The Android's Dream

by John Scalzi

  “Your orders, Captain,” Picks said.

  “Secure that breach and launch the lifepods,” Lehane said. “But delay launching Creek’s until I tell you.”

  “Breach secured,” Picks said. “Launching pods now.”

  Lifepods engirdled the Neverland like strings of pearls, each pod set in something akin to a magazine for a gun. When a lifepod is activated, it is pushed into space by electromagnetic repulsion, after which its tiny directional engines kick in, tweaking the descent of the lifepod toward its assigned beacon or location. As soon as one launches, a second is hauled up to the airlock door to allow another set of passengers to load in. The process is efficient and surprisingly quick; a new pod moves up to the airlock door in as little as five seconds after the last one clears. There were 144 lifepods on board, more than enough for passengers and crew. Except for today, when they were all being launched with only two passengers to share between them. Lehane hoped to God he knew what he was doing.

  Around the ship Picks launched one lifepod after another, far more rapidly than usual because there was no wait for passengers. Lehane counted 40, 50, 60 pods popped into space.

  “Launch Creek’s pod,” Lehane said.

  “Launched,” Picks said, a moment later.

  “Keep launching the pods. All of them,” Lehane said.

  “Sir, the Nidu ship is hailing us,” said Susan Weiss, the Neverland’s communications technician. “They’re demanding we stop launching lifepods and asking for the whereabouts of their marines.”

  “Ignore them,” Lehane said. Too many pods were out there now. There was no way they could shoot them all down before one of them got clear of the communications jam and broadcast its distress beacon. The Nidu couldn’t blow up the Neverland now, not without risking open war and censure. Lehane felt okay with pissing on them a little bit.

  “The Nidu are firing,” Picks said, and switched his video feed to one of Lehane’s monitors.

  “At us?” Lehane asked.

  “Not yet,” Picks said. “It looks like they’re going after the pods.”

  Lehane watched as rockets flared silently from the Nidu gunship, followed a few seconds later by erupting flashes as the rockets hit their marks.

  Come on Creek, Lehane thought. Make it through.

  “Holy shit,” Picks said, staring at his monitor.

  “What is it?” Lehane said.

  Picks looked up at his captain with a wide-open grin. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said, and sent the feed to Lehane.

  Lehane looked down at his monitor again. Picks was right. He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.

  It was a UNE naval destroyer, about three times the size of the Nidu gunship.

  “Here comes the cavalry,” Lehane said.

  Creek felt himself yanked forward as the lifepod finally launched. Robin cried out in a mixture of terror, surprise, and gratitude. The last few minutes had been extremely noisy and mysterious; after the grenades there had been an immense grinding sound, followed by muffled shouting, followed by a bang and what sounded like a tornado, followed by complete and total silence and then their pod pushing away from the Neverland. Creek had had more enervating slices of time in his life, those two days on the Plain of Pajmhi among them, but these last minutes were definitely in the top five.

  Creek unbuckled from his seat and floated to the porthole in the sudden zero gravity. Out the porthole Creek could see a vacuum door on the Promenade Deck where a window used to be.

  “That son of a bitch,” Creek said, with admiration. “He shot them into space.” If he made it out of this alive, he was definitely going to buy Lehane a drink.

  The lifepod engines kicked on; Creek hauled himself back into his seat until they stopped firing. Once they had, Creek unlatched again and went back to the portal.

  “What do you see?” Robin said.

  “Lifepods coming off the Neverland,” Creek said. “Lots of them. Do you want to look?”

  “I don’t think so,” Robin said. “This zero gravity thing is not so good for my stomach.”

  Creek noticed a flash of light on the periphery of the porthole and then another closer to the center. “Uh-oh,” he said.

  “What?” Robin asked.

  “I think the Nidu are firing on the lifepods,” Creek said.

  “Of course they are,” Robin said. “We’re still alive, Harry. That just won’t do.” There was a bitter edge to her voice that Creek felt was entirely justified at this point.

  Another flash, much closer now, and then another. And then another, less than a kilometer away.

  “Maybe I will take a look,” Robin said, and tugged on her belt straps. “Sitting here isn’t helping my stomach any.”

  “You might want to stay in your seat,” Creek said.

  “Why?” Robin asked.

  Creek was about to answer when something large took over a significant chunk of the porthole field of view.

  “Never mind what I just said,” Creek said. “You’re definitely going to want to see this.”

  Robin unhooked and swam her way to the porthole. “What am I looking at?” She asked.

  “The very large UNE ship,” Creek said, pointing. “Right there. And just in time.”

  “What do you mean, ‘just in time’?” Robin said. “It would be ‘just in time’ if we were still on the Neverland. As far as I’m concerned, they’re a little late.”

  “Trust me,” Creek said, and looked out the porthole again to see if there were any more flashes, which signified exploding lifepods. There weren’t. “They’re just in time.”

  The lifepod suddenly shook violently.

  “What was that?” Robin said.

  “Atmosphere,” Creek said. “We’re on our way to the Chagfun surface. Time to strap in, Robin. This next part’s going to get bumpy.”

  chapter 15

  In one of those coincidences that would be ridiculous if they weren’t entirely true, Creek and Robin’s lifepod launched from the Neverland at almost precisely the moment the time limit for the auf-Getag clan to begin the coronation ceremony expired. What followed next was a power grab so quick, so balletic in its balance, grace, and speed that the Medicis, the Borgias, and all their equivalents across time and space, had they the knowledge, would have risen from their graves to provide its mastermind with a standing ovation.

  At the time of the expiration plus some infinitesimal fraction of a second, the Nidu computer system deployed the instruction set enacted when no heir from the current clan on the throne ascends in time. The power of supreme access, previously locked in trust for the presumptive auf-Getag heir, was now dissolved and major functions of the Nidu political administrations apportioned to the ministers and generals who made up the highest level of the Nidu government. From this second until a challenger successfully assumed the throne, no single Nidu was in charge of the entire government.

  At time plus two minutes (to use human time measurements), Ghad-auf-Getag, Supreme Commander of Nidu Military and uncle to the previously presumptive but now merely potential heir to the throne Hubu-auf-Getag, found his head being yanked backward to expose his throat. For the two minutes previous, Ghad-auf-Getag had sole administrative control of the Nidu military, without oversight from the Nidu Fehen—because there was none. Ghad-auf-Getag had not used those two minutes particularly well; for their entire span he been squatting above a Nidu toilet trough, expelling the remains of the previous day’s lunch.

  This left him particularly vulnerable to attack when his two bodyguards entered his lavatory and drew their knives—ceremonial knives Ghad-auf-Getag had presented both a year previously as a token of ten Nidu years (roughly fifteen Earth years) of loyal and devoted service. Both bodyguards had been promised colonial regional governorships by Narf-win-Getag; both had decided that Narf-win-Getag’s offer beat a nice knife. One of those knives was stuck in Ghad-auf-Getag’s throat; a few seconds later the second cut him from wai
st to mid-chest.

  Ghad-auf-Getag’s bodyguards were brutally efficient in dispatching their master; by t-plus three minutes and thirty seconds all of Ghad-auf-Getag’s brain activity had ceased, triggering the implant he like all high-level government officials carried in his body to transmit the fact of his death to the Nidu computer network.

  With the death of Ghad-auf-Getag, the administrative powers he controlled were instantaneously and automatically portioned off to his immediate subordinates, the chiefs of staff of the respective arms of the Nidu military—except for the control of Nidu’s Glar-classs destroyers, which Ghad-auf-Getag and the previous Fehen Wej-auf-Getag believed was too important to be left to a mere chief of staff. Ghad-auf-Getag kept control of the Glar destroyers himself and cut them out of the chain of command. And so, when he collapsed to the tiles of his lavatory, bled out, control of the Glar destroyers devolved directly to their individual commanders.

  Six of whom Narf-win-Getag had been able to buy.

  At t-plus five minutes—and in a truly remarkable bit of synchronization—both the the Lud-Cho-Getag and the Jubb-Gah-Getag, the two Glar destroyers UNE Defense had been tracking from the start, emerged in Earth space in an unauthorized and unscheduled appearance and immediately warmed up their weapons. UNE Defense commanders had been briefed on the possibility of the appearance of the two cruisers and the further possibility—probability—that they would not be stopping by for a friendly spot of tea. What they were not told to expect was that the two ships would appear in Earth space within thirty seconds of each other, a bit of coordination that was an unheard-of feat of planning and power distribution to n-space engines, considering that the ships had come from entirely different limbs of known space, and were known to have entered n-space at nearly exactly the same time. The appearance of both simultaneously gave Earth defense planners no time to counter.

  Bob Pope was awakened from a dead sleep by his new temporary assistant Thomas Gervis; he in turn woke up President Webster. Webster held off attacking the destroyers, partly to keep from losing UNE Defense ships unnecessarily but also because until he heard otherwise Nidu was still an ally. The unbidden and unscheduled arrival of the destroyers was not enough to breach treaties. If the UNE moved to attack it would be the aggressor and the breaker of treaties. There was nothing to do but wait.

  The commanders of the Lud and the Jubb were both bought off years before with their choice of planetary colony governorships. The captain of the Lud picked Hynn, one of the newer colonies, rich in natural resources and anecdotally believed to be the home of some of the most attractive Nidu females in the entire nation; a perennially popular Nidu folk tune that expressed a belief to that effect had a close cousin in Earth’s equally perennially popular folk tune “California Girls.” The captain of the Jubb had lost two dearly beloved siblings in the uprisings on Chagfun; he chose that colony to rule and was already constructing intricate revenge fantasies against its entire population.

  Narf-win-Getag had had no problem convincing Ghad-auf-Getag and Hubu-auf-Getag to dispatch the Lud and the Jubb to Earth space; the two had already been convinced by the apparent assassination of Lars-win-Getag that the Earth government was acting against their (and therefore Nidu’s) best interests and the further unfolding of events suggested it would have to be dealt with as soon as possible after the coronation ceremony. What had been far more difficult had been to convince the two to do what was coming up next.

  At t-plus 12 minutes four Glar destroyers (with two future colonial governors, one future Supreme Commander of Nidu Military, and one future very, very rich retired captain among them) popped into existence over Nidu itself, joining the two Glar destroyers already on station in Nidu orbit. All four arrived within 20 seconds of each other—a feat one order of magnitude more impressive than the synchronized arrival at Earth—two each in positions flanking the two Glar cruisers already in orbit.

  This had been Narf-win-Getag’s improvisational masterstroke, and like many masterful improvisations, it was based on years of backstory. Narf-win-Getag knew that two of the Glar captains could not be purchased—they were nephews of Ghad-auf-Getag and cousins of Hubu-auf-Getag. Rather than buy them, he bought those around them, not to assassinate the cousins but to implicate them in a deep and subtle conspiracy against Hubu-auf-Getag that would come to light at a time of Narf-win-Getag’s choosing.

  At the appropriate moment (which eventually turned out to be just after the UNE began the search that would turn up Robin Baker) a trusted and apparently unimpeachable third party—who, in a refreshing change of pace for Narf-win-Getag was not bought but blackmailed—would come forward and present evidence that the cousins meant to prevent the coronation and use their destroyers to force a coup. This third party would then suggest recalling the four remaining Glar cruisers as a preventative measure.

  The third party: Chaa-auf-Getag, brother of Ghad-auf-Getag, uncle to Hubu-auf-Getag, and father to the Glar destroyer captains in question. Who really ought to have known that a fetish for xenosexuality—the desire to have sex with sentient races not your own—would one day catch up with him in a culture as caste-ridden and implicitly racist and xenophobic as the Nidu.

  No matter how shamed Chaa-auf-Getag would be if his alienfucking ways were discovered, there would be no way he’d countenance the actual murder of his own children. Which is why Narf-win-Getag never bothered to explain to him what would happen at t-plus 15 minutes, when the four destroyers opened fire on the destroyers captained by his sons.

  The two destroyers were of course entirely unprepared for the attack—and yet survived the first barrage, heavily damaged but largely intact, a testament to their Hamgp makers’ superior shipbuilding skills. But even advanced Hamgp craftsmanship couldn’t survive the impact of a Nidu planet cracker bomb, one of which hit each of the stricken destroyers as the sole weapons in a second wave of attack. The destroyers each disintegrated in the wake of a shaped blast designed to rip into the skin of a living world, leaving nothing but metallic vapor and a pair of explosive jets expanding conically away from the planet of Nidu.

  It would have killed Chaa-auf-Getag to know he had been used to condemn his sons to death. So it was just as well that at t-plus six minutes, Chaa-auf-Getag’s trusted personal servant of nearly two decades stuck a large-gauge shotgun into Chaa-auf-Getag’s exceptionally surprised face and calmly pulled the trigger. This was another instance where Narf-win-Getag didn’t have to make a payout or promise; the personal servant, a Nidu of extreme conservative personal inclinations, saw it as an opportunity to express his opinion about Chaa-auf-Getag’s need to stick his penile array into places, people, and species it ought not have been. Having expressed the opinion, the personal servant then turned the shotgun on himself; his personal inclinations being conservative as they were, it was the only option that would suffice for a disloyal servant.

  At t-plus 20 minutes Hubu-auf-Getag received a recorded message from Narf-win-Getag, briefly outlining the events of the last several minutes and informing the former future leader of the Nidu that he already had Robin Baker, or would have soon, and when he arrived at Nidu with her in two days time, it would be Narf-win-Getag, not Hubu-auf-Getag, who would use her to ascend the throne of Nidu. And if Hubu-auf-Getag didn’t like it, he was free to eat a planet cracker bomb from one of the four Glar cruisers that floated above Nidu, all of which—as well as the two orbiting Earth—were under Narf-win-Getag’s control.

  In another one of those coincidences, at the very moment Narf-win-Getag’s message to Hubu-auf-Getag stopped playing, leaving Hubu-auf-Getag to fathom how this all could have happened, the lifepod carrying Creek and Robin Baker scraped across the surface of Chagfun, grinding to a stop less than a kilometer from the communication outpost on the Pajmhi plain.

  And so it was that in 20 minutes, Narf-win-Getag found himself in effective control of two entire planets. It was almost certainly the fastest double coup in the history of the Common Confederation—which, even in a
n obscure historical category such as “double coup,” was an impressive feat. All that was left now was to make it official. All that was left was to get Robin Baker and take her to Nidu.

  Robin Baker looked at around at the hard, black, rocky expanse she and Creek stood on. “So this is where you fought,” she said.

  “This is it,” Creek said. He winced as he pulled another small fragment of his communicator from his leg, then swabbed the wound with the disinfectant from the pod’s first aid kit, which had been placed along with a small store of water and emergency rations in a small sealed compartment under the pod floor.

  “It didn’t look like this, though,” Robin said.

  Creek looked around. “No,” he said. “It used to be a lot nicer. Well, as much as any battleground can be ‘nice.’ When I was here I wasn’t getting a lot of time to sightsee.”

  “I guess not,” Robin said.

  “I’ll tell you, though,” Creek said, as he wrapped gauze around his leg. “One time in the two days I was here everything just stopped—rifles stopped firing, people stopped moving, and everything just became quiet, and it was like everyone had just stopped to take a breath or something. And for that moment, you could look around and see what a beautiful place the plain was, when it wasn’t filled with people killing and dying. And I wished I had been able to see the place when it was at peace.”

  “It’s at peace now,” Robin said.

  “If you want to call being buried under a lava flow at peace,” Creek said. He stood up and walked on his leg.

  “How does that feel?” Robin asked.

  “Like there are a couple of pieces still in there,” Creek said.

  “Ouch,” Robin said.

  “Better plastic fragments in my leg than a bullet,” Creek said. “They’ll eventually work themselves out. Anyway, now that my communicator is shot—literally—we’re going to have to make the hike to that communications center Leff was talking about.”