by J. S. Morin
Carl let his blaster drop to his side. “What part of ‘the guy who robbed us is a robot’ made you expect anything else?”
“Well… I mean… it’s you. I figured maybe the guy doesn’t emote much, or he’s tricked out in tech gear from datalens to autowalkers. Or maybe he had a few cybernetic mods. But this is a fucking robot.”
The robot cleared its throat. Or failed to start a carbureted engine—it sounded about the same. “I am not a robot. I am a human temporarily dispossessed of my natural corporeal form. I can explain in more granular detail once your whole crew has gathered, so as not to repeat myself.”
“Talks like Mort,” Yomin observed.
Roddy scowled at Archie. “Or an AI programmed to sound like a blowhard. If I wanted to fool sentients into thinking my AI was the real deal, I’d have the thing babbling like an idiot, just because that’s what people don’t expect from a computer.”
The airlock cycle started up again.
Yomin circled around Archie, staying out of arm’s reach. “Artificial, yeah. But if that’s a human mind in there, he could technically be a cyborg. Just a person with a fully cybernetic body.”
“Hell of an implant,” Roddy muttered, lifting the barrel of his blaster as Yomin passed into his line of misfire.
The airlock finished cycling, and Juggler stepped out, tearing off his EV helm with a gasp. “Damn I hate these things. Feels good to breathe real air again.”
Archie swiveled his head while the rest of his body remained motionless. “I wouldn’t know.”
Slapping a hand on the controls, Juggler closed the airlock and sent it back down. “Mort’s on his way. He was just getting to the ship as I closed the airlock door. Had to pretend not to see him so he couldn’t jump the line.”
“So, what’s all that other junk?” Roddy asked. He kicked the unfamiliar case Carl had brought back along with the original.
It was a fair question. At the lowest level of detail, he hadn’t a clue. More important than the amino acids and peptides or whatever shit Archie had cobbled together was what the whole business represented. “Possibly a way to carpet bomb Harmony Bay’s research plans, get paid, and return this stuff back to where it can evolve into fish… or something like that.”
The airlock opened and Mort stumbled through, cursing. “Dratted zebra-dung-scented albatross.” He pulled a beaded necklace over his head and waved a hand to clear the air in front of his nose. Instantly, his face curdled. “On second thought, the cheap science smells worse.” The necklace settled back in place around his neck.
Carl made the introductions. “Mort, this is Archie. Archie, this is—”
“Robot!” Mort shouted, pointing an accusing finger. The warning could have been replaced with the words “grenade” or “incoming” and carried no less urgency. Mort clenched an outstretched fist, and the cargo bay lights went out momentarily. “There, that ought to take care of that.”
But Archie was neither a molten puddle nor a loose collection of parts on the steel floor—Carl’s two leading guesses when it went dark. Instead, the robot was facing Mort and backing away slowly. “Please, hear me out!”
“By Merlin’s sagging balls, why isn’t this thing smooshed into a steel bowling ball? And why’s it talking to me?”
The common room door burst open, and Amy crashed into the guard railing on the landing. “What’s going on? Why’d we lose power?” Carl and Roddy pointed to Mort. Mort pointed to Archie. “Holy shit. That thing really is a robot.”
Esper followed Amy onto the catwalk, toweling her hair dry. As first back aboard, she’d called dibs on the shower. “OK. The comm wasn’t coming across wrong. That really is a living, breathing robot down there. Well, not literally breathing, but you know what I mean. So why was Mort trying to kill it? I assume Mort getting the ship kerfuzzled means doom-and-gloom magic.”
“It’s… a robot,” Mort said. “I’m sworn to defend humanity.”
Roddy snickered. “This guy gave up without a fight. Don’t think he’s top on humanity’s list of threats.”
But Mort was having none of it. “For centuries, far-thinking individuals have warned of the rise of robots, thinking for themselves, evolving into all-powerful demons of science and electricity. You let just one thinking robot loose in the galaxy, you’re liable to end up with the extinction of life as we know it… even the life we don’t like.”
“Do I know you?” the robot asked.
“Stop looking at me, you creepy, walking datapad. And of course I don’t know any robots.”
“Are you any relation to Tiberius The Brown?”
The technological lights in the cargo bay went out, but the conjured fire Mort held in hand kept darkness from swallowing them whole. “How dare you invoke my father’s name, robot!”
Well, at least it kept the absence of light at bay. By Carl’s estimation, things were still looking fairly dark.
Whether Archie was hoping to talk his way out of a fiery demise or angling to get himself killed all the quicker, he pressed on. “I knew your father. Met him while I was teaching at Harvard. Didn’t get off campus much in those days, but I met him at a fundraising dinner.”
“You? Taught at Harvard?”
“Archimedes Antonopoulos, Professor of Techno-magical Interaction. Retired, obviously.”
Mort’s scowl deepened, bottom-lit by the flame in his hand. “Mordecai The Brown, Holder of the Eighth Chair, Guardian of the Plundered Tomes. Also retired, obviously.” The flame in Mort’s hand winked out, replaced by a more congenial glow that lit the whole cargo bay in eldritch light. “I’m an Oxford man myself. But what’s a wizard doing in a robot’s body?”
“Then… you believe me?”
“I’m practically made of belief. Plus, it explains why I couldn’t crumple you like a dirty handkerchief a minute ago.”
Archie’s shoulders slumped in an all-too-human sign of relief. “I’m not accustomed to anyone accepting my story at face value.”
Roddy raised a hand. “I’m not.”
Carl stepped forward, not quite placing himself in the line of fire in case Mort had second thoughts. “OK, professor. How’d you get from teaching on the Convocation’s front doorstep to being given a chrome and circuits makeover? I’d like this version abbreviated, but thorough.”
“Well, I left for the private sector, taking a lucrative position as a Convocation liaison to Harmony Bay. I was still on the Convocation payroll, but I lived and worked at various corporate facilities across the galaxy. Interstellar travel took some getting used to, but I’d always wanted to see the sights, and after the passing of my wife Jinlian—”
“More abbreviated than that.”
Archie emitted the throat-clearing engine noise once again. “Are you familiar with the work of Dr. James Augustus Clifton?”
“Passingly,” Carl said, keeping a straight face. It wasn’t every day you met a ten-year-old kid with the mind of a 112-year-old scientist.
“Well, I had voiced some ethical concerns over certain projects of his. He tried to reassure me that everything was on the trim and tidy. Gave me a tour of his work and everything. Then some Judas of a wizard on their payroll held my magic in check while they made me one of his test subjects. Five men died in the process of transferring their brains to a machine. I survived but didn’t let on. When they gave up trying to get a response out of me, I was slated for a neural wipe to be ready for the next subject. But I escaped, and I’ve been on the run and adapting to life as a piece of science ever since. I don’t dare work a lick of magic, but I can still suppress it well enough to keep quick-fingered wizards from snuffing out my machine brain.”
Carl looked around. “Since we’ve got everyone here, I think it’s time for a little democracy. Who votes we believe this crazy story and pump this former wizard for all the intel we can on Harmony Bay?”
Roddy raised a hand. “Can I vote half and half?”
“What are the other options?” Esper asked.
“Glad you asked. The other options include letting Mort finish what he tried to start, jettisoning him out the airlock—before and after departure are both options—or trying to sell him off for a bounty to Harmony Bay or ARGO… maybe even the Convocation.”
“I believe him,” Amy said. She descended the stairs and stood beside the robotic ex-wizard. “No one would stand by a story that stupid if it weren’t true.”
With a simian sigh, Roddy crossed his arms. “Selling him back to Harmony Bay seems a lot like slavery. And fuck ARGO and the Convocation. If this guy can help us make some real terras at the expense of Harmony Bay though, I’m in.”
Juggler grinned. “You mean Our-Money Bay, right? Let’s do this.”
Yomin cast Juggler a sidelong look. “What’s Harmony Bay ever done to you? I don’t like the idea of taking Professor Antonopoulos hostage and forcing him to work with us.”
“I would be glad to, though I prefer fewer weapons aimed at me.”
Carl clapped his hands once. “Great. That sounds like we’ve got a majority.”
“Now hold on a minute!” Mort stepped to block Carl’s path to the stairs. Close up, the odor of animals and savanna mud was overpowering. “I didn’t cast a vote.”
“Roddy, Amy, Juggler, Yomin… that’s four out of seven. You, me, and Esper could all vote against siding with Archie and we’d still lose.”
“But you can’t fly the Mobius without at least one or the other of us!”
Carl leaned to look over Mort’s shoulder. “Hey, Archie. You know how to fix a star-drive?”
“I assume you jest? Of course. It’s easier than programming a back-calculating data-fault encryption link.”
Yomin’s eyes shot wide. “So that’s how you picked up on my tracker!”
“It seemed a sensible precaution. By necessity, I’ve gotten far more adept with advanced tech than I’d ever imagined as a wizard.”
Esper let out a melodramatic sigh. “I’ll do it if Mort won’t. But I need one thing from you first.”
“What’s that?” Carl asked. She didn’t ask often, and she’d already offered up her best bargaining chip. He was inclined to hear her out.
“I need a few hours in town, the part that actually has an enclosed environment where I don’t need to walk around in an EV suit.”
“Feeling a little stir crazy?”
Esper did that thing with her lips where they scrunched together and twisted sideways. “I have a date. Sort of. It’s complicated.”
# # #
Why hadn’t she thought of a harmless little lie ahead of time? Caught up in the inverted chase to let Ivanhoe reach her, Esper hadn’t planned so far ahead as to getting away from the Mobius without an escort, raised suspicions, or anyone puzzling out her secret mission. She hadn’t expected to wear a dress while on Mirny. Something demure, professional, and not over-scented with ammonia would have been fine. But once she told the crew she had a date, leaving in everyday trousers and a blouse seemed likely to raise suspicion.
The knapsack she carried had been her lie of the day. To outward appearances, it was empty—bought along for a post-date shopping trip—but concealed within was the Tome of Bleeding Thoughts. Yomin and Amy had said that her blue dress from the Poet Fleet brought out her eyes. It was a tailored sundress, with a hint of shimmer in the fabric to class it up, but not so formal that it would seem out-of-place in the Earth-themed café where she was meeting Ivanhoe. Carl and Juggler’s words had been non-committal, but their eyes spoke volumes. No one had said anything about her choice of accessories. It bothered her just a little that they didn’t advise her against bringing a dull brown leather sack along. A little sisterly advice or a clucked tongue or two would have done wonders for her morale. They must have had a low ceiling of expectations about how her date would go.
Of course, it wasn’t really a date, but they weren’t supposed to know that. It’s not like she couldn’t have a social life outside the ship or off Ithaca for that matter. Despite being a wizard, she could still use the omni, couldn’t she? It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
Hustling down the street of the Skyview Esplanade, Esper paused to check her reflection in the glass of a pastry shop. She smoothed back a stray lock of hair that had gone rogue. The necklace she wore matched her dress, but somehow the delicate sapphire—well, at least sapphire-looking—pendant seemed insignificant compared to the Convocation insignia. Should she have worn hers? She’d hardly had occasion since Mort got it for her. Would it have been presumptuous, given the nature of her rendezvous? The raspberry tarts just past her reflection looked delicious.
Focus. Esper had a mission. A book in exchange for Mort’s reinstatement in the Convocation. That mission relied less on whether she wore a Convocation emblem or a rhinestone pendant and more on getting to Taste of Sol in the next—she checked her datapad—eight minutes. Tardiness by hours and days had been her recent modus operandi. Today, she was going to be on time.
“Pardon me,” a baritone voice from just behind startled her. A young security guard stood with a hand on one hip. “Do you require any assistance?” The words were formal enough, but there was a smirk in his voice that matched the one on his lips. He wasn’t ugly but had a rough look that didn’t sit well with her. The flush of warmth on her cheeks had come unbidden before she’d turned and discovered it was just a local lawman trying to make time with an obviously lost newcomer to the colony.
Esper straightened and lifted her chin. “No, thank you. I’m just enjoying the sights. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere to be.”
Of all the nerve of that guard. He was little more than a flesh-and-blood help kiosk. Didn’t he know that? How dare he get her hopes up? It wasn’t as if she had an image of Ivanhoe to go by. He could have spotted her on the street. Surely in making inquiries, Keesha Bell had at least alerted her contact as to whom he was dealing with.
She arrived outside Taste of a Sol a minute early. It was forcibly quaint, in the prescribed manner of everything originating on Earth. Flowers in the window boxes were probably fakes. The windows themselves, with their gold lettering and hand-marked daily specials, were just holographic. The decor was dark wood, white tablecloths and place settings for two.
Esper was met just inside the door by a girl in a white shirt and black bow tie. “May I help you?” Her accent was Paris Prime to a tee. Esper’s own ancestors had sounded like that no doubt, centuries before moving to Mars.
But Esper paid the woman little heed, standing on tiptoe to get a better view of the clientele. “That’s quite all right. I’m here looking for—”
Mort.
How had he known? Had he guessed her intentions? Read her comms? Shadowed her and snuck ahead at some point? He sat at a secluded corner table, with no patrons seated for two tables in any direction. The teacup he raised to his lips wafted with a thin ribbon of steam.
But no, this wasn’t Mort. This was Mort with the years stripped away. This was very nearly the younger version she’d gotten to know better than the original during her studies in Mortania. This was Mort minus one generation of world-weariness. Swallowing back a sudden lump in her throat, Esper tried to approach, but her feet didn’t move. Had she not been a wizard, she was certain she would have remained rooted to the spot. But she’d learned to control the forces of the universe, or at least the ones that loitered around her person. Come on, feet. This is what we’re here for.
As she crossed the café, the younger Mort took notice of her. Hastily setting down his cup, he stood and drew himself up proudly. He graced her with a nod when there were no longer any café guests between them. “Miss Richelieu, I’m pleased to finally meet you.”
“Likewise, Mr. Ivanhoe. Um. That’s obviously not your real name. What should I call you? Or should I just stick with Ivanhoe? Because I have nothing against—”
“Cedric.” He took her hand and bowed slightly to kiss it. “Cedric The Brown.” He wore black trousers and a matching tunic with sleev
es wide enough to clasp his hands within. Though he didn’t wear any chain of office or rank insignia of any sort, he simply exuded Convocation. “Are you well?”
Esper pulled her hand back at his expression of concern. “Me? Oh. I’m fine. Just fine. Very nice to meet you, Cedric. I mean Wizard Brown. Has… um, anyone mentioned a certain family resemblance?”
“Call me Cedric. And yes—practically everyone who’s met my father.” He sat back down and motioned for Esper to join him. With a snap of his fingers, a waiter scurried to the table.
“And what will mademoiselle like?”
Esper had been so preoccupied with why she was heading to the café that she had forgotten to consider what she’d drink when she got there. She glanced at the menu, but wasn’t comfortable idly browsing Taste of Sol’s offerings with Cedric and the waiter staring at her. Whatever Cedric had in his cup smelled wonderful. “I’ll have one like his.”
The waiter bowed. “Excellent choice.”
When the waiter was gone, Cedric sipped his coffee. “It’s from a bean native to Columbia, South America, on Earth. They grow it on Osiris IV now. I was out there during the final phase terraforming, adjusting atmospheric balance. Got to drink this stuff fresh from the plantations.”
“They grow it outdoors?”
“That’s one of the joys of terramancy. I get to see places where they want to do things the traditional way. That’s why this coffee tastes better: it’s never seen the inside of a factory.”
“Right. Terramancer. Mort mentioned his son—well, you, I suppose—had become one. Congratulations, by the way.”
Cedric harrumphed softly. It didn’t carry the grit or years of practice of his father’s—at least not yet. “My father didn’t make it easy. I can tell you that much. It’s hard to shake loose from that sort of reputation.”
“You seem to have managed just handsomely. I mean, wonderfully.”
Cedric’s smile had nothing of cynicism or patronization in it. That was to say, it looked like his father’s but differed in every way that mattered. “So, you know my father personally. Correct? What’s he like? I mean, these days. Most of the people I know talk about a man they haven’t seen in twenty-odd years.”
