The Master Purveyor had sent Slink ahead to investigate—not something Slink would have preferred, but these were extraordinary times and extraordinary circumstances. They had to move quickly. It had to be assumed whoever they were after was doing the same.
His Companion muttered something next to him, and the connection between them glowed as a prediction came in. Slink felt it tingle at the back of his head, and he finally turned his attention away from the young soldier and up toward the front of the cabin.
The door swung open, and the burly low-ranking petty officer who commanded the contingent strode through, as Slink had known he was going to. Slink couldn’t remember his name. He didn’t need to.
“Master Slink, we’re—” started the officer.
“Approaching orbit,” Slink said. He smiled smugly at the officer’s reaction to Slink’s foreknowledge. “Tell the pilot to prepare for atmospheric entry.”
“Aye, sir,” said the officer. He shifted his weight, then asked, “Shall we set down at the nearby landing port and take ground speeders for lower visibility to the locals, or would the master prefer to go straight to the target coordinates?”
Slink frowned. He tapped the scenarios into his arm pad and sent the forecast request to his Companion. The Companion didn’t respond. Slink smacked it on top of the impenetrable white headgear that covered its face and skull. The dulling of the five senses had proven to be crucial to accuracy.
His arm pad beeped. The forecast was inconclusive. Slink grunted in frustration and slapped the display off.
“Pilot’s discretion,” Slink said to the officer.
The officer hesitated, as if unsure what to do with the choice, then nodded and began to walk out of the passenger hold. As he left, he called out to his troops.
“Gear up. We’re landing on Indacar.”
19
PETRICK WOKE, gasping, his head pounding. Still panicked, he looked around him to see the thin fabric walls of the tent that he’d built from one of Haber’s packs. Next to him, Clarke huddled, also quaking from the intensity of the dream. Petrick leaned over the side of his sleeping sack, his abdomen convulsing. Nothing came up, blessedly. The tents and sleeping paraphernalia remained pristine. He would have hated to ruin them with vomit on the very first night, to say nothing of hauling that smell around for their whole trip.
It was the same as it always was now: The meadow outside the lab. The hornets came and encircled his father, drowning out the sound coming from his moving lips. Petrick had tried going directly to his father this time, to swat the swarming monsters away himself, only to be rebuffed and knocked to the ground. And, as he always had, his father had leaned forward, eyes burning, and pleaded for help.
Then Petrick woke up.
Petrick lay back down next to his furry friend. Clarke pressed himself against the side of Petrick’s torso. Petrick stroked from Clarke’s head down around his curved back to his hindquarters, and then back up again. His fur was soft and soothing. It helped. The nausea was dissipating, as was the headache.
Usually, this would put them both right back to sleep, but the current circumstances were anything but normal, and Petrick found that he couldn’t get himself asleep again. As they both sat there, struggling back to reality, Petrick grimly wondered if he’d ever be able to get another night’s sleep again, ever.
He rose, and Clarke looked up at him questioningly. Petrick grabbed his pack and nodded to Clarke, and they both crawled out the opening flap of the small tent.
The air outside was cool, and a breeze was wafting through the tall gap left by the shattered concourse window. The bright summer moons weren’t quite visible through the large opening in the center of the roof, but their silvery light was still luminous enough to bathe the tarmac and much of the interior with a ghostly glow. Petrick and Clarke sat down at the very edge of the vacant window’s opening, Petrick let his legs flop over the side, and together they looked out at the scene below.
He reached into his pack and pulled out a small cylinder. He clicked a switch, and a thin light shone from a slit near the top, accompanied by a buzzing sound. Petrick ran the light up and down his arms, shivering at the tingly sensation it gave him.
Petrick nearly yelped aloud when Haber came and sat down next to him, seemingly out of nowhere. Clarke merely wagged his tail.
Haber was looking at the device in Petrick’s hand, frowning. “I’ll have to ask you to return that sterilizer to my pack,” he said.
“Oh, I didn’t take it from your pack,” Petrick said. “I made it.” He switched it off and handed it to Haber. The android turned it over carefully. “I made it before bed with some spare parts I brought from Dad’s lab so I could clean the stench of that food waste off me.”
Haber nodded after completing his inspection. “This is well made,” he said. He carefully handed the device back to the boy.
“I don’t know.” Petrick shrugged. “Still can’t seem to get myself clean.” Petrick switched the light on and continued to move it back and forth on his skin. “I bet you could dream up something better.”
Haber shook his head. “I’m afraid imagination is not one of my strong suits, Master Petrick. I’m handy with a set of instructions or a database of knowledge, but I wasn’t programmed for much conjecture or innovative thinking.”
“Oh,” said Petrick.
He hadn’t thought of Haber as having any limits. He’d been such an indispensable source of insight and information already. He wondered if Haber was just being modest, if that was also part of his programming.
The two sat in silence for a moment, and Petrick looked at the silver moonlight that shimmered across the black, cracked tarmac. “You can’t sleep either, huh?” he said.
“I do not require sleep, young master. My rest cycles are usually less than an hour or two, and I require them infrequently.”
“That must be nice.”
“I take it you were awakened by the message again.”
“Yup.”
“Are you physically harmed?”
“It makes my head hurt a lot and my stomach sour. But it fades.”
Haber nodded. He considered Petrick, who had slumped his head and stopped using the sanitizer. “Young master . . . ,” he said, “I— . . . I know the situation looks grim. The fact that the spaceport, arguably the most significant on Indacar, which is itself a major waypoint for the Fringe Worlds, the fact that it appears to have been abandoned so completely and left in such ruin . . . well, it suggests to me that our chances of finding a spaceborne ship are virtually zero. Here, and perhaps even in all of Indacar . . .”
Petrick frowned. “That . . . sounds pretty grim, Haber,” he said.
“What—what I mean to say is,” Haber continued with a grunt of frustration, “if there is a way, we will find it. Together. Not that I necessarily believe there is a way, mind you. Statistically speaking, our odds must be exceptionally low.”
“You’re not very good at cheering people up, Haber.”
“But our odds are much better together. Because of you, is what I was driving at, young master. You’ve already proven to be . . . quite resourceful.”
Petrick smiled and let out a big sigh. “Thank you, Haber,” he said.
“It is merely an observation,” Haber replied.
“No,” said Petrick, “I mean thank you for helping me. For coming on this . . . crazy trip.”
“Ah.” Haber seemed confused.
“With Suzy and Barry, I suppose, I shouldn’t be surprised. They always follow me. I guess I always knew they’d come. But you came too. So, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” There was a small beat of silence between the two. Haber seemed to be finding his words. “It’s not often that an android such as myself gets a thank-you.”
“What do you mean?” Petrick’s face twisted into a question mark.
“When one is programmed to serve, that service is the expectation. One does not necessarily express thanks when an expectat
ion is met.”
Petrick’s questioning expression deepened. “Are you saying you’re only here because you have to be here, because that’s your programming?”
“I was made to assist in whatever manner is required of me.”
“Right, but, I mean, do you have a choice?”
Haber looked uneasy with the question. “If you were to order me to do something, I am programmed to obey it.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Haber, I order you to bark like Clarke.”
Haber’s entire demeanor changed: he stiffened unnaturally, raised his chin toward the ceiling of the concourse, puffed his chest out, and began to bark like a dog. It was comical for a second, but any laugh that Petrick might have indulged in died down as he realized Haber was not himself. There was no laughter in Haber’s eyes, no awareness of what he was doing. He’d become a puppet.
“Stop,” Petrick said to him. “You may stop now.”
Haber stopped barking. “Have I done something wrong?” he said, recognizing the distressed look on Petrick’s face. He was himself again.
“No,” said Petrick. “Not at all. Do you . . . remember what just happened?”
Haber frowned. “You were asking me why I agreed to come with you on this trip.”
“You don’t remember me asking you to bark like a dog?”
“Ah,” said Haber, understanding what must have happened, “you gave me an instructional override. Such commands supersede any other personality or memory functions.”
“You weren’t yourself.”
“I was programmed in such a manner.”
“I didn’t like it.”
“Master Fenton apparently believed it to be a necessary feature.”
“Well, I promise not to use it again. I thought it would be funny, but it wasn’t. Nobody should have that much control over someone else.”
“I appreciate that, young master, but it is who I am.”
“Haber, I don’t want you to be out here helping me because you have to, or because I ordered you.”
“But you didn’t.” That was true, Petrick realized. He hadn’t ordered Haber on this mission. “I am programmed to obey your command, yes, but that is not my only functionality. My central processing core continually evaluates variables and weighs them against my main directive subroutines to choose the most desired outcome and any course of action. I am not solely dependent on my masters’ directives.”
Petrick perked up. “Your ‘directive subroutines’: are those, then, what you mean when you say you’re programmed to help me and my father? Like coming on this trip?”
“That is correct.”
Petrick smiled again. “That sounds like friendship to me, Haber.”
“It is not.”
“I think it is.” Petrick’s smile grew with relief. “And friends thank friends for sticking with them . . . so, again, thank you.”
Haber shifted uncomfortably but didn’t protest. It was as close as Petrick thought he would get to a “you’re welcome” from the odd, dour android.
The two sat in silence for a minute or two and enjoyed the cool nighttime breeze. Petrick dangled his legs over the ledge and looked at the tarmac below . . . it was empty.
And that was when he saw two small, bobbing lights on the far side of the tarmac. He squinted, just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, but there they were moving slowly along the far edge on the other side of the concourse.
“Haber,” he whispered, “what are those?”
He pointed, and Haber leaned forward. Petrick could hear an almost imperceptible whirring sound as he watched the android’s pupils dilate and constrict. A moment later, the android yanked Petrick off the ledge so swiftly the boy almost let out a yelp, before pushing him down flat to the ground. The android lowered himself the same way before raising his head up above the ground just enough to have a view of the far side of the tarmac.
“They’re people,” Petrick whispered.
Haber nodded. “Two of them, a male and a female,” he confirmed.
Petrick picked his head up too and squinted again, trying to see more in the darkness on that far side.
“Can you see who they are?” he asked.
Haber whispered back, “They seem to be hauling in a large number of objects.”
“In the middle of the night?” Petrick wondered aloud. It was certainly suspect.
“Indeed.”
“And why come here, to an abandoned spaceport?”
“Why, indeed.” Haber looked at Petrick with an expression of anticipation. He was a step ahead. “We must pack up camp. Quickly and quietly.”
Petrick felt the knot in his chest change into a kind of heat, which likewise shortened his breath in anticipation.
“A ship is coming,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
The android couldn’t even respond before the entire port building was filled with the roar and burning light of atmospheric thrusters. Petrick and Haber looked up and saw a large, oddly shaped ship lowering itself through the open roof. It was roughly wedge shaped with a bulging section underneath that appeared to be a cargo hold of some kind, and fins forward and aft meant for atmospheric maneuvering. Its three large thrusters were currently pointed downward at the ground as it descended onto the tarmac, and as the vessel’s broad side came into view, the two words “Red Robert” emblazoned on it were distinctly visible.
Three giant landing struts lowered with a loud metallic shriek, and the lumbering vessel touched down. Behind Petrick and Haber, they could hear the sounds of Barry and Suzy stirring from their tents. Barry stepped out first, blinking in the glare of the newly landed ship’s spotlights.
“What’s going on?” he asked blearily.
“Fill your packs quickly and quietly,” Haber responded in a terse whisper as Suzy also emerged to see what was going on.
Barry and Suzy looked questioningly at Petrick.
“Do it,” Petrick answered, running over to his own tent and belongings. “We’re getting out of here!”
20
“HOW DO we know that thing is going where we need to go?”
Haber inclined his head at Suzy’s perfectly valid question. “It will likely not, young master, but any ship leaving Indacar is an opportunity we can ill afford to lose.”
“Plus,” said Petrick, “it’s bound to take us somewhere with other ships, other ships that will take us where we need to go.”
The odd foursome was packed and hiding down behind a smelly, rusty pile of discarded shipping containers on the tarmac within five minutes of the landed ship Red Robert. The three children were quietly and rapidly breathing in hushed anticipation of the prize that lay before them.
They could see that a rather large, round figure had emerged and was conversing with another, taller figure on the far side of the ship. A lone gangplank was resting on the tarmac. Orange light spilled out from the interior of the grounded ship, highlighting what they hoped would be their destination.
The conversation between the two figures ended, and each went their separate way: the taller person back into the shadows of the far side of the port’s interior, and the scruffy round one up the gangplank into the ship.
Barry took the opportunity to voice what was on his mind. “Can’t we just go and ask them for a ride?” he whispered. “Maybe they’re nice?”
“They’re sneaking about at night with no one else around,” Suzy replied. “They’re not going to be nice.”
“We’re around,” Barry said. Suzy looked at him. “You said ‘no one else’ was around.”
“They don’t know that.”
“We’re going to keep it that way, Master Barry,” Haber said. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the Red Robert.
There were a couple crashing sounds coming from the other side of the tarmac, over in the shadows where the tall figure had disappeared. Moments later, the round figure came bounding down the ramp, yelled something in the direction of the noise, and th
en went itself in that direction. The foursome strained to look across the distance and into the darkness, but they could see nothing.
“Do you think they’re pirates?” Petrick asked, his eyes getting wide at the new thought.
“It is possible,” the android conceded. “The name of the ship certainly conjures a certain . . . swashbuckling image.”
“They could be getting ready to load anything over there,” Barry exclaimed. “Bad things.”
“As I said before, Master Barry,” Haber said, getting snippy, “I’m unable to make any deductions as to the nature of our visitors without further information.”
“This is crazy, you guys!” Barry hissed.
“We need to get closer,” said Suzy.
Before anyone could stop her, she slipped out from behind their cover and along the various docking bays. She ran silently from shadow to shadow, pausing at each one to stop and listen, see if her movements were being noticed. So far, they hadn’t been.
“Suzy!” Barry hissed much too loudly.
Haber put his hand over Barry’s mouth, and the boy noted through his nervous frustration how oddly it smelled. Like a mixture of the silverware at Childer’s and another more unnatural-smelling odor. The android’s ice-blue eyes shone at him brilliantly and reproachfully in the night. The message was clear: Shut up.
Barry sighed grumblingly into Haber’s tightly pressed hand and slumped his shoulders. He wouldn’t yell out like that again.
“She’s moving pretty easily,” Petrick said. “And she’s right. We should move over there and see what’s going on. The sooner we know, the better, right?”
“There is a certain logic to that reasoning, yes,” Haber said, nodding. “We go one at a time, like Master Suzy,” he said. “Stick to the shadows of the docking bays, and pause each time to make sure you haven’t been seen. That would be most unfortunate.”
“Got it.” Petrick nodded.
Barry nodded too. Not that he agreed it was a good idea to stalk off into the darkness toward a possibly hostile group of adults, but there was no way Suzy could be left alone over there. Not on his watch.
Starstuff (Starstuff Trilogy Book 1) Page 12
