Starship Waking

by C. Gockel

  “We live almost next door, but thought we’d have a better view up here,” said the boy.

  The girl wrung her hands and looked down. “And then we saw…”

  “Afraid to go home,” the boy said. “Maybe they’d see us. They’re still there, waiting.”

  The air wafting through the opening brought with it the smell of humans, freshly turned sod, weere blood, and incongruously, roasted suckling pig. Volka drifted to the window. The girl started to cry, and Volka heard the scrape of a shovel outside. Rising to her tiptoes, she peered through the opening. Joseph and Esther’s home was better built than most. They had a corrugated metal roof of some mysterious alloy that never rusted and burned the eyes with reflective light during the day. It reflected the lights of the humans below and a blaze set in the garbage can Joseph used for barbecues. For a moment, Volka was dazzled, and then her eyes dropped to the tiny garden behind the house. Joseph, Esther, and Myra were all lying there, bodies long, white, and peaceful as scattered bones in the humans’ floodlights.

  “They killed all of them,” the girl whispered .

  “We saw the phaser blasts,” said the boy.

  Volka watched the humans below. Someone ran out of the house and threw a painting Volka had done of the couple into the flaming barrel. Oddly, she felt nothing. They were digging up Esther’s flower garden, scarring the earth the weere had worked so hard to cultivate. A distant part of Volka realized that they were digging graves, but it was still too much to process. She was in another nightmare. She had to be.

  “Why?” the part of her that knew she was awake whispered.

  Wiping her face, the girl said, “I don’t know. They didn’t say…they knocked, went in, took them out to the backyard, and shot them all…even the baby. I don’t know. I don’t know.” She sobbed softly.

  Even the baby…?

  “Did they know the baby’s father was human?” the Volka who thought she was in a dream whispered.

  The children stared at her. Hany meditatively scratched his ear.

  The girl sniffed. “The woman, she told them so—” Her voice was doubtful.

  “She was lying to save her own skin,” said the boy. “Weere and humans don’t make babies.”

  Hany barked. “That’s what they want you to think. Why do you think they killed them? Why do you think they threw the baby in the fire?”

  Without a word, he lumbered over to the slab Volka had emerged beneath, climbed on top of it, and exited through the narrow skylight.

  Volka, or a woman made of stone who looked like Volka, said to the children in a frighteningly calm voice, “ Stay hidden until the Guard leave.” And then her eyes went to Hany’s shadow slipping away into the night. Her feet followed him as though they had a will of their own. She scraped through the exit sideways and found him sitting not far away.

  “There are…more…?” Volka whispered, unable to finish. More weere-human babies.

  She heard the children creeping up behind them, ignoring Volka’s order to remain below.

  Looking over his shoulder, Hany spit. “You gotta stay movin’, Volka, like me. Too bad you can’t grow a mane and hide behind your hair.”

  Volka gasped and took a step back.

  To the children, he said, “You better forget everything you’ve seen and heard.” Standing up, he began climbing down the hillock on the opposite side of the Guard and Esther and Joseph’s house.

  Volka felt as though she was splitting in three. A part of her was rising out of her body, rushing down the hillock, and enveloping the humans below in phantom-like fury. Stone Volka was still standing among the ruins of the hillock, unbelieving. The other part, the part that was reflected in the beat of her heart, thumping as fast as a ptery’s wings, was already running for home.

  Stone Volka turned to the children and said, “Stay out of sight until the Guard is gone,” and then Volka followed her heart. She slid down the rubble on the far side of the hillock, setting off small avalanches of garbage and debris, and then broke into a run. Panting hard, heart beating wildly, she’d just gotten to the fringe of the buildings that set off to the side of the enormous puddle that her home now sat in when the wind shifted. She smelled humans— and worse, dogs in the direction of her house. She drew to a halt. For a moment, she stood motionless in the middle of the road and then dashed behind a wall. She could see her home. It looked normal. No lights were on. Her ears flicked. She heard nothing. The wind picked up, and the smell of dogs and humans drifted across the puddle, making the hair on the back of her head rise.

  Someone was waiting for her. She closed her eyes. The people who’d captured Myra, they’d had to know she was her cousin. She bit her lip. Her stomach felt hollow, her chest tight.

  Scrunching her eyes shut, Volka tried to think of what she needed to do. She should tell the Resistance. She knew where they were…She bit her lip. But would they take her? All of No Weere had seen her with Mr. Niano. They’d think he was her patron, or that she’d bedded him in a hormone-induced frenzy and was now bonded to him for life, and not to be trusted for it.

  A dog’s howl rose from her home. Volka’s eyes snapped wide, and she gulped. Even if she could convince the Resistance members she was innocent, she might lead the Guard to them—just like she’d led them to Joseph and Esther by bringing them Myra. Bending over, she dry-heaved into the mud. Hot tears spilled from her eyes and mixed with her bile.

  A dog barked and howled again. The wind shifted slightly. Not enough to give her away, but if it continued to turn…

  Volka stared one more long moment at her home, imagining her paintings, the few photos she had of her parents, the quilt handed down from her grandmother, and then a dog howled again.

  Volka turned and ran.

  Completely submerged, 6T9 stared through the watery veil above him and contemplated adding more hot water to the bath. The guest house might be on the rustic side, but the hot water heater was set to gloriously blistering temperatures. It would probably leave a human with a first-degree burn. It was perfect for recharging. He lifted a toe, prepared to turn the knob, when Carl Sagan’s thoughts intruded. “He’s asleep.”

  6T9 groaned and forced himself to sit up.

  “Are you attending to self-maintenance again ?” Carl Sagan asked, thoughts peevish.

  “No, I was just powering up,” 6T9 muttered, standing. “But I’m done.”

  Drying off, he dressed in the clothes he’d arrived in, checking and double checking that he had Eliza’s ashes and his single recharge gel-pack secured in the inside front pockets. He found his hover pack by the door and slung it over his shoulders. He looked once more around the guest house. It was small, but there’d been plenty of hot water. There was a wood-burning stove, and the place was clean, the bed was large, and the sheets were as fine as anything he’d had on the asteroid. He swallowed. To the werfle, he said over the ether, “I don’t think we’ll experience anything as luxurious in a long time.”

  Carl Sagan sighed into his mind. “I will miss the sunbeams and the rats at this place, but Sundancer—”

  “Don’t fill me with visions of her fear again,” 6T9 said, exiting the guest house and feeling the drain on his power reserves accelerate in the cool air. “I need to see, and it is dark enough.” It was nearly two in the morning, and raining. He paused under the awning, looked across the lawn, and frowned. The lawn was lush, and extra wet. If he walked through it, he was going to spend the trip to Libertas wet and cold, which would drain his power cells. He looked to his left. The guest house had its own private garage. There was a paved private road that ran from the back gate, through a few acres of forest to the guest house, and then wound around to the front gate. It would be a longer walk, but not as wet. He squinted, considering…and saw a form moving on the road, approaching from the front drive. The figure was too small to be threatening, but it still took 6T9 a moment to recognize Volka, her head bent low, her satchel giving her silhouette a hump.

  He took a step to
ward her, when lights flared on from the drive beside the guest house. Volka threw an arm in front of her eyes. A moment later, the air crackled with the buzz of a stunner and she crumpled to the ground. A car door shut just outside his field of vision. Figures in the uniform of the Luddeccean Guard ran toward Volka and kneeled beside her. “Used the lowest setting. She’ll be awake in a few minutes.”

  “They think Volka’s me,” 6T9 whispered into the ether.

  Carl Sagan hissed. “It’s her they want; I’m listening to their radio chatter.”

  The men began dragging Volka by both arms toward the waiting vehicle.

  6T9 slunk back into the shadows. One of the men looked directly at him, but then Carl Sagan made a low noise between a hiss and a growl, and the man shook his head and chased after his partners, dragging Volka away.

  Carl Sagan trotted across the lawn, his thoughts a hiss in 6T9’s head. “I know it complicates our mission, but we have to save her! This body considers her a hatchling. ”

  6T9 wanted to help her, too, but it was as if his feet were rooted to the spot, and a useless part of his highly advanced mind was noting that ‘rooted to the spot’ was more than just an expression. “I can’t,” he replied. “It is against my original programming to act in a way that violates local security forces.” His hands clenched. And his programming still held despite the fact that they were after her because of her connection to him.

  From around the house, he heard a human male voice say, “We have her.”

  There was a buzz and a click. “We need to know what she knows and who she told.”

  6T9 blinked. The radio chatter Carl had spoken of.

  The man on the radio continued, “I’ll leave it to you to figure out how to extract it from her, but don’t do it there.”

  There was a dark chuckle. “Can’t upset the locals’ delicate sensibilities.”

  The headlights winked out.

  The man on the radio added, “When you’re done, dispose of what’s left of her.”

  Awareness of what they said jolted through his system like a red-hot spark. 6T9’s feet became unrooted and he slipped from beneath the shadowy awning. He walked up behind the two hauling Volka.

  “Stop right there,” said a man standing by the driver’s side of the car. The men hauling Volka dropped her arms, spun, raised stunners, and began edging in 6T9’s direction. They were only carrying stunners—probably because they’d wanted Volka alive so they could torture her. 6T9 smiled tightly. Torture was against the conventions of the Galactic Republic, and he didn’t have to obey torturers .

  The driver fired his weapon, and his aim was true. A delicious warmth spread from the impact point to every centimeter of synth skin in 6T9’s body and topped off his battery. 6T9 felt like he could leap to Time Gate 8 if he wanted to, but in a sudden bright flash of inspiration, he pitched forward, arms out as though falling and trying to catch himself on the man on the left stalking toward him. The man took a step back, but 6T9 managed to grab his wrist and rip the stunner from his grasp. He shot the man on his right, just as another stun from the driver hit 6T9 again. The sensation of power made 6T9 lick his lips. The shooter cried out in dismay, and another stun went off, but it didn’t hit 6T9—it hit the man on his left, and the man pitched forward. Before 6T9 could blink, another stun hit him in the back of the neck. It was only then his skin began glowing with excess power.

  The driver fired two more shots in rapid succession. “What in the name of The Books are you?” the driver whispered.

  6T9 fired on the man through the open car windows, and the driver went down.

  6T9 rolled his shoulders, the power from the rapidly fired stuns almost uncomfortable.

  “You saved her!” Carl Sagan said, trotting over to the scene.

  Blinking, 6T9 rubbed the back of his head. If he had not had his Q-comm, he wouldn’t have been able to infer that torture had been their intention, and Volka would have been grievously harmed and murdered…And that sort of ignorance was why he could never go back to being a dumb ‘bot.

  His Q-comm flared. He had no time for such distracting thoughts. Opening the passenger side door, he picked up one of the men and threw his body in the back seat. The man didn’t even groan. 6T9 did the same to his companions. He went over to Volka and gently rolled her over.

  Volka’s eyes fluttered open. She looked up at 6T9 and her mouth dropped open and her eyes went wide. Which is when he realized he was still glowing. He remembered her paperbacks with the villainous robots, and his lips parted, ready to reassure her that he wasn’t a villain, and that she was in no danger.

  “You’re…you’re…an angel,” she whispered.

  His processor went momentarily offline, and before he could formulate any words, her eyes rolled back into her head. 6T9 gathered her in his arms and put her into the front passenger seat.

  “We need to hide the Guardsmen,” Carl Sagan said.

  6T9 nodded, and his eyes went to the garage.

  “Watch them,” he said to Carl. “Let me know if they wake up.”

  Carl hopped into the car and lay down on Volka’s slumped body.

  6T9 jogged back to the guest house.

  A few minutes later, he was in the driver’s side of the car, easing it back into the garage, using instructions on manual transmissions he downloaded from Time Gate 1 over his Q-comm. The sky was lightening, and he was afraid of Darmadi looking out the window and seeing the vehicle. He parked the car, and one of the Guardsmen groaned.

  Picking up a stunner, 6T9 spun in his seat and hit them all again. He looked up at the sky. The radio came on and someone said, “Sergeant Maltov, are you there?” 6T9 went very still, but then the speaker said, “They’re out of range already. Don’t worry, Maltov will find out if she told anyone else. Maltov and his team loves playing with his wires and pliers…” The radio went silent.

  6T9’s jaw got hard.

  “Can’t you kill them?” Carl Sagan asked. “If they wake up before we are aboard the Leetier, they’ll be able to identify us…well, you.”

  “I’m not going to kill them,” 6T9 said. It went against his programming. His eyes narrowed, processing the word “wires,” and he got out of the car. Checking outside to make sure none of Darmadi’s lights were on, he closed the door by hand. Apparently, electric garage door openers were too “robotic” for Luddeccea—but at least, by hand, it was quiet. He went to the trunk, opened it, and found a black leather case. Unzipping it, he found wire, wire cutters, and tools. His skin sparked as he thought of their purpose—to bring pain. Pain was something he had to know about as a sex ‘bot. He could sate even extreme masochism, and enjoy extreme sadism, but undesired pain for the purpose of extracting information was anathema to what he was. He wished he could melt the tools down into slag, and wished he could forget having seen them and having heard the Guard’s intention toward Volka. Grabbing the wire and wire cutters, he hurried back to the men in the back seat. Stripping them down, he stuffed their socks in their mouths and proceeded to tie them up with the wire. The announcer had said they liked playing with it, so it didn’t contradict his programming. What was bondage but a very specialized play behavior?

  Tail thumping on the seat, Carl Sagan said, “Maybe we can take the car to the spaceport and find a way to sneak into the cargo hold without involving Darmadi? We can take Volka, too. ”

  “Volka,” 6T9 said, an alarm going off in his mind. She hadn’t stirred. He went to the front seat and checked her pulse. It was slow…and slowing. He put a hand on her forehead and pulled it back in dismay. Dragging her from the front seat, he pulled her into his arms.

  14

  Of Angels and Androids

  Volka was too warm. She tried to knock the covers off and got a mouth full of water. Coughing, she spit it out and found herself in a bathtub, Mr. Niano sitting on his heels beside her. His hands were on her shoulders, holding her up. “Easy, easy…You weren’t quite hypothermic, but I needed to make sure your temperature didn’t
drop further.”

  She met Mr. Niano’s eyes. “You saved me.”

  He smiled tightly and pulled away. “Unfortunately, I have only bought you time. I stunned the men who attacked you and have restrained them. Quite well. Under different circumstances, they would have paid me handsomely.” Volka squinted at him in incomprehension. Shaking his head, he said, “They won’t escape, but the Guard will come looking for them eventually. For now, they think they’ve driven out of range to ah, question you.”

  “Torture me,” Volka corrected. She’d been immobilized after what must have been a stun, but she had been conscious .

  He held up his hands, palms spread. “I want…” His head ticked. “I can’t kill them.”

  She remembered the light spilling from his skin. It was gone now, but she’d never forget it. She nodded. “That makes sense.”

  He tilted his head, his eyebrow quirked in question, and she explained, “You’re an angel. Angels can’t kill.” Everything made sense now. Finding him in the forest—as though he’d fallen from the sky, his oddness, and how he could speak to a saint in a foreign language, even how he spoke to a werfle as though it were a human. She supposed angels could speak werfle…and how werfles could speak back. Many weere said werfles were possessed by demons and djinn—other weere said that werfles kept demons and djinn away, but even those folks admitted that it might just be professional courtesy on the demons’ and djinn’s parts.

  “Volka, I…” Mr. Niano said.

  “Rawrrrr!”

  Volka blinked up and saw Carl Sagan sitting on one of the shelves of the decorative built-in where towels, soaps, shampoos, and other necessities were kept. That strange man’s voice returned, but this time, she could hear the words. “What harm could it do if she believed that?” It made her ears twitch madly, searching for the location of the speaker.

  “I can’t lie to her about that, Carl,” Mr. Niano said.

  The voice in her head got faint, like she was hearing it from another room.