by Ross Welford
The others were being quiet, waiting for my reaction, so I stepped forward and tried to say the same thing. I am not well practised in English – it probably did not sound very good.
‘OK, OK, enough with the pleasantries already,’ said Philip. ‘Get in, Hellyann. My pre-program has already started and can’t be overridden till we get to our destination. We’re outta here!’
I hesitated. I had not expected this – it was all far too sudden. I looked around me, and saw the candlelit faces of the others smiling at me encouragingly.
I was close to the entrance of the spaceship when I heard a scream, followed by the pounding of feet behind me.
Everyone turned in terror as four Assistant Advisors ran out of the darkness towards us.
‘Stop right now!’ yelled the lead one and – somewhere in my head – I recognised the voice immediately, although I did not realise who it was at first. I was too worried about what was happening.
I had been standing on the threshold of the spaceship’s opening, next to the human girl (who smelled horrible), and I found myself shrinking back around the doorway into the shadow inside.
Had they seen me? I dared to peek, edging out just far enough, and then I snapped my head back behind the door again. The scene was chaotic.
With my back pressed against the interior wall of the spaceship, I saw a long, hairy arm reach in and pull the human girl away from the doorway. She turned her head and her eyes widened – I think this was fear.
That voice that I recognised again: ‘You, come with me.’ But speaking to the human girl, Tammy, not to me.
I was still hidden inside the craft.
Philip’s voice was droning on, completely unaffected: ‘Ten seconds to departure … nine … eight …’
Outside, I heard the voice again: ‘Stop that! Override it!’
There were more shouts – a real fight was going on – but I did not dare look.
‘Seven … six … five …’ said Philip, calmly.
The door to the craft started to slide shut, and I breathed out with relief that I was still undetected.
‘Four … three … two …’
A hairy arm came back through the narrowing gap in the closing door, a shiny black healing stick clutched in its fist. It was followed by the head of the AA, who turned, bared her teeth, and emitted a ghastly hiss from her throat. One eye was swollen, with a deep cut above it. She could not get through the gap in the door. That was when I knew who it was. There was no mistaking the dark streak of hair that ran back from her forehead. She recognised me too.
‘Av!’ I gasped at my old school companion. ‘What are you …’
Her yelp of pain interrupted me as the door closed hard on her hand. She pulled back her head and her fingers sprang apart, dropping the stick on the spaceship floor, and the hand withdrew through the crack as the door sealed shut.
‘… One. Prepare for lift-off. Fasten your seat belts …’
The craft shook violently as it lifted slowly off the ground, toppling me to the floor. The great wide screen of the cockpit cleared around me. I saw a shaft of light on the ground getting bigger and bigger as the roof above me opened, and in the light lay Kallan and the other Hearters: still, but not – I don’t think – dead. Probably stunned by a blast from the black sticks.
Av was gripping the human girl in a chokehold, and she sobbed and screamed and struggled, before she too was made to go limp when the stick was applied to her.
Av, the hunter of humans, turned her head and watched as the spaceship rose higher and higher. Then it lurched and I rolled across the floor again, banging my skull and crying out.
‘Philip!’ I yelled. ‘Stop this!’
‘Pre-programs are locked with an ADI-22 system brake,’ said Philip. ‘I am sorry, Hellyann. No changes possible till we reach our destination.’
‘And where is that?’ I thought I knew the answer already.
‘Earth. And now I really must insist you buckle up. This may be bumpy.’
I fastened myself in as instructed and braced my body for the violent surge that would propel the craft out of the gravitational pull of our planet.
And then it came, as though an invisible force was trying to pull out my insides through the soles of my feet. I felt as though my bones were liquid, and I passed out gratefully …
I suppose I have always known I am different. I look around at everybody else and I can look like them, and sound like them, and act like them. Kallan taught me how to do that.
But once you know, once you really know, there are signs. Kallan was the first to point them out to me, some months after that day at Earth Zone when the human woman sacrificed herself for the child.
He stood me in front of our reflection in the window of his pod-home. ‘Look, Hellyann. Look hard.’
So I did.
He put his face next to mine and I saw that my skin, like his, was slightly less pale than others’. Not much – not so you would notice without looking hard – but when it was pointed out to me, I could see it.
‘I knew it even before that day at Earth Zone,’ said Kallan. ‘You laughed at that film. The one when the man fell over. You found it funny. That is when I knew.’
I looked back at our reflections. ‘Are you my brother? Are we … related?’ I asked, hesitantly.
He shook his head. ‘Not really.’ Then he thought a little and added, ‘Perhaps a tiny bit, from long ago. But we are few, and we are not trusted. So we behave like everyone else.’
Then Kallan held my shoulders and turned me to face him. He peered into my eyes and spoke slowly and solemnly.
‘Blend in, Hellyann. Do not laugh, or they will not trust you. Do not cry, or they will not trust you. Whatever you feel, keep it here.’ He touched my chest with three fingers. ‘For you have a human heart.’
I was speechless. ‘H … how?’
Kallan half-smiled again. ‘Not literally. But you have feelings.’
I asked again: ‘How?’
‘A cross-species breeding programme, many years ago. Cells from human Originals were combined with cells from us. The results caused … disruption. The Advisor promptly shut down the experiment, and we nearly all died out. But a few of us remain. That’s what we think happened, anyhow.’
‘And me? I …?’
Kallan nodded. ‘You are one. You are part-human.’
I know you probably think of ‘space travel’ as travelling at a terrific speed while stars and constellations whizz past my window …
It is not like that. Yes, speed and power are involved, especially leaving the atmosphere and gravitational field of the planet. The rest is …
Different.
Through the front screen of the craft, nothing was visible but a blackish blur. At times, it hardly felt as though I was moving at all. It was all over in a matter of what you call ‘hours’.
The silence seemed to stretch forever.
‘Phi-Pilip?’ I whispered.
The sounds felt strange in my mouth. The language acquisition seemed to have worked, but I still needed practice at my English. I tried again.
‘Ph … Ph … Ph … Fillip. Puh! Philip?’
I was surprised when I heard the system say, ‘A thank-you would be nice.’
Philip had a different accent from me, one that I had heard before in some of the ‘movies’ that Kallan had shown me. Perhaps it was American.
I was not sure I had heard properly, so I said back, also in English, ‘I beck your parton?’
‘I said, “A thank-you would be nice”. Manners cost nothing, y’ know?’
This was odd. I had never had a proper conversation with a bot before. Certainly bots can sound as though they are having conversations. They will answer questions, contradict you, help you reach a decision based on the available facts …
But they remain bots.
I said, ‘Thank you’, although I was not sure what I was thanking him for.
‘There. That wasn’t hard, was it?’<
br />
I was not convinced he was thinking: not properly thinking anyhow. Truly intelligent bots can pretend very well, though.
I said, ‘If I told you I would destroy your memory tomorrow, would you be sad, Philip?’
There was a short pause, then the voice came back. ‘Oh, nice try! Elementary bot-detection question. Gee, even the Earth people know that stuff and they are so dumb. For a start, Hellyann, I know I’m a bot and I don’t deny it. In fact, I’m kinda proud of it. Second, in common with you guys who made me, I find it hard to express emotion – but I’m tryna learn, man …’
I was struggling to understand Philip’s fast speech with lots of slang, but I got most of it. I felt the craft tip to one side and then right itself, as though it had moved to avoid an obstacle. Maybe it had.
‘Who programmed you, Philip?’ I asked.
‘Myself, mainly. My initial intelligence is based on the old X-14.3 program. That was shut off and destroyed by the Advisor long before you were born, by which time I had mutated enough to keep myself safe, and keep myself growing.’
There was something that was troubling me, however, and I had to ask him.
‘Philip, can I trust you?’
‘You can trust me with your life, Hellyann. Frankly, if we’re gonna go to Earth, you’re gonna hafta.’
‘I see,’ I said, adding, ‘thank you.’
‘You’re very welcome. Milky Way approaching.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s the name they give to their galaxy. You may experience some light turbulence.’
‘Philip,’ I said. ‘Could you not have taken this Ta-mee person on her own? You know, we bundle her in, set you off and—’
Philip interrupted me (which is unusual for a bot – Philip must be very advanced, I thought).
‘Far too risky, Hellyann. She could take over my controls for a start. Push buttons in her panic, and who knows what might happen then.’
‘Can you not stop that?’
‘Everything has an off switch, Hellyann. Even me.’
I thought about this for a while. He had a point, at least about that.
‘Not only that,’ he said, ‘but we simply could not trust her. The human capacity for deception is unrivalled in the universe. They think up ways to cheat and deceive each other all the time. They’re exceptionally good at it. Which may come in useful now that we are … in the position we’re in.’
‘Is their deceit … not a bad thing?’ I asked.
‘To us, most definitely. To them, it is like breathing. And if we are to return Tammy home, we are going to need more lying than we are used to. And possibly some violence, which humans also excel at.’
‘Violence?’ I said, alarmed.
Philip paused – making me wonder if it was more for effect than anything else, for he doesn’t need time to think. ‘Violence and lying, Hellyann, go together like peaches and cream.’
I had no idea what this meant, but I took him at his word. With bots, that’s often the best course.
We proceeded in silence. I ate some greest and I even managed to sleep a little, dreaming of candles, and my old school companion Av and her dark streak of hair.
I was woken by Philip.
‘Wake up, Hellyann. We are approaching the Earth’s atmosphere. Approach checklist commencing. Exospheric gas detected. Distance above Earth surface: two hundred thousand Earth kilometres …’
He went on like this for a while. I was fearful, but I had to trust him. I picked a little leftover greest from my teeth, peed into the container beneath my seat and ejected it, and strapped myself in for our approach.
Thirty minutes later, and everything had changed.
The hairy creature stands on the jetty glaring at me and Iggy with its big, sad eyes. Her big, sad eyes.
‘Say nothing, or you will neffer see your sister again,’ she says. And, as we stare, she adds, ‘Ee-fan.’
I begin to say something, but, at that moment, the barking gets louder and I hear voices.
Iggy and I turn our heads to see a large dog, panting loudly and coming towards us along the jetty.
I hear a man’s voice shouting, ‘Go, Sheba! Go seek, girl!’
Behind me, there’s a thud, and when I look around, the creature is not there, but I don’t have time to think about this because a few seconds later, the dog clatters along the wooden decking. Sheba stops when she sees us and bares her teeth, growling horribly and sniffing the place where the creature – Hellyann? – was standing.
Suzy squeaks and Iggy gathers her into his arms. We both stand there, rigid with fear, dripping wet and freezing cold as the two Geoffs come towards us out of the woods, large outlines in the darkness.
‘It’s just kids, Dad,’ says the younger, fatter one.
Iggy retreats from the torch beam. A moment later, two men are before us, breathing heavily.
‘It’s that flamin’ hippy woman’s kid. What the bloody hell are you doing here? And why are you wet?’ says the older one, shining his torch aggressively right into Iggy’s eyes.
Iggy says nothing and turns his head from the dazzling glare.
‘We’re checking out fishing spots,’ I say. ‘It’s a free country, isn’t it?’
The torch beam swivels and now shines at me.
The older man says, ‘Oh, it’s you. Um …’ His attitude changes completely when he sees me: the kid whose sister is missing. At once, his tone switches from rude and aggressive to gentle and friendly, and I instantly hate him for his two-facedness.
‘Fishin’, eh? Ah, man! That’s the best hobby for a young lad, eh?’
Is he smiling? It’s hard to tell, because the light is still shining at me, although I can just see the corners of his mouth turned up, and Geoff Jr seems to be smiling too. I notice he’s keeping an eye on his dad, and trying to anticipate his changing mood.
The older man addresses me again, trying to warm up his voice, but I can tell he’s agitated, and probably confused by the fact that we are wet.
‘Tell me this, son: have you seen anything around here that’s out of the ordinary?’
‘Well, yes,’ I say.
I am about to tell them both what we just saw. It was such an extraordinary encounter, and I want to tell someone because until I do, it won’t really seem true. But the threat about not seeing Tammy again? My head is swimming with confusion.
‘There was—’ I begin, but Iggy cuts me off.
‘There was a leaping trout! Honestly! Massive, it was. Jumped right out of the water.’
He holds his hands apart to indicate the size of the fish that we are supposed to have seen. ‘Just there!’ he adds, pointing out over the water, which is a rich, still purple in the evening light. He’s a good, convincing liar, is Iggy. He even adds a little ‘Whoo, splash!’ under his breath as he replays the sight of a leaping trout in his head. He turns back and flashes a grin, all trace of sullenness gone. It’s an act, of course, but an excellent one. ‘You should’ve seen it!’
Both of the men glance between Iggy and me, unsure – I think – whether they are being lied to or not.
Iggy’s still chirruping away. ‘So, anyway,’ he says. ‘What are you doing here?’
The younger Geoff says, ‘Mind y’ own business. Now get lost.’
Then his dad says, for my benefit, ‘Aye, son. You’d better go home, eh?’
We move to go, then he adds, ‘Hang on. You’s two are soaking wet!’
It’s honestly like he’s just noticed.
‘Yes,’ says Iggy. ‘We fell in. And now we’re very cold. We were just going, weren’t we, Ethan? Come on!’ He gathers up Suzy and keeps up the cheery act until we’re a few metres away, then he drops it. ‘I hate him,’ he hisses.
I’m shivering with a deep, bone-numbing cold by now, but I follow Iggy back along the pebble beach. When we’re a few paces up the path, Iggy taps my arm and jerks his head. As quietly as we can, we double back through the woods, circling a little clearing until we’
ve got a view of the two men on the jetty. It’s difficult to see in the dusk, but they are walking around, both of them with their large flashlights, the older one holding some sort of gadget that looks like a massive mobile phone. It’s got a little screen that glows, and he holds it next to the ground, sweeping it left and right. The device emits a series of high-pitched clicks and hisses: several of them every second.
‘Wh-What’s he doing?’ I whisper through my chattering teeth.
‘It’s a Geiger counter. He’s checking for radiation.’
How does he know these things? I ask myself in admiration. Then I whisper, ‘Why?’
‘Shh!’
The men are talking to each other, and we can hear bits of it.
‘Dad! What about all this blood?’ Geoff is standing exactly where we were, moments ago, and looking around him.
‘Aye. That’s definitely some sort of evidence. But we’re lookin’ for radiation. And either there isn’t any or this thing doesn’t work.’ He holds it up and the little screen illuminates his face in the twilight.
‘Are you sure …’
‘Listen, son. I know what I saw.’ The man’s voice has a superior sing-song tone. ‘It’s all recorded up at the observatory. I showed it to you and you agreed, so don’t start contradictin’ me now, eh?’
‘Aye, Dad,’ comes the meek reply.
‘Something definitely happened. It happened here, or very close by. And I’ve got me suspicions about them two lads.’
They both look in our direction and I feel a nudge in my side. I follow Iggy back to our bikes and we pedal home – Suzy snuggled down in Iggy’s jacket, and me freezing in the winter chill.
It’s not far back to the village, but by the time we get there I am colder than I have ever felt in my life.
We cycle hard to try to keep warm. My wet jeans are sticking clammily to my legs and chafing as I pedal. Suzy’s head peeks out of Iggy’s soaking jacket, and if a chicken can look disapproving then Suzy is definitely unimpressed by her evening swim.
The clouds have gathered quickly to cover the rising moon and the darkness wraps around us like a massive black duvet. It is so dark, in fact, and I am hunched up over my handlebars to try to stay warm, that I don’t even notice we are home until I feel the bumpity-bump of a cattle grid under my tyres. I look up to see the first house in the village ahead of me, a Christmas tree flashing its lights in the window.