by C. Gockel
“He really is,” Carl supplied .
“Thank you for that,” 6T9 said.
Rolling onto his back, Carl flexed his claws in the air. “I’m here for you.”
“She sounds like an…interesting person,” Volka said.
Lips turning up wryly at the careful choice of adjectives, 6T9 said, “Eliza didn’t want me to be dismembered and fed to a furnace or used for parts. She risked her life for me to be free. She’s why I agreed to help Carl Sagan find Sundancer—”
“The space ship that feels ,” Volka whispered.
6T9 shrugged. “I can’t feel what the ship feels, but it doesn’t matter. Eliza saved me from destruction. I have to save Sundancer because that is what Eliza would do.” It sounded farfetched to his own ears, and yet…it struck him that this was the first time in a long while that he was being touched without credits being thrown around. As simple as the touch was, he was happy, even though his power reserves were low, and even though he wanted more. Giving in, 6T9 brought his hand up and covered Volka’s with it. Squeezing gently, he asked softly, “Is there anything important I missed while I was out?” Closing his eyes, he threaded his fingers between hers. She didn’t pull away; instead, she dropped her head so that her breath tickled his neck.
“Not really. I don’t know what they’re going to do with us. They’ve left us in this room that reeks like…like…shit…and I think it cannot be good.” She squeezed his hand and he felt her tremble.
She was obviously terrified. He should be extremely concerned—and he was. At the same time, she wasn’t terrified of him and that made his processors hum and his circuits light. Idly stroking her fingers—well, perhaps not completely idly—his touch receptors were delighting in the friction between their skin—6T9 tried to reassure her. Q-comm warming with a download, he said, “The soil on Libertas is toxic to Earth plants, and the native vegetation is toxic to Earth animals. Libertians have carefully cultivated their biological and decomposable wastes since initial settlement to create agricultural safe zones.” The chemical structures of the toxic compounds played behind his eyelids, as well as the exact concentrations tolerable to every native Earth species. He blinked and added, “In smaller dosages, the toxin produced create Earth plants that are more nutritious, higher in antioxidants, and natural antibiotics. How fascinating. I wonder what their flavor profiles are like.”
Volka pulled back and he scrunched his eyes shut. Damnable data dumps.
“They’re coming,” Volka whispered.
6T9 struggled to get up.
Volka added hastily, “They think you are my man.”
… and his body all but shut down. The advantage computers had over human brains was the ability to run multiple scenarios at the same time, usually , very, very, quickly. The words “you are my man” had 6T9’s computer at the other end of his Q-comm running a great many scenarios wherein he established the authenticity of himself as Volka’s man with various acts of physical intimacy. Unfortunately, he could not run the scenarios quickly because his original programming was interfering, slowing each scenario down, replaying it, and adjusting the angles, positions, and the zoom.
His auditory apparatus registered the sound of footsteps, the rush of cold air, the slam of the door, heavy footfalls, and a rifle pressed against his chest, but 6T9 could not move.
“Get up!” Darragh shouted at Sixty, the barrel of his rifle pressed against the robot’s chest. Volka’s heart raced. Sixty was leaning against her, his eyes were focused on a point on the ceiling, and his expression was rapt—although, there was something disturbing about it. It took a moment for her to realize that he wasn’t blinking.
Darragh nudged him with the rifle and shouted, “Get up!”
Sixty didn’t move.
Volka’s mind raced. Should she try to steal the rifle and turn it on Darragh? Could she fire it? She swallowed. She didn’t want to. Darragh smelled like fear, not hate. She thought of the easy way the human had talked with Dean and his obvious bond to Bridgette and of their child.
The Libertian looked at Volka. “What’s wrong with him?”
“What isn’t wrong with him?” Carl snipped silently into her mind.
“Carl!” Volka said, aghast.
Darragh shoved the rifle at Volka’s shoulder, and she threw her hands in the air. Sixty’s body jerked up with alarming speed. Bridgette gasped. Tilting his head with a too-sharp motion, Sixty declared, “You can point that at me again.” Darragh swung the rifle around to the robot’s chest. Sixty’s body relaxed, thankfully making him appear human again. Eyeing the barrel, he muttered, “Ah…wonderful.”
Exhaling a breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, Volka’s body sagged.
“Move, both of you,” Darragh ordered, indicating the door with his chin .
Grabbing her pack, Volka climbed to her feet along with Sixty. The inner door opened again, admitting Bridgette and a gust of frigid air.
Halting, Sixty ventured, “Where are you taking us?”
“No questions!” Darragh barked.
Sixty didn’t move. Neither did Volka. Trying to steal Darragh’s rifle was becoming more and more appealing.
Bridgette looked between the two of them and said, “You’d best move if you know what’s good for you.”
“The cold isn’t good for us, madam,” Sixty said.
“Eh,” said Carl, stretching himself by the stove. “They’re just taking us to the barn.”
Bridgette’s ears twitched and she started looking around the greenhouse—hearing voices and trying to decide if she was going crazy, Volka suspected.
“To kill Volka—and me?” Sixty asked aloud.
Trotting over to them, Carl squeaked. “Oh, no, they don’t want to kill you. They have a great deal of sympathy for the plight of a pair of Luddeccean weere-human lovers, really. Though Bridgette—”
“Who said my name?” The weere woman asked, looking around nervously.
“Is as curmudgeonly as this werfle’s body,” Carl Sagan continued. “They heard the phaser fire earlier. They know you’re trouble, but want to send you on your way and claim ignorance when the Guard inevitably come to question them.”
Bridgette’s ears flicked madly. “Darragh, did you hear something?”
Volka blinked at Sixty. He blinked back. His eyelids were working again, and she smiled in relief. His own lips curled up at the side, and her chest clenched. He didn’t look happy, he looked cautiously happy, like he was afraid to be too hopeful. The expression was so subtle, the emotion it hinted at so precise, it was frightening. She looked away, face heating.
Darragh shoved Sixty with the rifle, and Bridgette said, “Look, we aren’t gonna hurt ya.”
“We’ll come with you,” said Volka, walking toward the door, pack on her back, credits and sketchbook within, Carl Sagan at her heels, and Sixty behind her.
Moments later, they were stepping out into the Libertian night. It was so cold, Volka’s skin felt like it was burning. The snow was falling fast and hard, and the flakes felt like pin pricks. She couldn’t see past Bridgette’s back a pace in front of her, but she could smell where they were going easily enough—hay, animals, and fresh excrement. When they entered the barn through another double door entrance, and the full force of the odors hit her, she was just grateful to be out of the cold.
The barn was a large building—four times the size of Volka’s house—and set into a hill by the looks of the roots creeping out of the sod wall on three sides. Bridgette led them past chickens and pigs in small cages. There were goats wandering through the aisle, which is why Volka didn’t see their transport until they almost stepped on it.
For a minute, she thought it was a car without wheels, and then Dean opened a door that lifted up like an insect wing. Eyes going wide, Volka took in the “bumper” that ran all the way around the “car” and exclaimed, “It’s a hover!”
Dean grinned. “Yeah, the Luddeccean fanatics didn’t confiscate them all whe
n they took over.”
“It’s over a hundred years old,” said Sixty.
Dean’s grin turned triumphant. “Still runs, though!” He opened a second hatch and gestured for them to enter .
Volka only stared. Personal hovers were banned on Luddeccea. “But we don’t have a priest to make sure it doesn’t develop a will of its own! It could…could…explode on us…”
Carl Sagan dashed past her ankles, took the seat next to the driver, and blinked up at her.
“Do you really want to worry about that now…darling ?” Sixty said, his tone dry.
She looked at him with wide eyes. He was pinching the bridge of his nose. If she hadn’t seen his metal skeleton, she wouldn’t guess he wasn’t human. She thought that those subtle emotions made him more dangerous than a possibly exploding hover.
Dean patted the top of the vehicle. “Don’t worry. If I thought this thing had a mind of its own, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill it.”
Dropping his hand, Sixty smiled ruefully. “That’s reassuring,” he said.
Volka swallowed. Maybe priests were right, and robots were only programmed to have emotions, and maybe that wasn’t the same as being born with them. She still wanted to tell him she was sorry for her alarm and Dean’s comment. If someone looked like they were suffering, didn’t it diminish you not to treat them as though they were in pain?
Biting her lip, she took 6T9’s hand. It was cold—from their walk, she supposed. He met her gaze but didn’t smile this time. She did. It would help the facade of a weere-human couple, she told herself. She pulled him with her as she climbed into the hover.
A few minutes later, they were zipping through a cloud of snow, and Dean was explaining, “They let us keep these things I think because they were afraid we’d revolt, and because the terrain is so rocky and there are so few roads. And the ones that we have are buried most of the year.”
There was too much snow for Volka to see the “rocky terrain,” but the hover did abruptly rise and lower now and then.
“I’ve got a friend in town who runs the local inn,” Dean said. “He’s discreet and doesn’t love the Luddeccean Guard. He’ll hole you up until the next magni-freight train passes by in the morning.”
Volka’s heart beat double quick. “They’ll know you helped us.”
Dean barked, “Eh, we were just being Good Samaritans.”
Volka swallowed, remembering Joseph’s, Esther’s, and Myra’s bodies and the newborn who didn’t even have a name. “They won’t hurt your family for…for…being married and having a baby?”
Dean growled. “Not if they don’t want every Libertian to rise up and revolt. Some of the Guard posted locally would probably join in—there are some that’s got weere families in secret, though it’s much frowned upon, and you wouldn’t see many mixed couples in the capital.” He shook his head. “Never been enough human women to go around here. When the Luddecceans shipped some of our kind to help with the terraforming here, nature took its course.”
Like in a car, the hover had a rearview mirror, and Volka met Dean’s eyes in the reflection. And then the other weere glanced down—he was looking at her and Sixty’s joined hands. She hadn’t realized how tightly she’d begun to grip Sixty’s fingers when she’d thought of her murdered friends. Her knuckles were white, and her nails were biting into his skin. She glanced at Sixty. His gaze was on their fingers, too, his expression somber, the tilt of his head too—rigid. She eased her grip but didn’t let go…for appearances. She looked back up, and knew Dean was smiling goofily just by the way his eyes were crinkled in the corners in the reflection. No weere man on Luddeccea would smile at a human man and weere woman.
“How long until the Luddeccean Guard arrive at this town you’re taking us to?” 6T9 asked.
“I expect it will be a few days. They won’t want to brave the blizzard,” Dean replied confidently.
6T9 frowned. “You’re braving it.”
The world blackened at the edges, and Volka had the sensation of darkness crawling into her ears and nose. It was inevitable…hopeless…Volka’s heart stopped—
“Carl!” Sixty snapped aloud.
“Sorry,” the werfle said—or thought.
Volka blinked. Her vision came back, and she realized that the hover had stopped. Dean was staring out at the snow, an expression of shock on his face. And then he scratched behind an ear, shook his head, and the hover accelerated again. In the mirror, though, Volka saw a furrow had appeared between Dean’s brows. “But we’re in the valley, this—” He waved to the snow around them. “—is nothing like what it’s like in the mountains. They’d have to come from over the Iron Range, and they won’t risk it. Not for a couple of love pterys.”
Volka's eyes darted to 6T9. His hand was loose in hers, and he was frowning. If only love pterys were what they were.
19
The Robotic Man
“The Captain’s been assigned the mission to track down the robot…He’s practically a robot himself.”
The whispered words, somewhere between fearful and respectful, followed the click of Captain Alaric Darmadi’s boot steps as he strode through the polished cement corridors of the Luddeccean Guard’s Libertian base. Next to him, Commander Ran glanced backward, and a moment later, Alaric felt the commander’s eyes on him. Alaric kept his expression carefully blank and his footsteps measured. Let Ran wonder if he hadn’t heard or if he was merely ignoring it. The unknown was far more terrifying than the known. Alaric preferred his motivations being unknown and terrifying.
“We shouldn’t be sent to the Iron Range,” the commander said, his voice tight.
“We expressed our objections,” Alaric responded, “and were overruled.” And he still wasn’t sure if he was relieved or not.
“We shouldn’t fly in those conditions,” Ran said.
“The android has the ethernet accessible in real-time through its Q-comm.” Alaric had no doubt the android had one of the chips. Using Volka as a hostage was too clever for the occasional leftover robot or android from pre-Revelation. Intelligence said she was in league with it, but although Alaric did doubt Volka’s good sense, he would never doubt her faith. And Intelligence had a habit of claiming that anyone they wanted removed was in league with their enemies. “It has to be here to provide the local rebellion with intel, and possibly to help them re-establish the Libertian intranet.” Intense meteor activity and cities built in solid rock in the northern and southern latitudes had made the original Libertian settlers eschew satellite servers and ethernet connections in favor of hard lines and subterranean servers. The Guard was still uncovering and destroying the old stacks and fiber optic lines. “They aren’t being irrationally paranoid.”
Alaric heard the other man gulp and glanced over. The lieutenant was a shade paler than usual, and despite the Libertian chill, there was a faint sheen of sweat on his brow. He was terrified, with good reason, but his terror could be deadly to the entire crew. Despite the calm he projected, Alaric did not want to die. He drew to a halt and waited for the other man to do the same. When Ran did, nearly tripping over his own feet in his nervousness, Alaric met Ran’s gaze. “My youngest has a birthday in seven days, Ran. I intend to be alive for it.” His voice sounded flat and unconvincing to his own ears, but Ran straightened and met his eyes. “Yes, sir.”
Relieved to see the man’s spirits rising, Alaric resumed walking.
“You haven’t told me about your children, sir,” Ran said.
“No,” said Alaric, hoping he’d let the subject die. If one was sufficiently intimidating, one did not have to do anything terrible to inspire fear and awe. Alaric had stared down admirals and death with a straight face, but the smiles of his children could move him to tears. He did not speak about his children as a rule.
“Two boys, right?” Ran asked, too eager to build rapport.
Avoiding the question, Alaric responded, “Commander, the LCS has never done a recovery operation during a blizzard in the Iron Range. I
want to know that the de-icing grid is fully operational.”
“Yes, sir. We have time for a diagnostic, sir.”
Alaric stopped again. He’d only been trying to distract Ran, but his own mind fell upon the task. A map of the Iron Valley and the escape pod’s last known location rose in his mind. He could picture the most likely paths of turbulence; the head winds caused by cold air dropping from the peaks to the valley floor. He also thought of the LCS—Littoral Combat Ship. The name was an anachronism. “Littoral” meant pertaining to the shore of a body of water. The LCS he’d be piloting was capable of near-light-speed out of atmosphere, but with its hover technology, was capable of patrolling the surface of planets, too—something like a shore. It had been designed by Luddeccean engineers on a planet closer to the sun.
“The grid won’t be enough,” Alaric said.
“We’ll be mostly relying on the hover tech,” said Ran. “It might not be such an issue—”
“Hover tech only works in a narrow band of altitude. With the turbulence we’ll be experiencing, we’ll need our wings.” Alaric pictured the technical designs of the ship. “I want thirty percent of the power diverted from the bridge’s heat coils to the grid. ”
“It will be a mighty cold trip.”
“We’ll wear shooting gloves,” Alaric said, beginning to walk again.
Ran said, “If there needs to be a system override, and the priest won’t—”
“I have the access codes, and I will reroute the system myself,” Alaric snapped, thinking of the number of lives at stake. He regretted it at the stricken look on Ran’s face. As captain, he had the codes, but he was only supposed to use them in an emergency. Worse, the way he’d spoken conveyed that he was confident he could reroute the system with ease—which he could. Many captains and officers could, but it was considered bad form to point it out. A man who could navigate the computer systems of a near-light-speed vessel and pilot it was a defection risk. His lips formed a tight line. The outburst had been unnecessary. Father Diomedes, his ship’s priest, was a true believer and practical, not some power-hungry acolyte; they’d never butted heads. It wasn’t wise to push his reputation as the Robotic Captain too far.
