The Legacy of Earth (Mandate Book 2)

by J. S. Harbour

  “As have I,” Chase said.

  “I’d like to know what happened to it—or him, I suppose, though I have a hard time thinking of a robot as a man.”

  “Decatur explained it one time, how choosing a gender was deemed helpful when talking with humans—and I quote—‘to help naturally and permanently bigoted humans relate.’ ”

  “I’ve heard it said that Decatur was a new race,” Jack said. “How does that work? I was only aware of the one person.”

  “I’m afraid I have just a lay understanding myself. Dan can explain better. But, as I understand it, there are two . . . ways of looking at it. Decatur learned to reproduce itself by duplication, copying its mind to another robot, which then began to evolve on its own and diverge from the original. And, secondly, the individual is made up of many smaller beings—or parts—of itself. The personality we know of as Decatur is what happens when all of those parts work together. That’s the best I can do.”

  “Makes sense,” Jack said. “I think I understand what you’re getting at. But the question remains: where did they go? All of the parts and the copies.”

  “Good question,” Chase said. “He never was very forthcoming about his contact with the Tau Cetians. Dan said he could tell a change had taken place, but the rest of us wouldn’t have noticed. Dan would, of course.”

  “Sure, the designer would know if something was off kilter,” Jack said. “But, years went by with massive productivity, gigantic-scale construction projects. Then, that one day, bam!—he’s gone, not a word, not a trace! That never sat right with me. And that’s my polite turn of the phrase.”

  “You and me both,” Chase added. “And other folks. We need to build another ship, Jack. For just this reason—to go find out what’s going on. We’ve been in the dark too long, building this colony and making ourselves feel safe.”

  “Good idea. What ever happened to Judy and her people? And the ship with those who’d changed their minds? Should’ve gotten some kind of confirmation of arrival. That also doesn’t sit right with me. What the hell is wrong with radios? Isn’t that a fallback?”

  Chase shrugged.

  “We’ll get to the bottom of it. It’s been a . . . well, a lot of work. Decatur really made a mess abandoning us without a word. We relied on his automation, and he left nothing behind, not even an old partial or non-sentient VI to take over. It’s like—”

  “Like what?” Jack said, looking at him with weary eyes.

  “Like he was taken against his will.”

  Jack shuddered. “My first thought was very human—traitorous son of a bitch. But, it’s not human, of course. No such emotions.”

  “Not necessarily,” Chase said.

  “Eh?”

  “How do I put it? Decatur was human, at a certain level. He called his kind children of Earth, a sibling race, not a descendant or creation of man.”

  “That’s an odd thing to say about your creator,” Jack said gruffly.

  “According to Dan, who has studied Decaturian philosophy, they credit us with planting a grass seed that evolved into a redwood forest. Anyway, I’ve got some things to put into motion. What will you be doing next?”

  “Who, me? I’m sure there’s some way to get myself into trouble yet. I’d like to visit the Ring, see what folks have been up to there. Haven’t been there since the frame was built.”

  Chase looked up automatically but the dome was opaque—as it had been since they’d arrived. He smiled at himself. “I’ll be heading up myself to figure out if we can use the shipyard again.”

  “Without the AI?” Jack asked.

  “Right.”

  “I’ll go with you. Let me know when you’re heading out.”

  Chase nodded, finished his drink, and then left.

  Chapter 9

  Boot Camp

  Boot camp has been a piece of cake. These drill instructors need to take it up a notch—not that I’m going to drop a note in the comment box. The training was designed for organic humans.

  I kept my mouth shut unless required to hooyah or yessir at the right moment and kept my mind on Lena. Training was intense and I zenned through it all. In the zone, as they used to say. My body performed, muscles learned, and I was sort of along for the ride. I don’t take any credit, personally, for coasting through the training. My body had no problems with the physical requirements, and my mind was stable enough to handle the emotional dismemberment. I’m not entirely sure, though, whether I’ve been sufficiently detached from my ego to take orders the way they expect. I just said what I thought they wanted to hear . . . most of the time.

  I’m in love with Lena. I know that now.

  I can’t explain it. I’ve been with a few girls. Was even married at nineteen—like nearly everyone my age. Then divorced a year later—also like everyone. But Lena is a rare gem. Diamonds are boring. Seriously. Multi-faceted glass. Lena is a scarlet emerald. That’s not just boot camp talking. I’m not just horny.

  I am, but, not just.

  There’s something about her . . . an instinctive attraction that seems to be operating under its own rules, without me. She turns me on so easily, and not just physically. A shy glance from across the room. A harmless text message. I know, getting deep here, but basic is almost over and I’m thinking about her more and more as the final day draws near. There’s something spiritual about how I feel about her.

  I know: stupid, crazy, hormones talking.

  I feel like a teenager again, plus going through the dichotomy of resenting and loving my parents. Boot camp brought that out in me, reminding me hourly that I resent the genetic gas attack that made me smarter, stronger, and faster. But that also made most of my brothers-in-arms impotent. These guys joke about sex as if it’s expected, but there’s no passion in their braggadocio. I can tell that their hearts are not into it, that it’s a learned behavior. Going through the motions. Not what I was expecting. These men are tame.

  There are six women in my barracks, one giving me the eye. I could have shagged her, plenty of opportunities even in this crowded place. Plenty of invitation, too. Probably should have. Almost did one morning when she jumped on me as soon as we were alone. I have no real commitment to Lena, by her choice. That wasn’t holding me back. I just can’t be with any other girl with Lena on my mind.

  That was the theory, anyway. But after two months, my walls were crumbling.

  There’s another woman in the platoon who kept to herself most of the time. I had shit duty one morning after reveille. I was just about done washing up. (After cleaning the head we’re allowed another shower). I came out of the showers wearing a towel around my waist when she came in. She was shy and looked surprised. I don’t think we had ever spoken.

  She kicked off her boots and unzipped her onesie, shimmied it down and stepped out of it, while I tried to focus on the contents of my locker. Then she put on white shorts and work shoes to match her t-shirt. We never wear our uniforms for head duty. Don’t want to have to wash it.

  “Garner, is it?”

  “Yeah. And you’re Milnes?” I asked but I already knew.

  She nodded, pulling out the cleaning supplies from a locker. “Guess we both got shit duty today, Garner.”

  “Call me Dallas.”

  She nodded, looked at me with a sideways glance. “Stephanie.”

  “Yeah, but I kind of like it. The quiet, that is. Hardly ever get to be alone,” I said.

  She seemed to freeze in place. I looked at her, thought she was about to be sick or something. “You okay, Milnes? Stephanie?”

  She turned her head to look at me, then looked back down at the bench as if unsure what to do. I was politely waiting for her to leave before I got dressed.

  Instead of leaving, she set the supplies on the bench, then turned toward me, yanked off her t-shirt with a quick stroke of one hand and approached, wearing only shorts and shoes.

  My mouth fell open. She was lean, muscled, but still curvy in the right places. She was breathing heav
ily as she stopped in front of me, looking into my eyes. Her hand went under my towel and her smirk turned into a wide smile. I looked down at her perky breasts, then closed my eyes and sighed at her touch.

  She sat on the bench in front of me and pulled off the towel.

  I didn’t want this. I loved Lena. Thought of no one else, despite her refusal to commit. But, Milnes looked up at me, and passion drop-kicked my convictions. The light caught her eyes—dark blue-gray like a carrier hull. A gentle breeze tussled her regulation-length hair—black as a midnight sea.

  Lena?

  I didn’t stop Milnes. I was too anxious, though.

  Sometimes you just gotta stop thinking and go with the flow, Brad used to say.

  But I also didn’t want to get drummed out. There was nothing I hated more than being caught doing something . . . iffy . . . without a damned good alibi.

  “Always have an alibi,” my brother Howie used to say when we were doing something likely to get us into trouble. When he was getting me into trouble, that is. I was a good kid.

  Right now, I was in a most precarious position with a fellow . . . seagirl. Nothing to fear from another recruit, but what if an officer walked in?

  We needed to relocate to the head. The women’s head. Perfect alibi.

  I gently held Milnes’s hands and gestured for her to stand, then kissed her deeply and sensuously and grabbed my towel.

  “Oh, shit, grab your t-shirt!” I said, yanking her back, and she squealed. “Oh, and the cleaning supplies!”

  “What, are you gonna help me now?” and she giggled.

  I just about dragged her into the showers and finished what she’d started. There’s just nothing like it under a hot shower. Except maybe a hot tub. . . .

  Wasn’t that every teenage boy’s dream? To sneak into the girls’ locker room after gym class and have sex with the cutest girl in the class?

  Well, it was my fantasy. Might be only me and the few like me who have such thoughts anymore, aside from organic men.

  Today, I didn’t need to fantasize and we didn’t need that alibi.

  Fraternization is basically illegal. But, unofficially, it’s seldom enforced because it’s good for morale and it’s rare, too. As long as both parties are discrete, charges are never levied. If they get out of hand—get caught one time too many—they’ll be told in no uncertain terms to end it. But, as long as one is careful. . . .

  The thing is, when you’ve got a platoon of eighteen-to-twenty-year-old recruits, you—that is, the Sarge, or the military in general—becomes a parent figure. We’re having sex. Better to manage it than drop something like the wrath of God on our heads. Why do you think women make up such a large population of the military today?

  My thoughts were all over the place in lineup, shifting from Lena to Stephanie to home.

  “. . . mu’fucking fool? What, you got a hearing problem, Garner?”

  The sound of my name snapped me immediately to attention. Random recruits let out muffled snorts and giggles. That was unusual this late in the training. The drill sergeant came up, nose-to-nose with me, awaiting an answer.

  Shit. I was totally spaced out.

  “Sorry, sir!”

  “Sir, what, maggot-face?”

  “Sir, Master Sergeant Beckett, sir!”

  “Good, you’re paying attention to something at least.”

  Sure, I paid attention, including knowing that he was a Marine, not Navy, strictly speaking. Would I bring that up? Absolutely not.

  He even had a cigar and chewed on it—I kid you not. I don’t believe he ever lit it up, though. The Sarge was a small, lean, white man, all gristle, five-feet-six, about a buck forty. His size lent itself well to his talent at intimidation. You wouldn’t think so from a small man, but have you ever been attacked by a rooster? I pissed off a Rhode Island Red keeping watch over his ladies one time. Trust me, you’ve got a serious situation on your hands there. They go for the eyes!

  Sarge was that kind of intensity. I’ve seen him take down a recruit—during unarmed combat training—with a full foot and fifty-pound disadvantage, and the other guy went down like a big stuffed bear. Made him cry uncle like a dumbass. He looks at you sideways or in any way other than straight in your eyes, you’re dead meat. I learned to spot that look. The rooster will watch you just like that, and there’s no warning! Sarge was looking straight into my eyes so I didn’t worry too much.

  But, I did take one-point-five seconds longer to answer than I should have, so I found myself on the ground doing fifty. When I returned to parade attention, he was nose-to-nose with me and said, “Did that fifty shake loose the goddamned answer I’m looking for, Garner?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Spill it, mu’fucker!”

  I had indeed given it some thought. “Sir, you are not a m—motherfucking fool, sir!”

  “Who is, then?”

  “I am, sir!”

  “Bullshit! Give me fifty more for lying!”

  I immediately dropped. While my arms were beginning to feel like iron, he continued. (By the way, I like that tortured feeling. Reminds me of Lena stripping, seductively, and not letting me touch her.)

  “If you are the biggest mu’fucker to enter my courtyard”—he said, and then paused to kneel down beside me to better yell into my ears—“then I’ve shared your mom with you and I refuse to accept that possibility. No sir, not from a no-good little shit like you. I know that look. You think I don’t know that look? Your mom . . . I’ve been there, and she loved it. Begged for more. I know you aren’t capable of pleasing a real woman . . . not even the woman who brought you into the world. But that’s beside the point, mister! Your mom is an officer and a lady! So tell me how in the goddamned hell you are her son?”

  He ranted on and on while I tuned him out and kept going.

  Every pushup was a delightful thrust into Lena as I gazed into her eyes, which slightly rolled back into her head. (I barely heard the Sarge’s rant as if from a distance; it sounded like an epic). As I counted into the forties, Lena lifted her head, squeezed her thighs tightly. Like a snowball rolling downhill, her passion grew, reached a peak, and then—poof—she sighed. I finished at forty-eight, forty-nine, fiftyyyyy. Then, panting, I quickly stood at attention again with a big stupid grin on my face.

  The Sarge squinted in anger as he stared me down. The sweat also seemed appropriate to the effort. “Goddammit, Garner! What the fuck are you smiling about now? Haven’t you had enough?”

  I shouted my answer back, still reeling from the image of Lena’s sweaty body burned into my mind’s eye.

  “Fuckin’ hooyah, sir! Nooo, sirrr!”

  He had no idea what I meant, so he just scowled as if tempted to make me drop for fifty more, then changed his mind. Possibly worried that I was channeling the spirit of Chuck Norris (one of his heroes, which we were reminded of daily). Either that or I’d gone Section 8 on him.

  Some of the assembled laughed then quickly stopped before the Sarge caught them. I caught Stephanie’s eye and she blushed.

  Hmm, so there’s something more there than just . . . hormones. She’s cute and fun. Got that girl-next-door thing going on.

  It had happened so fast I was still trying to process . . . us. What were we now? I think I understood that look on her face, though it was ten yards away. I was her plaything, and she was mine. A midnight snack.

  Sarge wiped the spittle off his face with the back of his hand. “This ain’t the fuckin’ Marines, boy! Did you get in the wrong line at enlistment? I guarantee it, if you manage to not well and truly piss me off, and by some miracle, I deem you worthy to wear a uniform—which does not look promising at this point—then you’ll get your chance to piss off a whole platoon of jarheads at sea.”

  I wanted to shout back, Sir, no I won’t, sir! I’m going into space, sir! but didn’t dare press my luck. The mere thought made me stand straighter just in case the Sarge could read minds. I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  Then the S
arge nodded, shaking a finger at me while walking away, holding my gaze for a second. “Did you hear that, swabbies? I didn’t quite catch that. What did he say?”

  For a split second, I had to check my memory. Had I said it out loud after all?

  “Fuckin’ hooyah, sir!” the platoon said in unison. Mostly in unison.

  “Fucking hooyah,” the Sarge said, deadpan. “I like that, Garner. Turning your pain into action. All of you! Pay attention! You learn that, and you might live through your first tour of duty. The world has become a shitty place to live, boys and girls. The United States of America has lost a city! A goddamned city wiped off the map! That’s two cities lost in as many decades. Makes me want to personally kick some ass. But I’ll turn around that anger and . . . say what?”

  “Fuckin’ hooyah!” we all shouted. I mouthed it since I was still reeling from my passionate separation of mind and body. And Stephanie? Holy shit did I have a good imagination. My lust for her was masochistic, but she wasn’t the type. I would have begged to please her, denying myself, over and over again. But I made her squirm. I gave her mind-bending pleasure. I had torqued her chassis like a V8 on juice.

  I can now go to war and die without regret.

  I shook my head. I heard my old friend, Brad, say: Damn, dude—snap out of it!

  I got back in the lineup. When the Sarge was facing away, I looked over my shoulder at Stephanie again, with about twelve other recruits between us. From my peripheral vision, I could see her smiling, looking straight ahead. I looked her up and down thoroughly. Scandalously. Saw her eyes go a bit wider while she continued to stare straight ahead.

  I knew that look. She was guilty as hell and almost wanted to get caught!

  Lena was right. No fear. No guilt. No lies. No stress. No pain. No heartbreak. No problems.

  No commitment. That’s what hurt the most.

  I think, every once in a while, I get nutty from being here. The hard work burns the crazy about of me, though. That same crazy that’s been with me since adolescence. Since my body mutinied and began sailing in its own direction.