by M. D. Cooper
“I can tell what they’re thinking,” Tim said, glaring up at the top of the tree where the red-eyed parrot had settled back into its roost.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Ngoba talks to them. So does Fugia. I don’t think they’re on our side.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“On our side against the SAIs.”
“Lyssa’s SAI,” Cara said. “All the Weapon Born are SAI.”
“Lyssa killed Dad.”
“That’s not true,” Cara said sharply. She faced Tim, grabbing his shoulders. The same feeling that had led her to hit Fryson on Traverna rushed through her. She didn’t want to shake Tim; she wanted to choke him. Hurt him until he understood.
Understood what, thought? That it was all too complicated?
Cara realized Tim was looking up at her with dark eyes, waiting for her to hit him. Again, this wasn’t like the old Tim. This was the new version of her brother with something reserved and calculating behind his gaze.
Cara dug her fingers into his shipsuit, grabbing up the fabric.
All the times Tim had acted out, testing Dad, she used to wonder why Dad didn’t just hit him, make him understand. Now she realized how difficult it was to maintain control, to show Tim patience, to try to teach him. That calm was a demonstration of strength, not weakness.
Cara swallowed, choosing her words. “Those birds aren’t Psion. Hurting them won’t bring Dad back.”
“They’re spies,” he said.
“They’re just birds. You need to remember that not all AIs are like Psion. You shouldn’t think that about Lyssa.”
“I’ll think whatever I want to think,” he said. He pulled out of her grip and knelt to pet Em. The dog gave him a concerned look, flattening his ears as he glanced at each of them. Cara thought the dog looked worried about Tim, until a minute of petting brought his grin back in full force.
Cara stood watching people walk by as the birds settled in around the fountain again, focusing their typical jibes on everyone except her and Tim. Cara glanced up at the red-eyed parrot again to find it preening sedately.
“You think that’s Fugia’s parrot?” Tim asked, following her gaze as he stood.
“She said he died.”
“Then maybe it’s a daughter or son.”
“Maybe,” Cara said. She watched, wondering where he was going with the question. “I don’t see any nests around here, do you?”
“They hide them.” Tim said.
Cara wondered if he was going to call them spies again, but he dropped the subject.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s keep walking.”
They had spent the morning walking around the bazaar, looking at the various booths without getting too close. Cara still had a hard time talking to people—even the gregarious regulars of Cruithne who seemed to love heckling a morose-looking girl. They all reminded her of Grandpa Charlie.
The thought of Grandpa Charlie made her want to cry again.
Ngoba Starl had set them up with an apartment in the same garden block where they had stayed with Dad back when they first came. Cara and Tim both had their own room, and their mom had the largest bedroom, all along a hallway so it was easy to tell when someone came or went. Cara found that comforting.
The family room wasn’t very big, but the kitchen had a full oven and long counter spaces made of a material like marble that was cool to the touch.
As they’d walked the bazaar, Cara had been looking for a pasta rolling stick without realizing it. At a merchant who sold various martial arts training tools, she’d picked up a staff that might work for both rolling pasta and fighting. The man had guffawed when Cara told him what she really wanted.
“A kitchen defense tool,” he’d replied. “I love it.”
The noise and clamor of Cruithne was becoming more bearable as time went on. Aside from the apartment, they could visit Petral here in the market, or Fugia in a section of the Crash game hangar, or Fran in her shop. Cara found herself drawn to Fran the most, who had let her help with small repair tasks, including troubleshooting and ordering parts.
Fran didn’t want to talk much, and Cara appreciated that. The engineer had fallen back into her work as if she had never left, assessing new arrivals and prioritizing her workload. At the top of her list, she said, was Sunny Skies. Their ship was currently tethered in her storage docks, awaiting parts.
They had all worked together to seal the tears in the habitat ring before they had left Ceres space. Petral had served as pilot as Fugia monitored the system control networks, Fran and her mom doing the actual welding. Cara had been there, too, handing over parts, removing excess plas and metal, watching the hole where her dad had disappeared shrink until it was sealed, then covered in conduit and network filament, and then erased completely under a plas panel, like it had never happened.
Cara had realized one day that both Fran and her mom were reacting almost identically to her dad’s death. Since returning to Cruithne, Brit had taken a post at the local TSF garrison, consuming herself with new tasks, and Fran had done the same. It had been Petral and Fugia who cried with her the most. Even tall Harl Nines had stopped her and Tim in the ring corridor to drop to his knees and pull them into a hug, tears in his eyes.
May and Harl had gone to Luna where a large contingent of Andersonian refuges had landed.
“They would love to see Jee-Quera,” May had told Cara. “You would give them hope.”
After seeing the various ways her vid had been replicated and warped in the info feeds, Cara had declined loudly.
“Well,” May had told her, “the Collective will live on in a new form. This is a chance to start over again, to be reborn as something new.”
Harl, however, had said he worried that any remaining Andersonians would only renew their hatred of all Sentient AIs, and he couldn’t blame them. Broadcasts about “Humanity First” had already hit the feeds, fueled by Andersonian bitterness.
“I want something to eat,” Tim said. “Are you hungry?”
Cara nodded. “You smell that grill over there. Mom calls it mystery meat.”
“I pretend it’s dinosaur. It tastes good.”
As they worked through the crowd away from the fountain, Cara was careful to hang on to Tim’s hand. She didn’t want him throwing any more rocks. They’d had to stop several times so Em’s leash didn’t get wrapped around someone trying to cut between them.
“It would be easier if you let go of my hand,” Tim said.
“No,” Cara told him.
Standing outside the food vendor, Cara glanced across the avenue and noticed a woman walking toward them. She was in her mid-twenties with shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes, wearing a plain blue shipsuit with cargo pockets. She smiled when Cara met her gaze.
“Lyssa?” Cara asked, eyes narrowing. She turned, forcing Tim to follow her.
“What?” he complained. “We’re almost there.”
Tim took another few seconds to realize what had drawn Cara’s attention.
The last time Cara had seen Lyssa, she had been encased in a conductive gel that Fugia had rigged, looking like the bones of a silver butterfly suspended in a jar. They had been able to talk, but Cara hadn’t been able to bring herself to communicate much.
“Hello, Cara,” Lyssa said.
“You’ve got a frame like Xander,” Tim said. Without asking, he reached out to take Lyssa’s hand, squeezing her knuckles between his fingers.
“You feel warm,” he said.
Lyssa put her hand on the side of his face. “How’s that?” she asked.
Cara looked at her sideways. “Does this mean you agreed to work with Psion?”
Why did I ask that? Am I afraid in my heart it might be true?
Tim pulled his face away from Lyssa’s hand, eyeing her warily.
Lyssa shook her head. “No. It means Ngoba Starl was able to make a deal with a manufacturer on High Terra. It just arrived.”
“Y
ou wouldn’t rather be a combat fighter?” Tim asked.
The AI smiled at him. “Probably. This body has its uses, though.”
“Is it like—” Tim asked. “Is it like being inside Dad?”
A numb feeling settled on Cara’s face. Lyssa saw it and her brow knit with shared sadness.
“No, Tim,” she said. “Unfortunately, it’s nothing like that.” She took a deep breath, looking around. “Are you enjoying the market?”
Tim didn’t notice the change of subject. He pointed at the grill behind them. “We’re going to get some lunch. Do you want to come with us? Do you even need to eat?”
“No, but I would like to come. I have a gift for you.”
“Are we getting robot bodies, too?”
Lyssa gave him a quizzical smile. “What a strange thought, Tim. No. It’s something better than that.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
STELLAR DATE: 02.18.2982 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Jirl’s Apartment, Raleigh
REGION: High Terra, Earth, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
The apartment where Jirl and her son Bry had lived for twelve years was packed, their belongings arranged in maglocked shipping crates. Two bags by the door contained Jirl’s essentials and a week’s traveling clothes.
She had already closed her lease with the building agent and completed the final walk-through. She had ended all associations with Heartbridge, Raleigh and High Terra. The moving service wasn’t due until tomorrow, so now there was nothing to do but sit in her living room on a shipping container and think about the trip to Mars.
No sooner had she told Bry she was coming, he started talking about attending a college on the Cho. She had wanted to yell at him: There’s a war!
But there wasn’t a war.
In three weeks, the stand-off between the Psion armadas and the recently created United Forces Command had stretched on and the AIs seemed perfectly content to make them all wait. If humanity was bad at anything, it was waiting.
Bry wanted to leave Mars for the Cho, and here Jirl was following him, her own life in tatters around her.
Why Mars, then? She asked herself for the hundredth time. Her sister was there but without Bry, why go?
Because it’s not here.
She wanted to be in motion. She needed change. Her life had exploded and now here she was, desperate to create some kind of order from the rubble. She was no different than anyone watching the mystery of Psion on Ceres, desperate for something to happen.
She had stopped watching the newsfeeds. She didn’t want to hear any more about how Heartbridge had reorganized and would move forward stronger than ever before, deploying hospital ships throughout Sol to assist the Unified Forces Command with their haphazard deployments, or the Andersonian refugees now collecting in urban centers. It was already as if the Weapon Born clinics had never existed. Jirl knew better.
I shot Kal Craft. I did that.
She checked the access camera to find Rick Yarnes standing in the vestibule. He was out of uniform, wearing a vintage flight jacket over a faded t-shirt.
Jirl smiled in spite of herself. She would have guessed Yarnes wore button-down shirts and starched khakis off duty. Here he was, looking like a frat boy.
Sending the acceptance command, she straightened the front of her shirt as the door slid open.
“Colonel Yarnes,” she said in greeting.
He walked through, grinning at her. “That’s Brigadier General Yarnes now. But I’m never going to stop asking you to call me Rick.”
“I know,” Jirl said. She gave him a second appraising look. “Congratulations. I can’t say you look any different.”
“I don’t feel much different.” He looked around the bare living room. “We’re going to have to talk about your taste in decorating.”
Jirl’s smile faltered slightly. “I’m leaving,” she said.
His smile faltered slightly. “Oh? Where to?”
“Mars. At first, anyway. My sister is there. After that, I’m not sure.”
“Plenty of opportunity on the M1R. Or do you mean the surface?”
“The ring.”
“Not much to keep you here, then?” he asked. He had walked into the empty living room, navigating the crates.
Jirl followed.
Her perception of Yarnes had changed. She had always thought of him as well-meaning before, caught up in a system that might do terrible things even if he was a good person. Now he seemed like a real actor in that system. She hadn’t been able to get over thinking of him as a spy, and how that conflicted with the honest soldier she had first been attracted to.
Jirl had felt manipulated at first, until she realized that she had changed as well. She was more like the new version of him than the old.
Jirl cleared her throat. “No,” she said, putting formality back in her voice. “Not really. Anyway, what can I do for you, General?”
“Please,” he said. “Rick. I thought you might want to get some dinner,” Yarnes said. “Maybe go for a walk down in that park nearby.”
Jirl blinked at him. “Oh, really?”
Yarnes pointed out the window. “It’s a lovely afternoon. We should go enjoy it.”
“Together?”
“Preferably.”
She caught herself, watching him. Jirl realized she was smiling. “You’re teasing me,” she said.
Yarnes held up his hands. “You got me. I can see I surprised you here, so how about we just get something to eat. I did actually want to talk to you about something.”
Jirl’s smile faltered. Here it was. “What’s that?”
“I’m sorry to hear you’re leaving because I had a job offer for you. It’s something I hoped to talk about over food. But it might be better if we just get it out first.”
“I’m not looking for a job.”
“You’re going to need a job eventually. You know Kathryn Carthage’s assistant died in the attack on Heartbridge, right?”
The image of the young man coughing blood flashed in Jirl’s mind. “I remember.”
“I thought I would recommend you for the job.”
“Why?”
“You’d be good at it. Kathryn could use your help, especially, I think. And she might be more receptive knowing you worked for Arla Reed.”
Working for Kathryn would require another level of attention, managing both the corporate relationships and her political maneuvers.
“Why would she trust me?” Jirl asked.
“Meet her and find out.”
Even as she considered the wild idea, Jirl found herself mentally organizing a meeting with Kathryn.
“I’m not sure how I feel about her politics,” she said.
“She’s going to be a political force, now more than ever,” Yarnes said. “You could be there to help… guide her.”
“You think that’s what I did with Arla?”
“I believe you learned from your experience with Arla Reed. That experience could be put to use at another level. This war isn’t over, Jirl. You know that. We need a company like Carthage Logistics operating with us, not against us. Privateers are going to rise up everywhere. It’s going to be a mess. You could be part of a solution.”
“For the TSF,” Jirl said.
He shook his head. “For everyone. If we aren’t careful, in ten years there won’t be anyone left. Human or SAI.”
“Where do you stand, then?” Jirl asked. “You want to eradicate the SAI? I’ve heard what the TSF leadership has been saying.”
“Unlike others in the TSF, I know that SAI saved our asses. Without the Weapon Born stopping Camaris’ armada, every United ship would have been wiped out at Ceres. The SAI have their own factions, we’ve figured that out, at least.”
“Say I talk to Kathryn and she hires me,” Jirl said. “What then?”
“We stay in touch, that’s all. You’d be working for her, not me.” Yarnes looked around the room. “This place is depressing me. We should get outside.”
<
br /> Jirl walked over to the window. She looked down at the park outside, the streets with people going about their day. It felt like another world.
Catching her ghostly reflection in the window, Jirl stared back at her gaze, seeing the city skyline as if it was a part of her.
She turned around to Yarnes. “I’ll tell you what,” she said, stepping closer to him. Jirl grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him in for a kiss.
Yarnes straightened in surprise, then kissed her back. His hands went to the small of her back, pulling her body against his. She thought they fit quite well.
Jirl pulled her head back to look at him. He was flushed.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” she said, giving him an arch grin. A future was forming in her mind, distinct from slinking off to Mars. Even if she didn’t work for Kathryn Carthage, there were other opportunities. She was the only person with the locations of the remaining Heartbridge clinics, after all.
She felt excitement growing as she thought about it, the same thrill she’d felt back on the Furious Leap when Kraft had tried to control her, and she’d made the decision to act. Maybe that was when everything changed.
Jirl patted his chest and stepped away. She went to the entryway for her jacket and sent the door an open command. “I’m still not sure what I think about you being a spy,” she said.
“I’m not a spy,” Yarnes insisted, looking flustered from losing control of the conversation.
Jirl gave him an appraising look, nodding. “You were a spy. A pretty good one, too. It’s going to be hard to fool unsuspecting executives as a general.”
Yarnes only shook his head, following her into the hallway. “You continue to surprise me, Jirl.”
Jirl stole a glance at her packed apartment as the door slid closed, then turned to put her arm through his. She savored the smell of his leather jacket.
“Good,” she said.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
STELLAR DATE: 02.18.2982 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Tomlinson Memorial Hospital, Raleigh
REGION: High Terra, Earth, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
