too.”
“You have not been there?”
“No.”
“Not ever?”
“No.” She frowned.
“I would have thought that one who lived in seclusion would engage in the quiet, contemplative pursuit of reading.”
Since when did robots think? Programming allowed them to respond to the environment, but they didn’t have brains. They didn’t deduce or speculate. In some respects, R981 seemed more advanced than her other droids, but in other ways he seemed less complete. There were gaps in his information database. Maybe he was a factory second or an unperfected prototype. That would make sense. Until C684, they’d never wasted a new model on her before. She was usually assigned hand-me-downs. The bot before C684 had been so old, he leaked fluids. He’d finally been consigned to the scrap heap.
“I can’t read,” she explained.
His jaw dropped.
Her mouth fell open at his surprise. How could an android be shocked?
They stared at each other.
He blinked first. “You cannot read?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
There was a big gap in his programming. Did he know nothing of Lamis-Odg culture? “Females can’t read,” she explained.
“None of you?”
“None of us.” She tilted her head. “Can females on other worlds read?”
“Yes. If a race is literate, it is the norm that all sexes are taught to read.”
“You mean both sexes,” she corrected.
“Two sexes are most common, but some races have three or four genders.”
“They do?” Mariska widened her eyes. “What are they?”
“Male. Female. Hermaphroditic—both male and female—and neuter. Some races have a nonsexual gender.”
He had all that information, yet he hadn’t known Lamis-Odg females were illiterate. That was as odd as having four sexes.
He arched his brows and thinned the Odgidian ridge on his forehead. “If you were not taught to read, what did your tutoring entail?”
Heat flooded her face. Thank goodness the veil hid her blush. Why she should get embarrassed in front of an android baffled her. “The home arts…and how to please and pleasure a man.” She averted her eyes.
When she dared to peer at him again, his expression seemed almost grim. “Ka-Tȇ males are unlike any you have known. Mating is…rather violent.”
Violent? How violent? She gulped but lifted her chin. “I am Lamis-Odg. My people are strong and resilient, and I’m the daughter of a powerful leader. I won’t wilt.”
“You should reconsider your decision.”
“It’s not for me to decide, but if it were, I would still go.” Mariska gestured to her luggage. “Carry my things.” She exited before he could say another word and make her departure more difficult than it was. His questions and comments had cut to the heart of her insecurities. It was as if he was trying to undermine her determination.
Unusual behavior for an android.
Unless... She peeked at him. Both heavy bags were slung over his shoulders like they weighed nothing at all. Unless…her father had him programmed to challenge her obedience and commitment.
Despite her best efforts to conceal her mixed emotions, she must have betrayed her ambivalence, and her father sought reassurance. She disliked that he’d sent an android to spy on and interrogate her, but she’d lived under those kinds of conditions her entire life.
Mariska pivoted to face R981. His inscrutable eyes stared over her head. “Relay to my father I will make him proud,” she said.
The android did not reply, but he had to have recorded her comment. Why hadn’t he acknowledged the order? Clearly, he had gone haywire. It seemed like the more advanced a unit, the greater the errors. Simple droids rarely malfunctioned. But R981 and his glitches were no longer her problem.
She stomped down the corridor. A growl halted her in her tracks. She spun around. “Did you say something?”
“No, I did not.”
YOU WILL NEVER make him proud, Kai had muttered. Obido wanted her dead—or, at the least, intended to sacrifice her for a military base. And Kai’s hands were tied by his mission objective.
Trying to talk her out of going had failed. If anything, it had strengthened her resolve. And what choice did she have? Like she’d pointed out, her father had ordered it.
Holy hell, she couldn’t read. No female of this assbackward civilization could. Many planets practiced customs deemed bizarre by Terran standards, and diplomats weren’t supposed to judge. “Embrace diversity of thought and culture,” the Association of Planets said in its Declaration of Purpose.
Fortunately, Kai was not a diplomat, but a cyborg operative who didn’t have to embrace bullshit. A culture that kept half its population illiterate was plain wrong. Fuck diversity. Besides, the Lamis-Odg were terrorists who believed their mythological Great One
had granted them a special pass to an afterlife of luxury in the Blessed Beyond. Everyone else, the Unchosen, would spend eternity as their slaves—those who weren’t destroyed in the Great Purge anyway.
Lamis-Odg terrorized those who disagreed with their dogma, straining the AOP’s progressive ideology and diplomacy. The Association of Planets did not embrace diversity expressed by bombings and murders of innocents.
Mariska was ignorant of that—and her tragic destiny.
Any other woman, upon being informed of the sketchy details of an arranged mating—which itself was anachronistic—would have tapped into a computer, gotten the full info, and said, fuck no! Illiteracy had kept her complacent. She was marching toward a torturous death, believing it her duty.
He fulfilled his duty by letting her.
Preventing her death is not my mission. Hunting down the reclusive leader was. Executing him to halt the spread of terrorism was.
Some might have cheered Mariska’s impending demise. The organization’s brutality had incited a backlash of negative sentiment against all its members. Many espoused the notion that the only good Lamis-Odg was a dead Lamis-Odg.
Kai couldn’t buy into that. Mariska had been no party to the actions of her father or Lamani. She was vulnerable. Innocent. But not stupid or cowardly. In the month he’d spent observing her, her quiet fortitude and inner strength had impressed him. Even before he’d caught the shocking glimpse of her face, he’d been struck by her beautiful eyes. A rich shade of melted caramel, fringed by dark lashes. Expressive in their attempt not to be. She didn’t trust him.
Her wariness pierced him in a way it shouldn’t. She was a person of interest, and her emotions shouldn’t impact his decision-making. And, in fact, she was wise to be suspicious. Obido had bugged her quarters and employed spybots to keep tabs on her. While Kai wouldn’t intentionally harm her, he would manipulate her to obtain whatever information he could on Lamis-Odg.
The reign of terror had to be stopped. Direct intervention in Mariska’s fate jeopardized that goal. Doing nothing was the right thing to do. Sacrifices had to be made for the greater good.
