“Quiet a beauty isn’t she?” Delt says, with what I judge is a mischievous and challenging grin. “Oh, sorry, I meant my old Bush Rebel here.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Wrik says. “As soon as any female is around, you just can’t resist showing off. Can you?”
“I am glad that your reconciliation with Wrik seems to have gone well,” Maauro said, looking over both Delt and his machine with interest.
“Oh, it’s ok,” Delt said. “I let him have one good slug on the jaw and we were over it.”
“Damn near busted my jaw,” I said, rubbing the still tender spot where his fist had caught me.
Maauro’s head swiveled and her eyes locked on Delt’s. “There will be no further slugs on the jaw or anywhere else.”
Red Alert. “Maauro don’t worry—”
“Your girlfriend is cute,” Delt laughed. “I believe she’s ready to take a poke at me on your account.”
Before I could say anything, Maauro stepped forward and lifted the motorcycle up to chest level, with Delt still on it. She looked up at him. “You are correct. And if I take a poke at you, it will go through you.”
“Maauro put him down! I told you things were fine between us.”
“You neglected to mention the slug on the jaw part.”
“It was nothing. Down please.”
She lowered the bike and Delt, who stared at her for a minute. Maauro stared coolly back.
“Piet,” he said swallowing, “why is your girlfriend stronger than a rutting Okaran?”
“Considerably stronger,” she added.
I had to confess that seeing the ever-confident Delt taken down a peg was rather fun. I walked up and placed an arm around her. “You aren’t concerned about keeping our little secret?”
“No,” she replied. “Among our enemies in the Guild and other governments, too much is already known of me for true secrecy. The fiction that we invented to cover my actions on Seddon is thin at best and unlikely to last—”
“It was pretty weak,” I admitted.
“You friend would have realized it shortly. If only because it rained heavily last night and I cannot avoid sinking into the mud and betraying my weight.”
“Actually,” Delt said. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“This is a somewhat long story,” I began.
“No doubt,” he said. “In that case, I’m going to get us some beers.” He got off the bike on the side away from Maauro. “Er, do you drink? You look kinda young.”
“I am 50,133 years old.”
“Well that would be of legal age anywhere in the galaxy,” he said, a dazed expression on his face. “Meet you on the porch.”
“Remember what I said about not using violence on anyone?” I said to Maauro as Delt walked away.
She glared up at me with a mutinous expression. “Remember how you promised me you would stay safe on Sedon and not open fire on the Destroyer?”
“Well, if you are going to throw every little thing back in my face.” My smile told her the remark was not serious, and she seemed mollified.
“There’s something more going on,” I said slowly, studying Maauro.
She nodded. “I find that I have grown weary of the pretense of denying the truth of what I am. You walk under the sun and are what you are. Why should I not do so as well?”
“There are dangers,” I added.
“Unavoidable ones past a point and the truth has value, does it not?”
I put my arm back around her shoulder as we walk to the porch.
“For myself,” I said, “I have found the truth to be like a fine wine, best served to friends and loved ones.”
“Logical,” she said.
Delt waited for us, sitting on the sturdy rail of the porch next to a half-dozen beers in a cooler on a table between two chairs. His face was carefully neutral. I slid into one of the chairs with a sigh. Maauro sat cross-legged on the floor. I handed her a green bottle of Sandhurst ale.
“OK,” he said. “This I have to hear.”
I sat back in my chair and took a deep draft of my ale. Maauro correctly interpreted this as leaving the first part of the tale to her. She sipped from her beer in a more lady-like fashion before beginning.
“I’m an artificial intelligence,” she began, “manufactured by a race that is long gone from space. I call them the Creators, their real name would be a meaningless sound to you. I am primarily an infiltration and anti-personnel unit, Model 7, designed to combat their enemy, the Infestors. I was stranded on an asteroid after a battle over 50,000 years ago. Sometime during that long sleep on the asteroid, I became more than I was made to be.”
“That’s obvious even from a few seconds speaking with you,” Delt said, his eyes wide. “You’re no machine, that’s for sure. You’re alive.”
“Those two things may be less disparate then you believe,” Maauro said. “However I appreciate your sentiment and the acknowledgement that I am a person.” She paused, sipped the beer again and turned back to me.
I drew a deep breath. “I told you before, how I ended up on Kandalor after a trip out in cold sleep. I was looking for a second chance, a place to start my life over. Kandalor turned out to be a poor choice. I fell under the influence of the Guild, at first doing minor jobs for them. Then…” I stopped and swallowed. Maauro reached a hand out and placed it on my thigh, concern on her gentle face. “…then much worse.”
“I could see how that would happen,” Delt said.
“I was chartered for a treasure hunt in the asteroid belt for what we called “Old Empire” relics—”
“That would be me,” Maauro said, giving her bottle a little wiggle.
A quick laugh among the three of us lessened the tension.
“The woman who hired me, turned out to be Confed Intelligence, the mission was a Guild set-up for salvaging an Old Empire base. When we got there, we were betrayed into a Guild ambush. It would have ended there except our arrival reactivated Maauro.”
“After not being maintained for 50,000 years?” Delt said, astonishment on his face. “They built you well.”
“I engaged the Guild before I knew who the sides were,” Maauro added. “In my extremely depleted state, the situation was very dangerous for me. I realized that I needed intelligence on what was going on. So I decided to secure a prisoner. Fortunately, it was Wrik who I selected.”
“Lucky boy, kidnapped by a beautiful, alien, android.”
“I didn’t look like this at the time,” Maauro said.
“Yeah,” I said, “she was pretty terrifying—”
“If you refer to me as a ‘space zombie’ again, the crack Delt gave you will be the least of your problems,” Maauro said, a miffed look on her face.
I raised my hands. “Never even considered it.”
Delt grinned and covered it by taking a swig from his bottle. “So how did you get those big green eyes?”
“I repatterned my basic matrix after an image I discovered in his ship’s computer. It was an experimental ability added to my generation of androids. At the time, I did not realize the image was from a game simulation and not a representation of a real human female.”
Delt chuckled, shaking his head.
“When we reached the surface of the asteroid, I realized how long I had been inactive and that there was no sign of my Creators. I decided to help Wrik get off the asteroid. We found the Confed agent on the surface. Wrik carried her back to his shuttle while I engaged the Guild. I malfunctioned in the battle, probably due to shape-changing my basic matrix. I lay, expecting to be destroyed. Instead, I was treated to the sight of Wrik in an unarmored suit, charging the Guild with only a line gun.”
Delt looked at me. “Good on you.”
I nodded.
“We escaped and have been together ever since,” she finished.
“Until I stupidly decided I needed to run off and do this by myself,” I added, shaking my head.
“And if you’re so smart,” Delt challenged, “how did he get away?”
“I was in stasis under a nuclear reactor having a new arm installed. I had to be off-line for weeks.”
Delt stared at her dumbfounded. “Holy Crap.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Odd subject for a deity.”
“She’s just playing with you,” I said, as his jaw hung open.
“Quite the sense of humor you have, young lady,” he said.
“It goes with my general cuteness.”
“By God, I like her,” Delt announced.
“You were always a smart one,” I said.
A shadow touched his face. “Not always.”
“You’ll probably see some things in the local media about an expedition that Maauro and I were on, there’s a cover story about an HCR robot being on the voyage. That was actually Maauro.”
“I’ll see if there’s something on the net about it. I’m amazed that the press didn’t swarm you if that was the case.”
“I came in under an assumed identity and with a Confed military all pass. No one but my father and you know that I am here so far.”
He stared at me.
“Did I neglect to mention that we’re officers in Confed Military Intelligence?” I added.
“Yeah, well with so much to tell, I can see how you might overlook that little detail. Oh crap, did you tell—”
“My father? Hell no. And I need you to keep it under wraps as well along with everything else. But I could hardly renew our friendship without letting you know in whose service I stand now.”
“So sworn. We Ncome commandoes need to stick together.”
For the first time since that terrible day, the mention of my old squadron didn’t cause my heart to sink.
“In fact, I say we make Maauro an honorary member,” Delt continued.
“I second that motion,” I added.
Delt grabbed another beer. “Motion made and seconded. All in favor say, ‘aye.””
“Aye,” we voiced.
“Motion made and carried,” Delt said. “You’re in.”
“I’m honored,” Maauro said.
“Let’s drink to it,” Delt said, and pounded down most of his beer before reaching for a third.
“So what now?” Maauro asked.
“For now, dinner,” I said. “The best there is in town. My treat.”
Delt glanced at Maauro. “Do you like Veru?”
“I’ve never eaten one,” she replied, “though I once frightened a small planet’s worth of them.”
“Er?” he looked at me, wide-eyed. “She’s kidding right?”
I shook my head slowly. “Maauro will like any place that has a good dessert menu. She’s fond of sweets.” My little destroyer of worlds smiled up at Delt in angelic innocence.
“Ok,” Delt said, his voice a tad shaky. “There’s a good Euro-style place in town. Food’s good, but they are known for their desserts. It’s gonna dent your bank book.”
“Not such an issue anymore,” I replied. “Not rolling in it, but I don’t have to be as careful as I used to be.”
Maauro nodded. “The dessert place, definitely.”
Chapter 8
Wrik and Delt change clothes for dinner, while I remain on the porch. The time for males to change clothes for an evening out is a fraction of that usually consumed by females, and they return quickly. However both pull up short when they see me, as I have retexturized from the simple dress and sweater I wore, to my evening pattern #1, a simply cut ‘little black dress’ with black shoes with jeweled belts and a small bag called a clutch, though this last item is empty as I have no need of the normal contents. I also simulate a cut jade necklace in the shape of a Chinese dragon. The jade color matches my eyes.
“How…” Delt began.
“Become accustomed to the minor miracles,” Wrik said. “It saves time.”
Delt goes for the car and to tell his staff to knock off for the night as I sit with Wrik catching up on all the details of the journey so far. He is sparing of details of his visit with his father, and I do not press him on this, knowing that below the façade of indifference is great pain. He will tell me more when the time is right and we have more privacy.
Meanwhile, I intrude into any systems nearby that might have been touched by Lilith, or could be useful in providing surveillance for Delt’s compound and airstrip. There is very little I can use, and what is present is of low quality. Still I upgrade and update software, converting these to my use in a fashion that will not interfere with their normal duties. I design a small aerial device with a basic sensor suite and disguise them to look like the local equivalent of a bee. They are temporary constructions of organic polymers and will dissolve in a few weeks, but they allow me to slip an electronic net over the airfield and shops. My internal factories manufacture enough to fill in the blind spots. I excuse myself from Wrik long enough to tap into a power circuit in the machine shed and drain some power and release the spybees.
Wrik must have told Delt what I was up to as he grins and yells, “Hey no snacking between meals, you’ll ruin your dinner.”
“Nothing ruins my dinner,” I return, “though I may need to snack again on some light metals later.”
His expression is rather comical. “Ok. Well, don’t eat the car on the way.”
The fact that Delt is there, keeps our conversation on the short ride in to town light, with Delt asking many questions about my background and life. Though Wrik trusts this human, I am a little more wary on short acquaintance. I keep the stories to the non-classified and public elements of our history.
The restaurant is atop a small hill in town and provides a view of the old wooden buildings of the early town and the more modern prefab structures. Most of the buildings and stores are dedicated to agricultural business, but there are a number of bars and restaurants. Two small theatres are present, one of which offers live performances. A few simple, white buildings with small towers are identified as churches, but, in token of Retief’s past, they are all variations of one form of worship. There are no Denlenn temples or other concessions to the beliefs of others. Indeed, I see only two other aliens in town, both Moroks and likely related to the one working for Delt, and one mutated human whose red-patterned skin, identifies her as a Silurian.
My own appearance attracts some attention, and not all the looks are welcoming but Delt is well known, and that seems to unlock a friendliness that I suspect would otherwise be missing. We are shown to a candle-lit table. A young girl waits on us. She keeps trying to look at my eyes without being obvious until she catches an annoyed look from Delt.
Wrik orders us bottles of Perlat, a carbonated red wine that is grown in the area and much prized. We work our way through a variety of oddly-named foods, including a meat called Jumping Dink. I eat the small portions associated with demure female behavior since even with conversion I draw little significant energy value from food. However, when dessert comes, I attack a chocolate caramel volcano with enthusiasm, savoring the unusual chemical combinations and textures.
Delt and Wrik trade stories about each other in an apparent effort to reduce each one’s status in my eyes. I enjoy the evening. The food is good, the company congenial, though Delt drinks more than is perhaps sensible.
We head back to Delt’s quarters after dinner, after making the staff quite happy with the volume and expense of our meal. Wrik has moved into the spare room at Delt’s apartment over the hanger. So we return with me driving Delt’s groundcar as I feel both men have enjoyed more Perlat than is compatible with night driving on country roads.
I am glad we have Delt’s nondescript and modest car. Wrik had sent his aircar back to the rental company on autopilot. I’d done the same wi
th mine. The flashy and expensive vehicles could attract more attention than is prudent.
We pull up in front of the largest hanger, to which Delt’s prefabricated house is attached. The compound is dark, save for some blue lights near the field and a few low wattage lights near the hanger. Only Delt actually lives here. The others have departed for their homes in town or in the nearby countryside. I step out of the car first. My spybees and other seized systems tell me nothing has intruded while we were gone. I scan everything in line of sight before my companions can exit the auto.
Both my human friends complain about the darkness; evidently something is wrong with the automatic light sensor on the front of Delt’s building. I generate visible white light through my eyes, lighting the way to the door. This shocks Delt into something closer to sobriety. He whistles. “If I hadn’t seen it… you know Maauro, it’s just hard to keep in mind that you’re not just a pretty girl with big eyes.”
“Good, it has cost me great pains to come this close to human appearance.”
We gain the door. Delt enters first, announcing his intention to “drain the dragon.” Wrik flicks on the outside light and stops on the porch to look out at a grassy knoll on the other side of the field. He drops into a chair with sigh. I sit on the porch floor next to him and a white rattan table, having reverted to my usual one piece coverall.
“You know, I saw you the night before,” Wrik says, suddenly. “With everything going on, I forgot to mention it.”
I am startled. “Oh?” I reply in a neutral tone.
“Yes,” he says, pointing at the knoll with an air of being proud of himself. “Just for a moment, you let yourself be silhouetted against the moon. Guess you were scoping the place out. Let’s see: slim figure, long hair, moves impossibly fast. Who else could it be?”
All the Difference Page 6