The Android's Dream

by John Scalzi

  “That not what my parents told me,” Robin said. “They said she was homeless and died giving birth to me.”

  “I don’t think they knew the details,” Creek said. “But she did die giving birth to you.”

  Robin grabbed the edge of the sink and collapsed onto the toilet, sobbing. Creek went over to her and held her.

  There was a knock on the bathroom door. Fixer poked his head in. “Everything all right?” He said.

  “Everything’s fine,” Creek said. “It’s just been a busy day.”

  “We’re not done being busy,” Fixer said. “We need to get those pictures taken, so I can make your passports. Are you ready?”

  “A couple more minutes,” Creek said.

  “No,” Robin said, and grabbed onto the sink again, this time to pull herself up. “We’re ready. We’re ready now.”

  “Okay,” Fixer said, and looked at her hair. “After we take these pictures, I’ve got a hat you can use.” He left.

  “There goes his tip,” Robin said, and smiled weakly at Creek.

  “You okay, then?” Creek asked.

  “Oh, sure,” Robin said. “Today, people have tried to kill me, the police are looking for me, and I’ve just discovered every Easter of my childhood, I ate one of my relatives with mint jelly. I’m just fine.”

  “Well, the Android’s Dream is a very rare breed,” Creek said.

  “So?” Robin said.

  “So they probably weren’t close relatives,” Creek said.

  Robin stared at up at Creek for a few seconds. Then she laughed.

  Where’s Chuckie? Fixer thought as he fell backward down his basement stairs. Where the hell is my dog?

  Fixer was worried about his dog because when he opened the door of the basement into the ground floor of his shop, there were two men and a very large thing waiting for him on the other side. This simply shouldn’t have been; Chuckie was an Akita, and while the breed was silent enough near family or friends, they bark like mad when strangers invade their personal turf. Chuckie was so good at alerting Fixer to people in the store that for the last five years Fixer hadn’t bothered with a door alarm; there was no need. Fixer had been in the basement, loudly destroying incriminating evidence and preparing for his departure, so he may not have heard Chuckie bark when people came into the store. But Chuckie wouldn’t have stopped barking until Fixer heard him, came up the stairs, and told him to settle down. Ergo, something was wrong with Chuckie.

  Fixer would have asked the men in the store about it at the top of the stairs, but the one closest to him punched him viciously in the face, staggering Fixer backward and down the stairs. All thoughts of his dog left Fixer’s mind as his head connected with the concrete floor at the bottom of the stair with a retinawhitening crack; when Fixer recovered his eyesight, the man who had slugged him was standing over him, gun in his face. The man looked like hell.

  “Where’s my dog?” Fixer asked.

  The man cracked a lopsided grin. “Well, isn’t that sweet,” he said. “Takk!”

  A high-pitched voice responded from the top of the stairs, out of Fixer’s sightline. “Yeah?”

  “Give the man his dog,” the man said.

  About 30 seconds later Chuckie came tumbling down the stairs, landing with a thump next to his master. His tongue, purplish-black, lolled from the side of his mouth. Fixer reached over to stroke Chuckie’s fur; it was damp and matted.

  “Oh, Chuckie,” Fixer said.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said the man. “Very fucking sad. Now get up.”

  Fixer got up. “What do you want?”

  “You had a couple of visitors today,” the man said. “I want to know where they went.”

  “I have a lot of visitors,” Fixer said. “I have a very successful repair shop.”

  The man took his gun off Fixer and fired at Chuckie, mashing brains and the top of the dog’s skull into the stairwell.

  “Jesus Christ!” Fixer said, and held his ears. “What did you do that for?”

  “Because you’re pissing me off,” the man said. “And just because your dog’s dead doesn’t mean I can’t make a mess with his fucking corpse. So let’s stop being coy, if you don’t mind, and we can all get through this with a minimum of drama. What do you say?”

  Takk wedged his monstrous body into the doorframe at the top of the stairs. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Everything is fine,” the man said. “Come down here, Takk, and tell the geek to get his ass down here, too. He’s got work to do.”

  Takk called back to the other guy and started walking down the stairs. Fixer gaped at him. The man holding a gun at him grinned. “He’s a big one, isn’t he,” the man said. “He’s a Nagch, and you wouldn’t know it, but he’s kind of runty for his species. But he’s big enough for what I need him for.”

  “What do you need him for?” Fixed asked.

  “For starters, to beat the crap out of people who piss me off by not answering my questions,” the man said.

  Takk came down off the stairs and stood next to Fixer, which to Fixer felt vaguely like standing next to a Kodiak bear.

  “Hi,” Takk said. His voice came, not from a mouth—the Nagch didn’t appear to have one—but from a diaphragmlike patch where his neck joined his body.

  “Hello,” Fixer said.

  Another human came down the stairs. “There’s nothing in the computer upstairs,” this other human said. “It’s connected to a network but the only thing on it is invoices and business-related files. Are there computers down here?”

  The man with the gun turned to Fixer. “Well?” he said. Fixer gestured in the direction of his computers and machines, which he’d already covered up. “Get to it, geek,” the man said.

  “He’s not going to find anything,” Fixer said. “I don’t keep records of anything I do down here.”

  “Well, I appreciate the heads-up,” the man said, “but he’s going to give it the old college try anyway. Now. Back to our two friends. A man and a woman. I have it on good authority they were here.”

  “They were here,” Fixer said.

  “Excellent,” the man said, and smiled. “See? Now we’re getting somewhere. What did you do for them?”

  “I gave them new identities and got them passage off the planet,” Fixer said. “They apparently had some sort of run-in at the Arlington Mall that required a quick exit. You know anything about that?”

  “Fucker broke my wrist,” the man said, and Fixer was suddenly aware the man had indeed slugged him with his left hand and was holding the gun in the same hand.

  “Looks like he broke your nose, too,” Fixer said.

  “Thanks for the diagnosis, asshole,” the man said. “Where are they now?”

  Before Fixer could answer the other human came up to the gunman. “There’s nothing here. The computer’s wiped and the memory’s been reformatted. Whatever was there is gone for good.”

  “I told you,” Fixer said.

  “Shut up,” the gunman said. “It doesn’t matter. I specialize in extracting information the old-fashioned way, anyway. Tell me what I want to know, or I kill you. So: Where are my two friends now?”

  Fixer smiled. “You know what,” Fixer said. “I know you. I work for the Malloy family. I see your type in here all the time. They come in for me to fix them up, or help them hide, or whatever. And after I’m done with them, every single one of them would kill me just because I saw them. The only thing that kept me alive was the fact that the Malloy family would have killed them for killing me. You don’t work for the Malloy family. You’re not going to leave me alive. And you killed my dog. So fuck you. I’m not telling you anything else. Shoot me and get it over with.”

  The gunman looked to the sky, arms imploring. “Jesus. What is it with people today? I can’t catch a goddamn break. Everybody wants to do things the hard way. Fine. Have it your way. But you’re wrong about one thing. I’m not going to shoot you.”

  “What are you going to do?” Fix
er asked.

  “Just you wait,” the man said. “Takk. Show the man.”

  Takk reached out, grabbed Fixer, and spun him around. “I want to say I’m sorry about your dog. I didn’t want to kill him. He just kind of rushed at me. I wanted you to know.”

  “Thanks,” Fixer said.

  “Don’t mention it,” Takk said, and split himself open, revealing the immense digestive cavity that allowed Nagch males to consume prey nearly as large as themselves. Fixer was not nearly as large as Takk; there was more than enough room for him. From inside Takk, elastic appendages with thousands of tiny hooks lashed out and adhered themselves to Fixer’s body and neck before he could think to move away. In one violent jerk Fixer was yanked into the digestive cavity. Fixer had a quick image of a few mats of Charlie’s fur stuck on the inside of Takk’s chest before Takk closed up around him and Fixer was enveloped in darkness.

  In less than a second, the digestive cavity constricted around Fixer like a glove and began to squeeze. Fixer felt the air involuntarily crushed from his lungs; he struggled to move but was sealed in tight. Across the flesh covered by the appendages that had yanked him in and were still wrapped around him, Fixer felt burning; the appendages had begun secreting hydrochloric acid to begin the digestive process. Fixer was being eaten. In the (very) small part of his brain that was still somewhat rational, Fixer had to admit it was a pretty elegant way to get rid of a body.

  There was a muffled, percussive sound—muffled because Fixer heard it through Takk’s body. Takk cracked open and Fixer found himself dumped on the floor of his basement. Fixer gasped air, vomited, and became dimly aware of the presence of several new people in his basement, shouting and fighting with the three that had already been there. He looked up in time to see one of the new people jamming some sort of wand into the abdomen of the computer geek, who was already one the floor. Then Fixer was grabbed, hauled up the stairs and out of his shop, and thrown into a waiting van. The van filled up with other people and then peeled away.

  “Mr. Young,” someone said to him. “How are you feeling?”

  “Gaaaaah,” Fixer said.

  “That sounds about right,” the man said.

  “Someone just tried to eat me,” Fixer said.

  “We got in the way of that, I think,” the man said. “Once we came through the door, it threw you up. You must have been too heavy to let it fight. It’s behind you now. You’re safe.”

  Fixer peered up at him. “All right, I’ll bite. Who are you?”

  The man held out his hand. “Bishop Francis Hamn, of the Church of the Evolved Lamb. And you, my friend, are in the middle of a very interesting theological development.”

  “Passports,” the cruise line attendant said. Creek and Robin handed them over, and then placed their hands on the DNA scanners molded into the ticket counter. The attendant opened the passports and then looked back to Creek.

  “You’re Mr. Hiroki Toshima,” the attendant said.

  “That’s right,” Creek said.

  “Really,” the attendant said.

  “Adopted,” Creek said. “Trust me. I get that all the time.”

  The attendant glanced down at the monitor; green lights on both passengers. The DNA matched the passports. He shrugged; Mr. Toshima it was, then. “Well, Mr. Toshima and Ms.”—the attendant looked down at Robin’s passport—“Washington, welcome to the Neverland cruise liner, and our special memorial cruise. In addition to our usual ports of call of Caledonia, Brjnn, Vwanchin, and Phoenix, we’ll also be making special visits to Roosevelt Station, off Melbourne Colony, and Chagfun. There will be special observances and tours available at both stops.”

  Creek looked up at the attendant. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you say Chagfun?”

  “Yes sir. It’s all here in the itinerary.” The attendant handed them back their passports along with brochures and boarding passes. “The shuttle to the Neverland is just about to leave out of gate C23. I’ll let them know you’re coming, but if you could make a jog of it, I know our shuttle captain will be grateful. Enjoy your trip.”

  About 15 minutes into the ascent, Robin tapped Creek on the shoulder. “You’ve had your nose in that brochure since we got on the shuttle,” she said. “What’s in there that’s so interesting?”

  “Fixer said that this cruise was a special cruise for veterans,” Creek said, and handed over the brochure. “But it’s not just for any veterans. Look. One of our stops is Chagfun. It’s the site of one of the biggest battles UNE forces ever fought in. The Battle of Pajmhi.”

  “Okay,” Robin said. “So? Are we the wrong age for this cruise?”

  “No,” Creek said. “We’re exactly the right age. Or at least I am. I was at Pajmhi, Robin. I was there. This is a cruise for vets of that battle.”

  chapter 10

  Around the Common Confederation, the Nidu were not taken especially seriously as a military power. There are 617 officially recognized nations within the CC—a “nation” being understood as a sentient species’ home world and its various approved and recognized colonies. (There were no CC nations with more than one sentient species. In a world with more than one sentient species, one species would wipe out the other or others long before it developed starfaring technology—no exceptions ever recorded.) Of these 617 officially recognized nations, Nidu currently ranked 488th in terms of power of military projection.

  This ranking becomes even less impressive when one remembers that 60 nations of the Common Confederation field no military at all, for various reasons including economics, moral philosophy, and in the case of the Chawuna Arkan, a religious requirement to be rapturously passive in the face of extraplanetary invasion. Nidu’s relatively woeful ability to wage war stemmed from an indifferent national economy of limited productiveness due to an entrenched but tremendously inefficient caste system, underperforming colonies, a lackluster history of technological innovation, and a military of questionable competence that had been defeated in seven of its last eight major engagements, and “won” the eighth on what most military historians considered a particularly shameful technicality.

  Be that as it may, were the Nidu inclined to threaten the Earth and its colonies, it would stand an excellent chance of doing real damage. As lowly as the Nidu were in the rankings, Earth was ranked even lower: 530th, and only ranked that high because the Fru had recently lost their flagship Yannwenn when its navigational crew, used to working in native Fru measurements, inputted incorrect coordinates into the Yannwenn’s new navigational computers, which used CC standard measurements. It popped into n-space and was gone forever, or for the 3,400 years it would take to reach the position within the Horologium Supercluster where it would eventually resurface. Which was close enough to forever for everyone on the Yannwenn.

  It wasn’t that humans were terribly incompetent warmakers or that they lacked technical or economic drive. However, as a provision of joining the CC, the Earth government (which due to the realities of global power at the time meant the government of the United States speaking for the Earth with the rest of the planet screaming its collective head off in righteous and well-deserved outrage) agreed to field only a token extraterrestrial military force in exchange for protection by a coalition of CC nations, primary among them being the Nidu, during the Earth’s probationary membership period. That period ended 40 years ago; since that time, Earth had largely relied on mutual-protection treaties with allies (again most prominently the Nidu) to cover its ass while building up its forces.

  Given another 20 years, Earth would easily equal the Nidu in terms of military power, and 20 years after that would be well in the middle ranks of the CC’s militaries. Here and now, however, it was playing a game of catch-up.

  One thing the Earth lacked, for example, was a military ship that came close to the power of a Nidu Glar-class destroyer, the destroyer which was almost entirely responsible for whatever military power ranking the Nidu possessed. The Glar-class destroyer was a superior warship for its size an
d relatively modest cost—possibly because it was designed and built not by the Nidu but by the Hamgp, ranked 21st in military effectiveness and renowned across the CC for their ship design—and Nidu had spent a significant amount of its gross domestic product to get eight of them.

  If a Glar-class destroyer showed up on Earth’s doorstep and decided to make trouble, there was very little the Earth could do to stop it. Anything short of relativistic speed missiles or projectile weapons would be blasted away by the cruiser’s defense network; beam weapons would be effective for only the short period of time it took the cruiser’s offensive weapons to hone in on the source and destroy it.

  As for the Earth’s own fleet of ships, military analysts once ran a series of simulations to see how long Earth’s naval flagship, The UNES John Paul Jones, would last in a slog-out with a Glar-class destroyer. The good news was that in one simulation, the Jones lasted sixteen whole minutes. The bad news was that simulation assumed a random and near complete power loss on the destroyer. Given the Hamgp love of multiple redundant systems in the ships they designed, this was not a likely scenario.

  One Glar destroyer would be bad; two would be a nightmare. Two of the destroyers working in concert could flatten most of the populated areas between New York and Boston in a few hours, or in even less time if one of the destroyers was carrying a “planet cracker,” Nidu’s signature weapon of mass destruction: a shaped-energy charge designed to crack the crust of a planet to release the pressurized, molten rock underneath. After all, there’s no need to build in expensive, planet-maiming amounts of destructive power when a little physics and a reasonably accurate map of the crust of a tectonically active planet will do the work for you.

  Less than an hour after the cruise ship Neverland broke Earth orbit, carrying Creek and Robin toward Caledonia colony, the two Glar-class destroyers the UNE Defense department had been tracking also broke orbit in near simultaneous departures: The Lud-Cho-Getag from Dreaden, Nidu’s oldest colony planet, and the Jubb-Gah-Getag, the latest and most advanced Glar-class destroyer, from frozen Inspir, the Nidu colony closest to Earth. These two ships of the line accelerated out from their planets’ gravity wells to a place where space-time was just flat enough for the n-drive to get its grip. Then with a quantum heave, both destroyers popped out of real space, into the largely theoretical soup of n-space, untrackable, their destinations unknowable.