Subcutis

by Harper J. Cole

  The light social activity helped both of them take their minds off the approaching delegation from Lega. As each day passed with no sign of any newcomers, the waiting and wondering weighed heavier on the crew. When would the Legans arrive? How hostile might they be, and how powerful? Would communication be possible?

  If it was, then Gypsy wouldn’t be the woman to orchestrate it. She had proven surprisingly dreadful at speaking the language that she had conquered almost single-handedly. Reading the characters was no great problem, but being asked to construct a simple sentence off the top of her head would generally flummox her.

  Gypsy remained the chess queen, however. Flora looked with distaste upon her shattered kingside defences and wondered when she should resign. Defeat looked certain, but then it had looked certain at move 1 as well. May as well plod on for a bit and hope to be checkmated soon.

  “I don’t know how you do it. I’ve not made any really bad mistakes, have I?”

  Gypsy shook her head. She was wearing violet today; probably Flora’s favourite of her seven outfits, a soft and sweet shade, nearly pink. “Oh, no, it’s just you let me get that pawn forward, then the knight. I can’t think 20 moves ahead like a computer, but I see little combinations that advance me, then eventually the finish line gets close enough so that I can see that too …”

  “Can you see it now?”

  “Erm, well yes, it’s mate in four.” Gypsy snapped off the h-pawn with her rook. “You see, you have to take it, then things open up along that file.”

  “So they do. Too good, again. I guess I have to satisfy myself with being the second best player in this neck of the woods.”

  “Oh, do you play with anyone else?”

  “Yes, I’ve given everyone at least one game I think. You may have shattered my illusions about being grandmaster material, but I still enjoy it.”

  “Is Annie good?” Gypsy was blushing slightly, to Flora’s puzzlement.

  “No, I always beat her. Not really her game, too much patience required.”

  “I could maybe teach her if she wants to improve,” said Gypsy in an exaggeratedly offhand manner. Her blush deepened and she stared fixedly at the board.

  Things abruptly clicked for Flora. This was a crush. She hadn’t known that Gypsy was attracted to women, but then she hadn’t really thought of her as having sexual needs at all.

  I can be a lousy friend sometimes. All this time I’ve been treating Charlie like a human, a part of me’s been thinking of Gypsy as a machine, a human calculator. And the signs have been right there; she goes bright red every time she and Annie interact. Never mind! There’s still time for me to make amends …

  “Do you like Annie?” she probed carefully.

  “She’s … nice.”

  “I can probably arrange for the two of you to spend some time alone together.”

  “Alone?” Gypsy’s voice had risen slightly. “I don’t know about, erm, being …” She trailed off.

  This wasn’t going to be an easy bit of match-making, Flora realized. Her two friends were at opposite ends of the self-confidence scale. But then, opposites had been known to attract.

  “What would you say you like about her?”

  Gypsy ran a slow finger through her stringy hair.

  “She’s free. Uninhibited. I’d love to be like that, not having to worry about every decision I make, every word I say. It just gives her a … vibrancy, you know? Plus, I like her freckles.”

  Flora pondered. Being in a proper relationship might be good for Annie. New responsibilities, new maturity.

  “No guarantees, Gypsy, but if we ever get off this planet, then I’ll see what I can do. Now, put me out of my misery.”

  The mathematician seemed relieved that the conversation had moved away from affairs of the heart, and back to something safe and familiar. She completed her victory, and Flora rose to leave, bidding her friend a good night. As she walked to the door, her eyes drifted over some handwritten notes on the desk. Matan vocab lists. Abruptly, a word leaped out at her.

  It was four characters long. Gadi, it read. She checked the definition and found that it was the Matan’s word for themselves – the nearest English equivalent would be “human.”

  Flora had seen it once before. In the cathedral room, written above the alcove where she had almost been swallowed alive.

  * * *

  “Hmm … Gadi,” said Charlie.

  “‘Hmm’ is the word,” said Flora, pouring herself a half-glass of water. It was a poor substitute for red wine, but she’d exhausted her stock of that five months into their voyage. “I’d practically forgotten about the cathedral room, and good riddance to the memory, but it could be important. We’ve seen nothing else like it, after all.”

  She sat on the edge of her bed, sipping at the water. They were in her room tonight, tending to alternate between their two domains. He was already in bed, waiting for her.

  “Can you remember the word above the other arch?”

  “Didn’t get a proper look at it. Guess maybe I should go back and check.” She shuddered, the memories of the dripping water, the pulsing walls and those grasping tentacles skittering through her mind.

  “I could have a look.”

  “No. I should face up to it, like a grown woman. I’ll head down there tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow …” She smiled at the concern on his face. “Don’t worry. I won’t go anywhere near those ghastly arches.”

  “Do you think you were grabbed because you were the wrong species? Not Gadi?”

  “God, I don’t know. Can we talk about something else?” She snuggled in beside him. “How was work today?”

  “It went well. Ms. Abayomi has pronounced all four of us Taekwondo black belts. Strange, though. Ivan consistently wins practice bouts against the rest of us. Physical strength and capacity to learn should be identical across all four of us. We’re variations of the same model.”

  “Well, a person’s personality has to affect how good they are at a particular task. I can’t say I’m shocked that Ivan thrives on violence.”

  “He’d only use it in your defence, of course. You, and the rest of the crew.”

  Flora chuckled. “Sticking up for your brother, Charlie? You’d never met him until a month ago.”

  “Still, he and the others are the closest thing to a family I’ve got, and I’ve learned from you how much that means.”

  “Family, yes.” She found her eyes drawn to his damaged face. “I’m sure Mum and Dad will be thrilled when I introduce them to their future robot-in-law.”

  His smile was a little uncertain. “You can give me the heave-ho any time you change your mind, of course. I won’t guilt-trip you. Once you get home, after all, you’ll have plenty of real men to choose from.”

  Flora opened her mouth to reassure him, but found herself hesitating. Her indirect reference to marriage had been meant as a joke, but it suddenly struck her as the logical end of the course she’d set herself on. If she was treating Charlie as a real person, every bit as alive as any human male, then why shouldn’t their relationship end in marriage? And why did that notion now disturb her?

  It might be the fear of being laughed at … of social shame. She could get over that. But there was another possibility: that she was beginning to lose her belief in his sentience, reluctantly waking from her dream.

  “No, no,” she responded belatedly, dismissing her uncertainties as best she could. “You’re the man for me, I don’t care what other people say.”

  “But you do care about my modified programming.”

  “I’m over that,” said Flora, a little louder than she’d meant to. He was too darned perceptive sometimes; it was when she had tampered with him that the seeds of doubt had been sown. “Okay, maybe I’m not, but I will be. I just need time to get used to it, to forgive myself. None of it’s your fault. Don’t worry about it.”

  “You’re sure you’ll be okay with it?”

  “I said I’d be fine. Since when are you so bloody
paranoid?”

  “I’m only concerned with giving you what you really want.”

  “Great. Well, I want a little action. I mean, that’s your job, isn’t it?”

  She felt an unpleasant jolt as the words left her mouth. What am I doing?

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I mean, I certainly don’t think it.”

  “I believe,” said Charlie, sliding out of bed, “that you’ve got a few issues you need to work through with regards to me and my … nature. It might be helpful if I gave you a little space.”

  “Don’t be silly, Charlie. Come back to bed.”

  He was already half dressed. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea. Of course, if you make it an order then I’ll have to obey it.”

  “I’m not going to order you about. Stop talking like a …”

  “Like a robot?” He smiled gently. “You know where to find me if you need me.”

  Flora watched him go silently, words jamming in her mind. What had just happened? If she didn’t know better, she’d swear that she’d managed to offend him. Impossible, of course. That emotional response wasn’t in his original programming, nor had they covered it in any of their many conversations.

  But perhaps she had been too good a tutor, pushing Charlie to the point where he no longer needed her; he was developing, it seemed, according to his own desires. Where would they lead him?

  She slumped back into bed with a sigh.

  Perhaps she should get her own love life sorted out before she started trying to pair her friends up.

  * * *

  Flora had barely cajoled herself off to sleep before she was woken by a brief sounding of the alert siren, followed by an equally brief announcement over the intercom.

  “This is Hunter. We’ve detected a ship in orbit. Prepare yourselves.”

  “Looks like-” she began, before abruptly remembering that Charlie wasn’t there. Throwing on yesterday’s clothes, she headed over to the red light district; the ACMs would all need to be activated, ready for potential unpleasantness. The rooms were already empty, though – doubtless the robots had already taken up their defensive stations outside the ship.

  Now what? After brief thought, she headed over to the engine room to confirm that all was in readiness for a quick exit. They were still in no position to leave, but it didn’t hurt to check. Plus, if things went badly with the Legans, this could be the last day of her life. If that was the case, she wanted a last look at the equipment she’d lovingly nurtured these four years past.

  Satisfied, she headed to the Hub. There were already about a dozen women there, only half of whom were actually working on the various stations. Truth be told, there was little preparing to be done – Hunter just wanted them mentally ready.

  The nerve centre of the ship hadn’t been this busy since the day they discovered Mahi Mata. The mood was rather different this time – less a feeling of triumph and more one of fear – but there was still an appreciation that history was being made.

  They all looked to the main screen, which showed another spherical craft. There was no frame of reference to measure its size, but Flora, who had seen pictures of the first ship, felt instinctively that this one was bigger. Disconcertingly, it was holding a geostationary orbit dead above them. Perfect position, if they’re planning to drop a bomb on us.

  “Have we tried contacting them?” she asked of the room in general.

  It was Hunter who answered. “We’ve been transmitting our message at regular intervals since we saw them. A greeting identifying ourselves as aliens and a request for peaceful talks, all in my best Matan. We can only hope that they’re listening.”

  “And that they care …”

  “That too.”

  Nothing happened for several minutes. The crew grew silent save for the odd hushed word, motionless save for some nervous fidgeting. Shamecca Jackson, at the long-range scanning screen, gave occasional updates on the ship’s movements, but there were very few of these. Flora suspected she was speaking mostly to take her mind off the question of whether they were all going to be blown to kingdom come.

  Then al-Hawsawi, who had been standing silently at the communications station, tensed visibly with excitement. “We’re getting something – a response, I think. Very short message, repeating every-”

  “Never mind how often it’s repeating, play it!” snapped Hunter.

  A few taps of the First Officer’s screen, and a gruff but perceptibly female voice echoed through the Hub. It spoke a single word - “Ratan.”

  “Any idea what that means?” Annie had appeared at Flora’s elbow.

  “Not sure. But she sounded rather angry …”

  “‘Wait’ is what it means, Grace,” cut in Hunter. “More precisely, rata means ‘wait’ and the concluding ‘n’ adds emphasis. In this context, it signifies that we’re being given an order. But you’ll already know that, having been studying hard these past few weeks.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” muttered Annie. “I have had other things to do, y’know.”

  “The enemy ship’s moving, sir!” Jackson’s attention had never wavered from her readouts. “Dropping straight down relative to us.”

  “‘Enemy’ may be a trifle premature,” said Hunter, eyes locked on the main screen. The ship was now cloaked in a flickering hemisphere – whatever strange technology they might have, they were evidently subject to the usual laws of physics when it came to atmospheric entry. “There are several reasons why they might be heading our way, some of them entirely peaceful. At any rate, we have little choice other than to take their advice. We wait.”

  “You said it was an order, not advice,” noted Annie.

  Hunter, watching the newcomers draw closer by the second, offered no reply.

  * * *

  This ship was indeed larger than the previous one, and by an order of magnitude; it measured at least two hundred meters across. The gleaming green sphere landed with no pretensions of grace; four thrusters blasting away from the underside, four legs grinding out to take the ship’s weight, trees burnt and crushed beneath them.

  Most of the Bona Dea’s crew gathered outside their ship. They’d built makeshift defences from wood, but the crude semicircle looked laughable with the Legan ship looming before them, half a mile away but appearing much closer. A flock of yellow birds, disturbed by the new arrival, flew over the women’s heads, breaking into small groups as they reached the jagged face of the mountain.

  “The birds are more sensible than us,” muttered Barbara Young. “They’re flying away, we’re standing still.”

  “Oh, don’t be so glum Babs, we can take ‘em if they’re lookin’ for trouble!” hissed Annie. Hunter suspected that the young woman’s glib confidence was a show, partly to pep up her crewmate, mostly to chase similar thoughts from her own mind.

  Barbara was too distracted to even protest at the truncation of her name. Nor did the next few minutes improve her mood. They couldn’t see the top of the sphere from where they stood, but evidently it held a door much like the one on the smaller craft. Presently, rope ladders appeared and stocky figures began swarming down the surface to the earth below.

  The captain had commandeered Annie’s binoculars – one of a number of seemingly random artefacts the technician had brought with her – and counted the Legans as they emerged.

  “Thirty-two,” she concluded. “Pretty even mix of men and women. Signs of an egalitarian society – that’s good to see.”

  “Oh yeah. I wouldn’t want the woman who brutally murders me to be a victim of oppression.”

  “You miss the point, Annie. A people who’ve evolved beyond the subjugation of one gender or the other are more likely to be rational and less likely to be warlike. Our chances of talking our way out of this have just gone up a notch.”

  The Legans approached. They didn’t march military-style, instead sauntering along in an untidy line. As they drew nearer, the morning sun glinted off their bodies. Like Natalia’s ki
ller, they were cyborgs; each of them seemed to have had at least one limb replaced, and here and there was a metal jaw or chest. An awkward, asymmetrical welding of flesh and metal – Hunter was struck again by the contrast with the beings below the surface.

  Motioning for the others to stay back, the captain placed herself in front of the wooden defences. She stood at ease, hands at her sides, palms facing outwards to show she was unarmed. Opposite her, a woman detached herself from the group. Tall and dark haired, she looked young but was surely the leader. She raised a hand with the fingers spread, and all but three of her crew stopped where they were.

  Four fingers raised, thought Hunter. An invitation to talk: four of us and four of them. And thirty-two of them in total, a multiple of four. Considered a lucky number, perhaps?

  She briefly considered taking one of the robots along with her, but it seemed somehow duplicitous. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to bring a little muscle. She beckoned Bala forwards, as well as Hisano Ikeuchi and Ekaterina Antakova. The latter pair, both members of Flora’s team of technicians, had mastered Matan the quickest, perhaps through being used to speaking a second language.

  The two little groups met halfway between their respective teams. The Legan quartet consisted of two young women and two grey-bearded old men, but it was the captain who caught the eye. Closer to seven feet tall than six, coarse hair hanging shoulder-high, left hand made of a copper-coloured metal. It looked somewhat sleeker and smoother than the artificial limbs of her crew, and there were no sores where it joined the flesh. It seemed that the captain could afford better equipment and medical care than her crew – evidence that familiar ideas of money and status existed in this culture.

  The Legans didn’t seem to have much use for clothing on the upper halves of their bodies. Some wore sashes, most did not. The captain was bare chested, the small curves of her breasts sporting a fine layer of hair. There was a thicker covering on her arms and shoulders, and while she wore no beard, Hunter saw a faint stubble and guessed that this was a cosmetic choice. She’d seen women with light beards in the underground caverns and could spot a few more now.