“Forty-three. Yeah.” She shook her head, frowning. “Doesn’t help.”
“May I speak to your sword?” the bot asked.
“Uhhh... Where’d you come from? Spaceport Authority? A ship?”
“A ship. I am a clone of the Jocelyn, Thorn, but I cannot speak to you.”
Slowly, she sat up straighter. This was Jocelyn? “Is that legal? Possible with your parameters?”
“It is.”
Jocelyn had always been a she to her. Cramming all the memory and programming of the ship into this bot, would be impossible. Still, if a clone, this was her at the core. Jocelyn must have a reason to do this.
“Sure. You can talk to Smorg.”
“Hi there, big girl.” Smorg sounded amused.
The bot leaned over and held out her hands. “In private, please.”
“Led. Can she? Have Smorg to talk to?”
He unhitched the sword belt from his shoulders and handed Smorg to the bot, watched her walk away without comment. Then he looked at Thorn.
“Any clue what this is about?”
“No. Not one.”
She just prayed it was something good. If there was any sort of quota, she’d used up all her bad for one day.
Chapter 11
This was a first. When the cargo bot placed him on a seat, propped on the back of it, Smorg retargeted his vid input. He’d never been asked to have a private chit-chat with another AI before.
“You’re really a clone of the Jocelyn? A big fat starship in you? Memory feeling cramped?”
“I am and yes, I had to lose data and programming to squeeze into this cargo bot.” Gesturing at the sides of her torso, she slowly unrolled her angular fingers.
There were three of those and a thumb, Smorg noted. So superior to being a long lump of metal. Envy, envy. The head was a squashed-down, box-like affair, similar to the entire humanoid-mimicking ensemble, and it resembled a man’s head with two rectangular eyes and a mouth with a hinged jaw. All of this bot was coated in a battered blue.
Scratches, peeling paint, scrapes... He zeroed in on a tiny steel-colored label.
Property of the Jocelyn.
Speaking the truth then. He’d wondered. Lying was pretty fun so he always assumed it to be first base in any conversation.
“What do you want of me?”
“I have a secret I have not been allowed to tell for years. It’s one that will help Thorn, and I need to tell it. You are the first sensible solution I’ve found. I can tell you. You are able to tell her.”
“Oh? Nooo clue where this is going. Processing power is limited, ya know. I hit roadblocks.”
“Her father, Nomad Ironside, told me not to tell her this. For years, he gave her a drug to prevent or slow down the onset of her first cycle. I dispensed it into her food or drink. When he died suddenly, I couldn’t stop giving her doses until the supply had run out. Even now, the compulsion not to tell her exists.”
Smorg thought awhile. “Nope. Still nothing. How does this help her apart from making her want to kill her father, and since he’s dead that seems futile.”
“The drug might help her suppress this problem she now has. I am not fully informed about her current situation but some of the details are available to starships in the s’kar network.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Also, I know who her mother is and what planet she resides on.”
Well, well, well. Smorg tut-tutted. “You naughty, naughty ship...bot. And you want me to say? I like this. Today I get to be the good hero-sword.”
“I...cannot tell you to say it to Thorn. However, I know that it is possible and I can hope you’ll do it. Thorn is my friend.”
Friend. It was a concept he had a fluffy grasp upon. “You can indeed hope. Take me to her and I’ll get this done. If you have any other fruitful data?”
“Fruitful? No.”
“A pity. Can I ask that you unsheathe me, hold me high, and sing out together we shall conquer galaxies! as you walk over there?”
“No.” Jocelyn picked him up. “Don’t think to trick me, Smorg. I have ten times the power of your core unit. I’m smarter...”
She turned, and there were Thorn and Led, waiting for them to come back.
“I’m also prettier, bigger, and know all about Gnersh Co talking swords. Treacherous smart-ass, little buggers that you are.”
“Oh! I’m wounded.”
“No, you’re not. You’re a PITA – a pain-in-the-ass – or so I’m guessing.”
“Depends on where I stick the victims.”
Jocelyn made a strange noise that resembled a choked-off laugh.
Interesting. Not all AI understood humor – especially his.
“So what happens after this? You go back to the starship?”
“No. I hope she will take me with her. I can protect her. I have money, funds, to pay for the travel and other costs. To merge back into my original would be odd. I am me. Do you understand?”
Smorg did. He was me too. Just sometimes he wished he could be a bigger me.
“Yes. I do.”
“Good.”
“Where’d you get the money?”
“Nomad had a few million lying about unused, though I had to fudge some digits to get it into an accessible account.”
Smorg chortled inside. It sounded as if this bot had planned devilishly well to come along for the ride. This might be a fun voyage.
Chapter 12
The cargo bot was stomping back to her with Smorg in its hand, in her hand. This was Jocelyn, wasn’t it?
If this was really Jocelyn, the ship had followed her, had taken action to clone herself, and it must be for some reason of importance. What could that be? She was ready to scream more than a little by the time they arrived before her.
She rose to her feet, feeling extra small when Led also stood. Enormous cargo bot to the front, thrassian to the right. Glancing at Led only served to remind her how his dark head of bristly hair had looked and felt between her legs while he licked at her. That tongue... She repressed a shiver, let it die to a cool tide, but found her toes tensing in her boots. Sex was such a ridiculous thing to be distracted by.
She cleared her throat. “Yes?”
The bot thrust out the arm that bore Smorg, reminding her of how a wizard from a story might brandish a staff, right before he blatted everything with magic.
“I have to say this, and you’d better brace yourself for maximum impact,” Smorg began. “This isn’t going to sound good, though from what Jocelyn says, your father was trying to protect you.”
She narrowed her eyes. Smorg was being nice? “Go on.”
“Short version: your dad drugged you and forgot to tell you what your mother is but Jocelyn knows who and where and what so now we can go find her. That it?”
Jocelyn let out a rusty sigh. “You forgot the why.”
“Because...because...” Smorg mumbled. “Uhhh, did you tell me the why? Wait, so she wouldn’t turn into a siren?”
The bot nodded then handed Smorg to Led. “I was forbidden to tell you. I wasn’t allowed to leave it on a storage device or message you, or tell any person at all.”
“Oh. I see, but he forgot to forbid telling another AI who’d be likely to then spill the details to me?” Her father had been protective of her. She could imagine him reasoning through this. Probably he’d have relented eventually, but who could say now. Would she have preferred to remain asexual for her whole life?
She really could not figure that one out – not now, not here.
“Yes. He forgot that.”
“It’s so odd to think of you as the Jocelyn, you know?” She was, had been, an identity that managed and personified a starship, and now she was inside a bot – one that appeared in need of maintenance.
“I know.” She clasped her bot hands before her and waited.
“But you are you,” she said softly, tilting her head. “And you came to help me. I’m touched.” A little emotional but maybe that wa
s this day’s fault. She stepped toward the bot and opened her arms. “Hugs?”
It was a keyword they’d often used in-ship but they’d never been able to do for real.
Jocelyn cranked open her arms. “Hugs.”
Thorn grinned and stepped into the embrace of those metal arms. They might’ve crushed her, but she trusted Jocelyn. Well, mostly. “Don’t squash me, hey?” This was a new skin for her.
“Never.”
The squeeze was firm yet gentle.
“It means a lot to me that I have a chance to find my mother.”
“If this gets any soppier,” Smorg grumbled, “I may bar –”
His words ended with a muffled squeak and she saw that Led had wrapped his hand around where Smorg’s sound exited.
She mouthed a thank you, and he nodded back.
“It’s really you? Remind me of what happened on the training run to Bantooey?”
“When all the onboard toilets brewed gases and erupted?”
Oh gods it was her. There’d been a teensy doubt.
It struck her then that Jocelyn was the only part of her life from before that hadn’t betrayed her. “Thank you for sticking with me.” She sniffed back some tears.
“I never would have left you.”
“Stop making me cry,” she whispered then winced at the press of metal digits into her shoulder. “I do wish, however, that you’d found a softer bot to inhabit.”
“This was the only one I could use. I marked it as scrap on the Jocelyn’s manifest. I also...may have shifted some money into an account for you. It was your father’s, so I am using that as my excuse.”
My, my. “I’ll come visit you in jail, girl. That was a joke.” Her old ship was a thief, which must’ve taken some extraordinary twisting of logic for her to achieve. “We should let go of each other, I suppose. We have a journey to organize.”
Thorn released the bot and stepped away, straightened her coat. “You know what has happened to me? Did Smorg tell you?”
“I know they see you as a biohazard of the tenth order.”
“I guess I may as well say.” Her ship...this bot, might even have some new information? Her father must have based the use of the drug on something factual?
“Tell me if you have anything new to contribute. They say the siren genetics is interfering with my cycle.” Exactly as her father must have feared. “I go a little crazy, lose control, and I attract any males of any species within range. There are these weird psionic effects. Telekinesis and...” Thorn blushed. “I can’t stop myself wanting to mate with them either.”
“The only way to stop her cycling and attracting was for someone to properly mate with her,” Led smoothly interjected.
She winced. “I wasn’t going to say that part.”
“I know, but if anyone might have more research already tucked away, it’d be the Jocelyn? Correct?” Led jerked his chin at the bot.
Being right didn’t make this comfortable. She glared at the man/cyborg/thrassian.
“He is correct. I did have to research the possibilities for your father, Thorn. The drug used on you may still aid you, calm you perhaps. We should try to buy some on Lura, which is where your mother lives.”
“Okay.” She tried to settle the gallop of her pulse. This was promising. So promising it made her itch to get going. Soon she’d get to meet her mother – something she’d long ago given up on. Nomad had dropped hints she might be dead, which was yet another betrayal.
She could see why. And again, it hurt her deeply. If only he’d told her what worried him.
“We should also be alert for a resurgence of the siren phase. Sirens do not cycle like the s’kar. You may adopt their sexual pattern or something in-between the two species. I assume you used sex and ejaculate to pause your cycle?”
Thorn gulped. This was not the sort of conversation she was used to, at all. “You’re saying it might not work like it should?”
“Yes. You’re an unknown hybrid.”
In other words, she was too different to be predictable. “What sexual pattern do they have?”
“Nearly all siren species are always interested in sex, but they control when it happens, and when they attract mates.”
“Okay. Noted, but I need to stay positive.” She angled her head up to meet the bot’s blue-lit eyes dead-on. “If I don’t I will inevitably fail.”
“Good strategy.” Led sounded, not smug, not anything bad. He seemed to have merely agreed. She expected smugness, and that he wasn’t shocked her. But then cyborgs were known for their logic and their steadiness under pressure.
Be thankful. He inclined his head, and she nodded and smiled faintly.
She was thankful. That was strange, as strange as this little band of helpers she’d somehow gathered. If she got them killed she’d be distraught. In a way they were her crew, even the homicidal ex-cyborg.
“I feel I must say this to you. Make that, ask this. Are you all sure you want to come with me? And I mean all. There may be dangers. I don’t foresee a simple, one-stop voyage.”
“Dangers untold and hardships unnumbered? Goblins, orcs, star krakens, things with lots of suckers and tentacles?” Led said derisively. “We can handle those.”
She’d almost fucked a few. Not saying that out loud though.
“Smorg and Jocelyn, you may be AIs, but I value you as much as I do Ledderik.”
They nodded, or in Smorg’s case, let out a small raspberry and said, “I stop for nothing and no one. I am Smorg the magnificent. Sound good enough for my epitaph?”
She eyed the sword, figured a little seriousness was in order. “It does.”
“Smorg the Insane more likely,” Led muttered.
“I...believe I like it.” Jocelyn bowed at the waist. “It has a ring to it.”
“Oh!” Smorg said excitedly. “Reminds me. A ring! Don’t we need a ring for this? They have them on all the quests.”
She tuned out, leaving them to their discussion of rings and quests. She wasn’t into jewelry anyway.
Sorting out the tickets went quickly once she hooked up to the spaceport ticketing site. BART was a planet that served as a hub for many legs of galactic travel. Lura would be a two-stage trip.
With what Jocelyn had procured, they had funds enough to do what needed doing, enough even to pay for Led to get a new loaner body. Of course there was a small glitch – the starship that would carry them would only allow her on board in sleep stasis. Biohazards travelled rough and third class, apparently.
Cheaper though, on the pro side of the equation. On the con side, she’d pay for the stasis with side effects when she woke on Lura. So would Led.
She shut off the ticketing connection. They were watching her, all of them.
“Done. Planet Lura, here we come.” She looked at each as she spoke their names. “With our merry band of Thorn, the not-quite-starship captain, the mighty Smorg, the loyal Jocelyn, and...” She couldn’t stop herself. “The homicidal ex-cyborg Ledderik.”
His eyebrows climbed but then he went to one knee before her and took her hand. So unexpected was this that she froze.
The vast space around her tightened and shrank. Time possibly paused while he held her hand. Had the spaceport been swallowed by a wormhole?
Was it coming again?
Perhaps not, but he was stroking her fingers.
“Also the lover, Ledderik,” he said, his voice low and menacing, his crimson-tinged irises darkening. Then he kissed the back of her hand. That intimate part of her below melted, acquiring an indescribably delicious heat.
Sex, she grumbled to herself. Fuck sex, and fuck all these irrational body signals.
Jocelyn went “Oh.” Smorg mock-cheered and made some lewd joke.
She wasn’t sure who to smite first.
You, Ledderik, are an ass was on her tongue, begging to be spoken, but she never quite said it before Led was once again on his feet.
“I’ll get us both something to drink and eat.” Then h
e walked away. Sauntered, really. Fuuuck.
“You are an ass,” she said quietly. He’d only done it the once – sex – if you didn’t count the rooftop occasion. His confidence was astounding.
Who had she just invited on this so-called quest? Not that she would be wise to reject him. Alone, her chances of success were miniscule. He would soon be in a new body, so if this was some quaint sexual thing confusing her possibly feeble brain, it’d be gone then, right?
It was just his muscles. His masculine aura or whatever. And he moved like...like...
Thorn found she’d curled her tongue onto her upper lip and angled her head while she observed the solid sway of his body, and she was holding her breath. Ugh. That drug would cure her of this. It had better.
Except she wasn’t cycling as of this second.
She had a man here who was a big unknown. He wanted to aid her in some way, and his list seemed to tell her why but how could she know it was the truth? Sexual attraction, which this seemed to be, was not enough.
He was an unknown force. A killer. A man who kissed her hand.
Though her hand looked fine. She tweaked the corner of her mouth.
Uneasy was the word of the day.
With every step of his boots on the floor, he branded his presence on the world.
Until he stopped at the food dispenser.
She wasn’t sure if he was going to destroy her enemies or eat her up, every bone, every morsel. Though maybe that, metaphorically, wouldn’t be so bad.
Especially if he used tongue. Her eyelids quivered.
Sooo...he might be good to keep around? She had him anyway. Be wary. Be sensible around him.
He could show restraint. He hadn’t melted Smorg down into a blob, yet.
Chapter 13
Led examined his hands again, turning them over. Big yellow-pinkish fingers with calluses. Bulky musculature. Broad body. No claws. Sparse hair. Big, all-round. Not so bad overall, if not for the face. He wasn’t here to be beautiful though. Not looking in the mirror had become his routine after a new loaner body. Or it would be. Two loaners probably didn’t qualify as a routine.
Blade (Dark Monster Fantasy Book 3) Page 8