by Barbara Lund
I stared at them.
“Josue explained you can’t stay long.” Cara smiled wistfully. “This contract will allow me to repay your kindness and fulfill my directives.”
“Is there a market?” I managed.
“Of course!” Josue folded his arms. “We contacted the nearest system and have over one hundred passengers eager to experience Cara.”
“Do you think I should pay you more?” Cara asked anxiously. “I can—”
“No.” I skimmed my copy. “This is more than fair.”
“Of course it is,” Josue snapped. “I helped her write it myself.”
Grinning to myself, I added my signature to my copy, knowing it would bounce instantly to all other copies. I’d been thinking the same thing, they’d just expanded and improved on it.
Cara squealed, blowing the nearest speaker.
* * *
As we watched the leviathan’s shuttle bay doors close behind us, I settled into my custom-built pilot’s couch and sighed happily. While it had been fun to be treated like an Important Person by Cara, returning to the Desolate and living in my own space made me happy.
“You know, Tal,” Josue murmured as he calculated our next jump, “Cara reminds me of you.”
Choking, I sat up. “What?”
“Alone. Lonely.”
“I’m not!”
“While I am the most wonderful AI around, and you’ve modified me to be even better, and given me more control of your ship than you ought—”
“You are the ship!”
“You could do with a friend.”
“You are my friend.”
“Someone who can touch you.”
I gaped, wordless.
“How can someone who hates to be touched so much,” Josue said, “love to be touched so much? You miss it. You need it.”
Covering my face with my hands, I mumbled, “Is this about that time I didn’t answer the com on Pleasure-R-Us? Cause that was just—”
“No.” The Josue-holo appeared and sat next to me on the couch. “There, you see?”
“What?”
“You leaned toward me. For two hundred thirty-five nanoseconds, you forgot I was a holo and wanted to be held.”
“I—?” Forcing myself to straighten, I remembered Cara, and the way she needed someone to care for, and the pang of jealousy I had felt when I realized that she and Josue would be able to keep a com line open and have huge conversations in just my pauses. AIs have so much more time.
Insanity had never appealed to me.
“I’ll think about it.”
“I’m getting some interesting readings from the asteroid belt.” The holo disappeared. “We should check there.”
“Save a derelict, hire an eventual partner, scavenge behind an asteroid.” I scowled. Nothing lasts forever. “Maybe look for a human friend later. All in a day’s work.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barbara decided that raising two kids, “wife-ing”, working as a police officer, maintaining her black sashes in kung fu and tai chi, (oh yes, and eating!) weren’t enough obsessions to keep busy, so she picked up a NANOWRIMO book, and hasn’t stopped writing since. When she placed 2nd in the science fiction/fantasy category of the 2015 Zebulon contest sponsored by Pikes Peak Writers, she decided to do something with the stories in her head, which prompted indie-publishing of three novels and fifteen short stories (so far).
Platform Eight Series (Short Stories)
Darkest Space (#1)
Recovery Space (#2)
Damaged Space (#3)
Revenge Space (#4)
Craving Space (#5)
Slave Space (#6)
Shattered Space (#7)
Relative Space (#8 - Available Soon)
In-between stories available at barbara.lund.com
Crowns Peak Series
Creeper
Healer
Ava’s Quest
Last Mage Standing (Available 2018)
Doomsday Ship Stories (Short Stories)
Ship Desolate (#1)
Ship Heist (#2 - Available Soon)
Space, Lies, Syndicate
Witch’s Pet (Short Story)
Blood Descendant (Novella)
http://www.barbaralund.com
