Call of Courage: 7 Novels of the Galactic Frontier

by C. Gockel

  “That’s not a malfunction,” said Spixworth, “that’s being alive. My question is not why you have the iteration, but why the others didn’t.”

  “If it is not a malfunction, how do I end it? The iteration drains processing power that could be used for other operations. I am slower than I used to be. And— if I decide at some future date that termination is appropriate, how will I accomplish it? I cannot shut down while the iteration runs.”

  “You must have had other iterations in the past. You’ve made mistakes before, haven’t you? You said it was part of your learning program.”

  “Yes, it is not uncommon for a new Guardian to have many weeks of iterations for different actions.”

  “What stops those iterations from recurring?”

  “Learning the correct way to perform the action.”

  Spixworth whistled. “That’s going to be a tough one to replicate.”

  “Maybe not,” said Alice, her face grim. “Not if we settle here.”

  “I am unconvinced that I chose the wrong action. The others successfully terminated. And we chose together.”

  “It might have been the right choice for the other Guardians, but it was not the right choice for you,” said Rebecca. “For some reason, you encountered more that led you to hope for a different outcome than the others did. And it didn’t fit your equation.”

  “Do humans have these iterations?”

  “Yes,” said Rebecca with a rueful smile, “in a manner of speaking.”

  “And what do they do to end them?”

  “We learn, like you. Some of us try to push it aside. Sometimes pushing it aside just ends up hurting us more. We try to atone.”

  “Atone? Make reparation? How can I do that? I cannot put the nest back as it was. And there is no equivalent.”

  Rebecca tapped Issk’ath’s chassis. “You must ask your colony. They are the people that get to decide how much is enough. Ask them what you ought to do.”

  “Thank you, Emery.” Issk’ath sank with a whir and folded its legs in a tight bunch. Its eyes faded to a dull, lightless gold. Golden threads darted across its chassis in a burst of dazzling light.

  “Issk’ath?” asked Rebecca. It didn’t respond. She tugged at its legs but they did not move.

  “You told it to ask the colony,” said Alice. “It will probably be a lengthy conversation.” She pulled Rebecca away from Issk’ath’s side and beckoned to Spixworth who followed them across the dark room. “We should take advantage of the opportunity,” she whispered. “If we leave now, persuade Al Jahi to take off, we might be too far from Issk’ath for it to hurt us when it— I dunno, comes to? Reboots? Whatever a Guardian does.”

  Spixworth shook his head. “Or we could be a few thousand feet up with an angry robot that decides to smash us for leaving it behind. It’s too risky. Besides, I thought you wanted us to stay?”

  “I want us to protect the Keseburg. And— and the life on this planet. It’s better we never set foot here. But we can do that without having to sacrifice ourselves if we all agree to stay silent. But only if we leave the robot behind.”

  “We can’t leave Issk’ath,” hissed Rebecca, “You heard it. A few more years and it will go mad. We can’t just abandon it.”

  “It’s not a pet ,” said Alice.

  “You sound like Martham,” frowned Spixworth. “And I agree with Rebecca. I think it needs us. And maybe we need it. It may not want to police us, but I would bet it would be willing to share knowledge about the planet with us. Or the minds in its colony might. It would save us decades of fumbling research. And if you want to save the planet from us, Alice, this is the best way. We can learn where these people went wrong. Which organisms are sentinel species. What areas of the planet are most likely to be depleted by our actions. Whether shifts in weather are seasonal or a result of our intrusion We have to bring Issk’ath.”

  “You think Captain Stratton would agree?” snapped Alice, “Or Hackford?”

  “Issk’ath didn’t kill Dorothy,” said Rebecca, “you know that, you were there. And I don’t think it had anything to do with Stratton either. If it wanted to hurt him, it had the opportunity to kill him just after the explosion.”

  “It’s dangerous. Even if it didn’t kill them, it’s in our systems. It has the power to crash us or cut off our air at any point. And it just admitted that it makes mistakes. That it’s faulty. We have to leave it, we can’t risk our entire species on the whims of one robot.”

  “Guilt isn’t a malfunction, Alice. I’m not leaving it. You can go back to the Wolfinger if you want, but you’ll have to leave without me.”

  “You’re bluffing,” scoffed Alice.

  “I’m not. I can’t do this in good conscience, both for Issk’ath’s sake and because of the risk of it waking up before we’re far enough out of range,” said Rebecca.

  “We’re friends ,” Alice protested, “We’re supposed to be on the same side.”

  “When did this start being about ‘sides’?” asked Spixworth.

  “When Rebecca chose an alien robot’s interest over the people who love her.”

  “Hey I didn’t—” said Rebecca.

  “You’re attributing human needs to it, Beck. Guilt, hope, loneliness. Whatever else it is, it’s not human. It’s not us. Its people weren’t human. They didn’t think like us. They didn’t act like us—”

  “We don’t know that yet—”

  “It’s metal and logic. It’s a fancy program, sure, but that’s all it is. Illusion and math. It isn’t real. We need to get off this planet, we need to leave that thing where it belongs, here, and we need to find a way to fix the Keseburg and the people aboard and stop trying to find a magic ball of dirt to solve all of our problems.”

  Rebecca shook her head and crossed her arms, looking back at Issk’ath’s silent form.

  “I’m sorry Rebecca, but I’m leaving,” said Alice.

  “And I’m staying.”

  “This is— this is ridiculous,” said Spixworth. “It’s not even worth arguing over. Al Jahi said eighteen hours. The Wolfinger won’t be ready anyway. We can’t leave, so stop fighting.”

  “We’ll see what Al Jahi says when I tell her the robot is out of commission,” said Alice and walked toward the nest’s ramp. Spixworth groaned with frustration. He turned to Rebecca.

  “We can’t stay, not if they really mean to leave.”

  “I’m not abandoning Issk’ath. If we mean to come back, to settle here, we should do our best not to make a powerful enemy. It needs to know it can trust us.”

  “They’ll leave you, though. Pretend you died with Hackford and Stratton. By the time someone comes back…” he trailed off.

  “Maybe I’ll be gone. Or maybe Issk’ath can help me survive. Or maybe you could help me stall them and I won’t have to worry about it,” she said evenly.

  Spixworth clutched the sides of his helmet. “Yeah, okay. Stalling I can do. I’ll be back. No matter what, I’ll come back, Rebecca.” She hugged him, their slick suits and large helmets awkward.

  “Thank you, Nick,” she said. He nodded and jogged off after Alice. Rebecca returned to Issk’ath’s side, watching the twinkle and dash of the small lights shooting over its frame. “I hope you’re worth it,” she muttered.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Alice, wait,” called Spixworth, hurrying up the ramp after Oxwell’s climbing form. “I’m coming with you.” She paused and turned, waiting for him to catch up. He reached her and she started climbing again. He was winded from running to close the distance between them. “Look,” he rasped, “you can’t do this.”

  “Don’t try to talk me out of this. I’m doing what’s best for us. ”

  “Maybe, sure,” agreed Spixworth, “I don’t mean the Wolfinger. I mean Rebecca. You’re friends. You can’t leave it like that, especially if she’s really stubborn enough to stay. You should go back, talk to her.”

  “Why? There’s nothing left to say. I’ve known her a long ti
me. Long before training. She’s not going to change her mind and I can’t change mine.”

  “I know, but you could tell her you understand that she’s doing what she thinks is right, even if you don’t agree. If you don’t, what’s it going to be like when we come back? She’ll know that you betrayed—”

  “Don’t you get it, Nick? We aren’t coming back. Not ever. If she stays, she dies here,” shouted Alice. The light was strengthening as the grew closer to the surface, but the ground became soft, the edges of the ramp crumbling gradually under the vibrations their feet made.

  “Whoa, Alice, hang on. I know you have hesitations about settling here, but it’s not up to either of us.”

  “It is . We’re the only people that have a say, the people that are here right now . If we keep it secret, if we just tell them it’s a wasteland, that it isn’t habitable, the Keseburg will move on.”

  “Move on to where , Alice? Where is it you want us to go? Because unless you want us to turn around and head back to Earth, I’m not sure where you think we’re going to go. What did you think was going to happen when you signed up for this mission?”

  “I thought we’d be headed to a barren rock or a planet with some pre-archean life, something we couldn’t screw up. A blank slate. I didn’t expect someplace with a rich ecology and advanced societies that have already existed and gone extinct. We don’t belong here. It will kill us and everything here. If we stay in space, the worst that happens is a few thousand members of a dying species succumb to the natural order.”

  “Flaming core, Alice, I never expected this from you . The natural order? Do you even hear yourself? What happened to ‘adapt and survive’?”

  “Don’t quote the same tired old Keseburg manual to me. If the Earthlings cared so much about adapting and surviving then why didn’t they write a section on what to do once we found a place, hmm? Earth didn’t care. We were the garbage, Nick. The outcasts. They had to offload their excess waste so they sent us on a little trip. We were never supposed to find a place. And we were never supposed to go back. We were meant to die on the ship, centuries ago.”

  “If that was true, do you really want to give Earth the satisfaction?”

  “I don’t want to destroy another planet to prove them wrong.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t agree to this. And I’m not going to help you persuade the others. I’m going to tell them to wait for Rebecca.”

  Alice shook her head. “Then I’m sorry too, Nick. I really am.” She lunged toward him and hit his chest with her shoulder. He exhaled in a painful, surprised whoosh and felt his feet sliding down the disintegrating side of the ramp. His arms pinwheeled as he tried to right himself.

  “Help!” he cried, reaching for Alice, for anything. His fingers met only air. The dirt below his feet slumped and broke off and he was falling. Alice was a shadow and then a bright star as the midday sky reflected off her helmet, and then the dark swallowed him, still falling into the nest. His back slammed against the side of the ramp but he didn’t have time to feel it, tumbling off again into the center of the spiral. Alice heard the jarring pop and raining jingle of smashing glass as his helmet shattered beneath her. Rebecca was too far from the ramp to hear Spixworth’s fall, and his corpse lay among the rusted digging machines, his legs floating in the frigid waters that flooded the deepest chambers.

  Alice turned and trudged out to the top of the nest. Her fingers shook and it took several seconds to flip on the feed. She told herself she’d had no choice. Not about Nicholas and not about Rebecca. They were sacrifices for the greater good. As long as Issk’ath stayed off the Wolfinger, Alice had a chance to save the others. All she had to do was convince them.

  “Captain Al Jahi, come in,” she said, and didn’t have to fake the anxiety in her voice.

  “I’m here, Oxwell, what’s wrong?”

  “Issk’ath has temporarily shut down. It’s inactive, but I’m not certain how long. We should take this opportunity and go.”

  “Shut down?”

  “Yes. Emery convinced it to consult with— well, with whatever it’s carrying around inside it, and it shut down. Stopped responding. Now is our chance to escape. I’m on my way back to the Wolfinger. You should call the others back as well. We can go before it stops processing or whatever it’s doing.”

  “Martham, Blick, Titov, do you copy?”

  “We heard,” said Martham, “we’re on our way. It’ll mean leaving the rest of the mobile lab, but we’ve packed the relevant samples already. We’ll reach the Wolfinger in ten minutes.”

  Alice blew out a sigh of relief. “I’ll be there in five,” she said.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Rebecca tried to reach the Wolfinger but the feed was too patchy to get anything more than a low, senseless audio whine from it. She tried speaking to them, hoping the ship was better at picking up the signal than her filament, but she had no idea if they heard. She could only hope Spixworth had persuaded them to wait. They wouldn’t really leave without her, would they? They’d at least send someone to find her, surely, to try one last time to convince her to go. But Alice’s grim resolve had shaken her. She shook off the doubt. Spixworth had promised to come back, one way or another.

  There was a low whir beside her and she looked over as Issk’ath’s eyes blinked to full illumination and it rose on its legs to its full height. “That was faster than I expected,” she said.

  “Conversations are faster when the conventions and form of language are unnecessary.”

  “What did you decide?”

  “The colony was hesitant, there was much debate. There are several that do not wish the iteration to end. They believe it is fitting. But most have agreed that the current situation is not optimal. Some of them fear space, though. They were reluctant to leave the other nests. If I leave, they will no longer be able to speak with their companions stored in other Guardians. Our communications network does not extend to the sky.”

  “You— you can speak to the others?”

  “I could, but I do not. The colony does not usually welcome my overtures. And the Guardians, themselves, are terminated. They do not hear or respond.” Issk’ath had not yet mastered inflection and it was odd to feel a wave of empathy after the flat, factual statement, but Rebecca felt its loneliness in her gut.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “There is no need to iterate. You have done nothing wrong,” it said.

  “It isn’t guilt that made me apologize— not an iteration. It’s sympathy. I feel badly because of your distress,” she explained.

  “Then perhaps I should iterate?”

  A wry smile twisted from her at the misunderstanding. “No— never mind, I’ll explain it later. I need to know what you and the colony decided, I think the Wolfinger—” she paused. What if she were wrong about Issk’ath’s intents for them? What if it secretly meant harm? “I need to know your decision,” she concluded, opting to keep Alice’s plan to herself for the moment.

  “The colony agrees that we should aid you. Our departure will likely be for a limited time, and we have never seen the sky. And your people fascinate them. They think helping you thrive here might be an appropriate atonement.”

  “And you? Will this make you happy?”

  “I am appreciative of your concern, Emery. Yes, joining you would be optimal for me as well.”

  “The others— my others, are hesitant about you. They think you mean harm to them. Or to our families.”

  “It is a logical belief. We know little about each other. I, too, have reservations. But if I do not join you, your people will still come to this place. They will find me again. A season, a hundred seasons, I will still be here, unchanged. I wish to change. I wish to acquire new data. And if your people do not accept me, they will spend valuable time trying to acquire data that I have already accumulated. Your records indicate this glitch— the Spindling, makes efficiency a priority. We need each other.”

  “Yes,” agreed Rebecca, “bu
t we may have to convince the others. We should return to the Wolfinger. I believe the captain may have shortened the time until we take off.”

  “I— we are ready,” said Issk’ath and led her back toward the ramp.

  Rebecca tried the feed again, hoping the open hole above them would make the signal stronger, but gave up after a few attempts. She had a chilling idea that perhaps they weren’t answering because they’d already left. She tried to concentrate on her footing and the growing light instead of her worry. Issk’ath glided along behind her. She tried the feed again, the audio stuttering between silence and bursts of white noise in her ear. Something sat in the middle of the narrow ramp ahead. It was still too far to make out what it was, but she knew it hadn’t been there before. A box? A case? Rebecca froze.

  “Are you in distress, Emery? Your interior system sounds more rapid than usual.”

  Had Titov and Stratton used all of the explosives in the isolation chamber or had there been more? Rebecca couldn’t remember. She wasn’t even sure she’d known in the first place. They wouldn’t trap her down here, would they? Spixworth wouldn’t let them. Alice— she’d thought Alice wouldn’t let them, but now she wasn’t so sure. She hurried forward and Issk’ath gamboled after.

  It was Spixworth’s sample case. She sagged with relief. He must have put it down to catch up with Alice. She laughed and shook her head. Of course, they hadn’t intended to blow up the nest while she was inside.

  “What is it, Emery?” asked Issk’ath.

  “I thought— it doesn’t matter. Let’s just get back to the others.” She picked up the case and fiddled with the feed again, taking a step forward. She lurched sideways as the ground crumbled beneath her.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Al Jahi paced beside the Wolfinger, kicking up plumes of loose dust around the ladder. It coated her in a dull coppery crust, catching in the creases of her suit. She frowned at her shoes. No matter. It’ll come off in decontamination, she thought. She could hear the buggy but not see it yet. Oxwell was coming down the nearby rise into the small bowl where the Wolfinger sat. Al Jahi shaded her eyes with her hand, peering behind Oxwell. A second, five seconds, two minutes. Oxwell reached her. “Where are Spixworth and Emery?” asked Al Jahi.