The next day passed quietly. Maauro was our relay to talk to Dusko, who was organizing cargo for wherever it was we were going after Retief. Delt fielded a few calls from his business. The new owner of the Tunnan we’d worked on showed up and was floored by the improvements, mostly done by Maauro, on the machine.
“Well Pretty Princess,” Delt said, closing his com, “I have to hand it to you. He was happy to pay 10% over invoice on that ship, and, with you doing so much of the work, not to mention making the parts for free, I really cleaned up. That, and what you did for my finances, has me swimming in it.”
“And what will you do with your new-found wealth?” Maauro asked as we walked alongside the river. Today, she wore an autumn gold jacket and tights and looked wonderful.
Delt’s face clouded over. “Hadn’t thought of it,” he admitted. “Guess I don’t look ahead to the future that much.”
“You should consider that,” she said softly, looking out at the river.
For some reason, comments that would have made Delt angry, or dismissive, from me, or anyone else, he pondered deeply when Maauro voiced them. He seemed to want her approval in a fashion that I couldn’t recall seeing him exhibit around anyone else. Of course, he was no longer a devil-may-care young fighter jock, but I still sensed something deeper in his regard for Maauro. Maybe it was just as well that I’d met Maauro years ago, I thought, I might need the head start.
Dinner was a cheerful affair, with we three in a window box overlooking the street. For a while, it looked like Delt was going to pick up a local girl and make it a foursome, but he restrained his usual nature. He noticed my surprised look and wagged a finger at me.
“Mission before men,” he quoted. “We have stuff to do here. I’ll look for company when it’s all over.” He grinned and picked up his water glass. That too, was a change. While Delt seemed as fond of beer as always, it was now one or two, drunk slowly, and he seem to have sworn off anything harder.
My com buzzed as Janna’s image appeared. I opened the line.
“Yes, Reverend.”
“Oh bother, call me Janna or I hang up.”
I couldn’t quite suppress a laugh despite my tension.
“I have all three coming,” she said. They’ll meet us at the gazebo in the Peace Garden of the Seminary at 10PM. They’re coming separately but they’re going to meet up somewhere and come together. We’ll do the same. I’m standing with you, Flyboy.”
“Thank God, for that,” I said.
“I’ll tell him you said so.”
“Do that.”
“Meet me at the seminary lobby at 9PM.”
“We will be there,” Maauro added, and there was no question about the accent on the “we.”
“Damn right we will,” Delt added, a touch of grimness in his tone.
“This will be a peaceful encounter,” Janna warned, “on all sides.”
“It will,” I said. I looked at Maauro.
“I do not strike anyone first,” she said, “but I never need to strike anyone twice.”
Janna sighed. “Fair enough. Until tomorrow.”
We turned in after dinner, but I couldn’t get much sleep. Fortunately, Maauro didn’t need any and so we talked of inconsequential things. She gave me a massage that would put a professional to shame, and finally I got a few hours sleep in the early morning.
After breakfast, we rented a boat and tooled around the river to kill time and keep my mind off things. Because of Maauro, we had to rent the biggest boat they had, but she was delighted with the chance to play sailor again, despite my and Delt’s inept assistance.
Somehow, the time passed, and we found ourselves back at the hotel. I wasn’t sure how to dress for the occasion, and just threw on a flight jacket. Delt wore something similar. Maauro returned to her red and gray paneled jumpsuit. I sensed that the utilitarian and somehow military look was a warning of her serious intent.
The valet brought the car around. We’d left Delt’s cargo-flitter by the municipal landing pad. Delt drove, with Maauro providing directions to the seminary, a collection of long and low buildings, clustered around the main church, with its one white tower and elaborate gardens, though there were as many vegetables as flowers in them. We pulled up to the parking lot. Most people were leaving, either heading out to the dorm buildings or back to town.
Janna stood in her priestly uniform, waiting at the entrance. She embraced all three of us this time. To kill the hour and settle our, truthfully, my, nerves, she showed us around the two-hundred-year-old buildings, recently restored with a grant from the reform government.
Her com bleeped. She drew it out and regarded a text on it. “They’re here.”
I drew a deep, shaky breath.
“You ready?” Janna asked.
I nodded.
“Remember,” Maauro said softly. “You are never alone. Not anymore.”
I put arm around her. She patted it gently.
“I’m on your wing,” Delt added.
“And I have your six,” Janna said. “And no one can get me off their six.”
I spared her a quick grin. “Let’s roll in, then.”
I walked out, flanked by more than I ever believed I would have on my side. I took my cue from Maauro, who’d spotted everyone, despite the dark and distance the instant we came through the door. We headed for the large, white gazebo on the hillside overlooking the parking lot.
Three figures awaited us. They stood outside the gazebo, partly shrouded by the dark of the trees, despite the sodium lights of the parking lot below. There was something ominous in their stillness and posture.
Janna took the point as we walked up. Delt was on my left, and Maauro stood to my right. There was nothing in her stance to show it, but she was moving with a suppressed energy, alert and tense.
My old squadron mates stood in a Vic formation: Regina Van Dyck, wearing a sharp suit, stood at the apex facing me. Johan Dewalt, huge and glowering, towered over her right shoulder. Carel Englebreact, who had put on a lot of weight, stood off to one side. She looked ten years older than I expected, nothing like the young, high-spirited girl I’d once known.
I stopped opposite Regina, who I recognized as the unofficial leader of this group. We studied each other. Regina’s face was beautiful, but still, with a waxen look to it, like a store mannequin, synth-flesh from the burns. Johan had started to go bald, but looked as powerful as ever and sported a rebel’s bushy beard.
Do we all so easily give away who we are and what we believe by such things? I wondered, fighting that sense of numbness and unreality that always seemed to follow nighttime and emotion for me.
“So, you’re alive,” Regina said.
“Hello, Regina—”
“Who told you that you could use my first name?” she growled, her eyes glittering.
“I did,” Janna stated. “If anyone’s unclear about it, I’ll say it for the record. That’s how we used to call each other.”
“He’s not one of us,” Johan’s voice rumbled.
“You squadron leader now?” Delt said. “Who flew in Ncome was my call.”
“Enough,” I said, putting an arm on Delt. I turned back to them, looking at Carel who did not meet my eyes, then Johan who met them with contempt and hatred. I looked at Regina, but could read nothing in the expressionless face.
“Who’s that?” Regina demanded, looking at Maauro. “What right does she have to be here?”
“I am Maauro,” she answered, and something in her voice drew everyone’s eyes to her. “I am Wrik’s, and where he goes, I go.”
Regina’s lips twisted. “Cradle robbing, Van Zyle? Oh, I guess you prefer Trigardt. You should go home, Sweetie, we’re warriors talking about war and betrayal here.”
Maauro cocked her head. “I am a warrior. I have killed more beings than are in sight here. A
nd I did not need a fighter plane to do it.”
Regina face couldn’t display surprise evidently, but her stance did. Little did she know that, when Maauro made her statement, she meant from horizon to horizon, not merely this little hilltop.
I put a hand on each of Delt and Maauro’s arms to hold them in place and stepped forward. “I have come a long way, and through a lot, to apologize to all of you. You were my squadron. Some of you were my friends once. I let you down. I broke and ran. All I can say is that I am sorry.”
Regina looked at me, the too smooth face, stretched into a mirthless smile. “Do you know the worst thing about the reconstruction?”
“Reg—” Delt said.
“No,” I interrupted. “Let her have her say.”
She grabbed her cheek and twisted it. “It should hurt, but it doesn’t,” she hissed. “Not enough to be real. Not like my original face.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“You weren’t burned,” she said, her eyes bright, her voice had a sing-song, skittery quality to it. “You weren’t shot out of your fighter.”
“No,” I said. “I made it without a scratch, because I ran away.”
“He was also closest to the enemy, the last of Spider flight in the air,” Delt threw in. “Dammit, Reg you were shot down even before Wrik dove out. I sent you into that attack, knowing you’d all die,” suddenly Delt was shouting. “You should be blaming me.”
“You didn’t run,” she snarled.
“How do you know I wasn’t ready to? I got shot down and ejected. Another few seconds in a hopeless losing battle and I might have.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” I said,
Maauro, who had stood so still that everyone had forgotten her, suddenly spoke. “You have a weapon in your pocket, Van Dyck. If that hand gets any closer to it, I will kill you.”
“No, Maauro,” I said.
“Wrik, in this I do not care if you agree or not. Whatever you have been to them, you are my Wrik. I know who you are now. The next person who offers you violence will face me.” Maauro’s eyes went black from lid to lid. Her lips pulled back from serrated teeth and palm blades slid soundlessly into place.
The others shuffled back with muffled curses and shocked faces.
“What the hell is she?” Carel blurted.
“It’s a machine,” Regina said.
“Bought yourself a toy girlfriend,” Johan said, his lip twisted in contempt.
“Leave her out of this,” I replied. “This is about me.”
Regina held her hands carefully away from her sides.
“Do you really want to kill me, Reg?’ I asked slowly.
The too-bright eyes fastened on me. “I want my original face back.”
“I’d trade myself for that, if I could.”
“Easy to say,” she shot back.
“What would you have me do? What would you have me say? I’m sorry I failed you. I have tried since then to be a better man—”
“There are many now,” Maauro said, “who owe Wrik their lives.”
Regina looked at Maauro. “You look like you’re prepared to kill for him. That how he programmed you?”
Maauro’s eyes returned to their beautiful aquamarine, the teeth vanished as did the palm blades. “I am not a machine as you understand it. I am a living AI, as should be obvious to you at this point.”
“She ain’t no HCR or Confed make, that’s for sure,” Johan muttered, staring,
“And you are right, I would kill for Wrik, perhaps more to the point you seek, I would also die for him. That is not programming. In fact, I owe my freedom from programming to Wrik.”
The maliciousness brightness in Regina’s eyes seemed to dim, to be replaced by an empty sadness. She turned back to me. “Bet your Dad loved that.”
“Yeah, he’ll add it to my headstone, ‘Loved alien androids.’”
A short, harsh laugh exploded out of several people. Regina’s lips quirked once.
Silence fell over the group. The twilight had turned to true darkness while we had spoken, only the distant lamplights limned people’s faces.
Regina broke the lengthening silence. “I heard your apology. I’ll think on it. I don’t know that I am ready to forgive and forget … but I’m glad … I’m glad you’re not dead, Piet. No, I am going to think of you as Wrik. That may make it easier.”
I nodded carefully.
Regina turned and walked for the car park.
Johan looked at me, then at Maauro. “Maybe you’re just brave enough to do this because your killer android came with you. Might be different if you came alone.”
“I can arrange to be alone, Johan.”
“None of that,” Janna snapped. “Johan, you’ve been asked to forgive. Do it or don’t, but, in God’s name I charge you, there will be no violence. The Rebellion ate enough lives. No more of it.”
Dewalt looked at me, then spat on the ground and walked off, trailing Regina.
Carel shook her head. “I’m ok with forgiving, but as much as anything, I want to forget. Don’t any of you contact me again.” She too vanished into the darkness.
I was left with Janna, Delt and Maauro.
Janna sighed and tugged at her collar. “It was a lot to ask, Piet…or should I say Wrik?”
“Both are my names, you can call me what you wish.”
Janna laughed softly. “I’ll go with Wrik. I want to stay on your friend’s good side.” She gestured at Maauro.
I walked over to Maauro and put my arm over her shoulders. I suddenly felt heaviness on me. Fatigue hovered nearby. I realized I was leaning my weight against her.
“I think we’ve had enough excitement for tonight. Come on, I’ll buy at the bar. Something will be open in town.”
Janna smiled. “Wrik, I have Sunday service tomorrow. Wouldn’t do if it got around town the visiting Reverend was out getting hammered with her old squadron mates. Maybe I will see you at service?” She gave me a hopeful look.
“Reverend,” I said. “What time is that service?”
“We have two,” she said, “I guess I better look for you at the noon one?”
“I will be there without fail.”
“Please bring Maauro. Oh, how exciting, my church might be the first one to host an artificial intelligence!”
“Sure,” I said. “But let’s keep that a little on the quiet side, officially Maauro is a human mutation.”
She nodded. “Well, in my trade, I learn to keep secrets. But the others know too.”
“I’ll ask them to keep quiet about it,” Delt said. “They’ll do it for me.”
That last brought a stab of bitterness that I put aside as quickly as I could. “Let’s go.”
We had only two drinks before the strains of the day caught up with Wrik. I ask Delt to wait in the bar until I returned from taking Wrik to his room. I help my exhausted love out of his clothes and he drops into the bed, instantly asleep. Knowing him as well as I do, I am comfortable that he will remain asleep for six hours at least. However I add a light sedative to ensure I have time enough for my final mission.
I return to the bar.
Delt is staring at a glass of Straka. He sees me walk up. “I drink too much,” he says.
I nod.
He pours the glass into a plant and stands. From inside his jacket, he produces a small flask. He puts it on the bar. “Give this to some poor sod that needs it,” he says to the bartender.
He stands and walks over to me. “Janna said I was carrying something that I should put down. I think, tonight, that I can.”
“That pleases me,” I said. “You are a man of too much potential to waste.”
“From you,” he says, looking down, “that means a lot.”
“Delt,” I say, making a quick decision, “I need your help.�
��
“What, can I do for you?”
“I need you to loan me your flitter. I must get to Wrik’s father’s farm.”
Wariness comes over his face. “Why? Maauro … you’re not going to kill the old bastard?”
“No, Delt. I am not a murderer. Even if I was, Owen Van Zyle would be an off-limits target.”
“I’m sorry. I guess, well I guess, I still don’t know much about you.”
“Your caution is sensible, but I will not harm his father.”
“Give me your word of honor.”
“I tender it to you. I will not harm any biological life. It may be necessary to issue some threats to insure compliance.”
“Ok. Why go?”
“There is something on that farm that I must deal with, something that cannot be allowed to stand.”
Something glimmered in his eyes. “Wrik may notice your absence.”
“He is exhausted and will sleep long enough.”
“Well, at best speed it’s a flight of two hours. His father is a farmer. He’ll be up overseeing his field crews early. That is, if you want to have words with him.”
“Oh, I will have words with this man, words he will not soon forget.”
Delt smiles at me. “I like you, Maauro. Tell you what, I’ll fly you there myself.”
“I like you too, Delt. Wrik’s admiration of you is well-founded.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” he says scratching his head.
“Get some rest. I want to arrive at dawn.”
“I’ll meet you out back when you’re ready.” The big man heads for his room.
I check on Wrik again, sitting by my sleeping lover until it is time to go. Then I make my way down the stairs. Everyone, it seems, has finished their missions on this world.
Except for me.
Delt is waiting with the aircar. After we take off, he wastes no time pushing the small aircraft to its best speed. He asks me no questions, and we fly in silence until we hover and settle in the field, well-short of the farm. I have to admit I could not have handled the aircraft any better.
“Wait here,” I say as the canopy rises.
“Ok,” Delt says, then grins. “I kind of wish I was going with you.”
All the Difference Page 28