by C. Gockel
He looked down at her too-fine clothing, shook his head, and said, “Good, good. Watch over my trunk. I’ll see you at baggage collection in Libertas.”
Volka nodded, afraid her voice would crack if she spoke.
He got back into the van, and the porters shut the doors. Volka turned around, faced the enormous maw that was the open door of the baggage sorting area, and let out a breath. When Sixty had told Volka his original plan, he’d said, “Of course, when we came up with this plan, we hadn’t realized that the Guard would be searching for you. You’re in the passenger manifests. We’re not sure how we can get you aboard.”
“But I’m not in the passenger manifest,” Volka had replied. “I’m traveling in cargo to watch over Mr. Darmadi’s valuables.”
“You’re cargo, Volka?” Sixty had asked, his jaw hard, voice inflectionless. Carl Sagan had hissed. The memory made her wring her hands and feel off-kilter.
The porters began loading the trunk onto a pushcart, snapping her from her reverie. She took a deep breath. This was the subterfuge upon which her whole life depended. Squaring her shoulders, she marched into the shadow of the cargo sorting warehouse, following the porters rolling the cart toward a strange doorway in the middle of the floor. It was a frame of glowing lights and there was no door in it. Sitting next to the “doorway” on a stool was a man in front of a television. Volka’s eyes went wide when she saw what was on the television’s screen: it was an X-ray of the contents of the suitcase right ahead of the trunk.
She gasped, and from her backpack came a soft squeak. Carl Sagan was in there, along with her sketchbook, some towels for Carl to rest on, and some credits.
She gulped, remembering 6T9’s words. “The werfle is an alien that has the power to nudge human minds. He can help you if you’re in danger.”
As her trunk rolled toward the “doorway,” Volka stood petrified with uncertainty. Werfles were aliens? Maybe Mr. Niano was a crazy robot. Could robots be crazy? She remembered Sixty telling Mr. Darmadi that he liked bivalve snails and freshwater clams blackened in garlic sauce.
Yes, she decided, they definitely could be.
Carl Sagan squirmed in the backpack. The strange voice she heard occasionally became crystal clear in her mind. “Take me over to talk to the nice gentleman, Volka.”
Maybe she was going crazy, too. She swallowed. She was already in league with robots, why not put herself in league with a possibly demon or djinn-possessed werfle? That’s what an “alien” was, according to the Three Books.
The suitcase was pushed from the X-ray door, and Mr. Niano’s porters prepared to move him through. Pulling her pack around, she lifted the top flap, hoping it would help the possessed werfle talk. The voice in her head said, “ Go stand closer to the monitor.” Not knowing what else to do, she jogged over to the man beside the doorway.
“Cheep,” said the werfle.
The man turned around, looked at her bag, and smiled. “Cute werfle.”
Glancing at the monitor, Volka saw 6T9’s form, curled up in fetal position on the screen. Her eyes went wide and darted from side to side. No one seemed to notice—her body was blocking everyone’s view but the man’s in front of her, and he was staring at the werfle.
The werfle made a tiny, “burrripp,” noise, and the man reached over and scratched him behind the ear. He must have sensed Volka’s terror, because he said, “No worries, girl, the Leetier could use a werfle or two. I won’t tell.” Voice rising a half octave, he said to Carl, “Betcha a big boy like you catches a lot of rats.”
Carl Sagan purred with such force that Volka could feel the reverberations through the pack’s canvas. The man gave a final scratch, then turned back to his monitor—now featuring a suitcase full of clothes—and gave himself a shake, but said nothing. Volka wasn’t sure if the werfle had really given the man a telepathic nudge, or if he’d just charmed him. Either way, it was devious.
“Hey,” one of Mr. Niano’s porters called back to her, “You coming?” Nodding to the man at the television, she ran through the X-ray door and caught up to the porters and the trunk by the exit to the tarmac. She could smell a strange chemical scent wafting up from beneath it—rocket fuel maybe. A man asked her for her “cargo ticket” and she handed him the little card that verified the purchase of space for one oversize trunk and attendant. She put a foot on a strange rubber “rug,” and the door opened as if by magic. Sunlight blinded her. Throwing up a hand, she stepped outside and got her first look at the spaceship sitting upon its antigravity launch platform. The Leetier was over twenty stories tall, its diameter as wide as a large house. Made principally of titanium from asteroid mines, the hull had a slight silver sheen. She could see the glass capsule of the bridge at the top. Beneath the bridge she could see the wide portholes of first class for the first two stories, the smaller ones of second class, and the even smaller portholes of third class and crew quarters. She’d be in cargo—on the cargo level there were no portholes at all. All along the length of the ship at regular intervals were the time bands that would allow the ship to approach light speed without crushing the occupants of the ship on acceleration or deceleration—instead using the force of both for gentle gravity. The time bands also helped with lift planetside, helping the Leetier to reach escape velocity after it left the boost of the anti-grav platform.
There was a priest aboard to monitor the craft’s computers that allowed such feats. It was his job to keep the computers from ever developing sentience. Volka looked at the trunk being pushed lazily by the porters toward the cargo loading platform. She was undoing the priest’s best efforts to keep thinking machines off the ship. She shivered and whispered, “Off to Libertas and then straight to Hell.”
She thought of the gleaming metal blades in the car, and her lips turned into a frown that was almost a snarl. Hell was here, too. She hurried to catch up with the trunk.
“You’re crazy!” Carl Sagan hissed in 6T9’s mind.
“No, I’m bored,” 6T9 said. He was crushed in fetal position, not that it bothered him particularly, but the lack of input otherwise was…irritating. If he couldn’t shut down—and he couldn’t in case of some emergency—then he wanted to get out. “I just want to look around.”
“Stop whining,” said Carl.
“Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored…” 6T9 said.
“You sound like a human child,” Carl Sagan protested.
6T9 grinned and into the ether asked, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
“We haven’t even left the spaceport, you—”
6T9 circuits lit up and he snickered audibly.
“You’re teasing me,” Carl said and 6T9 could picture the werfle’s narrowed eyes and ears pressed against his head.
“Did you sneeze, Mr. Niano—I mean Sixty?” Volka whispered, sounding terribly earnest, and then she asked, “Can robots sneeze?”
“Yes, to clear our noses of dust, just like you,” 6T9 replied aloud, grateful for the distraction. “Although technically, I’m not a ‘robot.’ Robots don’t look human. The company that built me calls me a cybernetic consort—”
“Consort?” Volka asked.
“But cybernetic implies that I have genuine human parts,” 6T9 went on, sidestepping the ‘consort’ question; he didn’t want to make Volka uncomfortable. “I’m not really that, either. I am, technically, an android, a machine that looks like a man.”
His chronometer put the ensuing silence at 14.5 seconds.
“Mr. Niano—Sixty, do you want to come out?” Volka whispered. “No one is in the hold but me.”
“Rawr!” said Carl Sagan. Over the ether, he hissed indignantly, “I’m here!”
“And Carl Sagan,” Volka added uncertainly.
6T9 smiled. “I would love to come out.” And not just because he was bored out of his gourd. He was so starved for human attention that the mere fact that she wasn’t terrified of him was exciting.
There was a thunk, the trunk turned on its side, another thunk
, and then light spilled into the small compartment. 6T9 squirmed, and the trunk swayed slightly. Volka was standing in front of him. Directly behind her was the curved wall of the bulkhead, and set into its slightly curved surface were fold-out seats, between which was a ladder. There was a hole in the plasti-mesh floor and ceiling along the ladder’s path. He twisted his head. Almost directly above Darmadi’s trunk was a plasti-mesh storage container packed with suitcases. The engines weren’t on yet, and in the cargo area there wasn’t even the steady whirr of recycled air.
“If the Guard come before liftoff, what do we do?” Volka whispered. “The tarmac outside was wide open.” She had one arm wrapped around herself, and the other was on her mouth. 6T9’s circuits dimmed. She’d die, and he’d have to upload himself. He glanced at the werfle, who was licking its shoulder.
Carl muttered into the ether, “She’s too frightened for me to comfort her.” Pausing his bath, the werfle grumbled, “Hominids.”
A startled expression on her face, Volka looked down at Carl and then took a step back.
“Hominids?” she whispered. 6T9 and Carl Sagan both looked at her sharply.
“Are you hearing Carl Sagan’s thoughts?” 6T9 asked.
“I don’t know,” Volka said.
“I think she is,” said Carl, narrowed eyes on Volka now. Volka took a step back and looked uncertainly at the werfle.
“How is that possible?” asked 6T9.
Sitting down, Carl Sagan wrapped his tail around himself. “Well, technically, I’m not only broadcasting on your ethernet frequency, I’m also broadcasting on the quantum wave frequencies that my kind use to speak to each other telepathically.” He blinked up at 6T9. “It’s a failure on my species’ part, really. We’ve just started learning to master ethernet frequencies, and, well, have you ever seen a human new to reading? They always begin by reading aloud, focusing their attention, I believe. Much like they often speak aloud when they first begin transmitting their thoughts over the ether. So, too, I am thinking aloud when I speak to you over the ether—”
“But how is she hearing you?” 6T9 said.
“Oh.” Carl blinked. “Well, she’s part wolf, isn’t she?”
“I am part wolf,” Volka murmured, staring at the werfle. She sounded frightened, and 6T9 had to fight the urge to put a hand on her arm.
“And that is important…because?” 6T9 prompted, waving the hand that was helpless to comfort Volka, trying to give it something to do.
“Well, some wolves are wave sensitive and telepathic, of course,” Carl replied.
6T9 stared at him, his Q-comm heating. “I have no data that would support that.”
“Because your data derives from humans, and humans are re—” The werfle looked at Volka, made a tiny sneeze, and finished, “Wave ignorant.”
“If I’m telepathic, does that mean I’m possessed?” Volka whispered.
“No!” said 6T9.
“Not at the moment,” said Carl.
Volka backed against the bulkhead so fast and hard that her head thunked. 6T9 lost the internal battle not to touch her and put a hand on her arm. “Carl will never possess you.” She stared at the werfle with wide eyes.
“Oh, no, that might drive you insane,” said Carl.
Volka’s eyes went wide. Over the ether, 6T9 hissed, “You’re not helping, Carl!”
Volka didn’t seem to hear 6T9’s mental admonishment—which made sense—she heard telepathic frequencies, whatever those were, not ethernet frequencies.
Carl looked up at 6T9, looked over at Volka, and began purring…loudly. “I will not possess you, Volka.” Slinking over, the werfle rubbed his body against her legs and blinked up at her. “I love the scratches you give me.” Volka’s body relaxed beneath 6T9’s hand, and she pulled away from his touch, leaving his fingers twitching at the loss of contact .
6T9 suspected the werfle had mentally nudged her, but didn’t protest.
A man’s voice came over an intercom. “Passengers, please take your seats and prepare for liftoff.”
“That’s a good sign,” 6T9 said, trying to give Volka a reassuring smile. “Once we’re in the air, coming after us becomes more difficult.” It wasn’t a lie, nor was it a sure thing, and his own circuits heated with tension. If they were discovered, how long would he wait to upload himself? Would Volka want him to remain until she died, or would she want to die alone? Turning back around, he shut the trunk’s lid and found the cords that strapped it onto the rotating berth. The ship used acceleration and deceleration to simulate gravity. During deceleration, what was now “up” would be “down,” and in the in-between they would be floating free. The trunk had This Side Up printed on the lid. During the zero-G stage, Volka would have had to turn the thing over before gravity switched. That didn’t matter now, but he didn’t want it jostling if they had a rough liftoff.
“I can do that for you, Mr. Niano, I mean…Sixty. The porter showed me how,” Volka stammered.
Looking back at her, 6T9 smiled. “I can do it, too. I’ve flown in cargo before.”
“You have?”
“I’m a ‘bot.” His smile turned rueful. “To some people I’m freight.”
“But I’m not a ‘bot,” Volka said.
6T9’s smile dropped. Finishing his task, he pushed down a seat and strapped himself in. “No, you are not,” he said, his voice noncommittal. There was an 83.5 percent chance she would say something negative about ‘bots in the next ten seconds. Ten, nine, eight —
“But I’m not really human, either,” Volka said in a tiny voice.
He looked at her, and it was as if he’d never gotten an advanced processor. “Why wouldn’t you think you’re human?” he asked.
Volka swallowed audibly. “As you…or the werfle said…I’m part wolf.” She ran her fingers over a wolf ear, and 6T9 wondered if its velvet was as soft as Carl Sagan’s fur. At the same time, his Q-comm warmed with incoming data.
“Volka, the definition of a species is whether or not they can interbreed.” His brow furrowed. “Which is complicated by species like wolves and dogs that are considered separate but do interbreed.” Numbers flashed before his eyes. “But while wolves and dogs share approximately 98.8 percent of the same DNA, wolf and dog social behavior and intelligence are very different. Dogs are essentially mentally handicapped wolves.” His eyebrows rose. “From the data available on the original weere hybrids on System 11, it appears weere and human social behaviors aren’t significantly different, and weere intelligence is within human norms. Humans and weere can interbreed. Weere are human for all intents and purposes.” His gaze returned to her. Volka’s eyes were slightly unfocused. 6T9 winced. “I’m sorry. That was obnoxious. My species occasionally gets overwhelmed by data dumps. It’s embarrassing.” He flushed at the memory of a revelry without clothing. An unfortunate birthmark had called up data on the odds of contracting sexually-transmitted diseases during said revelry. He really shouldn’t have said those odds aloud.
Volka’s lips pursed .
He waited tensely for the 95.3 percent likelihood that she’d say, “You aren’t technically a species.”
Sitting beside him and strapping herself in, Volka said instead, “You never asked me why the Guard came after me.”
And again, it was as though he still had a primitive processor. “It wasn’t because of me?” 6T9 asked.
She shook her head.
Circuits 6T9 hadn’t realized had been dim lit all at once. “I’m not responsible for putting you in danger!” He laughed aloud.
Carl Sagan hopped on her lap, and Volka stroked his back absently while staring ahead for 30.3 seconds. “Don’t you care why they were chasing me?” she asked.
6T9’s brow furrowed. “No.” Although he should. Saving her probably endangered the ship rescue, but Sundancer was an abstraction, someone he should rescue because Eliza would have. Volka was real and it would violate his programming to abandon her, and Eliza wouldn’t have abandoned Volka, either.
&nb
sp; “I could have done something terrible,” Volka persisted.
6T9’s Q-comm hummed. “You’re innocent.”
“You don’t know that,” Volka said, and he noticed how glassy her eyes were.
The hum of his Q-comm was like a song, and he said, “Yes, I do.” She couldn’t even abandon a stranger she found in a ditch—albeit with Carl’s “nudging.”
She wrapped her arms around the werfle. If she replied, it was drowned out by the roar of engines.
“You’re innocent.” Sixty’s words hung in Volka’s mind and made her stomach feel unsettled. She wasn’t. She had sinned, and sinned badly, though she tried to go forward and “sin no more” like the prophet Jesus had taught. Although, had things been different…she felt like throwing up, and closed her eyes.
In her arms, Carl Sagan purred and butted his head against her hand. The voice in her head that might be the werfle said, “Volka, don’t be hard on yourself.”
She stroked it between the ears. It wasn’t too strange to believe the werfle was possessed. She’d been told her whole life, by everyone but Alaric, that angelic beings, demons, and robots could speak into your mind. However, even when she entertained the idea, she never thought that she’d be one of the afflicted. She’d sinned too much to be a saint, and hadn’t thought her sins to be great enough to attract a demon. But in the end, she’d given herself to a robot and a possessed werfle, and one of the monsters wanted his ears scratched. She should push the creature away, but Carl was warm and alive, his purr was soothing, and the day had been too cold and frightening to reject the smallest bit of warmth, life, or purrs. The werfle’s rumble drowned out memories of rain and bodies and Volka almost wept, but then his body went rigid, his ears flattened and his fur rose.
And that was the last thing she saw…
The shadow was coming, sweeping through the water and up onto land. It would get them, inky black, and evil …choking out the light and the life. Her body went cold with fear, and she thought if she didn’t fight it she would turn to ice. Volka cried out…but it was no use, she was being sucked down, down, down, and the blackness was creeping into her, crawling into her ears, her nose, and beneath her eyes…
