A King of Infinite Space

by Allen Steele

  “Welcome home, Mister Chicago,” I repeat. “I pray that your voyage has been…”

  “Alec!” His face becomes radiant the moment he spots me. “How nice to see you, my friend!” He marches down the ramp, claps me fondly on the shoulder. “Good of you to come greet me!”

  Jeez. What a change. Before he disappeared, he wouldn’t even acknowledge my existence when he walked past. Now I’m an old golf buddy.

  I nod like a dummy. “Nice to see you, too.”

  “Here. Take this, will you?” He hands me a small bag, then motions to Algol-Raphael. “I assume you’ve already met Vlad. Vlad, my manservant, Alec.”

  Manservant? That’s a sudden promotion if there ever was one. Vlad gives me a cold look as Mister Chicago strides past us. “Good. Very good. Well, let’s be off, then…Vlad, I have a wonderful suite waiting for you. Shall we go?”

  I fall into step behind them, following Mister Chicago and his Superior friend as they saunter out of the reception area. I carry his bag and keep my mouth shut, and slowly come to the realization that, as much as I think I’ve recently learned about Mister Chicago, there’s still much about the man that I don’t know.

  Fact is, I don’t have a fucking clue.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  * * *

  TERRITORIAL PISSINGS

  Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act.

  —William Shakespeare, Hamlet

  A good docile servant, I follow Mister Chicago and Vladimir Algol-Raphael as they walk down another corridor to a different cable car station. Apparently this is the first time Algol-Raphael has visited 4442 Garcia; from time to time, his host pauses at a window to point out something on the asteroid or on the colony. I can’t hear what they’re talking about, and Algol-Raphael remains stoical throughout, but the Superior is much less imperious around Mister Chicago than he was when he stepped off the ramp.

  Although I know Algol-Raphael is a genetically engineered human who was born on the Moon, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s an alien from some distant star. His height, his birdlike frame, his enormous eyes, the tattoos that resemble artistically reshaped capillaries…none of this makes him seem much closer to Homo sapiens than an ostrich. Maybe that’s why the Superiors left the inner system and emigrated to the Belt; it’s hard to imagine them living comfortably among baseline humans. That, and the fact that they seem to have been born with an attitude.

  We finally arrive at the cable car station. The loyal manservant, I meekly follow them aboard and stand against the opposite side of the cab, but when the cable car starts to ascend (or descend, depending on how you look at it), I quickly shut my eyes. Vertigo time.

  That elicits an unpleasant laugh from Algol-Raphael. “Zeroed, your manservant, Pasquale. Another bad brain?”

  He thinks you’ve gone asleep. Open your eyes.

  I don’t particularly want to, but I obey Chip’s orders. “Sorry,” I say, more to Mister Chicago than to Algol-Raphael. “It’s just…I’m still getting used to this.”

  Algol-Raphael harrumphs at this. I’ve never actually heard anyone harrumph before, outside old movies, but he manages to sound like Margaret Dumont from the Marx Brothers films.

  “No, Vlad,” Mister Chicago says, “Alec’s not a bad brain. In fact, he’s one of my successes.” He gives me a fond smile; I wonder if he’s going to pat me on the head. “He’s really quite good. If you wish, I’ll loan him to you for the duration of your stay. He’s quite obedient…aren’t you, Alec?”

  Oh, no. Anything but that. “Yes, sir,” I murmur, praying that Algol-Raphael won’t take him up on the offer.

  But the Superior looks intrigued. “Fresh apples?” he asks, and Mister Chicago nods and moves the flat of his hand across his chest.

  He has asked Mister Chicago if this is a fair deal.

  Mister Chicago has acknowledged that it is.

  The sword tattoo on his brow wrinkles slightly as Vlad looks me up and down. “Won’t drop the line, will you?”

  He has asked if you would avoid responsibility.

  Shake your head.

  I shake my head. “He’s really quite good,” Mister Chicago insists. “His MINN is fully functional, he has eyes-up capability, and I’ve even installed cerebral behavior inhibitors.” He smiles at Vlad. “I assure you, I wouldn’t make this offer if I wasn’t certain of him. Test him yourself, if you wish.”

  Algol-Raphael says nothing. Apparently disinterested, he turns his back to me to gaze out the window; as he did so, though, I glimpse his left hand stealing beneath the front of his robe.

  “Very well,” he murmurs.

  A soft sound—metal slipping through fabric—then the Superior whips around. A long, slender sword is grasped in his right hand. With a high-pitched warbling cry, he brings the rapier down in an arch toward

  ALERT!

  my face as, without conscious volition, my arms come up

  AUTODEFENSE MODE!

  and cross themselves before me, then the blade slashes my right forearm and

  WARNING!

  an electric shock slams me

  AUTODEFENSE COMPROMISED!

  back against the cable car wall, and my headset falls off as

  AUTODEFENSE DOWN!

  I sag to the floor on legs which have turned to putty. Unable to move, my arms numb and useless, the right one bleeding from a long cut through my uniform’s sleeve, I look up to see the rapier poised only a few inches from my face.

  The sword hums as Vladimir Algol-Raphael leers down at me. One quick thrust, and the blade’s tip will skewer my left eye.

  “Vlad, stop this!” Mister Chicago shouts. “Stop this right now!”

  I should be frightened. Hell, I should be wetting my pants. But I’m not; if anything, I’m angry and confused.

  “What the hell are you trying to prove?” I ask.

  His enormous blue eyes bore into mine. “A test, deadhead,” he says softly.

  Mister Chicago grabs the Superior’s arm. “Damn you, I didn’t mean this way!”

  Vlad the Impaler allows himself to be pulled away. “Many pardons, Pasquale…too tempting, this.” He pulls back a pleat of his robe, revealing an embroidered sheath. His elongated thumb rolls against the rapier’s ornate basket guard; the blade stops humming, and he slides the sword into the sheath. There’s a hint of a smirk on his narrow lips. “Invited a test, though, you did. Most amusing.”

  Right. The skinny bastard almost carved me up for amusement. Funny guy. My face goes red-hot when I hear this. Maybe I’m Pasquale’s favorite pet, but I don’t have to take this lying down…

  “Test this, dude!” I snap, then I kick my left foot straight at the Superior’s knee.

  He sees it coming and nimbly dodges aside. It’s probably just as well that I’m still stunned from the charge that his rapier carried; if I had connected with his knee, I probably would have broken it.

  The expression on his gaunt face turns from gloating to outrage; he makes another grab for his rapier. “Attack me, he did! Scope this yourself!”

  Pasquale places his hand firmly on his, forcing him to keep his rapier sheathed. “You attacked him first. His MINN is equipped with an autodefense mode. He reacts if his life is placed in jeopardy.” He glances back at me. “As I said, he’s quite valuable. I won’t allow him to be wasted for your pleasure. I’m sorry, but my offer is withdrawn. You can’t have him.”

  Autodefense mode? This hasn’t happened before. Why didn’t it kick in when George attempted to rape Kate, or when Veronica went after Hugh with a kitchen knife? Not only that, but why didn’t Chip give me a splitting headache—or even worse, considering the importance of our special guest here—when I attempted to break Vlad’s knee?

  No time to think about this now. Mister Chicago looks just as angry with me as with his guest, if not more so. But I still don’t know what to…

  Apologize at once.

  Good thinking, Chipster. “Many apologies
, sir,” I say as politely as possible, considering that I’m still flat on my back. “I thought you were…umm…”

  “He believed you were trying to take his life,” Mister Chicago finishes. “Alec has never seen a charged rapier before. He doesn’t know that it’s capable of only stunning an assailant, not just killing him.” He pauses. “Unless that was your intent, Vlad.”

  Algol-Raphael coolly regards me for another moment, just long enough to make me realize that murder had been his intent indeed. “No, Pasquale,” he says at last, letting his hands fall from the rapier’s pommel. “My intent, this was not. Many apologies to you. Testing your claims, that I was.”

  “Hmm…well, I’d prefer it if you wouldn’t do so in such a melodramatic fashion. I’m afraid you’ve injured him.” Mister Chicago looks down at me again. “Can you move, Alec?”

  “Yes, sir.” Tingly sensation returns to my upper body; the electrical charge the rapier carried in its blade was relatively low-voltage, its numbing effect short-lived. Only now my right arm is beginning to smart; I inspect the cut the blade has made. It isn’t deep; no major arteries or tendons seem to have been severed. But it still hurts like a bitch. “I think I need to get to the infirmary.”

  “Yes, of course…you’re excused from duty as soon as we arrive.” He kneels next to me to look more closely as my arm; as he does, his pink eyes film over and he murmurs something under his breath. For a moment, it’s as if he’s playing John again. “Just stay still. A med team will meet us at the station.”

  I’m feeling heavier by now. The cable car must be halfway home. I stay put on the floor, clutching the torn sleeve against the cut to stop the bleeding. Jeez, Mister Chicago’s friends sure like to play rough…

  “Reflexes good, must admit.” Vladimir Algol-Raphael stands off to one side, studying me as if I’m a wounded dog. I guess this is as close to an apology I can expect from him. “Armstronged your defense well…and never received training before, I’m told?”

  I shake my head, and he nods ever so slightly as he looks back at Mister Chicago. “Success, this one. Your methods, the rest of the Zodiac will approve.”

  The rest of the Zodiac? Whoa, wait a minute…

  “As I said, Alec is one of my best subjects.” Mister Chicago stands up again. “Out of the fifty-six neuropatients we’ve revived so far, my people have achieved a success ratio of nearly ninety percent. We’re working at getting higher levels in terms of full recovery.”

  “Not bad for cold tank hibes.” Vlad folds his hands within his robes. Once again, he seems to regard me as a rather intelligent pet. “How many more revive, you will?”

  Mister Chicago shakes his head. “Can’t say. Twenty more sleepers are being cloned and we’ve got another fourteen in storage. That gives us thirty-four altogether, but it’s going to take more if the project is going to be a success. If we can renegotiate with the Pax, perhaps we can…”

  “Nada.” Vlad curls the spindly fingers of his right hand into a fist, palm down. “Won’t release remaining dewars, Pax won’t. Negotiation out of question.”

  “Hades!” Beneath his sallow skin, a blue vein pulses in Mister Chicago’s left temple. “Bad apples! There were four hundred more sleepers on Clarke County, and they’ve revived less than forty of them, with less than twenty percent success! I’ve told the Zodiac that we’ve made better progress than that…!”

  “Shh.” Algol-Raphael places a long finger against his narrow lips. “Quiet. Your manservant…quiet now, but listens, he does.” He peers at me. “Do you not, Alec?”

  I’m pretending to be studying my wounded arm. When Vlad says my name, I jerk my head up. “Umm…say what? Come again?”

  The cable car is beginning to decelerate; another few moments and we’ll arrive at the main habitat. All I have to do is play stupid a little longer. If either of them are convinced of my feigned innocence, I can’t tell: Mister Chicago’s dead-white face is as much of a mask as Algol-Raphael’s tattooed features.

  “We’ll discuss this further once the other guests arrive,” Mister Chicago says at last. “The question is far from settled.”

  Vladimir Algol-Raphael closes his eyes for a moment; he lets out his breath as a sigh. No, the question hasn’t been settled, whatever it is…

  And now I’ve got a few of my own.

  Once the cable car arrives at the habitat, a couple of men in red-striped uniforms wait quietly until Mister Chicago and Vlad the Impaler have made their exit, then they pick me off the floor and carry me to a nearby hover-cart. A quick ride up two levels and down a more familiar corridor, and I’m back in the infirmary, where Big Nurse once again places my right arm in her magic tube. I ask her if I get a lollypop for good behavior, but she doesn’t get my joke; she checks the tube to make sure that the nanites are doing their job, then she goes to see about another deadhead who has hobbled in with a twisted ankle.

  This gives me plenty of time to mull over what I’ve just learned. After awhile, I say: “Chip, are you there?”

  “Yes, I am, Alec.” Nice to hear his voice again.

  “Okay, buddy, question time. How did I stop Vladimir Algol-Raphael when he attacked me?”

  “You raised your arms and blocked his rapier. This is how you received the laceration on your—”

  “Yeah, okay, I understand that much. But I didn’t do that on purpose. It wasn’t…I mean, it wasn’t reflex. I barely saw it coming. But my arms went up on their own just when you flashed those eyes-up warnings, so…shit, I dunno. What happened back there?”

  “My autodefense mode was engaged.”

  “Okay, stop right there. What do you mean by that? Autodefense mode, I mean.”

  “In the event of a potentially lethal attack, I am programmed to assist you in warding off the assault.”

  “This is something you can do? How do you do it?”

  “First question: yes. Second question: during autodefense mode, I am capable of anticipating the form of attack made by your assailant, calculating his probability of success, and manipulating your central nervous system without conscious volition on your part. In this instance, when I saw Vladimir Algol-Raphael draw his rapier and that he was intending to attack you, I activated your serotonin and adrenal glands, which in turn caused the motor muscles in your arms to rise to a defensive posture that would increase your odds of survival.”

  “Got it. So why haven’t you done this earlier…I mean, when servants have attacked others, like the time Veronica went after Hugh with a knife?”

  “The autodefense programs installed in servant associates are not programmed to protect them against assaults by other servants. Associates are only programmed to respond to such attacks by inflicting severe migraine headaches during nonlethal assaults, as punishment, or fatal cerebral aneurysms against the assailant during potentially lethal attacks.”

  “How are the aneurysms caused?”

  “A micromotor attached to a major artery within the brain severs the artery if it receives a command by either the MINN or the central AI system.”

  “Nasty.” I chew on this for a moment. “So what about the time George attempted to rape Kate in the shower? You allowed Anna to attack George, but then you killed George.”

  “I was not responsible for those actions. They were caused by Anna and George’s associates.”

  “Yeah, right, but those associates are controlled by the Main Brain. So tell me what happened.”

  There’s a short pause—three seconds—before Chip responds. “According to AI system records of past interdictions taken by servant associates, Anna was allowed to attack George because she was attempting to defend Kate. This is allowable within MINN parameters. George received migraine headaches from his associate during his assault on Kate which increased in severity when he turned against Anna. When he failed to respond to punishment and showed no willingness to cease his actions, his associate caused the seizure which terminated his life. Does this answer your question?”

  “So
rt of…” I shake my head. “No, it doesn’t. Kate was being raped by George, but she didn’t…I mean, she couldn’t…fight back. So why don’t servants go into autodefense mode when attacked by other servants?”

  “I cannot answer this question.”

  I think about this for a few moments…and doing so brings back a bad memory. “I saw the whole thing happen,” I say very softly. “I was taking a crap while Kate was being raped, and I wouldn’t so much as get off the pot to help her. Why didn’t I do anything?”

  “I cannot answer this question.”

  Perhaps he can’t, but I can…or at least I have a sneaking suspicion. Mister Chicago is trying to cull the ranks. If he can get the most violent and unstable among the deadheads he’s resurrected to take out the weak and unfit, then knock off the predators before they can do further harm, then he’ll eventually get a population of slaves unwilling or unable to oppose him, but still capable of resisting threats from outside forces. Fast-track Darwinism, so to speak. But this still doesn’t explain why I hadn’t helped Kate.

  Another question for another time. Stick to the subject. “Getting back to what happened in the cable car a little while ago…I tried to kick Algol-Raphael in the leg, and nothing happened. No punishment. How come?”

  “I cannot answer this question.”

  “Aw, c’mon! He’s one of Mister Chicago’s bosom buddies and I tried to break his knee!” I laugh out loud. “His rapier was sheathed by then, he wasn’t even threatening me! How did I do it?”

  “I cannot answer this question.”

  Weird. Chip’s gone into the default mode he assumes when posed with questions he can’t answer without revealing vital information. “But you saw everything that happened, right?”

  “The incident was recorded, yes.”

  “Recorded?” Interesting turn of phrase. “You mean, recorded by…um, you in my head, or by the Main Brain?”

  “I recorded the incident, and later downloaded it to the central neural net system. The system now has a full record of the incident.”