A beam lances by him, missing by millimeters and he goes down into a forward roll. One enemy still operates.
With the additional time Wrik has bought me, I concentrate and am able to restore some function to one arm. I drag myself forward to the fallen weapon, seize it and open fire on the enemy. To my surprise, the remaining enemy flees. Crippled as I am, I cannot track him, and he escapes.
Then Wrik is standing over me. “Are you all right?”
“No, I am severely damaged and depleted.”
“Let’s get you to the ship.”
I use the weapon and his aid to rise. Fortunately, the low gravity allows him to hoist me on his back and we head for his ship. I raise my head again to look up at the stars silently flaming overhead and I am glad to be able to see them.
***
Sinner kicked free of the surface. I used full military power to blast away from the asteroid. I didn’t know if Dusko’s ship was armed and I was taking no chances. My Dauntless scout was faster and more maneuverable than most ships. Once we were in deep space, we had little to fear. After an hour of scanning, I set up the autopilot and went back to check on Maauro and Candace.
***
Wrik busies himself with the ship. I continue my self-repairs, regaining control of my body. Still, I cannot ascertain what occurred or why and I do not know if it will happen again. I study the unconscious female. She’s a security risk that I had not counted on. While Wrik is occupied, I again infiltrate his computer, searching through former warcraft’s databases until I come to one on combat-medicine.
I program one of the chemical factories in my body and silently move over to the female. I extrude a fine needle from my finger and inject her with the sedative I have made. The simple compound should keep her asleep until we land and I can hide.
I return to my seat unnoticed and study the ship. It is in need of many improvements. This I can easily do, in time. I consider Wrik as well. There are clearly many improvements needed there, but I am confident of my ability to effect these as well.
***
Sinner grounded at Kandalor spaceport at its usual pad. No one raced out to arrest or otherwise molest us. If Dusko was back, he was laying low for now. I looked at Maauro, who’d pressed herself against the canopy since we entered atmosphere, studying the world below as if it were her new toy box. As Sinner settled on her landing jacks with a sigh, Maauro moved to the hatchway.
“I will be outside,” she said, before I could speak. “Candace will awaken shortly and I do not want her to know I was aboard the ship. She will doubtless wish to leave quickly. Encourage this.” She slipped out of the airlock.
Maauro was right about Candace waking, which led me to wonder if Maauro had something to do with the woman’s long sleep on the trip back. Candace’s eyes fluttered open, drifted about in confusion and then locked on me.
“You’re safe,” I began, “back on Kandalor. Here’s some water. Don’t try to move around much. You’ve been out for two days.”
Her eyes did not leave mine as she drained the cup of water. “Headache,” she managed, “starving.”
“Got it covered.” I returned with soup and crackers and a flask of restorative drink to find Candace sitting up.
“What happened?”
“We were lucky,” I said. “First, I didn’t betray you to Dusko. Treska did. Dusko told me.”
She looked at me dubiously.
“Look, dammit. I didn’t know where we were going or what was out there. He did. If I set you up, why are you here?”
She considered. “People aren’t always what they seem. Are they, Wrik?”
“No.”
“Tell me more.” She started on the soup.
“There was something on that asteroid. I never got a clear look at it. I suspect anything that did, died. Dusko’s men shot at it when we were near that lifeboat. It hunted us. Did you see it?”
“No. I saw smashed bodies. Weapons fire in the distance.”
Good, I thought. Then I started lying again. “Anyway, it killed most of Dusko’s men and, I’m afraid, Teska too, before it blew up on the surface. It must have been ancient. Hard to believe it was still working. Lucky for you, the flash attracted me to where I found you. I made a break for it on the Sinner. I think Dusko got away on his ship.”
“Quite a tale, Wrik.”
“I can show you where it blew up,” I said. “Not much there.”
“You won’t be seeing that particular rock again.”
I smiled. “You’re not really a prospector, are you?”
A change came over Candace Deveraux, as if a switch had been thrown. Her eyes glittered as she studied me. “That base could hold technology that might be critical to the Confederacy, Wrik. It’s too important to be left to any private interest.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’re Confed Intelligence. I wondered how you knew so much about my background.”
“Something like that,” she said coolly.
“So what now?”
“Now, Wrik, you forget about that asteroid. Try to go back there and you’ll end up vaporized.”
“Hey,” I said. “I was on your side.”
“Were you, Wrik? I have a feeling there are things you’re holding back from me. Well, no matter. There’s an additional 10,000 credits in it for you if you keep your mouth shut about this, and you’re only getting that because you did save my life. There are other ways of guaranteeing your silence.”
“Deal.”
“Dusko said you were a smart boy.”
“I swear to you I wasn’t in this with him.”
“I believe you, Wrik. Mostly. Help me to the refresher. I need a shower and a change of clothes.”
Candace didn’t linger. She moved money to my account and made a coded call to the port. I walked her out of the ship and onto the tarmac, handing her the bag with her personal effects in it.
Candace shaded her eyes and looked up at Sinner. “Who’s that sitting up atop your ship?”
I spun to see Maauro perched atop Sinner, looking into the sunset. “Ah, just a local girl. I met her recently.”
“She looks a bit young for you,” Candace reproved.
“She’s older than she looks.”
“If you say so, Wrik. You’re full of surprises. Guess I will have to keep track of you. I might find myself in need of a pilot again. See you around, Handsome.”
I watched Candace’s ample figure sway away over the tarmac, heading back to the port buildings. Then I climbed back into Sinner and made my way to the top hatch. I boosted myself up onto the fuselage.
Maauro glanced at me, and then returned to her rapt consideration of the setting sun.
“A human couldn’t stare into the sun like that,” I said.
“There is no one to see me. How beautiful the sky is, with its flaming bands of color,” she said. “I have been at war all my existence. There has been little time for such sights.”
“And that is important to you?”
“My reconnaissance program makes it pleasurable for me to acquire information.”
“Even with no one to report to?”
“Even then.”
“It seems a pointless existence,” I said, and then regretted the comment.
Maauro shrugged. “I am pleased that I need no longer fight. It frees me to experience options unavailable to me before. I will sample an existence free of war, gather sunsets and gaze on stars for as long as I continue to function.”
“How long will that be?”
“I do not know, Wrik. You saw my body fail me on the asteroid. I have yet to learn why. I am not what I once was. My damage, though not visible to you, is extensive and my repair is far beyond your science. Any second may be my last.”
“Is there anything back on the asteroid that could help?�
�
“We will not be able to return. I listened in on your conversation with Candace. Besides, I salvaged what I could from the M4 50,000 years ago. Yet, there may be a chance. This is a strange world in a strange system. Who can say what lies buried here or in near space? It may also be that, with time and certain rare materials, I can conduct further repairs on myself.”
“A chance,” I said, “a second chance, maybe for both of us.”
She turned to consider me with her huge eyes. “Shall we take that second chance, Wrik? Shall we protect each other and remain free?”
Something I thought long dead stirred in me. “Maauro, that’s the best deal I’ve been offered in a long while.”
Chapter 5
I looked into the hostel’s bathroom mirror at my haggard, unshaven face. “Here I am: disgraced ex-military, impoverished local-haul spacer and now owner of the most efficient killer android in known space.”
The latter wasn’t quite true. I didn’t own Maauro. In the weeks that had passed since we returned from the asteroid, I began to get the impression that she owned me and regretted not having kept the receipt so she could make a return. Still, all Maauro and I had now was each other. I was a resource and refuge for her and she was physical protection from Dusko and the other perils of life on Kandalor. I passed Maauro off as a mutated human from a colony on the far side of Confederate space. So far, the crude deception had worked on this world where humans weren’t common.
I shaved myself to respectability and made my way to the hangar where Sinner was berthed. The 10,000-credit bonus from Confed Intelligence had covered debts, repairs and some of Maauro’s needs. The android hadn’t come through the centuries without damage, both from her battle ages ago, and from some deterioration that intermittently struck her like a form of sclerosis. But bad times had come to Vanceport and the nearby worlds. Many of the hangars stood empty. Our funds drained away.
None, however, had drained on anodyne, a drug I occasionally bought when I was in cash. It wasn’t a high; it just made my memories go away for some happy hours. I’d gotten one dose off Mecalam and zoned for a day, only to find an unhappy Maauro wondering why I had “malfunctioned.” I hadn’t seen him since. I’d tried to locate another dealer, but all were steering clear of me. Perhaps Dusko was trying to make my life miserable in small ways.
A figure waited for me, seated in her usual spot on the wing of Sinner, staring up at the sky as if the ever-changing clouds were a personal show for her. Maauro looked like a human girl of sixteen, about five-foot-four, slender, pale with glossy, black hair that tumbled to her waist. Aquamarine eyes, four times the size of a human’s, dominated her face. What appeared today to be an orange and dark-gray bodysuit was simply the outer layer of her body, just given different texture, as were her boots. She varied the colors somewhat to give the impression she was wearing something different. Maauro gave no sign of seeing me but was undoubtedly tracking every target in sight and perhaps a few that weren’t.
“There was a message in my inbasket,” I said.
She looked down at me. To an alien, she might have looked human, but to me she was a living, animated character. I’d tried to talk her into working further on her appearance, but she claimed that ability had shut down. At least she’d managed some nostrils before it had. By now too many people had seen her and any radical change would attract more attention.
“Work, one hopes?” she said in a high, childlike voice.
“One does hope. Credits are getting scarce.”
“Yes, I fear that I am the cause of much of that. The materials I need have been expensive and hard to find.”
“Damn near impossible,” I grumbled. “A Nekoan named Nenan Tekala wants to see us. We have two hours to get to the Watering Hole.”
Maauro hopped down from the wing in a drop that would have broken bones in a real human. We started toward the edge of the field. Suddenly Maauro staggered. I grabbed the toppling android, only barely holding her up. She was far heavier than she looked.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, fearing I knew the answer.
Maauro looked up at me, her face pensive. “My right leg is malfunctioning. I can reroute around the dead zone, but it is dangerous for me to be seen in this condition.”
“Yeah,” I returned. “If Dusko catches us when you’re malfunctioning…”
“Yes. He fears me, but he saw me fail once on the asteroid. It is unfortunate he survived.”
I waved at a pedicycle at the edge of the field. The native driver, a Mook tribesman by his headdress, pedaled over eagerly. Fares were hard to come by these days. He was anthropoid, but with a snoutlike nose and bulbous black eyes. Most of his body was muffled in loose robes against the high-desert heat.
“The Watering Hole, Old City,” I said, then turned to Maauro. “Let’s go make some money.”
“Yes, baby needs new batteries.”
***
I do not advise Wrik of the extent of my cascade failure or how close I come to becoming terminally unstable. Wrik’s courage is highly variable. I do not want to risk his stability as I battle inside my body for my own.
Ironic that we both have our malfunctions. Wrik had ingested some substance purchased from another human named Mecalam. It caused him dysfunction for over twenty-four hours. As this malfunction seemed self-induced, I deduce it is a weakness of his. Since I cannot rely on him to control these impulses, I determined interdiction to be the most effective course. Locating and eliminating Mecalam was simple. Thereafter, I eliminated several other prospective suppliers to generate the requisite deterrence, and then allowed one supplier to survive with minor injuries to provide intelligence of the threat to others. It proved a successful tactic.
***
The pedicycle made good time through the excellent, Confed-made roads of the spaceport. Not surprisingly beyond the Confed enclave, the roads worsened. Ahead lay Old City, which was just that, walled and turreted, an ancient fortress of white stone incongruously spotted with solar panels and antenna. The pedicycle struggled through the narrow streets. The driver finally gave up on muscle and started his small motor, giving us dark looks. Eventually we reached the shopping district. We dismounted the pedicycle to walk through the riot of stalls and awnings in its narrow stone streets.
“Curious,” Maauro said. “The ones you call Kandalorians are not. They did not live on this world when my Creators controlled this system.”
“You were here?” I asked in surprise.
“No. I fought in space. But the data is in my memory. These creatures came after.”
I shrugged. “They’ve been here long enough to forget both their origins and their technology. So many species have either ruled or visited this planet; it’s hard to tell who has the best claim.”
We walked among the robed Kandalorians, along with members from all twenty-one known oxygen-breathing races. Kandalor was a law to itself, one reason I had fled here.
Maauro watched the market, showing every evidence of enjoyment and fascination. She’d probably never seen anything like it in her brief operational life before being stranded. As we passed one stall, she suddenly stopped and reached out a hand capable of shredding steel to pick up a bolt of yellow-orange silk. “This is so beautiful.”
I looked at her with bemusement. “I suppose so.”
“It reminds me of the sun over the world where I first became aware,” she said, a faraway look in the huge eyes. “Will you buy this for me?”
“Yes, yes.” a Kandalorian merchant came up, its trunk-like nose waving in front of its dark, bulbous eyes.“A beautiful fabric for your beautiful lady.”
Maauro swept up her waist-length-hair into a ponytail, leaving long wisps framing her face. To my surprise, she tied the silk in an elaborate bow and admired the result in a mirror.
The merchant looked at me as a cat would a bowl of cream.
I looked at Maauro with narrowed eyes. “You have a lot to learn about commerce.”
Twenty credits lighter, we stood before the Watering Hole, an open-air restaurant in the old quarter. The restaurant catered to Nekoans, the feline aliens who were the most numerous species on Kandalor. A few Kandalorians sat under the broad frond trees that graced the courtyard, almost hidden by the water fountain that kept the heat of the summer afternoon at bay. Over us loomed the Sala Haga, a circular building, like a layered honey cake. Atop it stood a tower crowned with a mass of topaz crystal. Sunshine reflected from it in deep, buttery tones. The Sala had stood that way for as long as there was any record.
An elegant female Nekoan eyed us as we came up. Her eyes were purple, cat-like irises under a pile of rough-coated hair from which projected large soft ears. Her skin was bronze, with only the tiniest hints of fur. She was enough like a human to appeal to me. Of course, it had been a long time since my last contact with a human woman other than Candace. She smiled human-fashion at me, revealing brilliant, sharp white teeth.
“You’re Wrik Trigardt?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“The owner is expecting you.” She led us through a gate to an inner courtyard with an office cooled by rotating fans. I watched her swaying hips and long tail with appreciation.
“They are here, Master Tekala,” she said, then passed through a rear door to return with a tea tray.
I introduced myself and my “cousin” Maauro.
“Please sit,” Tekala said, his voice rich with alien accents but with none of the growl one expected. Of course, I thought, he only looks a bit like a lion. Nekoans are no more cats than humans are monkeys.
His assistant returned to pour tea into small delicate celadon cups, which we sipped from in the ritual of greeting.
“I need your help,” Tekala said, with uncharacteristic directness for a Nekoan. “My daughter, Jaelle, is missing. She’s a dealer in antiquities and disappeared in the Stonal Abyss over six months ago. A trader brought her a find. Next thing I knew she’d assembled an expedition. At first, her staff here got regular reports, then Jaelle entered the land of the will o’ wisps”
My Outcast State (The Maauro Chronicles Book 1) Page 4