by Marie Dry
She’d pretended to see a soul in him, had used his need to become more to gain his trust and betray him. He should’ve killed her, but he couldn’t make himself do it. He’d never allow the light in her eyes to die.
“It will take days, you cannot stay here the whole time. You are needed to run the ship,” Hamurabi said from behind him. They all did triple duty to keep the ships going.
“I will stay as long as I can.” Turning around and walking away while she was still awake and looking at him with wild frightened eyes felt like a betrayal. Even after what she did.
“I will take good care of her,” Hamurabi said with stiff offense.
“I do not doubt that, but I want to be close to her for a little while. At least until she is unconscious.”
Hamurabi nodded.
“How is he doing?” He didn’t have to specify who the “he” was.
The doctor hesitated, and Balthazar turned toward him, never lifting his hand from the glass covering his graceful Aurora. “I thought you said he would live. That it would take a long time, but that he would live.” He was responsible for this. His decisions had led to Amelagar ending up like this.
“He will, but it is going to take much longer than I initially thought for him to heal.”
“How much longer?”
“Unknown, but at least human decades.”
“I can help him.”
They both turned to Agrippa, who lay with restraints over her wrists. She’d gone crazy when they brought in Amelagar, trying to get to him, screaming that she could help him.
“We don’t need her,” Hamurabi snarled.
Balthazar agreed with him. This ship had the best technology Tunrian technology had to offer. He might hate the Tunrians, but he had to respect their accomplishments. The typical sharp intelligence in those Tunrian eyes unsettled him, reminded him of a time he preferred to forget. “Why should we trust you near our wounded, slave master?”
She sighed. “I have never kept slaves in my life, and the first time I even knew cyborgs existed was when you took over the ships.”
She hid something from them. Tunrians couldn’t be trusted. Not clones and not naturals.
“Why would you be able to help him?” He let her lies go for now.
She didn’t realize that they monitored her breathing and heart rate.
“I am a genetic engineer. If you allow me to study Bunrika’s technology, I can speed up the recovery process.”
“Why would they allow a natural to work on this ship?” Balthazar had been dispatched to round up naturals. Never in all the time he spent doing that did he see a natural work in any official or sensitive jobs.
“How did you gain access to the academy?” Hamurabi asked.
“I have exceptional intelligence. They made me work on the space project while they prepared to clone me.”
“Why did they allow you to qualify as a genetic engineer?”
“My father is aligned with a powerful family. They protected us, even though we were naturals. Bunrika knew this family and insisted I work on the space project.”
He’d seen Bunrika do this. He would clone naturals with particular skills and ensure the clone had no free will. Then he’d kill the original. “I will think on this, but know that if you betray us, you will not die. Instead, I will make you wish you had died.”
Her ryhov stilled. Seeing the ryhov cover her body, the blue that pulsed in them, made him feel like a husk without a soul. For that alone, he wanted her off this ship.
“I know, and I won’t. I only want to help.”
“Give her the information, but keep a careful eye on her.
“I will.” Hamurabi didn’t leave.
“What else.”
Hamurabi glanced at Agrippa and pressed a button that sealed off her bed.
“I can use the pieces of Abilkisu that were recovered to grow more cyborgs.”
The humans had killed him with one of their rocket launchers. Balthazar had made sure not to let the humans and even Aurora know that they managed to kill another cyborg. He wanted them to think cyborgs were indestructible. They’d collected every piece of him, and Balthazar had scorched the area afterward to make sure the humans didn’t get their hands on his DNA or Bunrika technology.
“You can do that?”
Hamurabi glared at Agrippa through the force field. She shrank back. “With her help, I can.”
The option disturbed Balthazar, deeply. He still didn’t know if he was a sentient being or a machine. Would the many cyborgs raised from the dead be soulless monsters? “What about the organic side of our bodies.”
“I have stem cells I can use to integrate with the computronics.”
He turned to stare down at Aurora. Tears had dried on her pale cheeks, leaving strange worm-like threads. Even after what she’d tried to do, she would be able to tell him if it was right or wrong to have more cyborgs made. If they would be created with souls. He believed if the president hadn’t threatened her sister, she wouldn’t have used the picos on him. The way she called sex with him “making love” gave him hope that she saw him as more than a jailor she had to outwit.
“How many can you create from his...pieces?” It felt like the worst kind of grave robbing, but they were two men short and running the ships and keeping an eye on Earth took more cyborgs than he had. Add the Mars project, and he was spread dangerously thin.
“At least twenty.”
“Do it.” He would live with the consequences. Today had shown him that he couldn’t trust the humans to keep their word. The president said all the correct words, but he was building weapons that could reach the ship. The humans might be centuries behind the Tunrians technologically, but they were ingenious. He had underestimated him, and Abdilkisu had died.
Balthazar stood with his hand on the glass for a long time, hoping Aurora could feel his presence and be comforted. She didn’t understand that he had to change her. Never would he allow her to stop functioning. Aurora had to stay with him always.
“She didn’t look willing to have the treatment,” the doctor said.
“I didn’t give her a choice. She cannot make the right ones.”
“Be careful about decisions like that. Humans feel strongly about their rights to choose their own actions.” Hamurabi had been studying files on the psychology of humans. He considered himself an expert, but Balthazar had learned more about humans from interacting with Aurora and the president than Hamurabi could learn in a year of studying his precious files. “The Tunrians gained intelligence through cloning, but they lost something more important. It is something we have to consider.” Still watching Aurora, he continued, “We have to discontinue the cloning technology after you make the twenty cyborgs. We cannot destroy the data, but we should seal it, and it should only be opened in case of an extinction event.”
He wasn’t so sure they weren’t on the brink of extinction. Sixty-nine in number with the death of Abilkisu.
“The problem with the Tunrians was their limited genetic gene pool. The DNA of the originals they thought to save was destroyed in the great flood.”
Balthazar took a step back. “You want to create more cyborgs?”
“We need to increase our numbers. Eventually, the twenty new cyborgs won’t be enough,” Hamurabi said.
“Do we have the ability to procreate naturally?”
“Yes.”
“We only have five females, and they’ve shown no interest in the males. Are we compatible with the humans?”
“No, but a few adjustments to our technology can change that.”
“Do it. We will make the twenty new cyborgs, but I will not make clones. That will only be a last resort.”
If a cyborg could sigh, Hamurabi would be giving the biggest sigh. “I will try.”
“Don’t try, succeed.”
Balthazar turned back to Aurora, putting his open hand against the glass, above her cheek. If he could have, he would’ve cupped hers the way she always did wit
h him. His ryhov moved to his palm and the back of his hand, as if in sympathy.
He stood there a few more hours, but he had one more pressing piece of business to conclude.
He contacted Nebuchadnezzar on their private channel and instructed him to send all the female cyborgs to his office. What would Aurora think of this? Would she see the similarity or be outraged that he requested such from a female under his command?
He went to his office and sat behind the desk. It was becoming easier, sitting at a desk, sleeping in a bed, and eating solid food at a table. For that, he had Aurora to thank. Now he had enough time ahead to enjoy her, to thank her. Punish her for trying to use her primitive technology on him.
The females marched into his office and stood at attention in front of him. They were dressed in the same uniform as the men. Some of them had been forced to go naked or wear transparent clothes while they served in Tunrian households. When they’d requested uniforms, he didn’t hesitate. He’d made it known that any male cyborg forcing any act on a female cyborg would be executed.
“I need one of you to volunteer to marry the repulsive human president.” This would solve several problems.
After a few Earth minutes, one of them stepped forward. “I will make this sacrifice,” Anatu said.
“You do this for your people, and you will be hailed a hero.”
“I do not need to be called a hero if my sacrifice means freedom for our people.”
“You have to be sure. Humans have strange habits. He will expect you to live as he does, and you will have to fit in, bury any resentment you feel.”
Her lips pulled back in a snarl. “I have been through worse, a mere human couldn’t hurt me like--”
“Do not underestimate the president. He is taller than you, and he was a soldier. He might look like a politician, but he is strong. And mentally sharper than you’d think. His first priority is his humans. He’d do anything he had to do for them.”
“I am prepared, General.”
“Everyone but Anatu is dismissed.” The others marched out, and he turned to Anatu. “You will not repeat what I reveal to you.”
“No, General.”
“The humans have shown that they despise us as much as the Tunrians. They are building weapons.”
She sneered. “Their primitive weapons cannot harm us.”
“One killed Abdilkisu, and another wounded Amelagar. The weapons they are building to destroy our ships cannot be underestimated.”
“Yes, General.”
“My biggest concern is an alliance between humans and Tunrians. We need to integrate into their society, become necessary before the Tunrians arrive here.”
Her head jerked, and he saw the fear in her eyes.
“It will be a while,” he continued, “but they are coming. You realize you will have to live with this man and try to fit into his culture?”
“What do you need me to do?”
“You have to make the president care for you. Find ways we can become integrated into their culture, to the point where they need us to survive.”
She squared her shoulders. “I will try my best, General.”
“Hamurabi says our two races are compatible. Try to have children with the president. I know I am asking you to sacrifice your future. If anything goes wrong, you will be alone among humans and vulnerable.”
“I will do it, General.”
“I do not do this easily. Our survival depends on it. Eventually, our supplies will run out.”
“Do you wish me to sabotage their weapons?”
“If you could reach them, yes, but I doubt you will be given the opportunity. Your main objective will be to make the president care for you and to ensure the Tunrians cannot make contact with Earth without our knowledge.”
“What happens in eight years, seven months, three days, twenty three hours, and forty-nine minutes when the president’s term comes to an end?” she asked.
“If he wants to continue the relationship, you will stay with him. I am going to insist on legally binding marriage. That will allow you some protection and respect under their laws.”
Stubborn pride in every line of her body, she said, “I am willing to sacrifice for our people.”
“I appreciate what you are doing. I am aware of how unpleasant your tasks on Tunria were.” He’d rescued her and two other cyborgs from circumstances that would make his human very angry.
Anatu lifted her chin, stood straighter. “I can do this, General. For the cyborg nation.”
He clapped a hand on her shoulder, one soldier to another, and they stood like that for a moment before he dismissed her.
He sat down at his desk, his body feeling heavy, and his thoughts dark. When he assumed command of the cyborgs, he’d thought he would have to lay down his life for his people. That would be easy compared to what he had just asked of Anatu.
He gave the command for the ship’s computer to dial the president. The man glared at him, and Balthazar smiled at him, enjoying the unease in the human’s face. “Did Aurora happen to mention that we have a weapon on board that can destroy planets?”
Her reaction to that news had given him the idea to use it to get the president’s cooperation.
CHAPTER 18
Aurora gulped in big chunks of air, coughing and choking. She sat up and bashed her head. “Ouch. What?” Where was she, what was happening to her?
She hammered the glass above her head. A coffin--she was in a coffin. Who trapped her inside Snow White’s coffin? Panic gripped her throat. The cyborgs had put her--no, wait, it wasn’t a coffin. Rubbing her head, she lay back, looking up--straight into Balthazar’s face. Medical unit. She was in a medical unit because she’d agreed to be changed into a cyborg. She’d be strong enough now to save Ter.
She looked around her, through the glass. Even though the tube was made of glass and knowing where she was, she had the strong sense of being buried alive. She could see and hear every sound in the infirmary, but she couldn’t get up or change position. Through his own tube, Amelagar’s eye stared at her. Agrippa stood next him, fiddling with controls.
Aurora’s stomach surged, and she banged against the glass above her. “Let me out, get me out of here,” she screamed.
Her stomach rolled again, with such violence she jack-knifed and hit her head against the glass.
Aurora fisted her hands, prepared to punch her way out. Now that she was a cyborg, she could do things like that.
Balthazar moved, and the glass slid open.
She lurched over the edge and lost the contents of her stomach. She was half machine. Why would she still have the urge to vomit? Maybe her body was ridding itself of the last vestiges of humanity. Her vomit hit the floor, but all she could think of was cyborg strength. Now she could rescue Ter. Even while she heaved and heaved, hope burned in her mind. If brute strength didn’t work, she’d bargain with the technology in her body.
While she hung over the edge of the opened glass tube, Balthazar clamped a heavy hand over her shoulder, keeping her from falling off. That very large firm hand belonged to the cyborg who’d turned her into another species. While she stared at the mess she made, the floor undulated and opened and a tongue-like...something... swiped the mess away.
“That’s disgusting.” She had to take deep breaths not to heave again after seeing that. She sat up and glared at Balthazar. “You can let go now. I’m done throwing up. I won’t fall over.” Just the thought of that unnatural floor cleaning up after her was a great deterrent.
She was angry and about ready to kill him, but it was an abstract emotion, not visceral at all. Was that the result of being turned into a cyborg? Even though the glass tube had opened, it still felt as if she viewed everything from behind a barrier.
Balthazar reached for her, picked her up, and carefully set her down on the floor. “You will be disoriented from the procedure. I will help you up. Hamurabi said I may take you to our quarters.”
“I don’t need your help.
” She tried to shrug off his hand on her arm, but he held on. Surely now that she was a cyborg, she’d never lose her footing.
His warm hand burned her ice-cold skin. With his arm around her, he led her to their quarters, both of them silent all the way there. What was there to say? She was a cyborg now, half machine. Aurora held up her arm, studied her skin. She couldn’t see a difference. “Will my skin change, become like yours?”
On him it looked good, but she didn’t relish the idea of a crawling tattoo moving around on her skin. For one thing it made it pretty hard to hide your emotions.
“No. I have ordered food for you.” A cyborg entered carrying a tray. He placed it on the gold-cladded table and left without a word. “I thought we would eat here while you recovered from the procedure,” Balthazar said.
“I still eat?”
He looked puzzled. “Of course.”
He’d eaten every meal with her, so obviously cyborgs needed to eat. She shook her head at herself. That was an illogical question.
He drew back the chair for her, and she sat down at the table. He joined her.
Balthazar put one of the plates on the tray. The food looked delicious now that Marysol did the cooking, but Aurora had no appetite.
“Do you have pain anywhere?”
“No.”
“You are stiff when you walk. If it continues, you will go back to the doctor.”
That seemed a logical course of action. She nodded. “All right.”
Again, she had the feeling he was puzzled, but she ignored him and took a bite of pumpkin. It used to be her favorite, but now it was just fuel for her body. Soon she would need all her cyborg strength. Determined to get strong, she chewed and swallowed but couldn’t work up any emotion at the fact that it tasted bland. Now she understood how they could’ve been satisfied with eating paste. And sleeping in pods in the cargo hold.
“I assume my digestive system is more efficient now?”
“Yes, your body will absorb what it needs and discard what is unnecessary. Your energy and health will improve with each day.”
