by C. Gockel
Volka froze. “Are you okay now?”
She heard the werfle’s tongue lick some body part. “Yes,” he said, and she pictured his ears flat against his head.
Volka remained very, very still, and then her ears twitched. Something was prodding her just at the level of her stomach. It felt almost like—
She jumped back again.
“Rawr!” cried Carl.
“What is that?” Volka cried, gaping at the bulge in Sixty’s trousers.
“A hardware malfunction,” Sixty ground out. “I haven’t had a hard reboot in a while.” He rolled his eyes. “Or fulfilled my primary function.”
It was all gibberish to Volka. She edged as far away from him as she could and glared up at him. His cheeks were flushed, and his gaze was heavenward—well, she supposed every direction was “heavenward” at the moment—and annoyed.
Volka blurted, “Why would a robot have a—” And then she remembered Carl called him “6T9,” not Sixty, and his explanation for his lack of a heartbeat. “...There were worries about humans becoming more attached to s—’bots than to each other.”
“I’m an android, not a robot,” Sixty said tersely.
“You’re a…you’re a…”
“Sex ‘bot,” Sixty said.
Volka’s head jerked back in fear and revulsion.
“A really bad one,” Carl said.
“I am top of the line!” Sixty protested.
Carl snipped, “You could have fulfilled your ‘primary function’ on the gate above Bernadette’s asteroid or at the Kanakah Disk—”
“There wasn’t time,” Sixty replied, sounding testy.
“Lizzar dung,” Carl snapped. “You could have been frolicking with Darmadi six ways to Sunday—”
Volka’s eyes went wide.
“There were reasons!” Sixty declared.
“—and then you wouldn’t be terrifying Volka with your hardware malfunction!” the werfle finished.
“I cannot rape,” Sixty said, his single eye wide and his other eye…well, still much more than wide, but now focused on her. “Don’t be terrified of me!”
Volka wasn’t terrified. Sixty had plenty of opportunities to take advantage of her before, and he hadn’t. And now, between the werfle and Sixty’s sniping—she just couldn’t be afraid. Now that her initial shock was over, she wasn’t even disgusted.
He looked sideways. His naked eye made a slight buzz when he did, so faint it would have been completely muffled by the layer of fake skin and muscles he usually wore. “Well, I couldn’t rape unless you wanted me to, and we had predetermined scenarios and safe words.”
“Don’t answer him,” Carl said. “We don’t have time. We’ll be approaching Libertas in minutes.”
Volka’s cheeks heated. “I wasn’t going to—”
Motion outside the window made her breath catch. For a moment, her view was completely obscured, and then she saw the back end of a Luddeccean Guard spacefighter—something like a jet plane. It had wings to keep it aloft in atmosphere and plasma cannons. Two more joined it a moment later. She knew that military escorts were not common for the Leetier.
“Are those…for me?” she whispered.
She heard Sixty gulp.
The werfle spoke. “No. Those are for both of you. They found the men he incapacitated in Darmadi’s garage and know an AI or highly-augmented citizen of the Galactic Republic is in Luddeccean space.”
“I’m putting you in additional danger,” Sixty said. The realization seemed to help his “hardware” problem.
Readjusting her backpack, Volka sighed. “I wouldn’t have made it this far without you.”
Carl Sagan interjected, “And he wouldn’t have made it this far if you hadn’t blocked the scanner at the spaceport, or bludgeoned the two men in the hall below, and neither of you would have gotten anywhere without me. Let’s all sing Kumbaya after we escape. Libertas is coming up fast. They’ll be shooting on us. I hope you have ideas.”
“I have no ideas,” Sixty said.
“Maybe if we look around?” Volka suggested. The small, coffin-like space seemed like a cramped elevator, but with a large oval window set in the door .
“Good idea,” he said. “Let’s turn right.”
Volka turned right at the same time he turned left.
Sixty’s normal eye closed when they bumped into each other. “You’re left,” he said. His hardware malfunction kicked in again.
A starfighter flying past the window and the enormous orange curve of Libertas killed any quip she might have given. She supposed the only reason they weren’t being fired upon was they were half tucked within the Leetier, and firing on the tiny pod could endanger everyone aboard the ship.
“Right,” she said, awkwardly dancing with him in the small space. He held up the cord so she could walk under it. She pinched her arms in and tried to be small.
He touched a small compartment to her left. “Emergency supplies,” he said, opening it and shaking his head. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Volka, Carl Sagan and I can leave our bodies when we need to.”
She stared at him, not comprehending.
“Do weere like to die alone?” he asked. “Or do you also have the more common human trait of not wanting to be alone when you die?” He spoke so fast she wasn’t sure she understood the words correctly. His eyes—even the uncovered one—searched hers.
“I guess it…would be nice not to be alone,” she stammered. She’d been there for the death of her father and later, her mother. They’d seemed comforted by her presence.
“I will not upload myself until I am sure you are dead,” Sixty declared with a beatific smile. Beneath his exposed eye, it looked demonic.
“We’re going to die,” Volka whispered, feeling a fresh cold wave of fear .
“Not us, just you,” said Carl. “Well, I suppose this werfle’s body, too.”
Volka’s breathing came in short quick gasps.
Sixty raised a finger as though to touch her lips, and then dropped it quickly. “Maybe not,” he said. His expression became serious. “Volka, it violates my programming to hurt you unless it is necessary to save you from further harm. I have a plan,” he said. “But it may hurt. Do you trust me?”
“I wouldn’t,” said Carl.
She stared up at Sixty’s naked eye and the flap of skin pulled back over his temple. He was the picture of so many villains from her robot invasion novels. He also called her human, and he had hardware malfunctions just like a man. “Yes.”
16
Trust
The Leetier was entering Libertas’s atmosphere. The planet’s gravity was pulling 6T9’s and Volka’s bodies toward the door. They’d turned around—extremely awkwardly—so their heads were opposite the direction of travel. Volka was on her stomach, beneath him. She was using her forearms as a pillow beneath her chin, and the pack and the lump that was the werfle was by the top of her head. Carl was hiding; only the tip of his swishing tail was showing. Volka and 6T9 had their eyes riveted to the window. Bracing his arms on either side of the door, he was carefully keeping his weight off of her as much as he could. His hover pack was on, crushing their bodies even more snuggly together, but he was too busy and worried to suffer from hardware malfunctions.
His Q-comm was radiating heat—reminding him, among other things, that the hover pack was for one person on a standard grav planet—which Libertas was not. He ignored it, busy sending every scrap of visual data he was receiving through the cloud cover to his server light years away. He wondered how much server space he was allotted, because the data he was receiving was immense. Equations overlaid the landscape spread out below them. The number .3 percent was hanging in the periphery of his vision. It was scrolling up one hundredth at a time.
“What are the chances this will work?” Volka whispered.
6T9 lied. “More than fifty-fifty.”
“Rat feces,” Carl grumbled. “The One estimate the chances of this stunt working are less than 1.563
percent.”
Volka’s body stiffened beneath them.
“Was that really necessary?” 6T9 snapped at the werfle.
Carl’s tail stopped swishing. “No, I suppose not. This body is unused to risk, and the stress is making it curmudgeonly. I was much better tempered as almost any other werfle, a bioluminescent moon crab, and even as a gixelloopalop—they’re a sort of giant, purple, carnivorous kangaroo. Lovely, lovely, disposition. Of course, I’d probably eat you if I was a gixelloopalop.”
A starfighter flew past the window, and Volka exhaled audibly, her tiny shoulders momentarily pressing against 6T9’s chest. She was so small, and her skeleton of calcium and phosphorus was ridiculously fragile—and she trusted him, despite the times he’d terrified her. He wanted to reassure her with words and actions, kiss her, nuzzle behind the ears, find out how soft they were—
He so needed a reboot.
“What are we waiting for?” Volka asked.
“The highest chance of survivability.” The percentage at the periphery of his vision was at .4 percent .
They passed from the clouds.
“More starfighters,” Volka murmured.
6T9 gulped, and focused on the denser cloud banks in the distance and the dark brown and red rock of Libertas’s Iron Mountain Range beneath. Potential trajectories for the shuttle overlaid the entire scene.
One of the Libertas Local Guard ships fired a phaser blast beneath the hull.
Volka gasped.
“They’re just trying to scare us,” 6T9 said. “They won’t fire on the Leetier.”
“But when we leave the Leetier…” Volka murmured.
“There is about a 99.99345 percent chance we will be hit,” Carl Sagan said.
Volka laughed softly and incongruously, her shoulders brushing 6T9’s chest again. He was ridiculously glad she was delirious and not hyperventilating in fear. “But I thought you said there was over a one percent chance we’d survive?” she huffed, and he could hear the wry smile on her lips.
“Well—” Carl began.
6T9’s body jolted, and an internal readout informed him that his body had just been adjusted to Libertas’s 1.19 G gravity. The number 1.55 percent flashed in the periphery of his vision and 6T9 said, “Brace yourselves.” His tone was similar to the serious one he used when he was the master during matters more closely related to his primary function, and his Q-comm briefly tripped on that connection, and then 1.563 percent flashed in his vision. His mind connected to the shuttle’s basic computer, he engaged the thrusters, and they dropped from the ship’s hull just as they reached the clouds above the Iron Range.
Sixty rolled the pod to the left, following a plotted course playing behind his eyes, just in time for phaser fire to pass them—its orange glow dimmed by cloud cover. He began to have hope. It was like his jump from the ship over Luddeccea. There was cloud cover and—
The craft jolted right, the window showed only orange, and sparks danced along the electronics in the escape pod. The numbers behind 6T9’s eyes fluctuated too wildly for him to adjust the craft’s trajectory. They were falling too fast. 6T9 hit the rear thrusters, and they jolted forward—according to the sensors, they were still in the clouds, and he couldn’t see.
Exhaling in relief, he said, “We can sustain some fire. This thing was made to withstand re-entry and—”
The rear thruster died.
The cloud thinned enough for 6T9 to see two scrambling Libertas Guard Fighters.
“We’re behind them…” Volka whispered.
Orange flared around the window, sparks cascaded around them, and the pod shuddered violently before he could tell her that external sensors told him there were two behind them, too. Frigidly cold air roared into the tiny space from the blast points. In 6T9’s mind, all the pod’s thruster readouts went dark. The pod dropped, and he hit the ceiling, and Volka slammed against his chest. He engaged the pod’s parachute, their feet hit what was now the floor, and he heard one of Volka’s bones crack, but couldn’t ask how she was or check her for injury. Below them, the mountains were rising, but they were still very high up, and surrounded by starfighter jets that would—
There was the scream of an engine, and the scene abruptly shifted, and instead of falling they careened forward. 6T9 threw his arms around Volka to try to keep her from smacking against the walls. His eyes went to the window and widened. One of the mountains was coming toward them rather than rising up to meet them.
“What’s happening?” Carl cried.
6T9’s mind leaped to the monitors. “The parachute is caught on one of the starfighters.”
“Well, at least they can’t fire on us,” said Carl.
6T9 took in the crags of the mountain they were fast approaching. “That’s not their plan right now.” They were going to slam the pod against the peak. He took in their altitude, tightened his arms around Volka, and whispered behind her ear, “I’m sorry about this.” The velvet there was as soft as he’d imagined.
The wind screaming into the pod was deafening, and Volka pressed her ears flat against her head. She looked up at him to see the half of his brow that wasn’t metal was furrowed, and then he flipped them both over so that he was beneath her. Their bodies were flush, but he was warm and she couldn’t care about the impropriety of it.
“Cover the back of your head. I’m disconnecting the parachute,” 6T9 shouted the words directly into her ear or she wouldn’t have heard them over the scream of air rushing into the pod. She covered her head, and an instant later, her body cracked against what was now up but had been the side without a window before they’d reached Libertas’s gravity well. Her teeth rattled, her shoulders ached, and Carl howled. She stayed there, 6T9’s body pressed against her, too heavy to be human. She couldn’t breathe, and then another shock shook the pod by her feet, and then they were all sliding forward— Volka on her stomach on top of 6T9, and Carl in the pack. 6T9’s head was the only thing that hit the “ceiling.” There was a frightening crack, and then they were sliding down an incline of at least eighty degrees—bumping all the way.
“Madam,” Sixty managed to say, “I don’t think I know you, but perhaps you can get this craft under control?”
“You’re in control of the craft!” Carl said.
“Where is that other person?” 6T9 asked, head jerking side to side.
“Rat tails, he’s dumb again,” Carl hissed in her mind.
A moment later, they began rolling.
Volka cried out in surprise, Carl hissed in anger, and 6T9 said, “This conveyance is not—”
Volka rolled beneath him, he rolled on top of her, and Carl Sagan’s backpack twisted along with them both. There was a shock along the whole of the pod and another crack from the region of 6T9’s head. They stopped rolling but resumed sliding.
“I’m back,” 6T9 said.
The incline became a more reasonable thirty-five degrees or so, and Volka raised her head. “We made it!”
“Not yet,” 6T9 said, his eyes staring above. Volka twisted her neck to follow his gaze. In their rolling, the window had wound up above them. At first, all she saw was a sort of white ash falling from the sky. Her eyes widened. No, it wasn’t ash. “It’s snow,” she whispered. She’d heard of it, of course, but only seen it in pictures.
“Not enough,” said 6T9.
Before she could ask, the shadow of a starfighter emerged above them. Orange flared from cannons on its wings, and 6T9 ordered, “Heads down!”
The phaser hit them, and sparks danced along the walls of the pod. It bounced, and the door whipped open. Another shot was fired and the split second Volka realized it would hit them dead on, the pod careened into something beneath that sent them rolling again, briefly banging the door closed, but it ripped completely away as soon as they righted. Air so cold it felt like needles tore at Volka’s face and fingers, but she breathed out in relief. The starfighters had passed over them, and the pod was sliding down the mountain as though they were in one of thos
e Northern Territory “toboggan” races. “They’re flying away!” she exclaimed.
“They’re coming around for another pass,” 6T9 said, “but that isn’t going to matter in a minute.”
“What,” said Volka.
“The thrusters are all gone,” 6T9 said inscrutably. He sat up, the wire dangling from the side of his head blowing behind him.
“What’s happening?” Volka asked, struggling to sit up. Peering over the front edge of the pod, she saw. They were sliding directly toward a chasm.
17
Darwin’s Loophole
The numbers playing before 6T9’s eyes all told the same story. They could not make it across the chasm at their current velocity. They’d barely make it to the middle before plunging to their demises—or rather, the demise of Volka and the werfle that Carl Sagan occupied. The numbers dimmed in 6T9’s mind. He stilled, and every joint inside him went cold. He’d failed in his function that was more primary than sex—his actions were leading to the end of a human life.
Volka was leaning sideways—to turn the pod over to try to stop it, or to change its path, he wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter; nothing would work. “We have to do something!” she cried. “Anything!”
It was her dying wish, and it made electricity surge within him. He had to obey. 6T9 remembered the hover pack made for one person, mostly drained, and better suited for standard G. It was still on his shoulders. “Grab hold!” he shouted, gripping the doorframe and connecting to the hover controls via the pack’s local ether. He leaned forward so the pack’s thrust would be parallel to the ground. Red lights flashed, warning him of the low charge, and the hover pack wailed in protest, but the anti-grav and directional thrusters engaged. His finger joints went hot from the force of the acceleration, but they held, and the thrusters hurtled them forward a meter more than they would have gone otherwise, and then the pack gave out with a scream of protest. They fell…
Milliseconds later, they landed, perpendicular to another steep incline, the iron rocks of the opposite side of the chasm less than a meter from the pod’s nose. The incline made them nearly tip over. Accidentally or purposefully, Volka’s legs swung outside the pod, causing them to spin ninety degrees just before they crashed into the wall. And then they were heading down along a ledge right next to another drop off that plunged directly to the chasm’s floor. 6T9 calculated it as at least 598 meters deep. The pod was just barely skirting the precipice. He wanted to suggest they stop by jumping out if they had to, but starfighters flew over, blasting the rocky wall just behind them, showering them with rock, and bringing down an avalanche of snow in the place they’d been milliseconds before. The ledge they were on plunged. They fell vertically and found another ledge that wasn’t as steep and was wider. The pace of their descent stabilized. The starfighter jets made another pass, but their plasma fire was farther behind them. 6T9 doubted their pilots could see them. The snow was falling faster and probably throwing off their heat-seeking equipment.
