by C. Gockel
“It’s more accurate to say we have hardware that isn’t innately compatible,” Carl mused silently.
A new presence entered Volka’s consciousness—Lieutenant Dixon, her new lieutenant. Dixon was looking at FET12, seeing the android’s discomfort and thinking about his kid-nephew on Mars, and how he’d coaxed the kid into riding one of the enormously tall two-humped camels that ranged over the red planet’s deserts. “Looking good, Kid,” Dixon said, putting his hand on FET12’s shoulder before Volka could stop him.
FET12 shrunk under his hand, and Dixon withdrew quickly. His eyes met Volka’s, and even without telepathy should have been able to read the surprise, shock, and guilt there.
“Just give us a minute,” Volka said to him.
Nodding, Dixon said, “We’re ready to go when you are,” and walked toward Sundancer.
As soon as Dixon was out of earshot, Volka said, “Every member of the new team has been telepathically scanned. None of them will hurt you, FET12.”
“And if they tried, we would kill them,” Carl added.
FET12’s mouth gaped. “That would be wrong.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Volka and Carl said in unison.
“You can’t do that. It … would be …” FET12 bit his lip. “A disproportionate response.”
Volka’s and Carl’s gazes slid to one another.
Privately, she thought, “I would rip out their throats.”
“Not before I removed their eyeballs,” thought Carl. Turning back to FET12, the werfle lied through his pointed little teeth. “If you say so.”
“Mmmm …” said Volka and smiled beatifically.
FET12 sighed in seeming relief. “Good—” His eyes became blank. The din of voices in the hangar abruptly went silent. Volka didn’t need anyone to translate; she heard the ethernet broadcast that was distracting everyone in her mind. The council of New Grande would not be releasing the Infected to the Dark.
Around her, she heard the thoughts of the new crews, and they were without exception filled with approval. At the same time, she heard the thoughts of Marines she’d been serving with. Stratos echoed her thoughts, “They could have bought time by pretending to consider it.” Rhinehart’s thought was, “Shit.” Young’s thoughts were the most disturbing. He’d been an engineer in his civilian life, and his mind was filled with numbers and calculations of all the devastation that could befall the city. Volka had thought of New Grande’s canyon as a haven from the cold of the planet above. Young saw it for what it was: a death trap. A sufficient blast would ricochet from the canyon’s walls, wreaking more havoc than it could on a plain.
Her heart sank. “What do we do?” she whispered to Carl.
The little werfle’s shoulders fell. He projected into her mind the sky above New Grande cluttered with hovers and ships. “We keep to our mission. The admiral was right; we’d get in the way … and what we’re doing, it will help other systems.”
A sense of dread swept over her from the Skimmers. They’d read their humans’ thoughts and drawn their own conclusions. They believed New Grande was doomed. Sundancer’s feelings percolated through their thoughts to Volka. Sundancer had thought she was doomed after the Dark had infected her in System 33, but Volka had saved her—with Alaric’s help. There was always hope.
Volka smiled at her ship across the hangar, but her smile melted, thinking of the danger. She felt like she was watching a tragedy unfold in slow motion, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She swallowed. Sixty was in the middle of it. One more tragedy she couldn’t change.
6T9 walked through the hallway of a midrise apartment building in New Grande. An alarm in the elevator shaft was beeping intermittently. Davies was beside him, Mao on his shoulder. Twenty sex ‘bots were behind them, and just behind them were Fleet medical personnel. The emergency lighting was on, though it wasn’t needed. At the far end of the hallway, a portion of the wall was missing, flooding the hallway with the orange light of the setting sun. 6T9 was tuned into the building’s local ether where a Fleet captain’s voice was repeating, “Please remain in your units until Fleet personnel arrive. You will be given the option to evacuate at that time. No evacuees will be accepted aboard without escort.”
Deployed to help the evacuation on the ground, 6T9’s team was sweeping through buildings one-by-one. This was the last floor they needed to patrol of this building. 6T9 reached a unit midway down the hall, and heard Mao’s thought, “There is a newly Infected within.”
Pointing at the unit’s door, 6T9 held up a single finger and then pinched his fingers in the air to say, “a little Infected.” Davies nodded, gently lifted the cat from his shoulder, and set her on the floor. Sitting with her tiny body pressed to the wall, Mao licked her shoulder agitatedly and blinked up at the sergeant.
Stepping to the door, 6T9 knocked. He heard light footsteps within. Whoever was behind the door couldn’t weigh more than 59 kg. A baby cried. 6T9’s circuits flickered. A woman’s voice came from within. “You’re with Fleet?”
“Yes, ma’am,” 6T9 replied.
The door opened, revealing a woman with long, untidy hair. She had dark circles under her eyes, and she wore loose, casual clothing. A baby blanket was draped over one shoulder. In her arms she cradled an infant. There was a tiny red gash on the baby’s forehead. It was shorter than 6T9’s pinky finger and hairline thin.
6T9’s circuits went dark.
Davies cleared his throat. “Ma’am, are you alone?”
The infant fussed, and she gently rocked it. “Yes, for now, but my husband will be here soon. He was at the office—they were told to remain until the fighting stopped. We want to leave. I’ve packed our bags.”
6T9’s eyes dropped to her feet. Each refugee was only allowed a single bag. The woman had packed three.
The woman’s eyes flicked between Davies and 6T9.
Mao hissed and said what 6T9 feared. “It’s in the larva. The mother hasn’t contracted it yet.”
The baby yawned, revealing a mouth without teeth. On the baby’s hands were tiny pink fingerless mittens. The mittens matched her rosy cheeks. Her brown eyes were bright and healthy. 6T9 released a breath. He didn’t want it to be true. It couldn’t be true. “Ma’am, did you leave your home during the invasion?”
“Only because I needed formula! I wasn’t trying to break the law. It wasn’t the law. They have no right to make a law like that! You can’t keep me off the evacuation ship for that.”
“We cannot take infectees,” 6T9 said slowly. “Your child is Infected. You must—”
“No.” The woman’s face crumpled.
“She is,” 6T9 whispered. “You must take her to the hospital.”
“No.” The woman covered up the scratch on the baby’s face with her hand, as though it would erase 6T9’s memories. “No, you’re wrong.”
“We can help you get to the hospital,” 6T9 said.
The door slammed in his face. 6T9 took a step back. His eyes went to Davies. The man’s normally stoic features were drawn, and his shoulders slumped.
6T9 imagined breaking down the door, separating the infant from her mother, and sending the mother to the waiting ship. “I can’t do anything?”
Davies’s eyes dropped to the floor. “No, sir. Can’t take a baby from her mother.”
“We are possibly killing the mother,” 6T9 said. His circuits fired. Would he have had to take the baby from the mother before his programming changed? Or would preservation of her free will have won out? It wasn’t certain death she was facing, just likely infection. If he hadn’t changed his programming, he wouldn’t have had a choice.
“It would be wrong,” Davies muttered.
6T9 shook his head and signaled to the sex ‘bots behind him to approach. They didn’t have Q-comms, so he kept his instructions simple. “Check the ID of anyone who attempts to enter. Admit only those whose address is this unit. If they go in, they may not exit without escort to the hospital. The woman and infant within may only leave
with police or military escort to the hospital.”
One of the HandsomeMan ‘bots raised his hand. “If they try to leave, may we restrain them?”
“Yes.”
The HandsomeMan clapped his hands and pumped his fist in the air. A RussianDoll bounced on her feet, almost spilling her décolletage out of her dress. “Oh, oh, oh! I hope they try! I hope they try!”
They were completely oblivious. 6T9 wasn’t surprised, but he was still … oddly … disappointed.
His ethernet crackled, and Michael’s voice came on. “Sixty—sir, we’ve got at least a half-dozen Infected holed up here. They are armed.”
A picture of Michael’s location filled his mind. “We’re coming. Calling for Falade and Lang for backup.”
Quickly informing Fleet of his plan, aloud he said to Davies, “Come on, we’ve got potential active shooters to clean up,” and gestured for him to follow him to the nearby stairs.
“Rather that, than this,” Davies said, falling into step with 6T9.
6T9’s circuits flashed. He was in complete agreement.
Mao meowed and launched herself from 6T9’s arm onto Davies’s shoulder. “Damn it, Cat,” the sergeant grumbled but didn’t knock it off.
Taking the stairs two at a time, 6T9 switched to New Grande’s public ethernet channel. The mayor’s voice crackled through the ether. 6T9 stumbled at his words. Davies steadied him. “Sir?”
“The counsel has declared that the rumor that they will be offering New Grande civilians as hostages to the Dark is a vicious lie.” They’d taken 6T9’s warning, omitted details, and twisted it around and backward. “They’ll never give them up.”
He slammed through the fire door that led from the stairs to the street.
Davies had been privy to 6T9’s concerns and had agreed with him, but he only frowned slightly now. “That’s too bad, sir.”
6T9 stared at him, circuits misfiring. “What do we do?”
Davies shrugged. “What we were planning to do anyway. Get as many people as we can out.” He lifted his hand up as though to rip Mao from his shoulders, but instead just held his hand for the kitten to rub her head against. It shook ever so slightly. Davies’s eyes went to the canyon walls, only a few hundred meters away on either side at this location. “And hope we can get out before this place turns to hell.”
The Galacticans had made Alaric a nearly perfect replica of his Dress Greens. He was sure in holos and photographs they would be indistinguishable from the real thing. But the fabric had a slight sheen, related to its stain resistance, he’d been told. It also felt lighter—the textile engineers said it was more breathable. The most disconcerting things about the whole get up were the boots. They were more comfortable than he was used to, and they had a stiff poly material beneath the pleather of the toe he’d been assured was stronger and better than steel; it wouldn’t get too hot or too cold. But what was really disconcerting was how silently he could move in them. Crossing the flagstone floor of the Sinclair family retreat in Scotland, he moved so silently he felt invisible, like one of the home’s ghosts.
As he entered a room darkened with the late evening shadows, the motion must have triggered an electric eye because warm, yet tastefully dim lighting came on overhead. He found himself held in the photographic gazes of Sinclairs from the 1900s to the present day. The oldest photos featured people with skin, hair, and eyes as light and strikingly European as Sinclair’s own. Gradually, the features of the people in the pictures became more Afro Eurasian. And then, near the end, there was a photo of someone who looked, incongruously, like those Sinclairs of old and very much like a younger version of Sinclair himself. He wasn’t Sinclair obviously, and none of the other people in the photos were biologically related to the android, but they had adopted him.
Alaric paused at the end of the line. With so much history, it was easy to feel safe. The home was older than any of the photos. It had survived plagues, two world wars, the upheavals at the beginning of the true space age, and right into what Sinclair and Alaric had dubbed the “cyborgopocene.” After today, he felt that it might survive the race that built it. He snapped his hands behind his back. He was being maudlin. His ego was bruised, that was all. He took a deep breath … Or maybe it was the damp of Scotland. The smell of it clung to the house’s old stones. It made him think of the Dark; the weere swore it smelled of death and decay. Solomon had insisted the place was clean—Alaric was just smelling “old house smell” that he was not accustomed to because nothing manmade on Luddeccea was this old.
From where he stood, he saw a light on in the library, heard the crackle of flames, and smelled woodsmoke. Sinclair had gone off to check on the estate’s horses—horses, of all things ridiculous and expensive! The boys, he could tell by sound alone, were asleep, worn out, probably from the excitement of riding on the beasts and chasing sheep through abandoned castles. He might have some time alone with Alexis.
Following the smoke and light, Alaric found himself staring over Alexis’s shoulder as she sat reading in a high-backed chair, facing a fire that crackled in a well-tended hearth. A chandelier of flickering flames hung above. He could have almost stumbled into a scene from the house’s ancient past, except that a tiny robot was tending the fire, and although that fire was real, the chandelier’s flames were holograms. There was a werfle sleeping on Alexis’s lap, and she was reading a digital tablet. What she was reading put a curious lightness in Alaric’s chest. It was the letters to her he’d deleted. On the trip to Machu Picchu, Alaric had confessed his desire to get a souvenir for his wife. Sinclair had suggested the letters he’d deleted would be more personal than any trinket, and Intelligence had them on file if he’d like them. Alaric had known the files would be preserved, but he’d been surprised that Sinclair had mentioned it so freely. He’d told Sinclair he was a horrible spy but accepted the offer. Sinclair had been married for over a hundred years; his opinion had to count for something.
From Alexis’s choice of reading material, Sinclair might have been right. She hadn’t noticed him, and Alaric suddenly felt like a voyeur, an interloper, toward his own wife. She was still, after everything, a stranger. He felt more comfortable in an android’s company. She wasn’t like Volka, who was so easy to know—
Cutting off that thought, he cleared his throat. Alexis put down her tablet and turned toward him. Solomon bolted upright on her lap and squeaked.
Lifting a hand, Alaric said, “You don’t have to—”
But she was already up, slipping Solomon into a pocket. “How did it—?”
Something in his demeanor must have given him away because her shoulders fell. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
Alaric wiped his eyes. “As am I.” He’d played dress up to visit System 5’s representative in New York and offer the assistance of three Luddeccean Net-drive LCS. Although such a number of ships was few, the tactical advantages of having faster-than-light vessels defending the system would have been immense. He’d been waved away. They had enough Fleet, with more reinforcements on the way, according to the representative.
Alexis pulled Solomon from her pocket. “Solomon tells me that the council of New Grande will not be giving the Infected from that city to the Dark. I thought that a good thing—but he says no?”
Alaric cocked an eyebrow at the tiny werfle, now aggressively rubbing his head against Alexis’s fingers. Alaric had informed Alexis of the tiny creature’s inhabitation by an alien species. She hadn’t been terribly alarmed, though Alaric couldn’t say if it was natural self-possession on Alexis’s part, maternal feeling to the creature in its current juvenile state, or a gentle mental nudge from the creature. “He is correct.”
Rolling onto his back, Solomon sighed, “Of course I am.” Alexis tickled his stomach, and he purred. She looked up at Alaric, expression expectant.
“The Dark needs labor to build faster-than-light ships. If it can’t have that—”
“Of course.” Alexis closed her eyes. “It will attempt to destroy the cit
y, if not the whole planet. What it cannot have, it burns. Couldn’t they have stalled?”
Alaric shook his head. He didn’t understand the Galacticans. They were so advanced and yet emotionally primitive. They were so hopelessly … open, like children. On an individual level, he found it refreshing. He enjoyed his time with Sinclair and the android’s seeming inability to play the part of ubiquitous yet deceptive minder. However, he worried it would destroy the Republic, and if the Republic fell, so would Luddeccea.
Solomon squeaked abruptly, drawing Alaric’s attention. Rising on his hind legs, he signed, “We should not worry about things we have no control over. Alexis has exciting news!”
Alexis blushed. “It’s nothing.”
Solomon hissed. “No, it’s not. Tell him.”
Smiling weakly, Alexis said, “I’ve been asked to give a lecture at St. Andrews about The People and their culture.”
Solomon answered his unspoken question. “It’s a very old, prestigious university.”
“Do you want to do it?” Alaric asked carefully.
Alexis’s gaze fluttered around the room.
Closing the space between them, he said, “I can chase after the boys while you prepare.”
Alexis looked up at him doubtfully.
“I have nothing better to do,” Alaric said.
Alexis put a hand timidly on his stomach. He had the curious sensation of feeling pressure of her fingers against his skin, and more pressure beneath as her touch compressed the layers of muscle and sinew against the artificial scaffolding still holding him together.
“Are you sure? With your girdle on?” She bit her lip, and he saw the ghost of a smile.
He’d called it that—so she had an excuse to call it that. He wouldn’t have minded anyway. Still, she had a point. “I’ll send Sinclair to chase after them. I’ll supervise.”
Alexis’s smile dropped, and her gaze shifted to the fire. Did she not approve of Sinclair?
“Alexis?” Alaric probed.