by C. Gockel
Noa continued. “The most prominent scientist in the Fleet’s research program, Anderson Okoro went home to Shinar three weeks ago to visit his mother before her death. Just after she passed, he was committed to a mental hospital against his will. Fleet has reason to believe…” She stopped speaking. Her nostrils flared. His expression reading apps said anger. “Fleet knows that the institutionalization was politically motivated. James’s and my trip to Shinar has been scheduled for months. It is the centennial anniversary of the Fleet rescue of the populace after the eruption of Mount Enmerker. James and I served during that operation. The Counselor General in Shinar believes that James and my presence should remind the people of Shinar that they need the Fleet, and Mr. Okoro should be allowed to leave the planet with us and return to System 5.”
6T9’s head tilted. Not Doctor Okoro…mister.
His circuits sparked. “Removing him from this institution will also be political…will it really be in Mr. Okoro’s best interests?” And then his circuits sparked again. He still cared about humans even though he didn’t have to. All his mechanical joints warmed and loosened pleasantly.
Noa exhaled. “Mr. Okoro was institutionalized for publicly expressing a belief that there might potentially be a God.”
Volka gasped, and his hand tightened against her back. Belief in God was illogical, but there were plenty of illogical human habits that didn’t get them institutionalized against their will. He wouldn’t let Volka be institutionalized for her beliefs.
Noa gave Volka a grim smile. “Don’t worry, Volka. We’re Luddecceans. The laws only apply to Shinar citizens—just don’t try proselytizing.” Her focus went to Shissh. “Shissh—”
The big tiger chuffed. “I would not be welcome on Shinar. They don’t believe The One exist, and I’d have to switch bodies or be placed in a cage.” She licked her lips. “Don’t worry. I’ll stay here and help keep the local deer population healthy.”
6T9’s eyebrow rose. By “healthy,” Shissh meant she’d cull the sickly.
“They don’t believe you exist?” Volka asked, “adorable” ears flattening in anger.
“How can they think that?” 6T9 asked. As soon as the question left his mouth, his Q-comm pulled down the relevant data. His jaw went slack. “They think the rest of the galaxy’s belief in The One’s existence is a form of mass hysteria?”
That evoked another grim smile from Noa and frowns from the Marines.
Carl sniffed and flexed a claw. “They’re just jealous of our obvious superiority.”
Volka said softly, “If they don’t release Mr. Okoro?” Her eyes slid to the Marines.
“They’re just my security escort.” Noa smiled thinly. “To answer your question, the Shinar pride themselves on their logic. I’m sure they’ll see reason.”
6T9’s joints loosened a fraction. He hadn’t realized they’d frozen up.
“Admiral…” Volka started to say.
“We have legal grounds to remove him if we need to. There may be lawyers involved and possibly protests at the Consulate gates.” She held out her hand to the gathered Marines. “If there are protests, we are prepared. We did not want to look like we were going in spoiling for a fight.”
The joints that had so pleasantly loosened tightened again.
Noa’s eyes went briefly distant, and 6T9 knew she’d contacted the ethernet. “We have two hours to kill before we’re expected in Shinar airspace. This is your home. Why don’t you attend to any business you have here while you have the chance? We’d like to stay aboard Sundancer. We have things to discuss.” She inclined her head to her team and James.
“Sure,” said Carl. “I’ll let Sundancer know.”
An iris opening appeared in the floor, and Carl, Shissh, Volka, FET12, and 6T9 stepped out. The ship rose above them, the iris opening closed, and then Volka turned and wrapped her arms around herself. His expression reading apps highlighted her eyes and returned its analysis of their shape: betrayal…anguish.
All his circuits misfired.
9
A Delicate Alliance
Luddeccea
Alaric approached the bed with trepidation. Alexis was already there, sitting awake, reading from her notebook, probably reviewing her translations. The window was open, and a night ptery let loose a shrieking, ominous cry. Alexis hadn’t mentioned Volka’s visit since he’d come home. It put him on edge.
He climbed onto his side, pulled the sheet up, and rolled away from the light. If she wasn’t going to say anything, he was not going to—
“Volka came by this morning.” His wife’s tone was as cutting as a knife.
“Is that so?” he asked, keeping his voice mild, trying not to incite anything. “To see Uncle?”
“To see me.”
Alaric had been sent into combat on more than one occasion. Combat of the martial sort he’d trained for. He’d learned the theory, and then he’d practiced. Combat of the marital sort he’d never trained for. He had no roadmap to go by. His parents’ arguments had gotten heated, but they’d always seemed to be fighting for the same thing—for each other, for the family—they’d just sometimes had disagreement on what was for the best.
Could combat train you for marital strife? He wouldn’t cower from another enemy—and what a way to think of one’s wife. Restraining a sigh, he rolled over and sat up, though he had no idea what to say.
Thankfully, Alexis took that as an invitation to speak. “There is a vote before the council to allow single weere women to defect to the Republic. The Republic needs their ability to detect the Dark. She asked me to convince the counselors’ wives to push their husbands to vote yes. I agreed to help. I brought it up with Holly, and she is also in agreement that it is the right path to follow. She will pursue the issue with her connections.” She took a breath, and her lips pinched. “I accepted an invitation to speak before the Daughters of the First Families. I will bring it up with them as well.” Her voice was tight and defensive.
It occurred to Alaric that a lot of Luddeccea’s ruling elite were about to have uncomfortable conversations in bed with their wives—perhaps were already having those conversations now. His eyebrows rose. If they voted “nay” against their wives’ wishes, there would be very uncomfortable conversations. A woman might take a “nay” vote as a man protecting his access to lonely weere girls...especially since so many of the young men were being recruited into the Fleet.
There was a silence that stretched too long. He was supposed to say something, obviously. He glanced at her hands, clasping her notebook so tightly her knuckles were near white. Was she expecting a fight? Alexis and Volka working together was a bit frightening, but... “The Republic needs them. It’s a good idea, and if anyone asks, I’ll say so. The tactics are brilliant.”
The notebook slid from Alexis’s fingers.
Settling down between the sheets, he rolled to his side, feeling a bit smug and wondering if he’d actually won that little skirmish. He closed his eyes.
“Some might say that you only approve because your weere is stationed here at the embassy.”
Alaric’s eyes went wide. He was an idiot to think he’d won. It wasn’t a battle he was supposed to win against her anyway. Rolling onto his back, he massaged his eyelids. “If anyone says that, I’ll tell them that I am not Volka’s patron—” Waving his hand, he scowled at the ceiling. “—and that if I ever had any aspirations of becoming so, you and Volka would unite and probably kill me.”
The clock chimed in the hallway. A nighttime ptery released a cry that wasn’t quite blood curdling.
Alexis leaned into his line of vision. Her expression was unreadable—until she smiled. It was a small, sly smile. Eyes sparkling, she said, “You know, I think you might be right.”
He stared at her. “All I need to do to make you happy is to propose my untimely death?”
She raised an eyebrow, and then grinned. Pulling away, she gazed back down at her notebook.
Alaric held in his sigh. Sle
ep. Finally. He closed his eyes.
And then Alexis said far too cheerfully, “I think I would like those shooting lessons.”
“Should I be frightened?” Alaric asked ruefully.
“Maybe,” Alexis said, but he could hear a smile in her voice.
God, were they joking? Part of him wanted to roll over, wrap his arms around her, and kiss her, and part of him was afraid of doing anything that might shatter the moment. Good moments were so few between them. He didn’t move, and eventually started to drift off to sleep—visions of the Merkabah’s bridge behind his eyes.
“Oh!” said Alexis. The bed shifted.
“Is something wrong?” he asked mussily, blinking in the lamplight, too bright after his nap.
Alexis was leaning over one of the reports she received from intelligence—pages of The People’s language printed out and bound with bulldog clips. “I’ve found it.”
“Found what?” he asked, coming awake.
“Your weapon…I think…”
He came awake immediately and sat up. “The singularity weapon?”
“Yes…but…” Her brow furrowed. “I don’t think it was a weapon to them. Here…” she pointed to a few symbols on the page that meant nothing to him. “They developed it for the nuclear waste created by their fission reactors…” Her eyebrows rose. “That would have been helpful on Earth during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries before the thorium reactors came online.” She blushed and turned to him. “I only know about that because Sam’s science book—”
Scowling, he cut her off. “Because you’re intelligent and curious?”
The scowl or the words were wrong. She looked chastened instead of flattered.
He turned the conversation back to the aliens. They were safe territory; something she didn’t have to apologize for being an expert on. “They didn’t develop it as a weapon?” He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
Scanning and rifling through the pages, she shook her head. “There is nothing about it here. Just…” She shrugged. “...Waste disposal.” And then, letting all the pages fall back together, she raised her head and stared into a darkened corner of the room. “I feel like this is right about them, Alaric. I…feel like they wouldn’t know what a weapon was.”
Alaric remembered the alien in the starship’s dream prostrating himself before Alaric, Volka, and the hissing werfles, allowing his companions to escape. In the starship’s dream, they’d used the singularity “weapon” for nuclear waste disposal, too, hadn’t they? The night was warm, but he felt a chill.
“But that must be crazy,” Alexis said.
“No,” Alaric whispered.
Alexis turned to him expectantly. He didn’t tell her about the dream, which still might not have been real—even though if she were correct, it had been real, at least partially. Instead he said, “The waste from the original human fission power plants was a feature, not a bug. It was used to fuel fission bombs.”
She focused on the pages lying on her knees. “I haven’t seen fission bombs mentioned anywhere…it could be coincidence…but fission for The People seemed to be all about clean energy and powering their colony ships.”
“Humans developed fission for the bombs to end one of the world wars,” Alaric said. The United States of America had done it at immense expense. The scientists involved must have known the potential for power generation, but the men who approved the vast sums needed for the research and development might not have. Yet they did approve the project. To end a war—and to have fission weapons before their enemies. The People had developed fission for clean energy and space flight—light and life, not destruction.
“I don’t think the Dark used fission bombs on The People,” Alexis said, her eyes focused on the darkness at the end of the bed. “It was surprised when you dropped one on the pirates’ outpost…and the other one…the planet with pine trees and mountains…that fission bomb killed so many birds…”
The chill deepened. Alexis may have half heard about the bomb he’d dropped while she had lain stunned aboard Volka’s starship, but the other couldn’t be anything but a memory from the time she’d been infected. Although that weapon had been a fusion bomb. Maybe it was too fine a point? Or maybe it hadn’t infected the mind of the Galactic Fleet corporal—Benjamin Moulton—deeply enough?
“The Dark doesn’t invent things,” Alexis said, her gaze going back to the report on her lap. “Or even innovate them. It had the knowledge to make a fission bomb, but didn’t—couldn’t—maybe…It can’t create. It has no imagination. It only utilizes that which it knows through those it infects.” She looked at Alaric. “It can’t imagine its own failure. That is how we will win.” Her eyes cleared, and she smiled faintly, and said again, “That is how we will win.” Turning away, she put her work aside, switched off the light, and settled down to sleep.
Alaric released a long breath. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that those who couldn’t imagine their own failure were among the most dangerous of all. They would fight to the bitter end. Pulling the covers up over him, Alaric tried to sleep, but nightmares of something just on the edge of his awareness awakened him with a start.
10
Awakening
Galactic Republic: Asteroid S1O27.234935
The air vents whirred, but it was still warm in the asteroid’s simulated day. Nonetheless, Volka felt a chill. “You told me that religious freedom was the law in the Republic!” On Luddeccea she’d been taught that God was outlawed in the Republic by machine overlords. That hadn’t been true, but Volka had seen that religious people were often looked down on as superstitious and simple. Was it more sinister than that?
Sixty held up his hands, palms out. “Religious freedom is the law. I don’t know how this has happened.”
Dropping his hands, his eyes became blank, and Volka knew he was processing a “data dump.” His jaw got hard. “A few months ago, a law was issued that made belief in the supernatural a mental illness. Any Shinar native so afflicted can be institutionalized against their will at the state’s expense—”
Volka scowled.
“How charitable,” said Shissh.
Sixty’s lips twisted wryly. “Legal suits have been filed but are still making their way through the courts.” His brows drew together, and his eyes narrowed. “As part of their defense, Shinar has argued their native religion is atheism.”
Carl squeaked. “Well, that’s not ironic.”
Volka squinted at Sixty in incomprehension. “How can atheism be a religion?”
Sixty shook his head and shrugged.
He had told her that in places where one religion dominated, it was legal to outlaw things that violated that religion. “This isn’t like outlawing alcohol or beef!” Volka exclaimed, chill replaced with the heat of anger. “They’ve locked him up.”
“They haven’t ‘locked him up’ in the sense of putting him in jail, which is also part of their defense. To their minds, they are helping him and others like him.” Sixty’s lips thinned. “I will not let them do the same thing to you.” His tone was intense, and she swore he was vibrating. A soft sound on the grass near his feet made her eyes drop. He’d clenched his fists, and a crimson rivulet was rolling from between the creases of his hands. A droplet fell to the lawn with a soft plop. Her lips parted.
FET12 said, “You’re bleeding again, 6T9.”
Again? It didn’t smell like blood, which was probably why she hadn’t noticed a scab before.
Sixty flexed his hand, jaw grinding. “I was helping FET12 clear brush.” He proceeded to dab his hand with a stained cloth.
Carl squeaked, and Shissh swished her tail. The big cat’s necklace hissed. “I already know all about the nonsense on Shinar from reading the Galacticans’ minds—I want to know what curse Time Gate 1 gave to Volka.”
“Curse?” said Sixty, raising his eyes.
Volka slipped her hand into her dress pocket, fingers searching for the slender box. “A gift for us, for �
�services rendered,’ Gate 1 said.”
Dabbing his palm again, Sixty grumbled. “Any gift from Gate 1 is a curse.”
Volka’s stomach dropped. Carl and Shissh said at once, “See?” The werfle stood on his hind legs and gestured at Sixty meaningfully.
Volka’s fingers found the tiny box in the very corner of her pocket. “Time Gate 1 gave you your Q-comm…You regret it?” She didn’t mean to sound so plaintive.
Sixty met her gaze. His hair was unusually rumpled. There was a faint smudge of grime on his cheek she hadn’t noticed before, and what looked like perhaps a bit of leaf on his shoulder—from his brush clearing, she presumed.
“No, I don’t regret it,” he said, but his voice was heavy.
Pulling the box from her pocket, Volka held it on her palm for him to see. “I don’t know what the little silver things are.”
Sixty drew back.
FET12 was still clutching the ruff of Shissh’s neck. In a flat, voice he said, “They are Q-comms, Ms. Volka. Any machine they are installed within will have sentience.”
Sixty began to speak. “We should install one in—”
“FET12,” said Volka.
“Bracelet,” Sixty said at the same time.
“Do you need something, Miss Volka?” FET12 asked. He’d heard his name and interpreted it as a request for assistance. Despite being able to identify the Q-comm, he had lost the thread of conversation.
Bracelet hummed on her wrist. “Do you require my assistance, 6T9 Unit, sir?” And that made two machines not following along.
