by Dana Fredsti
“Was,” he replied.
“What did you say?”
“Was a good, decent man. Though as I said, your ship’s computer knows very well who I am.” He gestured toward the taciturn soldier standing at his side. “And believe me, this is indeed your Mr. Blake. Although in his case, such exemplary cooperation is the result of some… sophisticated chemical enhancement.” He reached behind his chair and pulled out a slim military-looking leather case.
“You asked me why I killed Amber and her young friend. That was not my first choice. I was prepared to offer her the same proposition I am about to make to you. Sadly, through her actions, my hands were tied. She made her own choice.” He shook his head, his mouth set in a pretense of sad disapproval—a politician’s frown, Nellie thought. “They became liabilities, so I sealed them outside and commenced a takeoff.” A satisfied smile replaced his frown. “They fell away like mites off an eagle’s back.”
Nellie could only listen in stricken silence as the equally dumbstruck Harcourt quivered in his chair. Mehta held up the case again.
“As for your doctor? It came down to numbers. I had only one ampule of my serum left, and Mr. Blake was the better asset. But, now…” His gaze flicked back and forth between his two prisoners. “Now, I have no serum left. So. What are we to do with you two?”
“Merciful God,” Harcourt croaked out.
“You have what you want.” Nellie fought to keep her voice steady. “Just let us go.”
“The truth is,” Mehta got to his feet and stood looking down at Nellie, “even if I still possessed it, I would prefer not to employ the serum on a woman of your charms. It is one thing to have a robot servant, quite another to have a robot companion.”
“Concubine, you mean!”
“Would you prefer corpse?”
“I’d never play the whore for a murderous blackguard like you,” Nellie spat. “Yes, I’d gladly prefer to die.”
“Ah, so we have your answer.” He shrugged. “I can’t deny that I’m disappointed, but I’ll respect your wishes to the letter. Still, I wonder if there is anything that might cause you to change your mind?” He turned and looked up toward the ceiling again.
“Computer? Have we arrived at the proper altitude?”
“We have successfully descended to ten thousand feet.”
“Splendid.” Securing the med kit by its strap around his neck, Mehta reached over to pluck the professor’s hat off his head. “Professor—Harcourt, is it? Mr. Blake, escort the good professor to the door, and let’s conduct our first aerodynamics experiment.”
Grabbing Harcourt from the chair, Blake pulled him to his feet and shoved the professor down the central hall, toward the main entry hatch.
“Come along,” Mehta said to Nellie, strong-arming her to her feet.
“No! Wait! No,” the professor wailed all the way down the hall. His usual eloquence had deserted him, along with any remaining shreds of dignity.
“My safety protocols require me to caution you against proceeding with this course of action.”
“So noted,” Doctor-Colonel Mehta nodded. “Now open the outer door.” The hatch slid free with a rush of wind. Blake shoved Harcourt down on his knees, bending his head toward the waiting ocean of air.
“No!” Harcourt howled over the rushing wind. “I don’t want to die! I choose to serve you!”
“I don’t recall making any such offer,” Mehta called back. “Toss him out, Blake.” Blake hauled the professor up by his wrists. Nellie screamed.
“Wait!” Harcourt kicked and squirmed. “I can help you! I can!”
Mehta rolled his eyes. “That’s what they all say, isn’t it? Let’s get on with it, Blake.”
Nellie watched in horror as Blake wrestled the professor’s legs together with one arm and gripped his handcuffed wrists with the other, reducing his victim to a bundle he could easily toss outside. He swung the sobbing man backward to do just that.
“Serum!” Harcourt screamed. “The serum!”
“Wait!” Mehta snapped.
Blake paused.
“What about the serum?” Mehta asked, suspicious but curious.
“I know how you can create more!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Pull me back in!”
“Tell me first.”
“Kill me, and you’ll never know!”
Mehta pursed his lips, and waved Blake back. “Computer, close the door.”
Nellie sagged against her captor as the AI obeyed, and Blake dumped the professor unceremoniously to the floor, where he struggled to his knees. Mehta handed Nellie to Blake and knelt down to Harcourt’s eye level.
“Now, Professor,” he said gently, “can you tell me why we shouldn’t open the door again and finish the job?”
The professor nodded vigorously, gasping for breath.
“Y-Yes! Your serum. The ship can synthesize any number of chemicals, even whole devices, most anything you desire.”
Mehta seemed impressed. “Is that a fact? Wonderful! What else can the ship do?”
“Oh! It has a marvelous device that enables an amazing facility for languages—hundreds of them!”
“Indeed? I will certainly look into that. Is there anything else?”
The professor stammered, struggling to come up with further information, but nothing more was forthcoming.
“I’m—I’m sure there’s more I can provide—”
Mehta shushed him. “Not at all. This is all very useful information, Professor. In fact, it sounds as if you’ve told me everything you can.” The professor nodded hopefully. Mehta leaned in, adding gently, “So there doesn’t seem to be any purpose to having you remain with us any longer.”
Harcourt’s face collapsed as he realized his fatal mistake. Nellie spoke up, her voice quiet but firm.
“Please, spare him.”
Mehta smiled, and set the professor’s hat back on his head.
“Of course.” He turned to Blake. “Take our guests back to the commons. We have some time before we reach our destination, and so many new things to try in the meantime.”
“Our destination?” Nellie asked. “Where are you taking us?”
They arrived back in the common area, and Mehta ushered her to the window, pointing ahead of them.
“Look there,” he said, “do you see it?”
At the edge of her vision, she could just make out a brilliant light on the horizon, like a star fallen to earth.
“Yes. What is it?”
“That is where we shall start to build our empire.”
17
The Veldt Shard, North Africa
Late Afternoon – Six days after the Event
Amber and Cam began with a look at the survival gear the Vanuatu had provided in the hoverbike’s saddlebags. They pulled out wide-brimmed ranger hats, Arabian-style desert scarves, polarized goggles, and ponchos. Below that was a pair of filter canteens, a first aid kit, and other small cases, bundles, and tools.
Then she found a familiar burgundy backpack.
“Thank you, Ship,” she said, hugging it to her chest.
“You’re welcome, Ms. Richardson.”
Cam’s attention was drawn to two long knives—more like short swords—nestled in belt scabbards, and a pair of strange-looking pistols. The barrels were long and almost looked like elongated pepper shakers. He unsheathed one of the blades and held it up, viewing with open amazement before stepping back to try a few trial swings.
“This blade is unmatched!” he exclaimed. “It’s heft so light, like a lark on the wing, like a song, like sunlight in morning mist… but the iron!” He lifted the second blade and struck them together with a ringing impact. “Stronger than the steel of far off Pandyan!”
Amber glanced at him in surprise. She had never heard him say so much, let alone wax so poetic.
“Amber, look,” he continued. “An edge so fine I wager it could slice through chain mail like clover!”
“Tha
t is literally true,” the ship said. “ I advise caution. The edge is exceptionally sharp.”
“Wondrous!” Cam gave another trial swing. “Did you enchant this?”
“The cutting edge is a microscopic coating of plasma-sharpened synthetic diamond dust only a few nanometers thick. This provides the additional benefit of staying sharp one thousand times longer than a normal metal blade.”
“An enchanted diamond blade…” Cam stared at it in quiet awe for a few seconds, then kicked his makeshift bone daggers into the savannah.
Shaking her head with amusement, Amber reached into the saddlebag and pulled out one of the odd pistols. On closer inspection, it looked like a miniature Gatling gun.
“These are interesting—what are they? Signal flares?”
“My protocols for firearms fabrication are quite restrictive. However, these repeating crossbows should prove useful for hunting and self-defense.”
“Holy shit!” Amber viewed it with the same awe Cam had showed his new blade. “Are you kidding? Cam, check this out. That’s awesome!”
“Their capacity is nine six-inch titanium bolts. You’ll find additional clips just underneath the holsters.”
“Never give up, never surrender,” she murmured. Just a few minutes earlier, all had seemed lost. Now Amber felt ready to tackle anything. The two suited up and armed themselves. Amber looked at the hovercycle. She had never ridden a motorcycle before, but knew the theory. How much different can it be from riding a bicycle? This was basically the same thing, wasn’t it?
“Um, Ship? Can you talk us through this?”
“And quickly,” Cam added. He gave a nod to where, off in the distance, several large hyenas were eyeing them with disturbing interest.
“Of course. I think you’ll find it very intuitive. Twist the right handgrip to accelerate, twist the left to decelerate. The controls are sensitive, so gentle adjustments are recommended. However, the internal sensors will help prevent over-compensation. It is recommended that you forego navigating over liquid surfaces until you acquire sufficient proficiency.”
She looked at Cam, mentally laying out her arguments to convince him why she should be the one to drive. Before she could try any of them, he turned to her.
“You should be charioteer,” he said. “You are wiser than I am with these devices.”
Pleasantly taken aback, Amber said, “Sure—I mean, if you don’t mind riding backseat.”
“That would be best,” he said. “If the need be, I can fight better from that position.”
She smiled at his straightforward, no-filter communication. For a macho barbarian, he sure is cool about most things.
“Well, okay then.”
Amber slipped into the driver’s seat, and Cam hopped on behind her without a qualm. She was acutely aware of every point where their bodies connected, his knees squeezing her legs, his hips against her back. The Vanuatu’s spherical little avatar took up position at a comfortable distance above her shoulder.
“Thank you, Ship.”
“Ms. Richardson?”
“Just call me Amber, okay?”
“Amber… One last thing. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission.”
“You’re very funny, HAL.” She turned to Cam. “Here goes nothing.” She gave the right handlebar a twist, and just like that, the bike went forward with a soft hum, the rover following off to their left. Cam let out a war-whoop as they sped off.
Amber had never felt so badass in her life.
* * *
They set off along the shore of the lake. The ship gave additional instructions as needed, and Amber’s confidence grew. Riding through the veldt shard was like a VIP tour through a prehistoric wild animal safari park, albeit one with animals that were oddly familiar, yet not quite right. It felt to Amber as though much of the local fauna had been re-imagined by Dr. Seuss, and then super-sized.
The hovercycle startled a herd of grazing animals that weren’t quite camels or deer, but something in between. A minute later they passed a stalking savannah cat eying rotund little wombat-like mammals. Overhead, exotic and intimidating birds of prey wheeled and dove after insects and small, scurrying rodents.
The sunlight was intense, and she was glad for the hat.
“This place is a food chain in overdrive,” Amber said. “Good thing we’re too big to be on the dinner menu.” She shuddered, remembering the dire wolves that had nearly ripped her to shreds.
“Not for him, I think.” Cam pointed ahead, and she nearly crashed the hovercraft at the sight of the muscular carnivore in front of them. It was monstrous, with cruel, ravenous eyes, and a formidable, angular frame possessing all the most terrifying features of wolf, bear, and sabertooth tiger.
Worse, it had spotted them, too. The prehistoric beast roared a challenge—a blood-curdling sound—and charged straight for them.
“Hold on!” Amber yelled, pulling the bike into a sharp bank to the left.
The beast bounded to cut them off and Cam twisted around to face it. Clinging to Amber with one hand, he drew his crossbow pistol with the other and straightened his arm to take a shot. But he was no marksman. Even at such close range, the leaping grizzly-wolf-cat moved too fast, turning too nimbly for him to get a bead on it. Amber hunkered down and hit the throttle—or whatever passed for one on the bike. The bike shot ahead at full speed and Cam slipped off the back, crashing hard to the ground.
Amber screamed his name and hit the brakes, twisting the bike into a tight bank, as well. The repulsor lifts whined in protest as she managed to whip the hovercycle into a wildly erratic 180º turn, barely managing to stay in her seat.
Cam lay on his back, unmoving. She screamed again as loud as she could and hit the accelerator, gunning straight for the tiger-thing. But the beast was no more than a leap away from him. She wasn’t going to reach him in time.
Cam’s body abruptly vanished.
The wolf-cat thing leapt straight up in the air in shock, looking for all the world like a startled housecat as it thrashed left and right in search of its missing prey. Then Amber drove the cycle straight at the beast’s head. It roared and swiped out at her with a massive taloned paw.
Its claws connected, raking the front of the bike just before the speeding metal frame clipped the thing’s thick skull. The cycle ricocheted off with a lurch. Amber clung on, white-knuckled, again narrowly avoiding being thrown from the rocketing vehicle. She dropped low and leaned in as she threw the whining cycle into another turn, coming around to make a second charge.
The bellowing wolf-cat reared up, the size of a hulking grizzly, a long red gash on its torn and furious face. Amber gunned it again.
Last chance.
Her heart beating like a hammer, she let go of the brake and awkwardly drew the repeater crossbow with her left hand.
They closed on each other fast. Amber rested the pistol on the handlebar and as soon as she thought she was too close to miss, squeezed the trigger. The crossbow’s chamber spun with each shot as its internal latches released in rapid succession, firing off a shower of six-inch titanium bolts at its face. She couldn’t tell if any landed—she was trying too hard to keep from smashing into the beast.
And then it was on her.
The bike and beast collided with a dull thud, its muscular body wrapping around the front of the machine. Then everything came to a crashing halt and the bike bucked her off like a mechanical bull. She took a nosedive into the grassy earth before finally tumbling to a halt, yards away, the wind knocked out of her.
All was heat and silence.
Dazed, Amber lay where she’d landed, slowly taking stock of her limbs. Everything hurt, but she didn’t think she’d broken any bones. A very small part of her was tempted to stay where she was, play dead, and hope the creature wasn’t interested. Then she remembered Cam.
Stifling a groan of pain, Amber pulled herself up to her feet again. Dust and bits of grass clogged her goggles, so she pulled them down for a
better look. The bike was gone. Her hat was gone. Her pistol was MIA, so she drew her short sword from the scabbard strapped to her thigh and crouched down, circling to spot the creature.
A still, shaggy mound lay in the grass. The front end of the hoverbike stuck out at a crazy angle, impaling it. As she drew closer, Amber saw that she had gotten off a lucky shot after all. Only one of her bolts had hit, but it had sunk through the roof of its fearsome mouth and penetrated into its skull. It hadn’t known it was dead when it had roared its last and threw itself into the bike’s path.
She bowed her head with a sharp exhalation of relief, not believing how close she had come to dying twice in a day. Then she snapped her head up again, looking around frantically. Where was Cam? And what happened to him?
The Ship’s rover drone began pinging for her attention, holding position a hundred yards or so away. She sheathed her blade and went running, nearly crying in relief as the rover turned off the large holographic screen it had used to shield Cam’s body.
* * *
Cam blinked at the bright sun as a shadow fell across him. He looked up to find Amber standing over him, the scarf around her neck blowing in the breeze like a banner. To his eyes, she looked like a war goddess.
“You okay?”
He nodded, surprised to find that he was telling the truth. The fall had rattled his bones, but other than a slight headache, he felt fine. Taking the hand Amber proffered, he clambered to his feet, patting his neck to make sure his silver torc was still in place.
“You’re going to fry your neck with that necklace of yours,” Amber said. “Maybe you should take it off for now.” He stared at her as if she had suggested he take off his head.
She heaved an exasperated sigh.
“Fine. We’ll do this instead.” Pulling out his scarf, she tied it underneath the torc. Cam’s frown softened as she smoothed the fabric and adjusted the torc so both lay comfortably against his neck.
Gathering up Amber’s hat and crossbow pistol, they then set to work extricating the battered hoverbike from the prehistoric carnivore. Several parts were twisted at odd angles, but nothing seemed to be missing.
