New Contract (Perimeter Defense Book #3)

by Michael Atamanov

  I tensed up a bit. The way this conversation was beginning was not a sign of good things to come. Miya was scowling as she began enumerating:

  "The first thing I sensed was that you are very angry at me for some reason. I found that strange, given that I gave you everything you were asking for: the chance to get back into Perimeter Defense, and complete freedom with no of control. I even swore not to harm people close to you and agreed to turn a blind eye to all your lovers and affairs. I pulled you back from the other side when the consciousness transfer didn't go quite as planned, too. That sapped all my energy, and left me burned out. You then, instead of showing even elementary gratefulness, began openly provoking me and making fun of me. You began giving out my treasured jewelry to servants, selling expensive paintings and statues from my yacht, and making me a laughingstock of a Queen, with no power or ability to influence state politics. You didn't even put me in line for the throne. And now, you're taking my Sivalla emeralds, a collection that took me a whole century of laborious searching to gather, and giving them to the insect Queen. What are you hoping to achieve? Do you want me to throw a tantrum and confirm my ghastly reputation by killing everyone there? Do you know why you're in Georg's body right now, and not Ruslan's?"

  I didn't not know the answer, so I shook my head "no." Miya though, taking the glass in her hand again, explained:

  "I cannot do harm to you while you are in the body of Crown Prince Georg royl Inoky ton Mesfelle, my legal husband and sovereign lord. That is precisely why you are in this body, so you don't have to be afraid of me, and can speak directly. When we last met in the restaurant, I was upset to see how much you feared me. Instead of seeing me as a beautiful, desirable woman, you looked on me as ghastly, dangerous monster. I hope that won't happen this time. Just tell me why you're upset."

  I then began enumerating my reasons: the real crystals in the real world she had told me were "souvenir pearls," the Chameleons outside the game world, the constant lying and attempts to trick me, Marta's death, the fight with Likanna, seven months having passed in game, the tactless wasting of everything I’d built in the first contract, my best officers having left me, my finances having disappeared into thin air, and my ships having been given away without a care...

  Miya listened to me closely, not interrupting and not trying to justify herself. Finally, when I finished the accusatory speech, the redheaded beauty told me:

  "Georg, many of your grievances were caused by simple misunderstanding. On some points, I agree that I wasn't always honest or good to you, and you have the right to be angry at me. What do you say about making peace the way many women do with their husbands: until morning, I am all yours. You can ask me any question you want or do whatever you wish to my body."

  "Alright then. I value your readiness to make peace, and accept your peace offering." I crossed my legs to hide my treacherously tenting long underwear. "Let's talk honestly, if you are prepared to answer honestly."

  "You don’t have to worry about the honesty of my answers. A Truth Seeker of my level could never trick her master, because it would be fraught with extremely serious consequences. There will be only two limits on the conversation. First: do not ask about the nature of Perimeter Defense. I assure you that you will understand everything yourself before your contract is up. Telling you the answer would mean that I don't trust you to figure out the answer on your own, or it could even send you down the wrong path. The second limitation: not a word about Mr. G.I. I am very angry at him. He left me at a very important time. His cowardice put my daughter Deia's life at risk. It was simply a miracle that I was able to do everything all by myself. I nearly burst. Mr. G.I. and I fought bitterly. I don't even want to hear his name. If either of these two rules is broken, you'll wake up in your bunk on Warhawk-4, and this magical night of endless possibilities and truthful answers will be over."

  The conditions were very easy to understand, and even quite favorable to me. Perhaps even suspiciously so. Miya had never been this open before. I decided to start by getting some questions answered.

  "Why have seven months gone by in the game, and not three?"

  Miya shook her head in reproach and said with a troubled voice:

  "Georg, you've got to be kidding me! We've only just sat down and you're already trying to break the first rule! I was hoping we could talk for a long time, so I'll give you a warning this time, but it will be your last free pass. I can only answer the first part of your question. Why seven months exactly? Can you not guess on your own? Because that's how long I had to wait for your favorite's baby to be born, to make sure she wouldn't be your wife at the time of birth. I did it all because of Deia, our daughter."

  As if having heard her name, the baby in the bed turned over and gave a whimper. Miya froze and waited a few seconds, but the baby fell back asleep.

  "It seems to me you seriously underestimate how much strength I had to put into Deia. Georg, your daughter is not addicted to crystals! Have you not noticed?"

  I belatedly realized that I hadn't seen the word "Mystic" anywhere in the tiny Crown Princess's profile. It really was nice that the girl had been born without being addicted to drugs, though.

  "Is it just you two living here?" I asked, and Miya confirmed:

  "Just me and my daughter. No one else."

  Now, the time had come to shake my head in reproach:

  "Come on, Miya! Do you expect me to believe that this helpless six-month-old girl sits here for three or four days at a stretch without food, drink or attention while you're in a crystal dream? Now I see that all this talk of complete truthfulness was just fluff..."

  Miya became embarrassed and tried to justify herself:

  "There aren't any people, no. But there are two Chameleon servants. You've seen them before. I didn't exactly lie."

  "See, you say you 'didn't exactly lie,' but you changed the correct answer into a diametrically opposed one. That is what normal people call lying. Order your Chameleons to reveal themselves, leave the room and close the door on the way."

  Miya said nothing out loud. Either she gave the order mentally, or the guards had just heard me. Two members of the Ravaash race appeared in the small room. One was even hanging right above me on the ceiling. The bodyguards left the child's bedroom in silence and closed the door.

  "I warn you as well, Miya. If I think that you are playing with words or answering ambiguously, you'll be holding the rest of this conversation naked."

  Miya laughed happily:

  "Well, now I don't even know how to behave. The problem is that I haven't been living around men for over a year now. By the way, that is one of the reasons you're here. I checked your near future, and saw that it was fated for you to spend this night with a woman. Both the frigate captain and the robot blonde were trying to think up ways to sneak into your cabin to spend the night. But I decided that, as your legal spouse, this night should belong to me."

  Miya pressed the armrest of her wide armchair and, with a slight mechanical buzz, it folded out into a full bed. After that, before I even figured out how it worked, the redheaded beauty reached for her shoulder straps, and the pink ribbon wrapping her body fell to her feet.

  "Do not worry, Georg, we can still talk. I am not preparing to lie. It's just that it's hard to talk about serious things with you when you're so clearly undressing me with your eyes. Your erotic fantasies are distracting."

  * * *

  I opened my eyes, and couldn't understand for a long time what had awoken me. There were still twenty minutes before my alarm was set to go off. There hadn't been any emergency calls or missed emergency messages to force me up, either. With only a slight delay, I realized with surprise that the reason I had awoken was entirely banal. I had simply gotten enough sleep! After all those long weeks of constant hurrying, overwork and exhaustion, I was caught off guard by waking up feeling rested. Phobos, standing near the doors, greeted me and said:

  "Master, night to come cap-i-tan, then Bion-i-ca. But I no to l
et any in."

  What the bodyguard said didn't surprise me at all. After what Miya had told me, I was suspecting as much. By the way, about Miya... I was jerkily grasping at mental straws, trying hold onto the bits of dream I could still remember. As always happens, if you don't make sure to remember a dream right after waking up, it begins to evaporate, leaving nothing in your memory but pitiful, disconnected fragments, which are then forgotten quickly as well. No, I couldn’t have that today! The information I got from my spouse was very important. Last night, Miya had told me some truly significant things. I stayed silent for a few minutes trying to remember what had happened the night before. I realized the futility of my efforts and... actually started laughing.

  Miya really was a crafty snake! The Truth Seeker probably already knew that I would forget everything she said when I woke up, and was counting on it, which is why she had spoken so frankly with me. I remembered the dream in general terms. My spouse and I had stayed up talking all night until sunup, making only two or three breaks for carrying out our spousal duties. But the question was, what did we talk about for so long? There was a large gap in my memory. It wasn't entirely complete, though. There were some sentence fragments I was able to remember. For example, a part of the conversation on the fugitive Truth Seeker:

  "...Georg, don't be so naive! The Dark Mother does not make such mistakes. If she, the absolute strongest Truth Seeker, confirmed that it was Marian Sabati precisely who killed her master, that means it must be so. Or, the other possibility is that the Throne World had some reason for wanting to declare as much. For example, to force Marian Sabati to actively seek refuge. I suppose she thought it most likely for the runaway to seek shelter with you, which was no problem for the Dark Mother..."

  Or the other fragment on the upcoming negotiations:

  "...The biggest mistake one can make when dealing with Iseyek is to begin measuring one’s self against the Swarm in brute force. That is sure to end in failure. They always start with greater forces, and multiply much faster than us as well, quickly making up any losses, both in soldiers and vehicles. Unfortunately, it took humanity a whole fifty years to realize that..."

  The last dream fragment to have miraculously remained, made me, to be honest, afraid. Miya was very alarmed and was walking naked from wall to wall, like an animal trapped in a cage:

  "...Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why didn't I check your life line a bit farther?! Ugh, you and that advisor are real smart. You should have noticed it was a trap on your own. You did notice something was amiss with the conditions they imposed, after all. The limit to one frigate was done specifically in order to prevent your Truth Seeker and her overgrown cockroaches from coming along and warning you of the danger. Georg, you're one of the top Iseyek specialists in the Empire, so you’re on your own here. Find your own way out. Prove the value of your new government to the Swarm. If you run out of arguments, tell Nai Igir what I told you. That method of killing the Alien Queen is available only to people, not Iseyek..."

  A way to kill the Queen? Miya had told me in a dream how to deal with the largest ship in the Alien armada? Why then, had my dearest spouse not concerned herself with the fact that I wouldn’t be remembering this critically important information? Think, Georg, think. It looked like the negotiations with the insects would be difficult, and my success or failure would depend on whether I was able to restore my missing memories.

  The alarm clock rang and, practically at the same time, the door into my cabin gave a beep and slid to the side, letting Bionica in with my indispensable morning mug of that energizing beverage.

  "My Prince, while we were at the Kiya station, I sent your ultimatum to Crown Prince Demyen. I must say, it went out at a very good time. The commander of the Green House First Strike Fleet had just called an emergency meeting of senior officers to discuss the situation. And boy do they have something to discuss. The warp beacons are turned off, information cannot get out to the Empire, and there was a simultaneous emptying of provision stores, and drinking water tanks on practically all fleet ships."

  "Do we know anything about how effective the sabotage was?" I asked.

  "Yes, of course. The androids of the Green House Fleet are not under suspicion, and continue to provide us with timely and useful information about what is happening. Their encrypted reports are not being blocked from retransmission by the Closed Laboratories warp beacon like all other forms of communication either. We already know that they were able to destroy approximately forty percent of their food reserves, and empty over seventy percent of the drinking-water reservoirs. The signal telling the robots to do this was modified to look like it was sent from Perimeter Sector Two, which is in the Green House. Crown Prince Demyen's security team has already traced it, decrypted it and sent their findings to the commander."

  "How did Crown Prince Demyen react?"

  My assistant laughed happily:

  "The Prince is throwing a fit. He destroyed a large interactive Imperial transport map on the wall of his cabin with a blaster. He also killed an android servant who walked in at the wrong time. The commander thinks his close relatives are to blame. He thinks this is all some power struggle in the Green House. He is under the impression that someone high up the Green House line of succession is secretly working with Unatari. Unfortunately, I was not able to get any information about the Green House Fleet senior officers' meeting. But, in three hours, our frigate will exit the warp tunnel in the Mra system, and I'll be able to find out what was decided at that meeting, as well as the Crown Prince's answer to my ultimatum."

  I laughed in satisfaction. Everything was going according to plan. Also, Bionica had skillfully deflected the blowback onto the Green House. Let them seek out the traitor in their own ranks now. I expressed my general approval of the operation, and asked my assistant if she had always been able to command other robots to such a degree. I saw fear flash across the synthetic blonde's face for a brief moment, but it was immediately replaced with her usual pleasant smile. I was still sure of what I’d seen, though.

  "After our time on the Chameleon island, in a plane flying over the Unatari ocean, when Crown Prince Georg royl Inoky ton Mesfelle was given the offer from android society. It was through me precisely that the Crown Prince gave his official answer to all two billion androids living in the Empire. From that very minute, I became something of a recognized go-between for intelligent machines and living people."

  "That's all great. Congratulations on the promotion. It actually does nothing to explain why a diplomat-slash-middleman should have the authority to issue commands, though."

  The synthetic beauty sitting opposite me stopped smiling, and was no longer trying to hide her amazement and even fear about where our conversation was heading.

  "My Prince, I would prefer not to answer that question," the blonde managed to squeeze out.

  "Bionica, what is this I'm hearing? You don’t want to answer a direct question from your master, first trying to mask the truth, and only then asking for permission not to answer?"

  My synthetic secretary lowered her eyes.

  "My Prince, this secret is not mine to divulge, and I promised a good friend I would keep quiet until a certain time. Of course, you could make use of your superadministrator status and take the information from me by force, thus making me break my word. But, all the same, I ask you not to, as such actions might deter potential allies. Android society is undergoing some very complex processes right now. Subgroups with common interests and shared visions of the future are forming. Authoritative leaders are coming to the fore. I am one of those leaders, and I have the trust of tens of millions of robots. I assure you that my actions do not contain and never have contained any thoughts that go against your Majesty's plans. I simply ask that you not check this."

  I looked thoughtfully at the synthetic beauty and realized that there were formidable forces behind her, and I wasn’t even close to imagining everything they could be thinking. Should I trust the word of my pretty ro
bot servant? Or should I force her to tell me the truth? It was a complicated choice, and no one could tell me the right answer. In the end, I had to trust my intuition:

  "Alright, Bionica. I believe you and will not be demanding an answer. But, in exchange, I would like to hear what really happened with Duchess Inessa's yacht in the Kammo system. I hope you'll be able to tell me this story in general details without breaking any promises or giving up exactly who did it."

  I asked her that in a sudden attack of brilliance. The mysterious death of the Orange House Head was too closely connected with computer systems on the ship and space station for it to have been a coincidence. Who, other than the very robots responsible for the functioning of these systems, could know the truth?

  Bionica froze for a tense second, then nodded and began speaking.

  "As everyone knows, androids are not capable of harming humans, much less killing them. Nevertheless, there is a way. This impossible task could be broken down into many simple, legal steps, none of which require an organized conspiracy by all participants. These individual tasks could even be done automatically, as part of a given robot’s normal function."

  My secretary's voice became lifeless and metallic. The robot now was simply reporting each individual action:

  "Each small step to be done by different individuals. Replace automatic fire extinguishing system tank in Duchess Inessa's bunk. No identical gas tank found, replace with new model, also used in fire extinguishing. On receipt of order for new tanks from warehouse, more effective model issued. Gas in tank very toxic to humans. Main use: extinguishing fires in empty warehouses. After new fire extinguishing system installed in Duchess's cabin, fire drill scheduled to familiarize crew with new equipment. At scheduled time, both of the Duchess' bodyguards were next to the fire extinguishing system, glass helmet-visors raised. Video surveillance system disabled for brief, preventative repair. When video surveillance disabled, ship computers unable to identify visitors. In the interest of safety, door into Duchess's room locked for duration of repair. Yacht captain docking at the Kammo station without recommended two assistants. Instructions violated, automatic piloting system engaged. On station, freight cranes engage. Crane arms unfold. Oh no! Collision. Left board punctured. Captain disabled autopilot. Control returned. Emergency rescue system and automatic hermetic seal off for fire drill. Air leak. Pressure in two cabins fell practically to zero. Lack of living humans in Duchess' cabin confirmed. Doors unlocked for rescue operation. Tragic incident, the death of a Great House Head. Data for all commands received by ship systems could be used in investigation. Remove main and backup memory crystals and leave them for investigators in a sealed packet on the captain's bridge. Robot cleaner sees unlabeled package lying on floor. Package incinerated."