Starshine by G. S. Jennsen

by Discover Sci-Fi Special Edition

  Her hands clutched the cushion in a death grip to keep her upright until he showed up at her side, outstretched arm holding a glass of water. She hesitantly released one hand and reached up. Still upright. Excellent.

  Once she took the glass he started pacing. The cabin in the rented ship was small, and it made her a bit dizzy to watch him constantly turning. “Are we on our way to Romane?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t think anywhere on Seneca was safe under the circumstances.”

  She sipped on the water and struggled to get her bearings and force her brain into some semblance of proper function. After a few more sips it occurred to her that he wasn’t looking at her…and had yet to touch her. A troubling sensation stirred in her gut, right next to the gunshot wound.

  He continued pacing. And turning. “We’ll be there mid-morning. You can get back to your ship and head home. They can protect you there. I’ll try to find out what the hell’s going on. Maybe I can discover who’s behind these attacks, who put the hit on us and Volosk and why….”

  She swallowed, her throat unaccountably dry though doused with water. “You’re leaving?”

  His voice had a strange flat, detached quality she had never heard before; it matched his flat, blank expression as he nodded. “I’m sure you’ll want to be getting back to Earth, and I should go after these guys. It’s fine.”

  She stared at him not looking at her. “What’s fine?”

  “Me leaving. I’m sorry you got hurt, I…I didn’t want that. And I understand, so—”

  “At least one of us does.” She heard the sharp acrimony in her tone, though he didn’t appear to. “Unless….”

  The blur of the evening’s events raced in crocked circles in her head—his now odd, dispassionate manner, what Mia had said about what impressed him, his own admission of why he had chosen his line of work—and the ache in her gut leapt into her chest and flared to drown any pain from her wounds.

  “Sure. Okay. I get it.” An incredulous breath forced its way past her lips. She was so angry at herself. She had actually allowed herself to begin to…believe. How stupid must she be!

  His brow contorted, as if uncertain what direction to adopt. “Listen, I know you’re probably disgusted with me right now. I mean there’s still blood on my clothes, even if some of it is yours. But—”

  She laughed harshly. Owww. “I’m seriously considering being disgusted—why is there still blood on your clothes?”

  For the briefest moment the blank mask he wore faltered, and emotion flooded his features. He looked stricken—as though he had learned the universe was to be annihilated in the next hour, or his mother or perhaps his favorite pet had died. Seeing as none of those were particularly likely, damned if she could figure out why he might look this way.

  She instructed her eVi to have her cybernetics ease up on the wound healing for the time being and send a bit more oxygen and, if need be, adrenaline to her brain. It suddenly seemed quite important she be able to think clearly.

  “I didn’t want to leave you alone while you were unconscious. But you’re okay so…” he moved toward the small stairwell which led to the sleeping area “…so I’ll go change now. I’ll bring you up a shirt.”

  She hadn’t bothered to notice her sweater was gone and she wore only a bra. Whatever. Sheer anger and disbelief had now risen to drown both the ache in her chest and the ache from her wounds. She would not show weakness.

  “We’re not finished here.”

  It took him two seconds to turn around. Seconds which stretched into an eternity. The mask was back in place, while the tenor of his voice carried less inflection than a rudimentary VI. “Okay. Say what you need to.”

  “Gladly. Yes, I am disgusted with you for wanting to ditch me the second I’m the smallest burden to you. I knew you had a strong survival instinct and all, but I didn’t think you were—”

  His eyebrows drew into fierce streaks of discontentment. “I’m not—I didn’t mean—”

  “No, it is, as you say, ‘fine.’ You go ahead and do whatever the fuck you want to do. Don’t give it a second thought.” She forgot she bore a small injury, wrenched around to stand and storm off to the cockpit—because it’s what she would have done on her ship—and doubled over as a sharp jolt of pain lanced into her side.

  As she sank down onto the couch he materialized at her side. “Are you okay? You should—”

  “Don’t touch me,” she growled through gritted teeth.

  He backed away, eyes wide with what closely resembled anguish. “I’m sorry…I only wanted…I’ll leave you alone.”

  He again moved toward the stairs, his murmur little more than a whisper. “You may not believe me, but I would never hurt you.”

  “You’re leaving aren’t you,” she grumbled under her breath, and immediately cringed. She should not have said that aloud. Dammit. The pain was wreaking havoc on her brain-to-mouth regulator.

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  Shit, he had heard her. She closed her eyes and dropped her head against the cushion. “It is now.”

  There was no response; she assumed he had grown bored with the verbal sparring and gone downstairs. She sank further into the cushions, all the energy seeping out of her. She was tired, she was in pain and she was—

  “I’m not certain I understand.”

  She winced at the realization he hadn’t left after all and squinted one eye in the direction of the stairwell. He stood with one foot on the landing, the other hovering above the first step. “You don’t understand what?”

  “You said ‘it is now,’ as if it wasn’t before. And earlier you seemed to imply leaving was somehow my choice.”

  She groaned and sat up enough to glare at him. “Do not try to play mind games with me, Caleb. I am not in the mood, and I will not let you pin this on me, vrubilsya? You want to leave, I get it—so just go, but don’t try to turn it into something else to ease your guilty conscience.”

  The expression of pained patience flitted across his face, but it was as if he hadn’t the strength to maintain it. His gaze roved around the cabin, and when it again found her his eyes had gone harsh. Sapphire chiseled into brittle edges. His jaw could have been carved of stone, and his formerly deadened voice now bled bitterness.

  “No. I won’t let you turn this into something else. If you can’t take what I am so be it, but the simple truth is my actions saved your life. I am not the enemy and I won’t allow you to paint me as one.”

  God, she wished he would end this torture and leave her alone to curl up in a ball…. Now he was deliberately taking advantage of her less than optimal state to confuse her and render her unable to fight back. It was dirty fighting and it wasn’t fair.

  “I’m perfectly well aware you saved my life, so thank you for doing that at least before you discarded me to run off on your next adventure. I’m so sorry it will take a few hours until you can rid yourself of me. But I don’t intend to spend those hours propping up your ego, so you—”

  His mouth twitched furiously. “My ego? What the bloody hell are you talking about? Alex, what do you think is happening here?”

  “What do I think? I think you’re a selfish narcissist who only goes along for the ride until it begins to interfere with your good time. I think you’re an even better liar than I gave you credit for and I fell for it even though I goddamn knew better! I think you should—”

  “Stop, please, for one second.” He dragged a hand raggedly through his hair. “No. After the attack you were distant and wary and shell-shocked. I killed those men and I know it was brutal and violent and ruthless—”

  “Is killing people ever not those things?”

  “Well it isn’t always so bloody, but….” His voice trailed off as he stared at her for the first time since right after she had awoken, and she swore beneath the surface anger she saw raw pain tarnishing his beautiful eyes. Damn he’s good at this. Even now, he makes me want to believe him.

  He frowned…no, it
wasn’t a frown. It was something else. “Are you….” He stopped, drew in a deep breath, let it out and began again. “Are you telling me you aren’t horrified by what I did back there? By the violence of it, the brutality? You’re not…you’re not afraid I might hurt you, or simply appalled I’m a killer?”

  “What? Why would I be?”

  “Because it’s happened before. Because good people often are. Because I am a killer. And the way you looked at me, the way you—”

  “I had been shot. I was a little distracted. Then a little weak, then a little dizzy, then, well….”

  He blinked and shook his head as if trying to clear cobwebs from it. “Which you neglected to tell me.”

  In the recesses of her mind, her memories had been gradually solidifying and assembling themselves into a proper order. She tried to focus in on them. “I admit I wasn’t thinking overly clearly, but…I thought I’d be okay. I didn’t want to slow you down.”

  “Oh, Alex, I would do anything….” He swallowed and met her gaze once more, an odd glint in his countenance. Like a dying man catching sight of an oasis yet afraid it was a mirage. He spoke slowly. Deliberately. “You weren’t planning to kick me out of your life as soon as we landed?”

  “Planning when? When I woke up after being shot, of course not. As of a few minutes ago? Hell yes.”

  He looked confused, hopeful, terrified, all at once; he really did. At this point she was feeling rather confused herself…she checked to make sure her eVi had executed her instructions, though she recognized it commanded diminished resources.

  He started pacing again, this time in considerable agitation. His movements were uncontrolled in a manner she had never seen.

  Then words began tumbling over one another as they spilled forth. “I thought—I thought you were. I thought you wanted nothing else to do with me upon seeing the bloody reality of what I can be, and do, when I need to. I thought you were in horrified shock—and you were, only maybe it was from being shot and not because of what you saw and—”

  The blur of the evening’s events raced around in her head again, this time with greater clarity and colored by his perspective. She recalled things he had hinted at over the past days, topics he had been reluctant to talk about. What else Mia had said about him—

  —and in a rush it all made sense, in a crazy way that wasn’t.

  Silly, hardened, sensitive man. Her head swam from a deluge of relief and whiplashing emotions. Dammit, he was always doing that to her. But she felt the strangest desire to…protect him.

  “You are such a dumb ass.”

  His face scrunched up in greater confusion, but the pacing screeched to a halt. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re a dumb ass. You honestly believe such an incredible display of badass heroics would scare away someone like me? Frankly, I’m offended. Did you take me for some delicate flower who faints at the sight of a drop of blood?”

  He laughed; it had a wild, reckless timbre. “No, I would never—”

  “Come here.” She didn’t quite trust her body to stand just yet. He was going to have to come to her. Perhaps in more ways than one.

  He blinked. She watched his throat working. Finally he crossed the cabin to the space in front of the couch and crouched on the balls of his feet. He seemed to search her face but didn’t stop to meet her gaze directly. Hesitant. Cautious. Guarded.

  She reached up with her good arm and wound her hand tenderly into his hair, letting it curl softly around her fingers. He sucked in a breath as his eyes closed and his lips fought to tug upward.

  “Caleb.” His eyes reopened at the sound of her voice. The ocean within them roiled like a hurricane, and her heart decided to go careening off the walls which held it in place.

  “I’ve always known what you are. Who you are may have been in question….” She struggled to find the right words. “I come from a family of soldiers. I understand the necessity for violence. If you hadn’t acted as you did, we would probably both be dead. And I, for one, prefer being alive.”

  She smiled weakly. “I won’t deny it was a bit jarring for a second or two, seeing you like that. But….”

  Her hand drew down along his jaw to his chin, and she urged it up so he was unable to turn aside. “I knew what I was getting into. And I am not afraid of you.” At least, not in that way. “Now if this routine is something you concocted as cover for you wanting to leave—”

  “No.” He fell to his knees before her; his hands grasped her shoulders and his forehead dropped to rest against hers. “I don’t want to go.”

  Her breath lodged in her throat. The emotion bleeding out of his words crashed through her with more intensity than she could possibly absorb. Her chest burned hot as it nonetheless insisted on trying.

  Her throat eked out a trembling whisper. “Then stay.”

  He nodded silently against her. They didn’t move for untold seconds, struggling to pick up the pieces and put themselves back together, to regain some control over the inner tumult.

  Finally he pulled away a sliver. His eyes rose to meet hers as a hand rose to cup her cheek.

  “You are a most remarkable woman, Alex Solovy.”

  64

  ROMANE

  Independent Colony

  * * *

  “Are you ready to get to work, Meno?”

  I am looking forward to this endeavor, Mia. I expect to learn new things.

  “I’m not sure we’ll learn anything more worthwhile than the name of Miss Solovy’s first pet or her favorite author.”

  Yet that will nevertheless be something new.

  “Ha. Fair enough.”

  Mia stood at the top of the ramp in the hangar bay, the fingertips of her right hand pressed to the embedded panel of the Siyane’s external hatch. The contact pad of the remote interface rested snugly against the base of her neck. Her eyes were closed—but she was not blind.

  Instead she saw what Meno ‘saw’: a seemingly infinite three-dimensional grid of pulsing, spinning translucent orbs. The orbs grouped together in formations ranging from tiny to massive and complex. Threadlike filaments connected the groupings, and always there existed structure and order, sharp lines and hard right angles.

  The grid overflowed with color. The entire spectrum was represented in the spinning orbs, every and each color all at once. When viewed in the corner of her eye, an orb appeared a prismatic swirl. If she turned her focus to one, however, it transformed to pure white light.

  The orbs, of course, signified the qubits composing the Siyane’s security control system. Much as Schrödinger’s cat, until observed a qubit held all possible quantum superpositions of 0 and 1. When she observed one, the prism resolved to white; when Meno ‘observed’ one, he measured its true state.

  As such, her presence here was largely superfluous other than to guide Meno to the appropriate access points—and to make certain it didn’t rewrite the Siyane’s weapons, propulsion and life support systems to be more efficient while he was in there.

  Besides, she liked the view.

  “Begin recording.” She needed to image the security controls because when she finished it had to be put back as she found it, leaving no trace she had been there. She didn’t want to cause trouble for Caleb, even if she was a little worried about him. The odds of this new relationship of his working out well in the end were only slightly north of nil…but he never had been the cautious sort.

  Recording initiated.

  “Excellent. Overlay Alexis Solovy’s fingerprints.”

  Overlay successful. Security is requesting secondary encryption key. Analyzing.

  Meno had named ‘himself’ at her suggestion. At the time it was devouring ancient philosophical texts and had taken the name from the Plato Socratic dialogue on virtue, knowledge and belief. It continued to burn spare cycles contemplating the notion of inborn knowledge and whether, lacking a soul, it nonetheless possessed such knowledge.

  Secondary encryption key: Д085401Н129914С. Would you like
to know my hypothesis on the meaning of this key?

  She smiled to herself. Artificials were tightly regulated, monitored, circumscribed, feared and often reviled, and with good reason. Perhaps excepting the last one, anyway. They possessed incredible processing ability—but computers ran many facets of society. Those CUs were also powerful, capable of zettaFLOP calculations and zeptosecond accuracy. Yet no one feared them, because they were dumb. They did not think; they simply calculated. Oh, a well-designed VI could create a convincing impression of thought and even personality, but it was still executing defined programming.

  Synthetic neural nets, on the other hand, were designed for that exact purpose: to think. To learn. To adapt. To improve.

  Their greatest feature was also their most dangerous one: curiosity. Mia delighted in Meno’s childlike inquisitiveness and thirst for knowledge. But though it wasn’t registered, she otherwise obeyed all the prescribed safety precautions. Because it was like a child—a hyper-savant child wielding unfathomable power and no perspective, no wisdom born of hard lessons and experience and no sense of boundaries which might keep it in check.

  So while she supplied Meno with endless zettabytes of information—history, art, literature, science, data on the very universe itself—she provided it no connections to the exanet or the local Romane infrastructure network. In fact, its hardware did not include any external networking capability, save for the single point-to-point node which allowed her to remotely interface with it. While interfacing, the only outside information it received came through her personal cybernetics. Hence the fingertips on the panel.

  “Maybe later. Are there any other authorized entrants?”

  Kennedy Rossi and Charles Blalock.

  “Is the secondary encryption key the same for them as well?”

  It is.

  “Terrific. Register Caleb Marano as an authorized entrant and input his fingerprints. I’ll let him know the key when he returns. Then mask the authorization.”