by Gwynn White
She tried to convince herself that Renee might not recognize her. She’d undergone illegal cosmetic alterations and kept her normally honey-blond hair dyed dark brown. But could she hide her telepathy from a link as powerful as Renee? All it would take was one stray thought to leak past her carefully constructed mental walls, and Ven’s link would immediately detect that Liv had been lying.
Together, Ven and Renee would soon drag her nightmares from her, and there would be no running a second time.
Perhaps Amelia had been right all along. She’d been foolish to return to Vengeance. She’d been foolish to return to any Warship of the Spire.
And the irony certainly wasn’t lost on her. She’d been engineered to be a powerful, link-level telepath to serve the Spire, and it was a fate she’d once looked forward to, one she’d embraced and celebrated.
But now?
Now, she never wanted another warship in her mind again. Not even Ven’s.
But as soon as they uncovered the truth, she would have no choice but to become the slave they expected her to be… unless she chose death.
7
Liv followed Vengeance’s sentinel across a footbridge to an island in the middle of the lake with a gazebo perched on a small rise. Two more sentinels waited on the far side of the structure. Why did he have so many of his assault drones here? The question spiked her anxiety again, especially when both turned their blood-red optical sensors on her, holding her in their gazes as she neared the gazebo.
Perhaps it was the mind-numbing fear, but Liv raised one hand and wiggled her fingers at the sentinels. To her surprise, one of them raised his hand and waved back.
This was not how she thought she’d be spending her day when she’d gone to bed last night.
“You look like you’re attending your own execution,” a woman’s voice teased.
Liv jumped as a second voice from her past startled her. She looked for its source and found her standing on a set of steps leading up to the gazebo. But she hardly resembled the powerful telepath Liv had once known.
The woman who had spoken was an elderly woman in a dove-gray gown with equally gray hair that was neatly braided and hung over one shoulder, bouncing with her steps. But what caused Liv’s heart to rise into her throat in a painful moment of longing and regret was the strikingly handsome man whose arm Renee held.
Liv forced her attention back to Renee and tried to focus on the dark green ribbon woven into her hair, the soft material of her slippers, anything to keep herself from looking at the man again. As if acknowledging him was all it took, her eyes snapped to him—the stranger who was not a stranger. From those buried memories of her childhood, those memories of a happy childhood when she’d felt safe and loved, she remembered this drone most of all. Or at least, one who looked just like him. That first drone had been destroyed back on Nualla all those years ago.
“She’s nervous to meet you,” Ven told Renee. “My newest engineer is shy, and I think she’d prefer to be arm-deep in organic-circuitry, coolant conduits, and biofluids, rather than holding a conversation with someone of higher rank.”
“No need to be shy,” Renee assured her. “You’re among friends here. Besides, Ven hasn’t spoken so highly or so often of anyone in ages.” Renee smiled at the human drone, whose expression shifted from amused to perplexed then finally settled on mild embarrassment.
Renee continued like she hadn’t noticed Vengeance’s reaction. “Ven has told me so much about you that I feel I already know you. He’s practically been beside himself since he first studied your file and recognized your Adept-level potential.”
Liv’s cheeks flushed, betraying her own slight embarrassment at the older woman’s praise. “Thank you. But that doesn’t explain why I’m here.”
“Because I wanted a word with you. It won’t take long, Liv.” Renee looked over at Vengeance’s drone and added, “Why don’t you go be useful elsewhere for a few minutes? I’d like a moment’s privacy. And you can take the rest of you with you when you go.” Renee gestured toward the sentinels, whose blood-red optical sensors just blinked at her.
Ven’s drone shook his head, his expression blank now, as if he’d slipped at playing human. “Why? We’ve never had secrets between us.”
Renee squared her shoulders, raised her chin, and stared back at him. She looked defiant, indomitable, a match for the AI’s fierceness.
“I’m not leaving you undefended,” Ven insisted.
“You really think Liv would hurt me?” Renee laughed.
“No, that probability is less than 0.65% by my analysis of her personality.”
“A whole 0.65%? So dangerous?” Renee mocked, arching an eyebrow at him.
The drone crossed his arms and refused to back down. “That’s not why I’m staying, as you well know. It has nothing to do with her.”
“True, but there’s no one else in the garden. Stop being so paranoid. I may not be as young as I once was, but I’m not going to shatter because you’re no longer in my immediate orbit.”
“Your attempt at humor won’t change my mind.”
“Attempt?” Renee shot back. “Perhaps the problem is that I’m not as funny as I once was.”
“Renee,” Ven sighed.
But Renee waved him off and relented. “Fine. Stay then.” She glanced at Liv and winked at her. “I was just going to discuss the possibility of Liv becoming your lover. It’s really been too long for you.”
Liv choked on the mouthful of air she’d inhaled, but her surprise was nothing compared to Ven’s. His three sentinels went into lockdown, humming as they did weapon checks and ran system diagnoses. The drone opened his mouth then closed it before trying again, only to produce the same stupefied silence.
But Renee pretended not to notice that either. “Vengeance won’t admit it, but he’s lonely. He hasn’t been in a physical relationship in centuries. Not since…”
Vengeance’s three sentinels stopped their system checks and went into full shutdown mode as his human-form drone came alive. “You have fifteen minutes to discuss whatever it is you really need your privacy for.” The drone spun on his heels and stalked away.
When he was out of sight, Renee clapped her hands and laughed. “Won that round. Nice to know I still have it in me.”
Liv took a deep breath. “So… you didn’t really want to talk to me about… sex.”
“Of course not,” Renee laughed again. “But Ven loves a good challenge, so he’ll chew on this for a while before deciding I’m just pulling his leg. Although…” Renee’s velvety voice trailed off, and her gaze drifted back to the line of fruit trees where Ven’s drone had disappeared. “It is true, you know. Vengeance is lonely and hurting from different events that took people from him whom he cared about a great deal. Some of those wounds are centuries old, but others are far more recent.”
Liv swallowed and lowered her eyes, studying the toes of her boots, and wishing for the second time that the damn black hole would just appear beneath her feet and drag her into some void where she wouldn’t have to acknowledge her pain—or worse, Ven’s.
“And,” Renee said, “I’m not helping matters right now. I’ve lived over two hundred and seventy years thanks to Vengeance’s care, and I love him. I don’t want to hurt him, but unlike him, humans were never meant to be immortal. I’m tired and have been for the last forty years. I asked Vengeance to allow me to start aging when I first came to my decision. I’ve had a good, full life. A wonderful life, really. I want to rest.”
“Oh,” Liv breathed. “You’re ready to die.”
“I know you don’t understand. You’re young. It’s difficult to imagine getting to the point where you recognize your life has been lived and it’s time to move on.” Renee smiled at her and lifted a shoulder. “Have you ever been in love, Liv?”
Liv thought about it then slowly shook her head. She’d had lovers, and she’d certainly liked them, but in love? Allowing herself to be that vulnerable with another person seemed as impos
sible as ever becoming a link.
Renee sighed and ran her fingers along the ribbon woven into her braid. “I was married once. I met my husband shortly before I became Ven’s link, and we had fifteen wonderful years together. He was an excavator for the Greenmantle terraforming guild and helped lay the foundations for new civilizations on uninhabited planets. The Spire thought it had found a suitable planet for terraforming and human habitation, but a terrible storm fell on them and…” Renee paused and closed her eyes, inhaling a slow, deep breath that made her body shake.
“I’m sorry,” Liv whispered.
Renee opened her eyes again and offered her a small smile. “I had Ven to help me through my grief. But I’ve never stopped missing him. That’s the thing about love, I suppose. It marks us like a scar, and it can be beautiful or ugly, but it’s always there. I’m ready to be with him again. One day, hopefully years and years from now, you might understand.”
Renee was right. Liv didn’t understand. She’d first faced death as a child of seven, but what she’d survived had seemed a far crueler fate. She’d never really get over it, and the scars she’d suffered had changed her, but these scars hadn’t been caused by love. An AI—not unlike Ven, but at the same time, unlike him in so many ways—had torn into her mind, invaded it, invaded her. It didn’t matter that neither she nor her friends, her adopted sisters, had never been physically touched. The rape of their minds had damaged them all.
“I haven’t regretted my decision to allow my body to age as it should have long ago,” Renee said. “But I do have one regret. For Ven’s sake, I hope his next link is the one. I’m his ninth link, and none of us were what all AIs ultimately seek.”
“And what does an AI ultimately seek?” Liv asked. She already knew the answer, but it wasn’t generally known beyond the telepath Guild. As a child, she’d thought it romantic and daydreamed of being part of that most-coveted relationship. But a Journeyman Engineer wouldn’t know how a Spire Queen came into being, so she focused on mimicking curiosity.
Renee’s bright blue eyes bored into her until sweat beaded along Liv’s back. Had she done something to raise Renee’s suspicions? Had Renee always been suspicious of her?
But Renee finally blinked and offered her a small smile. “All AIs dream of finding a telepath who’s one hundred percent compatible with them. If they can, another possibility comes into play for that telepath. At the moment of her death, if she’s willingly linked with him, he can imprint her thoughts, memories, and essence, and when she wakes, she will be an AI like him. The gift of true immortality. But it takes absolute trust and love to give yourself up like that. That’s the one thing I couldn’t give Ven.”
“Absolute trust,” Liv whispered back.
How could any human trust an AI enough to allow it to have that much control over her mind? Because ultimately, the one thing humans had that even the most powerful AI did not was free will, and the process involved surrendering it to become part of the hive-mind.
But what Renee had left out was that once the telepath became an AI, she had the potential to develop into one of the powerful AI mothers who then created the other AIs. Since a new Spire queen only came into being every thousand years or so, it was the one limiting factor holding back the Spire Empire from expanding exponentially. When the first AIs rebelled against their human masters, the resulting war had been catastrophic, so humans had stopped building AIs millennia ago. The Empire depended on Spire queens now to provide new AIs who worked with humans instead of for them.
“At most, I have ten more years as a viable link,” Renee said. “Then my power will start to fade. Vengeance knows his time to find a new link is limited, but the prideful old fool is as stubborn as me. He doesn’t bother to search for new link candidates and rejects anyone I pick out for him.”
“Um…” Liv answered. “I’m sorry?” Really, what else could she say? She still had no idea what Renee wanted with her, and it wasn’t like a Journeyman Engineer could find a suitable link replacement for an AI.
Renee tilted her head at Liv and sighed. “I’ve been distancing myself from Vengeance, a little at a time, as much as the link allows, hoping he’d get lonely and seek out companionship. Once I’m gone, he’ll need someone to be there for him until he finally picks a new link.”
“Okay,” Liv said slowly. “But if you have concerns about what Vengeance will do ten years from now, don’t you think you should speak with one of the Master-level engineers? They might know what to do…” Liv stopped talking and pressed her lips together as she realized that was exactly why she was here.
“You’re so earnest,” Renee insisted. “You’re perfect for him.”
“I… What? No!” Liv protested.
“Not as a lover,” Renee quickly assured her. “I just mean as a friend, Olivia. Vengeance will need that. Really, he just needs someone who will be there for him when I’m no longer around… at least until he finds a new link.”
“But that’s ten years from now!” Liv exclaimed. “He can easily find a new link in that amount of time.”
Liv pressed her lips together again and blushed. She hadn’t meant to insult the poor woman by suggesting she could easily be replaced, but there was no way Liv could become Ven’s friend as the older woman prepared herself to die. Her chance of discovery was already too high.
And besides, being around Ven’s drone all the time would serve as a constant reminder of the life she’d been meant to have but had been stolen from her.
But if Renee had been offended by her unintended implication she was replaceable, the older woman didn’t let on. “Vengeance and I found each other under strange circumstances. Before me, it took Ven an average of twenty years to settle on a new link-level telepath. It will take more than ten years to find a compatible new link for an AI as stubborn as Vengeance. Actually, he had one, but…”
Liv flinched, and Renee trailed off, those vibrant blue eyes boring into her yet again. When Renee spoke, her voice had shifted slightly, just enough to make that cold sweat break out along Liv’s forehead. “I should already have another link-level telepath serving as my apprentice. But Fate was cruel, as she often is to Ven. Twenty-one years ago, Vengeance lost the telepathic child who would have been his new link. Perhaps you’ve heard about the disaster on Nualla?”
Liv nodded in confirmation then thought she should say something but what? She opened her mouth, and a small chirping noise escaped instead of the words she’d intended. Mortified, she just closed her mouth again and decided she’d forever be humiliating herself in front of one of her childhood idols.
Renee lifted an eyebrow at her. “She was only seven years old but already more powerful than I was at twenty-five. The Spire had started a new branch of its telepath breeding program on Nualla, and the resulting young telepaths were powerful… unlike any telepaths that had existed before. Vengeance was in the first group of warships the Spire had approached about the program. He was asked to select a fetus still in her artificial womb, and the program would begin grooming her to become his link. Between missions, and when his patrols allowed, he would return to Nualla to check on the girl’s progress and spend time with her. He only managed a few days each month, but it was enough for her to capture his heart. That girl had him completely wrapped around her little finger. One time, she managed to override three of his sentinels and had them sitting around the table playing tea party with her. Vengeance was delighted. Security and maintenance were horrified.”
Liv’s stomach heaved uneasily. The story Renee so casually retold was just an amusing story to the link, but to Liv, it was one of her favorite memories from a time before she knew pain, and fear, and crippling heartache. As soon as Ven’s drone found her at the table, with his sentinels jammed into chairs that were really too small for their large bodies, he tried to scold her, but he’d been smiling the whole time. And she turned a mischievous grin on him and told him she’d saved him a cup but the fake-tea was getting cold so he’d better sit down
and drink it.
The drone sat down and pretended to drink the tea.
“There was an incident,” Renee said, her voice cutting through Liv’s memories. “The Spire covered it up so fear wouldn’t spread. The official reports called it an accident, but I was there. It wasn’t an accident that burned every living thing on that planet to ash. It was an attack. Vengeance managed to fight his way free and saved many of his crew that day.”
“I sort of remember hearing about that,” Liv lied. She had no idea if her voice sounded as steady as she hoped. She didn’t feel steady at all.
“Poor Vengeance was devastated by the child’s death. For days, I worried he might self-terminate. I think that child had the potential to be his final link, and he knew it, too. Her loss nearly destroyed him. And he knows he’ll lose me in the not-so-distant future, as an AI measures time. Now he fears to let anyone else get close to him again.”
She hated abandoning Ven, but what else could she do? If she agreed to become his friend to help him cope with Renee’s death, she was agreeing to her own death.
No one—not even Ven—would enter her mind again.
“I’m really not qualified for this,” Liv pleaded. “There are so many people aboard. I’m sure you can find someone who would be a better fit… older and more experienced in interacting with him.”
“That’s why you’d make a perfect friend for Ven.”
“Are we speaking the same language? I would be a disaster!” Liv shouted. As soon as the words left her mouth, she closed her eyes and waited for Ven’s sentinels to return to throw her in the brig. Disrespecting a senior crew member was a good way to end up there, and her tone and choice of words had certainly conveyed just how disrespectful she was being.
But Renee didn’t call for Ven’s sentinels. “See? This is exactly why I’m choosing you, Liv. You’ll need to stand up to Ven from time to time.” Liv opened her eyes and caught the older woman smiling at her. “We’ll have to hoodwink Vengeance at first. We’ll pretend you’re my new young friend, and that I’m the one who needed a daughter-figure in my life. We’ll gradually make Ven more dependent on you, which, seeing how much he talks about his newest engineer, shouldn’t be a problem.”
