by C. Gockel
But there was no such man here at the Consulate of Shinar. The Marines she knew from her time caring for Ben were all attached or not interested in attachment. The Consular staff...she regretted very much being tired when she arrived last night. She had been exhausted enough to read minds, and really wished she hadn’t been able to. The Embassy Staff on Luddeccea thought her simple, but the members of the Shinar’s Consulate despised her. The Shinar were all tall and willowy, with subtly higher foreheads and elongated faces due to the low gravity. Unlike other parts of the Republic, strictly aesthetic cosmetic surgery wasn’t popular here, and they thought Volka vain because they presumed her ears and eyes were artificial. But worse, they knew she was attaché of the Luddeccean ambassador. It was insulting to them because she didn’t have a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Shinar. Thankfully, they didn’t know she’d only graduated from sixth grade. However, they did know she was a painter. They didn’t like that, either—she hadn’t gotten a Master of Fine Arts at Shinar’s School of Arts. Not that they believed that Volka actually painted. They believed that Sixty had an “app” that allowed him to paint in the style of the Old Masters, and that he was passing off his work as hers because it made for a better story.
They loathed Sixty just as much as her. How dare a precious Q-comm be given to a sex ‘bot? Worse, how dare he not use the abilities it gave him properly—to get a doctorate…or a few? Why hadn’t he applied himself to something that benefited humanity: diplomacy or science…but not the arts. The arts were a noble profession, but should, in the Consulate staff’s opinion, remain exclusively a domain of humans who were morally superior in their understanding of right and wrong, and who had emotional depths AI could not possibly understand. Her paintings had been described as “emotionally moving;” however, the staff thought this interpretation was just due to her “moving story.”
The Shinar reminded her very much of upper crust Luddecceans. But Alexis at least was honest in her loathing, and Stella Tudor didn’t think of herself enlightened.
…And the Luddecceans believed in the Dark. They were prepared to fight it. The Dark had not flickered through the consciousness of any of the Consulate Staff, not even once. They were consumed by their own lives and their…their…pettiness. She shivered.
Volka felt a flutter in her stomach that wasn’t nausea. It was her spaceship, worrying about her. She closed her eyes and focused on Sixty’s arm around her, being warm and not alone. There was a flicker of reception from Sundancer, and she saw for a moment with Sundancer’s “eyes:” the busy time gate and the people within it. Sundancer found it all very interesting. She was glad Sundancer wasn’t bored or lonely. She’d never noticed the ship being either since they’d finally met. Volka supposed after being under ice for a million years or so, anything and everything was interesting, and she and Carl were only a thought away…and Sixty, too, although Sundancer couldn’t “talk” to him.
Speaking of talking, Sixty was unusually silent and had been since the shuttle ride down. “Are you all right, Sixty?” she asked.
Sixty dropped the side of his head on top of her own, crushing one of her ears in a way that was warm and too comfortable. She closed her eyes. The ostentatious, antique toilet had been refilling. The water cut off, and the bathroom was suddenly very quiet.
He smelled like plastic, metal, and synthetic hormones which did work on her—when she wasn’t overwhelmed by the stench of her own vomit. And she was still shaky and exhausted from throwing up—the weight of him was solid and reassuring.
He shifted a leg, pulling it up toward his chest.
“I have been thinking...about a lot of things,” he said.
“Are you worried about FET12?” She was...a little. She hated leaving him, though she couldn’t help but think that maybe FET12 would prefer being in just Shissh’s company. But maybe that was a reason not to leave him alone with the tiger? Maybe he needed to be around good humans and AI, too?
6T9 didn’t answer for a few heartbeats too long. “Among other things.” He released a long breath. “I’ve been wondering if I should have performed a memory wipe on FET12 when we got him.”
“You could have done that?” Volka asked.
“I could have,” Sixty said. “But I didn’t because if I had, he would have been…amorous…toward us.”
Volka felt bile rising in her throat again. FET12 looked like a very slender prepubescent and could pass for a boy or girl given the correct clothes. The thought of him being amorous to adults…Volka put a hand to her mouth.
Sixty said, “I find the idea revolting, too. It violates the most basic lines of my code. But I wonder if I was just being selfish. I could have handled him hitting on me; you could have. I just let him suffer needlessly, and now he has a Q-comm. What if he hates humans? He’ll know I could have erased his memories—what if he is angry at me for not doing so and hates his own kind as well?”
“He looked relieved when you told him he couldn’t have sex for eighteen years,” Volka said. When Sixty had first said he had an order for FET12, she’d been alarmed, but then when he’d given the order, and she’d seen the expression of wonder on FET12’s face, she’d thought it must have been the right thing. Something that only another sex ‘bot could know and understand.
She stared at her toes. Maybe she could understand, a little at least. The season was frightening and demanding. If her first had come just a few years later, she and Alaric wouldn’t have become lovers. It would have spared her from a lot of pain, and him too, and Alexis. Volka probably would have married a nice weere man…and then she and that nice weere man probably would have died when she’d taken in her cousin Myra and her half-human newborn. She swallowed. Her relationship with Alaric had shaped her life, for good and ill.
Silence had fallen between her and Sixty again.
“Can he erase his own memories?” she asked. “If he wants to?”
“Yes,” Sixty said, and she could hear the furrow in his brow.
“Then you made the right decision,” Volka said. “The memories are his, no matter how bad they are. It is his choice to decide what to do with them.”
The golden faucet in the golden sink dripped. Had it been dripping all along?
Sixty lifted his head and turned toward her. “You always take my failings and make them virtues.”
His eyes were on hers. She met his gaze…and then she couldn’t look away. She swore the air between them was charged. She wanted to joke about electricity leaking from his circuits, but her mouth went dry. Her stomach was still uneasy, but he filled her other senses—the heavier-than-it-should-be weight of his arm on her shoulders, the slight hum that he had instead of a heartbeat, the scent that was appealing to the largest swathe of humanity underlaid with metal, plastics, a slight hint of grease, his perfectly imperfect eyes with flecks of gold and green, and the cheek that had a devastating dimple when he smiled.
She forced herself to break eye contact. Staring at her fingers, she changed the subject. “Some of the trees were knocked down on the asteroid. Do you know what happened?”
A sort of shiver ran through his arm. He pulled away. “Ah…an accident. I am beta testing operating system updates and they aren’t quite integrated yet.”
He’d explained what beta testing was, and what operating system updates were, which didn’t really explain the forest...but he must mean the robots that trimmed the trees! Those had to be updated just like the other systems on the asteroid. She nodded, pleased that she could follow along.
Sixty climbed to his feet. “Do you need anything?”
“To take a shower,” she said and then inwardly winced. That was going to open a can of innuendo if not an outright offer. But Sixty just stared at her very seriously and then backed out of the bathroom. Looking away from her, he said, “Do you want to go do some sightseeing while Noa is busy with her ceremonies?”
“Yes,” said Volka. “That would be nice.” She didn’t want to stay in the Consu
late all day.
“I’ll find Carl,” he said and left. Volka stood staring at the empty doorway, remembering all the orders Sixty had made to FET12. “...you have control over your monogamy switch…” He’d had to say that to FET12. Did that mean Sixty didn’t have control? Did he want control? Her shoulders fell. She didn’t want to pursue the issue. She knew he forgave her for her advances in No Weere, but memory of the event still left her feeling raw and exposed. She wouldn’t expose herself again.
Through the bathroom door and down the hall, 6T9 heard the shower turn off, and Volka step out. Volka had asked Bracelet for information about Shinar just before she’d stepped into the shower, and Bracelet was giving 6T9’s data dumps a run for the money. With the water on, her “dump” had been nothing but an indistinct gurgle, but now he clearly heard, “And that is how Shinar came to lead the galaxy in research and development and how Shinar’s scientists in every field became in demand everywhere. There are simply no better educated, more knowledgeable, more rational humans anywhere in the Republic…”
“And they are the most modest and humble, too,” he heard Volka reply, smile audible in her voice.
“Really?” Bracelet asked breathlessly...although she needed to breathe even less than 6T9. Had she downloaded an emotional expression app? “But the About Shinar ethernet site does not mention those virtues. I shall insist they update their description!”
“No!” cried Volka, laughing. “I was joking!”
He exhaled a breath he didn’t need. Volka was happy. His circuits darkened and then misfired. He’d almost kissed her earlier. She’d been so close. For a second—just milliseconds, really—it had occurred to him he didn’t have to risk switching his monogamy switch to be with her. He didn’t even have to be monogamous. He was free of the programming that had restrained him from hurting her. For another few milliseconds, he’d been dizzy just with the possibility...but then she’d mentioned the destruction in the forest, and he’d been appalled.
He’d accepted his new programming to protect Volka, and then at the slightest opportunity he’d contemplated actions that would hurt her? Actions that would, inevitably, take her away from him. He could be unfaithful to Volka, but she and her nose would find out. He didn’t believe she’d kill her rivals, not for a minute. She’d leave him and cut him out of her life with a scalpel. She’d turned down Alaric’s patronage, and she loved Alaric.
How did he manage these bugs in his new programming? Maybe he should draw lines in the proverbial sand. He wouldn’t make any advances on Volka. It wasn’t a good time to tumble into bed with her, or push her up against a wall, or clear a table, or…He shook himself.
Not a good time.
He had to work out the bugs.
He swallowed.
If they could be worked out.
“Have you found Carl yet?” Volka asked from the bathroom.
“Looking,” he said, kneeling beside Volka’s bed. Carl didn’t like sleeping under beds but he’d checked the couch and chairs in the sitting room, all the windows with sunbeams, the cabinet stocked with snacks, and then under the furniture in the sitting room so…He blinked into the darkness. Carl was there, rubbing his paws through his whiskers.
“He’s here,” Sixty called back. More quietly, he asked the werfle, “Hey, Carl, did you just wake up?”
“No…I’ve just been…sitting here,” Carl replied. He ran a paw over one ear.
“What’s wrong, Carl?” 6T9 asked as Volka approached behind him.
“Nothing…nothing…nothing …” said Carl, running a paw over the other ear.
“You feel nervous,” Volka said, sitting on her heels beside 6T9.
Putting paws to his snout, Carl replied, “Maybe it’s the gravity?”
6T9’s brows drew together. “The gravity here is closer to Luddeccea’s than the pirate planet.”
The scant whiskers above Carl’s eyes trembled. “I was too worried about you being eaten by plants to be nervous, then.”
“Are you hungry?” Volka suggested.
Smoothing back his eyebrow whiskers, Carl replied, “Maybe...it’s hard to get a read on this body. Bernadette separated it from its parental triad too soon. It never learned to hunt properly, and then she didn’t feed it enough. Before I moved in, it was constantly hungry. I have food insecurity; I think that’s why I’m getting fat.”
“You’re just fluffy,” Volka protested.
“No, I’m fat.” Carl sighed, finally dropping his paws. “And it isn’t good for either of my hearts.”
6T9’s circuits dimmed. “You were hungry while I was living with Bernadette?” How had he failed to notice? He wasn’t as angelic before his recent upgrade as Volka liked to imagine.
“I wasn’t. This body was,” Carl said, scratching an ear. “I took over this body a little before she died, and I taught it how to hunt.”
“You’ve never mentioned any of this before,” said Volka.
“I don’t like to complain,” said Carl.
6T9 blinked. Complaining seemed Carl’s favorite pastime after sleeping and eating—not necessarily in that order. But hadn’t Carl said it was partially because of the body he was in? Did everyone have trouble with their original operating systems?
“Carl,” he said, holding out a hand. “If the last thing you ate was that rat when we landed with James, it’s time to eat again.”
Creeping forward, Carl looked about nervously. Settling on 6T9’s outstretched forearm, he squeaked. “Maybe it is just hunger.”
6T9 pulled the werfle to his stomach, the better to give Carl a belly rub, but the little creature scampered up to his shoulders, wrapped himself around 6T9’s neck, and hunkered down, whiskers tickling the skin beneath 6T9’s ear.
6T9’s and Volka’s eyes met.
Carl squeaked. “Nothing is wrong. I sense nothing of the Dark. Neither does Sundancer, and she is a much more powerful telepath than me. The Shinar people are pompous dummies, but I don’t sense any seething clusters of rage. The new staff we escorted here is busy with tasks that are innocuous and appropriate with their assumed roles, not dangerous in the least. Noa and James are at a commemoration ceremony for Shinar bigwigs. The Prime Minister is droning on about his time in the Geological Corps.” Carl sniffed. “You’d think the centennial is all about him.”
6T9 scratched Carl’s head and tried to add some reassurance. “We’re far from The Kanakah Cloud.” That was where James was most convinced the Dark would make an appearance. “This system is very stable, Carl.” Aside from the geology, but that was managed quite faithfully by the Shinar people. The tax rates on the planet were among the highest in the Republic, the living quarters the smallest, and the relative lack of cosmetic surgery reflected simply the inability to pay for it. Those sacrifices paid for a paradise. “There’s very little poverty and very low unemployment. Happiness indexes regularly put the Shinar people as among the happiest in the Republic.”
6T9 noticed Volka’s eyebrows rose at that, and she looked at the floor. She’d probably grown up being told that the only happiness was with God. Eliza had been a fundamentalist when she was young—long before 6T9, obviously. She’d been more moderate in her beliefs later in life, but she had still prayed, thanking God each night for all the good things in her life, even when she was running for her life, even when she was dying. Eliza had said that religion might not necessarily make you happy, but it did help you survive through very unhappy times. As queer as her nighttime prayers had seemed, there was scientific evidence to back her up. People who were religious or spiritual were more resilient to stress. Volka’s and Eliza’s lives had been more stressful than most, and maybe religion was what had helped them endure?
Carl’s whiskers twitched, and then he skittered farther around 6T9’s neck and stuck his nose under the lapel of 6T9’s coat. “Nothing is wrong.”
Volka gave 6T9 another worried look, but all she said was, “Let’s go get breakfast.”
6T9 gestured toward the
door for her to go first, bowing slightly and carefully, so as not to dislodge Carl.
They exited the suite and walked down a hushed hallway with tasteful paintings of local flora and fauna and recessed nooks with holos and sculptures. The styles ranged from hyper realist to abstract. Volka hesitated near some of the artwork, but then she glanced at Carl and hurried along, concern for the werfle so obvious, it would have been deducible even without the little red light in the periphery of his vision saying “worried.” At this point, 6T9 was worried, too. Maybe it was a combination of hunger and low gravity making Carl shiver around his shoulders? That explanation was unsatisfactory but connecting to the Shinar ether gave no clues: the weather was perfect—sunny, but cool and comfortable. There were no mass disturbances of the mob-like variety they’d seen in New Grande. No military activities. The poles weren’t in the process of flipping. It wasn’t even a full moon.
They’d just reached the closed double doors to the dining room when one of the members of the real Shinar Consulate staff called out, “Excuse me, you can’t take a live animal into the dining room!”
In front of 6T9, Volka turned to face the man just as the doors slid open, her eyes wide and lips parted in an o.
“He’s animatronic,” 6T9 said, not missing a beat.
It was the sort of prompt that he’d expect Carl to answer with, “Yes, look at me, a dumb machine. Beep beep boo beep.” Instead Carl squirmed further beneath his coat.
“Very realistic movement,” the Shinar man observed.
Lightly catching Carl’s tail between his fingers, 6T9 lifted an eyebrow. “He’s also a fashionable scarf.”
Volka’s eyes went wide and shifted to Carl. 6T9 tweaked Carl’s tail, but the expected threats of murder to his person if he was only human did not come.
“Eh…” The man frowned at 6T9 and walked away, scowling furiously.
